Il culto dei santi: gli scavi nel cimitero “ad martyres”,

What did the cemetery ad martyres look like in the years of Augustine's stay in Milan? The basic topographical coordinates are provided to us by Ambrose in his letter to Marcellina in which he informs his sister of the discovery and translation of the two martyrs. The bodies of Gervasius and Protasius appeared to be buried near the fence delimiting the memory of Saints Nabor and Felix; their remains were then transferred to the nearby basilica Faustae for the night vigil and the ceremony of the laying on of hands, before being taken the following day to the Ambrosian basilica , where they found their final resting place. While the church of S. Ambrogio is still preserved, of which, however, very little remains of the early Christian phase, nothing has remained of the basilica Naboris et Felicis and the basilica Faustae, except for their approximate topographical location: the former was in fact incorporated in the Middle Ages into the large church of S. Francesco Grande, demolished at the beginning of the Middle Ages. Francesco Grande in the Middle Ages, which was demolished in the early 19th century to be replaced by the Napoleonic barracks; the second, on the other hand, with the new title of S. Vitale e Agricola, survived until 1577/78, when it was incorporated into the Santambrosian monastery complex and then demolished. On this occasion, the focus is on the archaeological investigations that in recent decades have brought to light evidence of structures of a funerary character existing at the end of the 4th century. These show how, in addition to the basilicas mentioned by Ambrose, the cemetery had a more complex building articulation: in a relatively small area in the area of today's Via S. Valeria, three installations that can be interpreted as late antique/paleochristian mausoleums have in fact been recognised.