Before the Fire: A hidden jewel, a private showing

I met Sabina in front of her namesake church in one of Rome’s oldest neighborhoods. She is a friend of my friend Paolo; he told me that she would introduce me to one of the most important projects in the city.

The Aventino is one of Rome’s seven hills, a quiet and dignified collection of high walled gardens, stately homes and three of the city’s most historic churches on the south side of the Tevere, in the southern quarter of the city. The U.S. Ambassador lives there among some of Rome’s most illustrious families.

My guide met my taxi in the shade of Chiesa di Santa Sabina, the historic headquarters of the Dominican order built on foundations laid in the year 422. She spoke to me in Italian as we walked quickly to a modest side door in an old red brick building. She used a key from a rattling bunch to unlock the entry, and we passed into a narrow hallway that smelled of damp underground and fresh plaster. It was a utility corridor, barely wider than my shoulders, lined with masonry buckets, electric conduit and a control panel of breaker switches.

She flipped a toggle. A series of overhead naked bulbs flickered awake in the passageway that sloped down and around a curve. I followed her to the top of polished steel, open-grate spiral stairs, very narrow and steep, and we descended in a tight turning forty feet to the chamber below.

Just the two of us, there in a room where people lived more than two thousand years ago.

Sabina restores ancient buildings. Thirty years ago she graduated from a rigorous four year program in antiquities restoration. And she has been caring for her city’s treasures ever since.

This chamber is her latest project. It is part of a house built during Rome’s first incarnation. It was discovered just before the second world war as workers were constructing a new house on the site; digging the foundation, they broke through the long-buried ceiling into the entombed space below.

The chamber was hardly explored. At that time in Rome, such discoveries were not uncommon. The find was recorded and nearly forgotten for more than thirty years until state curators, in a methodical review of the city’s historic sites, began the process of acquiring the property.

In Italy, public funds for restoration work is spread thin. You can imagine all the historic sites and monuments that wait for attention and care. This small house, a jewel of frescos and marble pillars, is one of Rome’s most modest properties.

I’ve never been in a church, walked a battlefield, or paused on a mountain pass, and felt more hallowed atmosphere than I did in that chamber. The room’s air feels expectant, as though waiting for its family to return. There was, for me, a similar feeling: as though down a passageway might come the echo of everyday life, a laugh or children’s running or a muted conversation.