Basilica of Constantine
The Basilica of Constantine in Ostia is a church building known from literary sources, the identification and location of which have long been controversial. After the so-called Basilica Cristiana was thought to be for a long time , the building was localized in 1996 during geophysical investigations in Ostia. Stitch excavations in 1998 and 1999 confirmed this identification and provided information on the history of the building.
The church is mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis in the biography of Pope Silvester I , according to which the church was built by Constantine the Great . It was consecrated to Peter , Paul and John the Baptist . In the Acta Sanctorum , St. Gallicanus is named as its founder. It was the city's episcopal church .
According to the geophysical investigations, the actual church was 51.45 m long and 23.3 m wide and was located in the south of the city in an area that has not yet been systematically excavated. The church had three naves with 14 columns on each side. There was an apse in the north and a large courtyard in the south. To the right of the entrance courtyard was a baptistery with a baptismal font. The excavations confirm the construction of the church under Constantine the Great. The floor was decorated with a mosaic. There is evidence of renovations at the beginning of the 5th and 7th centuries, whereby from a certain point only parts of the church were used, while simple residential buildings were found in the entrance area, which shows that this part of the church was no longer used as a church . It has also been used as a burial place since the 5th century. The building was abandoned in the 9th century after the marble furnishings in particular had been stolen.
literature
- Franz Alto Bauer , Michael Heinzelmann : L'église épiscopale d'Ostie , in: Jean-Paul Descœudres (Ed.): Ostia, port et porte de la Rome antique , Geneva 2002 ISBN 2-8306-0190-4 , 278–282
Web links
- Regio V - Basilica of Constantine on ostia-antica.org
- http://www.ostia-antica.org/heinzelmann/daiproj.htm
Coordinates: 41 ° 45 ′ 12.6 ″ N , 12 ° 17 ′ 49.6 ″ E