Relics against revolution. The roman catacombs in the Spanish imaginary of the mid-19th Century

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the rediscovery of the Roman catacombs by Spanish Catholicism. To this end, we will first offer an assessment of the impact that the rediscovery of the catacombs, the dissemination of relics and the development of Roman archaeology had on the nineteenth-century imaginary of the early Church. We will then focus on the Spanish reception through the translation of various European works and the publication of the first Spanish work specifically devoted to the subject, Las Catacumbas o los mártires (1849) by José Muñoz Maldonado, Count of Fabraquer. Finally, we will see how the Roman catacombs were connected with the persecution-based interpretation of the experience of Pius IX, the regent Maria Christina and the Spanish Catholics. In this way, the first Christian martyrs appeared as a model of struggle and dedication for Spanish Catholics in the 19th century. The revolutions were thus integrated into the eternal confrontation between good and evil that the Church had been waging since the time of the catacombs.