TOMBS ON VIA LATINA

TOMBE DELLA VIA LATINA
Via dell'Arco di Travertino 151

These tombs are located on the ancient VIA LATINA already used in prehistoric times, later used by the Etruscans and finally paved on the fourth or third century BC

It branched off from the Appian Way and headed to Casilinum (now Capua), where it joined again with the Appian Way
It remained in use until the fourteenth century

Excavations of Lorenzo Fortunati in the years 1857/58

After the entrance to the right there is the BARBERINI SEPULCHRE
It spreads over three floors. Here was found the “Barberini Sarcophagus” now in the Vatican Museums

Further on, on the right TOMB OF THE VALERII
About 160 AD. The outside is a nineteenth-century makeover. The name is imaginative
The walls were covered with marble slabs of which traces remain and there is in the ceiling a refined decoration in white stucco with “Scene of the funerary world, Dionysian subjects and representations from the marine repertoire “

Still further on, on the left TOMB OF THE PANCRATII
About 140. At the level of the ground “Black and white mosaic with fishes”
Downstairs there is a vestibule where one sarcophagus remains mentioning the corporation of the Pancratii
In the burial chamber patterned floor and ceiling painted and plastered with various mythological themes that include also the top of the walls. At the center of the vault “Male figure transported by the eagle of Jupiter”

Nearby there are also the BACCELLI TOMB and the TOMB OF THE CALPURNII
On a villa which maybe belonged to the Anici family, was built at the behest of Pope Leo the Great (440/461) the CHURCH OF St. STEPHAN still in use in the thirteenth century, with three naves, apse and baptistery