Beneath Monserrato: The Venerable English College Opens Its Crypt and the Via Triumphalis
Rome is a city of superimposed centuries. Stone lies upon stone; empire yields to Church; martyrdom crowns conquest. It is therefore fitting that the Venerable English College — the oldest British institution outside the United Kingdom — should now open to visitors the hidden strata beneath its Renaissance walls: a fifteenth-century crypt and a preserved stretch of the ancient Via Triumphalis.¹
Situated on Via di Monserrato near Piazza Farnese, the College has occupied this site for more than six centuries. Founded in 1362 as a hospice for English and Welsh pilgrims to the tombs of the Apostles, it was reconstituted in 1579 by Pope Gregory XIII as a seminary for the English mission.² What began as a house of hospitality became, in time, a house of formation — and for many, a house of martyrdom.
The Mediaeval Crypt
The subterranean crypt was substantially excavated in the late fifteenth century under the patronage of King Henry VII of England.³ Originally serving as the meeting place of the Confraternity of St Thomas of Canterbury, it developed into a privileged burial site. The quiet severity of the space reflects both confraternal devotion and the sober piety of the late mediaeval Roman Church.
In 1818 an ossuary was established here to gather remains recovered from tombs desecrated during the French occupation of Rome (1798–1814), when religious institutions were suppressed and properties ransacked.⁴ Thus even the bones beneath the floor speak of persecution and restoration.
The principal artistic treasure of the crypt is a rare early fifteenth-century fresco of the Crucifixion attributed to the school of Antoniazzo Romano (c. 1430–1508), one of the foremost painters of Renaissance Rome.⁵ The fresco originally adorned the Salone del Crocifisso on Via dei Cappellari, where those condemned by the Curia Savella — the papal criminal tribunal — would pray before execution. Roman tradition maintains that Beatrice Cenci, executed in 1599, knelt before this very image on the eve of her death.⁶
Its relocation to the English College is not merely artistic displacement. Between 1581 and 1679, forty-four alumni of the College were executed in England under the penal laws.⁷ The Crucifixion that once received the prayers of the condemned now presides in a seminary inseparable from the memory of priestly martyrdom.
The Via Triumphalis
Six metres below the present street level lies an even older Rome. During renovation works in 1870, excavations uncovered a preserved stretch of the ancient Via Triumphalis.⁸ This road connected the Roman Forum to the Vatican Hill and formed part of the ceremonial network associated with triumphal processions.⁹
Archaeological evidence also links the area with the Stabula Factionis Venetae, headquarters of the “Blue” chariot-racing faction, one of the dominant sporting and political forces of imperial Rome whose rivalries animated the Circus Maximus.¹⁰
Here, within a single site, one encounters imperial spectacle beneath Christian formation. The road of worldly triumph lies below a house that prepared priests for suffering and death. Rome’s layered inheritance is not abstract theory but visible stone.
Continuity and Mission
The College was ransacked during the Napoleonic occupation in 1798 and restored in 1818.¹¹ Today it continues its original mission, training approximately thirty seminarians and priests annually for service in England and Wales.¹²
Public access to the underground areas is available exclusively through guided tours organised by Mirabilia Art Wonders. Tours are held on Saturdays (English at 10:30; Italian at 11:30), with designated dates granting access to the crypt and the Via Triumphalis. Advance booking is required.¹³
The opening of these subterranean spaces is more than an addition to Rome’s cultural itinerary. It is a descent into history itself: pagan road, Renaissance confraternity, penal martyrdom, and enduring priestly formation — layered in one address on Via di Monserrato.
Visiting the Underground Rome of the English College
Public access is available exclusively through guided tours organised by Mirabilia Art Wonders. Tours take place on Saturdays:
- English: 10:30
- Italian: 11:30
On designated Saturdays, visitors may descend to the crypt and the Via Triumphalis. Tickets (€12) must be purchased in advance via the official booking platform.
¹ Wanted in Rome, “Rome’s Venerable English College opens underground crypt and Roman road to visitors,” 21 February 2026.
² Venerable English College, official history; Bull of Foundation, Pope Gregory XIII, 1579.
³ Michael E. Williams, The Venerable English College, Rome: A History (London: Burns & Oates, 1979).
⁴ Owen Chadwick, The Popes and European Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 438–445.
⁵ Anna Cavallaro, “Antoniazzo Romano,” in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner (London: Macmillan, 1996).
⁶ R. Finlay, The Legend of Beatrice Cenci (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2003).
⁷ Venerable English College, archival records on the Martyrs of the English College; Diocese of Westminster historical summaries.
⁸ Rodolfo Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1888), pp. 221–223.
⁹ Lawrence Richardson Jr., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), s.v. “Via Triumphalis.”
¹⁰ Alan Cameron, Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).
¹¹ Chadwick, The Popes and European Revolution, pp. 438–445.
¹² Venerable English College, official statistics (2026).
¹³ Mirabilia Art Wonders, official tour information, accessed February 2026.
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