Catacomb of Callixtus

Is it worth the trip?

Yes, for anyone curious about Rome’s first Christians. This was the official cemetery of the Church of Rome in the 3rd century, where it buried its own bishops, and the crypt of the Popes, the most important place in it, still has their original gravestones (the operator; de.wikipedia). It is 500 m from San Sebastiano and within about a kilometre of the Villa of Maxentius and the Tomb of Caecilia Metella, so it fits a day on the Appian Way.

Know what you are booking. You see the catacomb only on a guided tour of about 40 minutes, in Italian, English, French, Spanish or German, in a group and with no photographs. You walk down about 50 irregular steps and back up as many, with nowhere to sit and no lift, so it cannot be done in a wheelchair, and the operator advises against it for anyone claustrophobic. It is about 16 °C and humid underground, so bring a layer (the operator). It is closed on Wednesdays, whereas San Sebastiano’s catacomb (catacombe.org) and the Appia Antica park’s sites, the Tomb of Caecilia Metella among them (Parco Archeologico dell’Appia Antica), close on Mondays: on a Monday, this is the one that is open.

Getting there and what it costs

The address is Via Appia Antica 110, between the church of Quo Vadis and San Sebastiano. Bus 118 from Colosseo or Circo Massimo on Metro line B stops at “Catacombe di San Callisto”, and bus 218 from San Giovanni on Metro line A stops at Fosse Ardeatine, with the entrance opposite the stop (the operator; Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi). The operator also gives bus 660 from Arco di Travertino (Metro A) to the Appia Pignatelli/Appia Antica stop, and bus 714 to Navigatori followed by a walk of 1 km along Via delle Sette Chiese. A free car park named for the catacombs is mapped about 65 m away, with free toilets nearby (OpenStreetMap). The operator’s own car park can be entered only from the junction of Via Appia Antica and Via Ardeatina by Quo Vadis. Private cars may not use the Via Appia Antica on public holidays.

Tours run Thursday to Tuesday, 09.00 to 12.00 and 14.00 to 17.00, starting every half hour; the last start at 12.00 and 17.00, and the ticket office closes at 16.50. The catacomb is closed every Wednesday, on 1 January, 25 December and Easter Sunday, and from 13 January to 10 February 2027. A ticket is €10, the tour included; €7 for ages 7 to 16, school groups, students of archaeology, architecture, art history or cultural studies up to 25, and priests, religious, seminarians and novices; free for children up to 6. The operator requires booking online, through Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, where the same tickets cost €12 and €9 with a €2 booking fee (catacombesancallisto.it and omniavaticanrome.org, read 21 October 2026; check before travelling).

Nearby

San Sebastiano, with its own catacomb and Roman tombs, is about 500 m away, and so are the Catacombs of Domitilla. The Villa of Maxentius is about 800 m away and the Tomb of Caecilia Metella about 1.1 km, further out along the Appian Way (straight-line distances between the sites’ mapped points).

History

The Appian Way was lined with pagan cemeteries before the Christians came, and the ground here probably belonged to the family of the Caecilii (de.wikipedia). Around the middle of the 2nd century it passed to the Church of Rome (de.wikipedia), and the catacomb grew from several private Christian burial places and an area run directly by the Church (it.wikipedia). At the beginning of the 3rd century Pope Zephyrinus put the deacon Callixtus in charge of the cemetery, which is why it bears his name (the operator). As pope himself (217–222) Callixtus enlarged it, and it became the official cemetery of the Church of Rome (it.wikipedia; de.wikipedia). He was not buried here but in the Catacomb of Calepodius on the Via Aurelia (en.wikipedia).

Separate burial areas were dug and later joined into one: the crypts of Lucina and the area of the Popes and of St Cecilia in the 2nd century, the area of Miltiades in the mid-3rd, that of Gaius and Eusebius at the end of the 3rd, and the western and Liberian areas in the first and second halves of the 4th (the operator; de.wikipedia). The later areas have large rooms where several dozen people could gather for worship (de.wikipedia). In the 4th century Damasus turned the crypt of the Popes into a place of worship with an altar, light shafts, columns and architraves, of which only remains survive (de.wikipedia). Among more than two thousand inscriptions, one in the cubicle of the deacon Severus, from around 300, calls the bishop of Rome, Marcellinus, “pope” (it.wikipedia; fr.wikipedia).

From the 5th century burial above ground gradually replaced burial below, but pilgrims kept coming to the martyrs’ tombs until the 8th century. With the catacombs damaged in the wars of the Goths, Vandals and Byzantines and falling into disrepair, the relics were moved into churches in the city, the entrances collapsed or were overgrown, and the land became vineyards (de.wikipedia). The archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi found the first clues in the 1840s, helped by the gravestone of the martyr pope Cornelius found in those years; excavation confirmed the catacomb in 1852, and he rediscovered the crypt of the Popes in 1854 (de.wikipedia; en.wikipedia). The complex belongs to the Holy See, the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology looks after it, and since 1930 the Salesians of Don Bosco have run the guided tours (the operator).