An ancient Gospel-related mural has resurfaced in the Vatican underground, beneath the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica and under Bernini’s monumental Baldachin. These now-lost graffiti were drawn on the wall of a mausoleum in the Roman necropolis and depict the outlines of the heads of Jesus and Saint Peter. Beside them appear several Greek words—catabasis, anabasis, anastasis, and dexi(o)stasis—evoking key moments in Christ’s earthly mission: the descent into hell, the ascension, the resurrection, and his place at the right hand of the Father.
The discovery is credited to the Florentine archaeologist Margherita Guarducci (1902–1999), today regarded as one of the greatest epigraphists of the 20th century. Her career was extraordinary: fieldwork in Crete, a professorship in Greek Epigraphy at the age of 29, leadership roles in the National School of Archaeology, and membership in the Academy of the Lincei. In the 1950s, she also made headlines for identifying the relics attributed to Saint Peter in the very same underground area where others had searched in vain.
This forgotten mural resurfaced thanks to a Spanish priest, Father Alfredo Fernández Martín, who met Guarducci in the 1990s and received from her a copy of her 1953 book Christ and Saint Peter in a Pre-Constantinian Document from the Vatican Necropolis. He believes the work deserves renewed attention, especially at a time when discussions about the Council of Nicaea and the Nicene Creed have returned to the forefront.
The upcoming 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea (325–2025), during which Pope Leo XIV will travel to Turkey and Lebanon, makes the finding all the more relevant. The mural dates to between the late third and early fourth centuries and was drawn on the stucco of a pagan burial niche in the necropolis beneath St. Peter’s, about twenty meters from the apostle’s tomb.
Guarducci was particularly struck by the depiction of Christ’s head, above which appears an unusual figure: two birds joined into a single body, a symbol of the phoenix rising from death. She interpreted this as an attempt to represent the very instant of rebirth—the image of Christ as Phoenix, sign of resurrection and eternal life. Around Christ’s head radiate four Greek terms which, in her view, echo the Church’s teaching and anticipate parts of the Creed.
Guarducci’s renown is also linked to the excavations initiated by Pius XII in 1939, which led Pope Paul VI, in 1968, to publicly announce the identification of Saint Peter’s mortal remains. The bone fragments were kept in the papal apartment until 2013, when Pope Francis displayed them in a reliquary and later donated some to the Patriarchate of Constantinople in a gesture of unity between the apostles Peter and Andrew.
Her life and work have been recently recounted in Tiziana Lupi’s book The Tomb of Saint Peter: The Forgotten Story of Margherita Guarducci (Minerva, 2025), winner of the Rapallo Prize for non-fiction. A long-overdue recognition.
