One of the coolest tours in Rome is definitely the Scavi Tour – a tour of the excavations under St. Peter’s Basilica, and gives participants the opportunity to actually see the bones of the man who was entrusted with the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.
When Matthew and I first arrived in Rome, the college had arranged for the New Men to go on Scavi tours, which are - you guessed it - often staffed by NAC seminarians (at least the English tours).
The tour leads a walk through the history of the Vatican Hill, dating to the first century, when Emperor Caligula built a circus near the Vatican Hill, where St. Peter was likely later martyred.
Note: The giant obelisk in St. Peter's Square was originally in the circus, and was one of the last things St. Peter would have seen as he was crucified.
After his martyrdom, Christians buried St. Peter in the nearby Vatican Hill. Later that century, a roman necropolis (city of the dead’) was built up on the Vatican hill, then outside the city, and Christians slightly built a small, roman-looking monument to St. Peter.
Flash ahead a few hundred years to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (also in Rome) when the emperor Constantine, had the famous vision of the Chi-Ro, a symbol of Christ, and after winning the battle under that sign, deigned to honor the Christian God.
After legalizing Christianity in the empire, and wanted to thank the Christians, he began construction to build basilicas on major Christian sites in Rome, including the Vatican Hill, under Pope Leo IV.
For St. Peter's, this required the leveling off of the necropolis!
The Constantinian basilica over the tomb of St. Peter actually stood until the present basilica was built in the 1500s. Later Pontiffs embellished and added to that basilica.
Fast forward to the 1930s and 40s – and there is an interest in excavating underneath St. Peter’s Basilica in order to lower the floor to make more room for papal tombs. In the process, they wanted to re-discover the bones of St. Peter, now long buried beneath many altars.
However, so as no to discover a great ‘treasure’ which Hitler might be interested in capturing, Pope Pius XII, who had a great interest in archeology, set up basically a secret excavation, which included dumping all the dirt in the Vatican gardens, so as not to arouse suspiscion. At one point, when they were though t to have found the bones of St. Peter, Pope Pius was said to be down underneath the Vatican within 10 minutes!
Eventually some remains which are likely St. Peter were found, since they date to the period and are of a broad man, not of Italian origin who was in his sixties, who had worked much in his life, and was missing his feet (the early Christians had likely lobbed off St. Peter’s feet from the crucifix in order to quickly remove his body, since stealing the body would have been a capital crime if caught).
The Scavi tour ends with an opportunity to venerate the relics of the prince of the apostles. It was an amazing opportunity for us, here at the heart of the Church.