After having talked about architectural and archaeological evolution, and after having examined some of the stories and traditions linked to men like Saint Peter and Saint Paul, with related miracles, it is time to also talk a little about what archaeologists have found, digging into the basement of the Church of Santa Maria in via Lata in Rome. In fact, there are numerous frescoes from the medieval era (during the excavations, detached and transferred to the Crypt Balbi Museum, also in Rome), found by archaeologists. In particular, among the sacred subjects painted on the walls of the ancient diakonia and church that were installed here there is, above all, the story of the so-called Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Here's the story .

The first complete document in which this event is narrated is the Legenda Aurea by Jacopo di Varazze. We are in 250 AD, a very hard time for Christianity considering the heavy and cruel persecution perpetrated by the emperor Decius. Seven young men from Ephesus were imprisoned and tortured by the Romans, who attempted to make them renounce their faith. The seven did not want to do so in the slightest, even refusing to pray in front of idols that were pagan to them. But, inexplicably due to Roman customs, they were released. So, to escape any further retaliation, the seven young people decided to take refuge in a cave. For days and days one of them, dressed as a beggar, went back and forth between the cave and the nearest village to find food and other things. One day, however, the seven were discovered and, by order of the emperor, walled up alive. With the awareness that they were now at the end of their earthly life, the young Christians fell asleep. Subsequently, a group of bricklayers opened the blocked entrance to the cave, intent on some work for the construction of a sheepfold. They found the seven young people still asleep, who immediately woke up. It was a great surprise for them, and not only for them, to discover how...two hundred years had passed! The Lord had preserved them, in body and spirit, by making them sleep for such a long period. Even greater was their surprise when they discovered that Christianity not only still existed but that, indeed, in 450 AD it was the only religion and faith admitted in the Roman Empire. Happy with all this, the seven died the same day they woke up.

This episode, narrated in various forms especially during the Middle Ages, is a clear example of divine salvation and also of resurrection, of body and spirit. An episode painted in an environment that is now underground but which still today exudes mysticism, as mentioned in the previous parts. Let us not be surprised, therefore, by the richness of the underground area of the Church of Santa Maria in Via Lata in Rome, because in the Eternal City there are plenty of such riches.