Necropolis or Cemetery Crypt
In the Christian age the cemetery crypt is used to designate the underground cemetery; a reserved term to indicate a long and narrow tunnel on whose walls the loculi and cubicula open up.
The entrance to the Cemetery Crypt of St. Agnes is located in the corridor leading to the Chapel of St. Philip Neri, where the relic of the head of St. Agnes is located.
Going down a steep flight of steps you will find yourself in the long underground corridor that, passing under the Presbytery, reaches the corridor in front of the Sacristy of Borromini, thus crossing the whole Church.
Along the walls there are the burial niches where the ancestors of the Doria-Pamphili family are buried, until the edict of Napoleon, who ordered the burial outside the city walls. In the middle of the corridor there is a niche where there is an altar surmounted by a bas-relief.
In the corridor in front of the altar is buried Pope Innocent X.
Pope Innocent X, who died on January 7, 1655, buried in St. Peter’s, in 1677 the body was moved and buried in St. Agnes, in the Chapel of St. Francesca Romana, where it remained, it seems forgotten, until 1838, the year in which it was moved to the Crypt, where it is currently located.
From the Altar there is also a corridor that ends in the middle of the Church above, right in correspondence with the rose window in the centre of the floor.
Among the various corpses buried in the Crypt (July 1829) there is also that of Teresa Orsini in Doria-Pamphili, whose Beatification Process is in progress, and whose Reconnaissance will soon take place.
Restoration works in the Cemetery Crypt
Restoration work in the Cemetery Crypt began in 2019 with the installation of the new lighting system for the entire cemetery area. The new system replaced a previous flying wire with a single temporary lamp.
Restoration continued in 2020 with the restoration of the dome underneath the grate, located in the center of the church floor, with the work:
a. of treatment and covering of the irons uncovered by the fall of the concrete that held them anchored to the walls.
b. of cleaning and restoration of the walls by the restoration company “Forme di Rita Rivelli”.
The cemetery area provided for the descendants of the Pamphili family
“POST HUNC LAPIDEM CRYPTA FUNEBRIS EST
UDI OPERE INCHOATA UTI QUUM USUS FUERIT
AMOTO LAPIDE INAEDIFICATIONE PRODUCTA
CONTINUATIS LOCULORUM ORDINIBUS
HYPOGEO GENTIS NOSTRAE ADIUNGATUR
CONDITORIUM SERIIS NEPOTIBUS”
TRANSLATION
“Behind this stone there is a funerary crypt (or even cave)
created by the action of humidity, so that when the need arises,
Remove the stone, build an internal structure
By means of continuous orders of loculi,
A burial place for future generations can be added to our family’s hypogeum.
A burial place for future descendants”.
