The crypt of Saint Erasmus is a chapel located inside the cathedral of Saints Erasmus and Marcianus and Santa Maria Assunta in Gaeta, corresponding to the crypt of the basilica. An important example of Neapolitan Baroque architecture, it represents within Gaeta Cathedral the only room unified in style and unchanged in its original layout. The crypt houses the relics of Saints Erasmus of Formia and Marcian of Syracuse, patrons of the city of Gaeta.
History
The medieval crypt
In 842, the bishop of Formia John III, due to Saracen raids, wanted to move the mortal remains of the martyrs Erasmus, Innocent and Probus from their original burial place (on which the cathedral of St. Erasmus had then been built) to the church of Santa Maria del Parco in the safer Gaeta (in about 870 the bishopric was also moved to Gaeta). They were walled up inside a pillar and remained there until they were found by Bishop Bono, attested from 919;V. von Falkenhausen, Tra Roma e Napoli: Gaeta nel primo medioevo (VIII-XII secolo), in to commemorate this event, the hypati John I and Docibilis II, his son, coined a medal (or seal) in lead that is considered the oldest medal coined in Gaeta. An underground chapel called "incorpo," located under the southern area of the church, was specially built to house the relics, inside whose altar along with the remains of Saints Erasmus, Innocent and Probus (placed inside a single sarcophagus) were also placed those of St. Marcian of Syracuse (who arrived in Gaeta probably in the 10th century). In 918 the mortal remains of the martyr Eupuria were found in Santa Maria del Parco, inside the altar dedicated to the saint, following a miraculous event.
Beginning in 978 the cathedral was enlarged and was consecrated on January 22, 1106 by Pope Paschal II and dedicated to St. Mary of the Assumption and St. Erasmus (a double dedication attested since 995) and probably also to St. Marcianus and St. Probus. In the mid-13th century, the building underwent a major enlargement that led it to acquire a seven-aisle plan, and probably an orientation reversed from the original one, with the apse facing north instead of south. By 1049, on the other hand, the building of the baptistery, dedicated to St. John in Fonte, had been completed, located close to the northern side of the church, next to the bell tower.
The crypt of St. Erasmus, as a place of special popular devotion to the saint, was placed under the patronage of the civic magistrate of Gaeta who was responsible for the appointment of two procurators, one of whom was chosen from among the nobles, the other from among the merchants, who from 1515 onwards were four (two nobles, one merchant and one bourgeois). These procurators then, together with the city's judges, in turn appointed deputies for the organization of the feast of St. Erasmus (whose liturgical memory is June 2), which had a great gathering of people coming from the surrounding Gaeta localities also for the "buffalo hunt," an event derived from bullfighting, introduced under the Spanish domination of the city (1504–1734) and suppressed in 1862. Until the mid-16th century, the chapel's income consisted of the annual contribution paid by the civic magistrate for the feast of St. Erasmus, offerings from private individuals and fines imposed on violators of Gaeta's statutes; later it was the recipient of large public donations, the first of which was in 1559 from Bishop Antonio Lunello, which was followed in 1560 by one from the city, resulting in the establishment of an annuity to be paid in several installments.
The building of the crypt
In 1569, Bishop Pedro Lunello attempted to meddle in the control of the chapel in search of public funds to build a new choir for the cathedral to bring it in line with the directives of the Council of Trent, which, among others, called for an increase in the number of canons (which occurred in Gaeta in 1547); this action was not at all welcomed by the civic magistrate, who indeed revoked the previously promised funding; the disagreements between the bishop and the city were overcome in 1584 probably as a result of the inclusion in the project of a rebuilding of the crypt.
For the construction of the new choir and the underlying chapel of St. Erasmus, a number of houses behind the cathedral were demolished, which stood on the site of the ancient baptistery of St. John in Fonte, which by 1569 had already been found to be no longer in existence; the masonry of the body of the building was completed in 1586. New impetus for the work's completion was given by Alfonso Laso Sedeño, who became bishop of Gaeta in 1587; the work was financed by the municipality on several occasions beginning in 1589. In 1594 the bishop ordered that a canonical survey of the relics preserved in the crypt be made, which took place on October 24 in the presence of the city authorities and the prior of St. Dominic, who presided over the rite; from this it was revealed that inside two coffers were housed the remains of Saints Erasmus, Probus and Innocent as well as St. Marcian, respectively. In 1597 the new apse was blessed by the bishop of Fondi Giovanni Battista Comparini (since the Gaetan see was vacant due to the transfer of Alfonso Laso Sedeño to that of Cagliari), while the underlying chapel of St. Erasmus (popularly called "succorpo") remained unfinished. The new bishop of Gaeta Giovanni de Ganges, who had already been denied permission by the civic magistrate to visit the crypt in 1598 (a few months after his inauguration) in order to avoid interference in its administration, in 1600 "believing that he had the proper authority, officially asked the procurators of the chapel of St. Erasmus to hand over the books to him," and, faced with a new refusal from the city administration, excommunicated the procurators. New attempts to take control of the crypt were made by the bishop the following year, the only effect of which was the concession through a papal brief issued by Pope Clement VIII on May 2, 1603, to be able to celebrate a mass in the chapel on the feast of St. Erasmus. The crypt, by order of the civic magistrate, was officiated every Wednesday by a canon of the cathedral.
The seventeenth-century reconstruction
The crypt was completed in 1607, the year the relics were moved there. The result was not deemed satisfactory by the city magistrate, so much so that as early as 1608 he asked Bishop Pedro de Oña, O. de M., to raise the vault, who refused both because of bad relations with the city administration (also due to his ambitions to control the chapel of St. Erasmus) and because such an operation would have entailed rebuilding the presbytery above, which had been inaugurated just 11 years earlier. Pedro de Oña upon his death (in 1626 would have liked to be interred inside the crypt, but this was denied him by the civic magistrate. In 1609, the two altars closest to it in the apse that held the remains of Saints Castus and Secondinus (right altar) and Saint Eupuria (left altar) were demolished and temporarily placed in the crypt inside a lead case; notably, the saint's relics had been the subject of a miraculous discovery inside the ancient cathedral of Santa Maria del Parco in May 918.
Work on the rebuilding of the crypt did not begin until 1617, and a commission was formed on April 1 of that year to oversee the operations. In March 1618, the demolition of some of the houses attached to the bell tower was financed to allow for the widening of the square in front that would allow easier access to the chapel. The original floor of the 16th-century chancel was also destroyed to allow the vault of the crypt to be raised by more than a meter.
In 1619 Jacopo Lazzari, a Florentine sculptor and marble worker active in Naples, was entrusted with the decoration of the interior masonry of the room; the following year the structure was to be finished although still lacking most of its decorations, since on April 9 the relics were solemnly transported there, demolishing the altar of the crypt that housed them. They were placed within two Roman sarcophagi from the third-fourth century: In the first a smaller sarcophagus containing the remains of Saints Erasmus, Probus and Innocent and a marble urn with those of Saint Marcianus were placed, while in the second another smaller sarcophagus with the remains of Saints Castus, Secondinus and Eupuria. Since there was no place for the relics of St. Albina in the altar of the crypt, they were placed under the mensa of the cathedral's high altar. It was the responsibility of the city to appoint and pay a priest as chaplain of the crypt, with an annual allowance for the cathedral sacristan to ring the curfew every night at 3 o'clock with a small bell. After the transfer of the saints' relics to the new chapel, the crypt was converted into a burial place for the canons of the cathedral, and, with the construction of the new neo-Gothic facade of the basilica (early 20th century) it was provided with independent access. Dionisio Lazzari, son of Jacopo (d. 1640), from 1644 onwards was responsible for the completion of the six niches, of which his father had made only four, intended to house the statues of the saints (which were originally to be made of marble), by 1655 for the making of the balustrade in polychrome marble, and for the construction of the double staircase and the access vestibule in about 1650; in 1666 an inscription was placed in the vestibule that was the result of a vow made by the city of Gaeta for having been spared the plague epidemic of 1656. The floor was commissioned in 1661 to Giuseppe Gallo who was then ordered to finish it in a short time because its execution had been deemed mediocre. Between 1662 and 1664 Giacinto Brandi painted the vault and the altarpiece (which replaced an earlier one that was deemed mediocre). In 1670 Dionisio Lazzari was responsible for the remaking of the marble altar frontal, while in 1689 the decoration of the access staircase was completed with the band in inlaid bichrome marble; in 1701 the monumental bronze gate was put in place.
The silver decorative apparatus
Beginning in February 1676, the annual financing by the municipality of Gaeta (derived from some taxes, first the snow tax and then the bread tax) of the silver sculptural decorative apparatus began. The making of the latter (consisting of the statues of the six saints buried in the crypt, the altar frontal and other furnishings) continued throughout the next century and had particular impetus during the episcopate of Gennaro Carmignani, C. R. (1738–1770). The entire apparatus (with the exception of the statues of St. Erasmus and St. Marcianus) was lost as a result of the 1798 requisition by the Kingdom of Naples, which melted them down, obtaining 130 kg for minting coins.