Basilica di San Sebastiano

Historical Building Rome, Italy

The Basilica of San Sebastiano is located on the fourth mile of the ancient Via Appia. Originally called the Basilica Apostolorum, it was built at the behest of the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century. A.D. in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

At the fourth mile of the Via Appia Antica, on the site where according to tradition the bodies of the apostles Peter and Paul were temporarily kept during persecutions, stands the basilica of S. Sebastiano, today dedicated to this popular - and much represented - saint Narbonne but originally known as the basilica apostolorum. From this place, mentioned in ancient sources as ad catacumbas (perhaps due to the presence of hollows or ditches, kymbas in Greek), the term "catacomb" also derives by extension. From a staircase located in what, before the seventeenth-century restructuring, was the right aisle of the church, you can go down to the vast complex of the Catacombs of S. Sebastiano.