SS. Marcellini e Pietro

For my stay in Rome, I have been on the Via Labicana, directly across the street from the church of SS. Marcellini e Pietro and there is a story that I think about every morning when I leave to go to the library.

In the year 827, Einhard, most famous as the biographer of Charlemagne, sent agents to Rome to retrieve relics for his new church in Seligenstadt.  These agents meet a fellow while on the road who claims that he can help them, but he continuously demurs once they all arrive in Rome.  After weeks pass, the agents grow impatient and decide to obtain relics for themselves.  Late at night, they sneak into the crypts and first wanted to take the body of S. Tibertius, but his tomb was too difficult to open.  Deciding instead to take the relics of the fourth-century martyr Marcellinus, the agents enter the church at night and remove the bones.  Deciding that they could not separate Marcellinus from his burial companion, named Petrus, the agents break into the crypt a second time to take the second body.  The agents then sent the bodies back to Germany with a different agent.  If all of this sounds like stealing, you are absolutely correct and the agents admitted as such, but decided that these martyrs would be more venerated in Germany than in Rome.  The agents reasoned that in Germany they would be unique, while in Rome they were simply two more martyrs out of hundreds.  You can read this story in English or in Latin.

All of this took place in one of the catacombs and not the church itself, but because I see the church in which their relics are now buried, I think about it all the same.

As an aside, if anyone has time while in Rome see the original reading room in the Biblioteca Casanatense, they should do so.  Not many Roman libraries are open to tourists, so they should take advantage of the ones that are.  I was particularly interested by four massive globes that show either the Earth or the locations of stars.  The level of detail they contain and the care that went into their production is astounding.  Just a thought for any other bibliophiles out there.