The entrance to the cemetery is situated in a delicious valley about a quarter of a mile from the church, in view of the storied hills which have been celebrated by Martial and Pliny, and near the ruins of a pagan temple. Behind are the gray walls and towers of Rome, and on every side spreads the solemn expanse of the Campagna. All is graceful 196 and picturesque in the landscape, “and it is not,” says Perret, “without a pious tenderness[319] that the charm of the place blends in the soul of the pilgrim to the shrine of the Christian heroine.” The stairs by which the descent is made date probably from the time of Constantine. The graves on either side of the somewhat spacious gallery have long been rifled of their contents. Several of these from their size were evidently designed for _bisomi_. The consular date, A. D. 336, on a tomb attests the age of this part of the Catacomb. One _suite_ of chambers near the entrance, but in the lower and therefore more recently constructed _piano_, has received the title of the Basilica. The larger _cubiculum_ has two tufa seats at the side, and one more elevated for the presiding presbyter. The altar, probably a small movable one of wood, if any at all, must have stood before the presbyter. On the opposite side of the gallery is a chamber, divided by columns and an arch, supposed to have been for the females of the assembly, or perhaps for the catechumens not yet admitted to the celebration of the eucharist. A connected series of five chambers has been found, and one _cubiculum_, called the _scuole grande_, will contain seventy or eighty persons. Much of the architecture, however, is debased, indicating the decline and eclipse of art in the fifth or sixth century. Another chamber is known as the Lady Chapel, or Crypt of the Virgin, on account of the so-called picture of the Madonna which it contains;[320] and a third as the Baptistery, from the presence of a spring of water, supposed to have been used in baptismal rites.