Jewish catacombs of Vigna Randanini

A private tour of the Jewish catacombs of Vigna Randanini, on the Via Appia — one of only two Jewish catacombs in Rome that can be visited at all, and not one you can simply turn up to.

The complex dates from around the second to the fourth century CE. Rome’s Jews were burying their dead in underground galleries before the Christians adopted the practice, and the iconography down there is unambiguous: menorahs, the shofar, the lulav and etrog, painted and scratched into the walls beside Greek and Latin epitaphs.

Why it is not on the usual itinerary

Vigna Randanini sits on private land. There is no ticket office, no opening hours and no queue — access is by prior authorisation, arranged in advance, with a guide who holds it. That is the whole reason this page exists: the site cannot be booked the way the Christian catacombs can.

Once inside, the comparison with the Christian catacombs a few hundred metres away is the point of the visit. Same rock, same period, same city, two communities burying their dead differently.

What you will see

• The galleries and burial chambers, with kokhim and arcosolia cut into the tufa
• Two painted chambers with surviving frescoes
• Jewish symbols carved and painted in situ, in their original context rather than a museum case
• Inscriptions in Greek, Latin and Hebrew — the language mix tells you a great deal about who these people were

Before you book

• Access must be arranged in advance. Lead time is needed; this is not a same-week booking
• If anyone in your party is a kohen, this is the one tour to leave out — the catacombs are a burial ground
• The galleries are dark, narrow, uneven and humid. Not suitable for limited mobility, and worth thinking about if anyone is claustrophobic
• Closed shoes, and a light jacket even in August — it is cold underground
• The site is on the Appia Pignatelli, outside the centre; a transfer is normally included

The background is in the guide to the Jewish catacombs of Rome. The other end of the same story, above ground, is the Arch of Titus and Colosseum tour.