Resuming the speech made the last time about the fantastic underground area below the Church of Santa Maria in Via Lata in Rome, let's go now to see what are its historical and religious peculiarities.

There are numerous literary sources that describe these rooms which, since the Middle Ages, were transformed into a place of worship, a deaconry or even a monastery. But, moreover, here traditions are really wasted! Some sources state that St. Luke lived here and that the saint always created his acheropite images here (the tradition was strengthened with the discovery of a painting depicting the Madonna, resulting from the 13th century). Other versions claimed that St. Paul came here, living for some time and inspired by the Angels for the drafting of some of his famous Letters. Or even St. Paul would have lived here, but in the close custody of a Roman soldier. A sort of imprisonment represented by the column in the photo, on which the saint would have been tied with chains, with letters carved along the shaft that say Verbum Dei non est alligatum ("The Word of God cannot be chained"). Or, according to other versions, even St. Peter would have hidden here, also hosting other prominent personalities of the Roman clergy, and using these rooms as his official seat. Even the three successors of Peter, other popes, apparently lived here, making this area the first official seat of the papacy in Rome!

There were numerous people who were baptized here, also thanks to divine intervention when an angel came down from heaven to indicate to St. Peter where to find a well from which to draw water. There are also numerous pictorial testimonies, found in fragments during the excavations. Today all the frescoes are kept at the Crypta Balbi Museum in Rome but the different dating of the same attest that the area was alive, and remained so, for a long time. In short there are really several stories to know about this underground archaelogical area...