Antonio Bosio (c. 1575 or 1576 – 1629) was a Maltese scholar, the first systematic explorer of subterranean Rome (the "
Columbus
Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to:
* Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer
* Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio
Columbus may also refer to:
Places ...
of the
Catacombs"), author of ''Roma Sotterranea'' and first
urban spelunker
Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex and sometimes known as roof and tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical inter ...
.
Life
Bosio was born in
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
, and was sent as a boy to the care of his uncle, who was a representative at the
Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...
of the
Knights of Malta. He studied literature, philosophy, and jurisprudence, but at the age of eighteen he gave up his legal studies, went to Rome and for the remainder of his lifetime was devoted to
archaeological work in the Roman catacombs. He died in Rome in 1629.
Work
The accidental discovery in 1578 of an ancient subterranean cemetery on the
Via Salaria
The Via Salaria was an ancient Roman road in Italy.
It eventually ran from Rome (from Porta Salaria of the Aurelian Walls) to ''Castrum Truentinum'' ( Porto d'Ascoli) on the Adriatic coast, a distance of 242 km. The road also passed throug ...
had attracted general attention in Rome. Few, however, realized the importance of the discovery, and with the exception of three foreign scholars,
Alfonso Chacon, the antiquarian
Philips van Winghe (1560–1592) from
Leuven and Jean L'Heureux (alias Macarius),
[L'Heureux's notes on the catacombs of 1605 remained in manuscript until they were edited and published in the mid-nineteenth century by Raffaele Garrucci; ] no one seriously thought of pursuing further investigations. Bosio began the systematic exploration of subterranean Rome and thus became a precursor of the science of
Christian archaeology, an inspiration to
Giovanni Battista de Rossi
Giovanni Battista (Carlo) de Rossi (23 February 1822 – 20 September 1894) was an Italian archaeologist, famous even outside his field for rediscovering early Christian catacombs.
Life and works
Born in Rome, he was the son of Commendatore C ...
. The young explorer realized that early Christian literature such as ''
acta
Acta or ACTA may refer to:
Institutions
* Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, an intellectual property trade agreement
* Administrative Council for Terminal Attachments, a standards organization for terminal equipment such as registered jacks
* A ...
'' of the martyrs and accounts of the councils would offer clues to the locations of the catacombs; an idea of the vast scope of his reading is in two great folio volumes of his manuscript notes in the
Vallicelliana library at Rome, each of which contains about a thousand pages.
The scholarly labors of Bosio accounted for only half of his time; after he had collected all the data possible relative to the location of a catacomb on one of the great
Roman roads leading from Rome, Bosio would set out for the places indicated, and cover the ground carefully in the hope of discovering a forgotten stairway offering access, or a ''luminarium'' lighting the underground galleries of a cemetery. He had the sense to question the local peasants. He would then descend to the subterranean galleries and commence his explorations. Narrow passages led from one series of galleries to another. Years could pass without any new entrances being discovered.
Publication
This life work of Bosio was all but unknown until the publication three years after his death of his ''Roma Sotterranea, opera postuma di Antonio Bosio Romano, antiquario ecclesiastico singolare de' suoi tempi. Compita, disposta, et accresciuta dal M. R. P. Giovanni Severani da S. Severino'' (Rome, 1632), usually referred to as ''Roma Sotterranea''. The folio volume was brought out under the patronage of the
Knights of Malta, edited by the
Oratorian Severano, under the patronage of Cardinal
Francesco Barberini. A Latin translation that appeared in 1651 took liberties with the text. Bosio's ''Roma Sotterranea'' is entirely devoted to a description of the cemeteries with the end of ascertaining all that was possible regarding the history of each cemetery, by what name it was known in antiquity, who its founders were, and what martyrs and illustrious Christians were interred there. Many of his conclusions have in modern times been found to be erroneous, but Bosio's method is acknowledged to have been scientific within the shortcomings of the infant science of archaeology. The engravings that accompanied the volume are of little use to the modern archaeologist.
An unfortunate result of the publication was that with the locations known, the catacombs were scoured for anything that might prove of value on the market; though much information on the condition of the catacombs and their inscriptions and frescoes in the early 17th century was preserved in Bosio's volume, much also was lost. Some of the catacombs Bosio described have since been destroyed by subsequent construction.
This book must have been rated highly by the English physician and philosopher Sir
Thomas Browne, for copies in both Italian and Latin can be found in
his library.
Notes
External links
''Text of Roma Sotterranea''(1632 edition)
References and further reading
*
"Accidental Discovery of Catacombs" by the Christian History Institute
* C. Cecalupo, Antonio Bosio, la Roma sotterranea e i primi collezionisti di antichità cristiane. Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 2020
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bosio, Antonio
Death customs
Cemeteries in Italy
Italian antiquarians
Italian classical scholars
1570s births
1629 deaths
17th-century antiquarians