medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

To the best of my memory there are fragments of on of Damasus' inscriptions at the entrance to the lower levels of San Clemente in Rome.
Tom Izbicki

>>> [log in to unmask] 12/11/2003 11:35:33 AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

it's on the Web, so it must be true :

"But the best-known record of Damasus will always be his labour of love in the
catacombs of Rome. Here he searched ardently and devotedly for the tombs of
the martyrs, which had been blocked up and hidden by the Christians during the
last persecution. He 'removed the earth, widened the passages, so as to make
them more serviceable for the crowd of pilgrims, constructed flights of stairs
leading to the more illustrious shrines, and adorned the chambers with
marbles, opening shafts to admit air and light where practicable, and
supporting the friable tufa walls and galleries wherever it was necessary with
arches of brick and stone work.' 
"Almost all the catacombs bear traces of his labours, and modern discovery is
continually bringing to light fragments of the inscriptions which he composed
in honour of the martyrs, and caused to be engraved on marble slabs, in a
peculiarly beautiful character, by a very able artist, Furius Dionysius
Filocalus."

http://www.ccel.org/w/wace/biodict/htm/iii.iv.ii.htm 

The old Catholic Encycl. article 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04613a.htm 

is of some use as well, as he seems to have been something of a builder:

"Damasus restored his own church (now San Lorenzo in Damaso) and provided for
the proper housing of the archives of the Roman Church (see VATICAN ARCHIVES).
He built in the basilica of St. Sebastian on the Appian Way the (yet visible)
marble monument known as the "Platonia" (Platona, marble pavement) in honour
of the temporary transfer to that place (258) of the bodies of Sts. Peter and
Paul, and decorated it with an important historical inscription (see Northcote
and Brownlow, Roma Sotterranea). He also built on the Via Ardeatina, between
the cemeteries of Callistus and Domitilla, a basilicula, or small church, the
ruins of which were discovered in 1902 and 1903, and in which, according to
the "Liber Pontificalis", the pope was buried with his mother and sister. 

"...built at the Vatican a baptistery in honour of St. Peter and set up
therein one of his artistic inscriptions (Carmen xxxvi), still preserved in
the Vatican crypts. This subterranean region he drained in order that the
bodies buried there (juxta sepulcrum beati Petri) might not be affected by
stagnant or overflowing water. His extraordinary devotion to the Roman martyrs
is now well known, owing particularly to the labours of Giovanni Battista De
Rossi. For a good account of his architectural restoration of the catacombs
and the unique artistic characters (Damasan Letters) in which his friend
Furius Dionysius Filocalus executed the epitaphs composed by Damasus, see
Northcote and Brownlow, "Roma Sotterranea" (2nd ed., London, 1878-79). The
dogmatic content of the Damasan epitaphs (tituli) is important (Northcote,
Epitaphs of the Catacombs, London, 1878)."  


c

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