2000 year old tombs underneath St Peters Basilica. Photo –
St. Peter was (said to be crucified) in Rome in 64 C.E., at the orders of the Emperor Nero. (Peter asked to be crucified upside-down, because he did not think he was worthy of being crucified right-side up as Jesus was. Saint Peter was crucified in an arena known as Caligula’s Circus. In Ancient Rome, the dead were buried just outside the city walls, in an area called a Necropolis. It’s thought that St. Peter was buried near where he was martyred, in the necropolis on the Vatican Hill (it was called Vatican Hill before Christianity came along, although there is some discussion as to the exact origin of the name). In the 4th century, when Constantine became the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity, he had a church built on the site of Saint Peter’s grave, and called it Saint Peter’s Basilica.
This basilica, now referred to as Old Saint Peter’s, does not exist any more, as it was replaced in the Renaissance by the basilica you see today. When Michelangelo was designing the current Saint Peter’s Basilica, he purposefully centered the dome right over the spot where St. Peter is presumed to be buried.
Later, many popes chose to be buried in the Vatican grottoes, just underneath Michelangelo’s dome. Presumably they wanted to be near the tomb of Saint Peter.
Michelangelo’s dome, and later, Bernini’s “baldachin”, or canopy, are centered directly over St Peters tombIt is not known for sure if the remains found are for sure St Peter’s. They can only be seen on a tour and each guide gives their own interpretation, usually that it is certain. My take is that each person who visits this holy site should absorb the information, and make their own decision as to what they believe. It is still worth seeing. There is a lot of history in the necropolis. And 99% of the visit is about other stuff, mainly the necropolis under the basilica.
No photos are allowed on this tour, and any photos on this page of the necropolis itself are from the Fabbrica di San Pietro, an official Vatican website.
When you visit St Peters tomb, you start out by viewing a wooden model of the basilica. This allows you to understand where you will be going underground.
From there, the guide will take you down to the underground excavations. Most of your tour is not actually about Saint Peter, and will be of the tombs in this necropolis . . . which are all in Greek. At the end of the tour, you will see the area where St Peters tomb is supposed to be. It’s not very easy to see. In fact, you have to line up to view, one at a time, the little hole in the wall where the remains are.
Finally, your guide will leave you in the Vatican grottoes. You can walk around and view tombs of other popes (this is actually fascinating too). And from there, you can go up into St. Peter’s basilica. This is a huge plus, as you avoid the long queues to get in at the main entry.
On the Vatican website, you can take a virtual tour of St Peters tomb on the Vatican website. The narration is in Italian, but the video speaks for itself! Once you arrive at the video of the necropolis, you can click around and see some of the tombs, and get a real sense for what you will see when you visit the site. The guided tour takes around 1.5 hours. But you should factor in the time it will take you to find the entrance, and gather and show your tickets. Then, factor in time you may want to spend on your own in the grottoes, and of course, in St. Peter’s basilica.
You could also climb the dome of the basilica, once you are inside. This will take another hour.
So your visit to St Peters tomb will last anywhere from 2-4 hours. And this does NOT include visiting the Vatican Museums. If you try to visit the Vatican museums on the same day that you have a scavi tour, it will be exhausting and you will have Vatican fatigue. But if you have limited time in Rome and want to try to fit these visits into the same day just make sure to plan for it time-wise.
Book your Scavi tickets first, because unless you book through a ticket agency, you have no control over the time (or date) they give you. Then, make sure you have about 4 hours between visits of the Necropolis and the Vatican Museums. The main way to get tickets to visit St Peters tomb is directly through the Scavi (excavations) office of the Vatican. If you want to book via the Vatican Scavi office, send an email (English is fine) to: scavi@fsp.va or by fax: 011 39 06 6987-3017. You can also fill out the form on the official Vatican Excavations Office website. You will need to provide the following: The exact number of visitors (no children under 15 allowed, no exceptions), Everyone’s names and surnames, Language desired for the visit, The dates you are available for a visit (the more options you provide, the better chance you have of getting a spot). Contact information (an e-mail address, fax number, or full postal address) so that the Excavations Office may advise you about your visit.
Tickets are 13€ per person.
The rest of the Grottos are full of tombs of Popes.
THE PAPAL TOMBS in OLD ST PETER’S BASILICA were the final resting places of the popes, most which dated from the fifth to sixteenth centuries. The majority of these tombs were destroyed during the sixteenth through seventeenth century demolition of old St. Peter’s Basilica, except for one which was destroyed during the Saracen Sack of the church in 846. The remainder were transferred in part to new St. Peter’s Basilica, which stands on the site of the original basilica, and a handful of other churches of Rome.
Along with the repeated translations from the ancient catacombs of Rome and two fourteenth century fires in Basilica of St. John Lateran, the rebuilding of St. Peter’s is responsible for the destruction of approximately half of all papal tombs. As a result, Donato Bramante, the chief architect of modern St. Peter’s Basilica, has been remembered as “Mastro Ruinante“.
Although the original basilica’s construction was begun during the reign of emperor Constantine I and completed in the fourth century, Pope Leo I (440–461) was the first pope buried in the Constantian basilica. Over the centuries, both the atrium, chapels, and the nave of the basilica were packed with papal tombs, which were juggled between different sections of the church as construction took place on each section of the basilica. All that remains of the original tombs are a few sarcophagi and sculptural fragments. Allegedly, Pope Julius II, the pope who initiated the destruction of the Constantinian basilica, wished to clear space for a “monstrous” tomb of his own by Michelangelo.
Very little is known about the placement and appearance of the original tombs: one of the most valuable accounts is that of church canon and historian Giacomo Grimaldi (a senator of Genoa and the father of Girolamo Grimaldi-Cavalleroni), who sketched the tombs as they were moved around the basilica on the way to their destruction; Grimaldi’s sketches record the shape and complexity of the early tombs, many of which were three-tiered. Not all popes were buried in Rome.