The first place of worship is located, evidenced by numerous graffiti invoking the names of Peter and Paul, in the porticoed courtyard beneath the central nave of the basilica. This space features masonry benches along the perimeter walls and a well at its center. The establishment of this memorial site has been dated to around the mid-3rd century (specifically linked to the institution of the feast in 258 AD), and its destruction occurred, as mentioned earlier, during the construction of the basilica in the early 4th century.
The basilica, which presumably inherited the status of an apostolic sanctuary upon its foundation (previously located elsewhere), was originally designed as a three-aisled ambulatory or “circiform” structure. Reduced to a single nave during the medieval period, it now retains the appearance given to it during the Bourgesian renovations of the early 17th century.
**Description:** Scholars disagree about the object that substantiated the cult of Peter and Paul *ad catacumbas*. Some argue that the focus of worship was limited to small bodily relics brought from their tombs in the Vatican and the Via Ostiense, or alternatively, *reliquiae ex contactu* (relics by contact). Others, however, believe that such a strong cult at the Appian complex must have been based on the temporary presence of the apostles’ actual remains, transferred here for a brief period.
**Date of Establishment:** 258 AD
**Type:** Cult object not classifiable as an image or relic
**Location:** Other
**Collection of Ex-Votos:** Data unavailable
Given the complexity of the sanctuary’s history and its phases, further chronological details are omitted here, as they would inevitably fail to accurately represent the historical reality of the cult of Peter and Paul at the Appian complex. The only precise historical date connected to the sanctuary’s institutional life is 258 AD, recorded in the *Depositio Martyrum* and the *Martyrologium Hieronymianum* as the year associated with the feast of the two martyrs on the Appian Way. Some modern scholars believe this date marks the introduction of their cult *ad catacumbas*.
The exact timeline of the sanctuary’s abandonment remains unclear. It should be noted that different locations within the *ad catacumbas* complex were recognized as memorials to Peter and Paul at various historical moments: first in the *triclia* (destroyed during the basilica’s construction in the early 4th century), later in the mausoleum known as the *Platonia* (from at least the 14th century onward), and finally at the altar in the center of the basilica until the early 17th century.
The presence of the two apostles in the *ad catacumbas* complex is reaffirmed by an inscription placed by Pope Damasus (366–384) near the site where their memory was then honored. The original slab has not survived, but its text is known from early medieval transcriptions preserved in epigraphic collections. A slab now kept in the *Platonia*, but originally placed near the basilica’s central altar in the 16th century, bears the opening verses of Damasus’s poem in 13th-century lettering.
For further details, see the entry in Krautheimer’s *Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae*, Vol. IV, which contains chronologically organized data on the monumental complex.
A catalog of indulgences is found in a 1521 document published by Grisar.
For related information, refer to the entry on San Sebastiano; it is likely that all sanctuaries within the same cultic complex shared similar histories regarding spiritual care.
Piazzale dei Santi Pietro e Paolo, 8, 00144 Rome, Italy
