Rome's Jewish catacombs opened briefly to public as part of Jubilee Year

Beneath a former vineyard lies a vast underground catacomb where Jewish people in Rome buried their dead nearly 2,000 years ago.

While Rome has more than 40 Chris­tian catacombs, which attract hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, only a handful of Jewish catacombs exist, and they are usually open only to small groups and private tours.

Now the Jewish catacombs of Vigna Randanini will open to the public from May 1 to June 5 as one of several initiatives by the Italian cultural ministry to broaden the scope of Pope Francis’s Jubilee Year of Mercy.