Page:A Letter from Mr John Monro to the Publisher, concerning the Catacombs of Rome and Naples (IA paper-doi-10 1098 rstl 1700 0043).pdf/1



S I R,

He Catacombs are an obscure argument. I have seen those of Rome, I have seen those of Naples, and as they say there are Catacombs in the Neighbourhood of all the great Towns of that part of Italy, I had been glad to have seen them where-ever they are. They are an obscure argument indeed; but perhaps the greatest obscurity about them is, that a matter that has so much exercis'd the Pens of the Moderns, shou'd be totally neglected by the Ancients: Neither the name nor the thing is found in the latter, whereas among the former, Antiquaries and Travellers are full of them. All they into whose way they come, think they do nothing if they do not exhaust them before they leave them; they take all their dimensions, measure their height, their breadth and their length; they survey all the little rooms, search every hole and corner, criticize nicely on the quality, and calculate the age of the poor Painting and Inscriptions, and make excursions into other arguments, to find out the end for which they were made. The Catacombs are a narrow Gallery dug and carry'd a vast way under ground, with an infinite number of others going off it on all hands, and an infinite number of little rooms going off the principal, and them too. Those commonly shew'd Strangers are those of San Sebastiano, those of San Larenzo, those of Sant Agnese, and the others in the Fields Rh