any resemblance to a Damien HIRST sculpture is pure coincidence
..........................................................................................................

"The place is so venerable by reason of its antiquity, its religion and sanctity, as to excite emotion, even to tears, in all who go there and contemplate it on the spot. There, one can picture to oneself the persecutions, the sufferings and the piety of the saintly members of the primitive church, and it is obviously a further confirmation of our Catholic religion. One can see with one's own eyes how, in the days of pagan idolaters, those holy and pious friends of Our Lord when they were forbidden public assemblies, painted and worshipped their sacred images in these caves and subterranean places"

- taken from an early report on the catacombs making clear how their explorers assessed these newly accessible spaces, in August 1578