Catacombe S.Mustiola

Beautiful underground journey to discover the Catacombs of Santa Mustiola offered to the public, free of charge, on Catacomb Day 2024. The most northern, in the ancient city of Chiusi, the only ones in Tuscany. Suggestive, in the beautiful panorama of Tuscany, a wealth of historical memories. There are no frescoes but very rich in inscriptions dating back to the end of the III - IV century traces of a flourishing Christian community, one of the oldest dioceses in Tuscany, which will suffer like all the scourges of persecution. Discovered by chance when in the seventeenth century, the fraternity of the Friars Minor, settled in the place, dug a well, accidentally breaking through the tunnel and the burial niches. The various tunnels have a total length of two hundred meters and the burials are generally placed in arched niches (arcosolia) closed by tiles and roof tiles. The catacombs develop around the tomb of Mustiola, a young woman or a matron as our guide Michele explains, who assisted the imprisoned Christians, provided for their burial to end her own life martyred in 274 under the blows of lead whips. The people of Chiusi were great graphic artists, and numerous epigraphs can be found that give a vision of late ancient Chiusi and make these catacombs the true Christian cemetery of the city. Proof of this is the burials with epigraphs of the first bishop of Chiusi, Lucio Petronio Destro, who died in 322, of a priest and of an exorcist, Senxius RExpectus: all this to signify the organization of the religious society. But the catacomb also welcomes people of lower rank and even foreigners passing through the city and dying there. This is the case of little Aurelius Melitius, (as sweet as honey) who died here as a pilgrim at the age of 4 on Easter night ‘infans, cristaeanus, fidelis, peregrinus’.; the community itself will also provide for the burial of unknown foreigners, as the epigraph “cuius nome Deus Scit” explains. A coexistence of peoples, which makes us reflect on the serene and peaceful coexistence between different cultures; a place of hope to rest in peace with Christ and with our brothers. An inclusive vision of the world as they say today and which embraces everyone in a Mystical Body as the Christian Faith affirms. A reading of the finds in the light of history and faith, extremely exciting thanks to the excellent guide, essential in this type of tour, Michele from the Cooperativa Labirinto. The archaeological site is always active thanks to the work of the University of Rome 3, which wants to delve deeper into the secrets hidden behind this find: traces of the conformations of the skeletons, origins of death, diet, etc. to reconstruct the life of Chiusi in the 3rd-4th century through this Christian necropolis.