Old Saint Peter's, Rome 9781107041646, 1107041643

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Old Saint Peter’s, Rome

Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome is arguably the most important church in western Christendom, and is among the most significant buildings anywhere in the world. However, the church that is visible today is a youthful upstart, only four hundred years old in comparison with the twelvehundred-year-old church whose site it occupies. A very small proportion of the original is now extant, entirely covered over by the new basilica, but enough survives to make reconstruction of the first Saint Peter’s possible and much new evidence has been uncovered in the past thirty years. This is the first full study of the older church, from its late antique construction to Renaissance destruction, in its historical context. An international team of historians, art historians, archaeologists and liturgists explores aspects of the basilica’s history, from its physical fabric to the activities that took place within its walls and its relationship with the city of Rome.

rosamond mckitterick is Professor of Medieval History in the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. She has published on literacy, manuscript transmission, perceptions of the past and political culture in the early Middle Ages. In addition to many articles, chapters in books, edited books and monographs, her most recent books include History and Memory in the Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2004), Charlemagne: the Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008) and Rome across Time and Space: Cultural Transmission and the Exchange of Ideas, c. 500–1400 (with C. Bolgia and J. Osborne, Cambridge, 2011).

john osborne is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa. His publications cover topics as varied as the Roman catacombs, the fragmentary mural paintings from excavated churches such as San Clemente and Santa Maria Antiqua, the decorative programme of the church of San Marco in Venice, seventeenthcentury antiquarian drawings of medieval monuments, cultural transmission between western Europe and Byzantium, and the medieval understanding and use of Rome’s heritage of ancient buildings and statuary.

carol m. richardson is Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. Her book Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century (2009) was described as a ‘milestone in the history not only of artistic patronage but also of the papacy in fifteenth-century Rome [which] will become a standard work for scholars to return to again and again’ (Simon Ditchfield, Art History 34/1 (2011)). She has also edited a number of Open University text books which are widely used to teach history of art on both sides of the Atlantic. joanna story is Professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Leicester, specializing in interdisciplinary research into the history and archaeology of Europe in the age of Charlemagne. She has published widely on the contacts between Anglo-Saxon England and the Continent at this time, focusing especially on manuscripts and inscriptions, and the links between England and Rome.

british school at rome studies Series editors Christopher Smith Director of the British School at Rome Susan Walker Chair of Publications (from 2013) and member of the Council of the British School at Rome Bryan Ward-Perkins Chair of Publications and member of the Council of the British School at Rome (to 2012) Gill Clark Registrar and Publications Manager of the British School at Rome

British School at Rome Studies builds on the prestigious and longstanding Monographs series of the British School at Rome. It publishes both definitive reports on the School’s own fieldwork in Rome, Italy and the Mediterranean, and volumes (usually originating in conferences held at the School) on topics that cover the full range of the history, archaeology and art history of the western Mediterranean. Rome, Pollution and Propriety: Dirt, Disease and Hygiene in the Eternal City from Antiquity to Modernity Edited by mark bradley, with kenneth stow

Old Saint Peter’s, Rome Edited by rosamond mckitterick,

john osborne, carol m. richardson and joanna story

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107041646  C The British School at Rome 2013

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Old Saint Peter’s, Rome / edited by Rosamond McKitterick, John Osborne, Carol M. Richardson and Joanna Story. pages cm – (British School at Rome studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-04164-6 (hardback) 1. Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano – History. 2. Vatican City – Antiquities. 3. Vatican City – Buildings, structures, etc. 4. Church architecture – Vatican City. 5. Church history – Middle Ages, 600–1500. I. McKitterick, Rosamond, 1949– author, editor of compilation. II. Osborne, John, 1951– author, editor of compilation. III. Richardson, Carol M., 1969– author, editor of compilation. IV. Story, Joanna, 1970– author, editor of compilation. NA5620.S9O43 2013 726.50937ʹ63 – dc23 2013013112 ISBN 978-1-107-04164-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For Maria Pia Malvezzi

Contents

List of figures [page x] List of plates [xvii] List of tables [xix] List of contributors [xx] Foreword [xxv] by nigel baker Acknowledgements [xxvii] List of Abbreviations [xxviii]

Introduction [1] rosamond mckitterick, john osborne, carol m. richardson and joanna story 1 Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages [21] paolo liverani 2 From Constantine to Constans: the chronology of the construction of Saint Peter’s basilica [35] richard gem 3 Spolia in the fourth-century basilica [65] lex bosman 4 The Early Christian baptistery of Saint Peter’s [81] olof brandt 5 The representation of Old Saint Peter’s basilica in the Liber Pontificalis [95] rosamond mckitterick 6 The mausoleum of Honorius: Late Roman imperial Christianity and the city of Rome in the fifth century [119] meaghan mcevoy 7 Popes, emperors and clergy at Old Saint Peter’s from the fourth to the eighth century [137] alan thacker

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8 The early liturgy of Saint Peter’s and the Roman liturgical year [157] peter jeffery 9 Interactions between liturgy and politics in Old Saint Peter’s, 670–741: John the Archcantor, Sergius I and Gregory III [177] ´ ´ eamonn o´ carrag ain 10 A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII (705–7) [190] antonella ballardini and paola pogliani 11 Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy [214] charles b. mcclendon 12 The Veronica, the Vultus Christi and the veneration of icons in medieval Rome [229] ann van dijk 13 The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter the Shepherd [257] joanna story 14 Plus Caesare Petrus: the Vatican obelisk and the approach to Saint Peter’s [274] john osborne 15 The Legendary of Saint Peter’s basilica: hagiographic traditions and innovations in the late eleventh century [287] carmela vircillo franklin 16 The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered: textual sources and visual evidence for the Renaissance copy of a medieval silver crucifix [306] ¨ katharina christa sch uppel 17 Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century: Paul II, the archpriests and the case for continuity [324] carol m. richardson 18 Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea at Old Saint Peter’s [348] robert glass 19 The altar of Saint Maurice and the invention of tradition in Saint Peter’s [371] catherine fletcher

Contents

20 Epilogue. A hybrid history: the antique basilica with a modern dome [386] bram kempers Appendix. Letter of the canons of Saint Peter’s to Paul V concerning the demolition of the old basilica, 1605 [404] carol m. richardson and joanna story Bibliography [416] Index [467]

The colour plates will be found between pages 34 and 35.

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Figures

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Frontispiece a. Stylized plan of Saint Peter’s showing the broad phasing of the structures. Copyright L. Wallace. [page 18] Frontispiece b. Alfarano’s 1590 plan of Saint Peter’s, detail. [19] 1.1. Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome. Copyright L. Wallace. [22] 1.2. Partial stemma of the Ceionii Rufii (according to PLRE I). [24] 1.3. Saint Peter’s in the early sixth century. Copyright L. Wallace. [26] 1.4. The imperial processions of the late antique adventus and of the visit to Saint Peter’s. [29] 2.1. Stamp on bricks recovered from the apse of Saint Peter’s in 1594, version as illustrated by Baronio AE, III, addendum; redrawn by L. Wallace. [42] 2.2. Stamps on bricks recovered from the apse of Saint Peter’s in 1594, version as illustrated in 1619 by Giacomo Grimaldi in his Instrumenta Autentica; redrawn by L. Wallace. [43] 2.3. Stamp on an excavated tile found covering a grave southeast of the tomb of Saint Peter. After Apollonj Ghetti et al., Esplorazioni: fig. 37; redrawn by L. Wallace. [44] 2.4. Mid-second-century funerary monument of Saint Peter standing in an open courtyard; reconstruction drawing by G. U. S. Corbett. After Toynbee and Ward-Perkins, The Shrine of Saint Peter, fig. 17; redrawn by L. Wallace. [45] 2.5. Constantinian monument of Saint Peter. Modified after Ward-Perkins, ‘The shrine of Saint Peter’, fig. 1; redrawn by L. Wallace. [47] 2.6. Plan based on excavated evidence, showing the Constantinian monument, podium edge (exaggerated for clarity) and column bases. Reconstruction by R. Gem; redrawn by L. Wallace. [48] 2.7. Plan of the foundations for the west end of Saint Peter’s basilica, based on the limited excavated evidence. Reconstruction by R. Gem; redrawn by L. Wallace. [49] 2.8. Plan showing the relationship of the superstructure to the foundations, based on the limited excavated evidence. Reconstruction by R. Gem; redrawn by L. Wallace. [53]

List of figures

2.9. Reconstruction of the west end of Saint Peter’s basilica. After Christern and Thiersch, ‘Der Aufriss van Alt-St.-Peter’, fig. 9a; redrawn by L. Wallace. [55] 2.10. Plan of the Martyrium basilica and Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. Courtesy of S. Gibson and J. E. Taylor; redrawn by L. Wallace. [59] 3.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 3. [65] 3.2. Old Saint Peter’s, axonometric reconstruction. From Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, fig. 9. [68] 3.3. Old Saint Peter’s, longitudinal section looking north. From Bosman, Power of Tradition, fig. 10. [69] 3.4. Saint Peter’s, grotte. An Early Christian column base. Photo by L. Bosman. [70] 3.5. Saint Peter’s, aedicula with granite columns. Photo by L. Bosman. [71] 4.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 4. [81] 4.2. The transept of Old Saint Peter’s, in a drawing made after 1538 by a follower of Maerten van Heemskerck. (Copyright, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/J¨org P. Anders.) [84] 4.3. Maerten van Heemskerck (1498–1574), interior of the transept of Old Saint Peter’s half torn down. (Copyright, Hans Thorwid/Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.) [87] 4.4. The vestibule of the Lateran baptistery. Photo by O. Brandt. [89] 5.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 5. [95] 6.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 6. [119] 6.2. Plan of the rotundas of Saint Andrew and Saint Petronilla; drawing by an anonymous Florentine draftsman. (Copyright, Uffizi, Arch. 4336.) [123] 7.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 7. [137] 7.2. Line of the presumed funerary structures on the north flank of the basilica. [143] 8.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 8. [157] 8.2. Part of the synodal decree of Gregory III (732). (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [162] 9.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 9. [177] 10.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 10. [190] 10.2. BAV, Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 94v–95r. (With permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, all rights reserved.) [192]

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List of figures

10.3. Vatican grottoes, five pilasters of the Severan period. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [194] 10.4. Prospect of John VII’s oratory, a copy of MS H.3, BAV, Vat. lat. 8404, fols. 113v–14r. (Reproduced with permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, all rights reserved.) [195] 10.5. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory, north wall. (Copyright, A. Ballardini, P. Pogliani and M. Carpiceci.) [196] 10.6. Vatican grottoes, eighth-century pilaster. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [197] 10.7. Milan, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, cod. A 168 inf., fol. 97r. (Copyright, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana.) [197] 10.8. Vatican grottoes, titulus of John VII’s oratory. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [200] 10.9. Vatican grottoes, an altar inscription by Hadrian I. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [201] 10.10. Wall of John VII’s oratory, with the surviving mosaic fragments superimposed on the drawing in Barb. lat. 2733. (Copyright, P. Pogliani and M. Viscontini.) [208] 10.11. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory in the north aisle of Saint Peter’s basilica. (Copyright, A. Ballardini, P. Pogliani and M. Carpiceci.) [209] 10.12. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory in the north aisle of Saint Peter’s basilica. (Copyright, A. Ballardini, P. Pogliani and M. Carpiceci.) [210] 10.13. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory, east wall. (Copyright, A. Ballardini, P. Pogliani and M. Carpiceci.) [212] 11.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 11. [214] 11.2. Saint Peter’s, reconstruction of the high altar and annular crypt arrangement under Pope Gregory I. Drawing by C. McClendon, after San Rizello in Ward-Perkins, ‘The Shine of Saint Peter’s’, fig. 2; redrawn by L. Wallace. [218] 11.3. Santa Prassede, Rome. Rebuilding sponsored by Pope Paschal I. Reconstruction drawing by C. McClendon; redrawn by L. Wallace. [223] 11.4. Santa Prassede, Rome, view of the mosaic decoration. Photo by Jennifer Stern. [225]

List of figures

11.5. San Marco, Rome. Plan as rebuilt by Pope Gregory IV. Drawing by C. McClendon; redrawn by L. Wallace. [226] 11.6. San Marco, Rome. View of the mosaic decoration. Photo by Michel Raguin. [227] 12.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 12. [229] 12.2. Madonna of the Pantheon, painted icon, Santa Maria ad Martyres, Rome. ICCD, fondo fotografico GFN, serie E 47191. (Copyright, Ministero per i Beni e le Attivit`a Culturali.) [231] 12.3. Lateran acheiropoieta, painted icon with a silver cover, Chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum, Rome. (Copyright, Vatican Museums.) [232] 12.4. Maria Regina, mosaic from the oratory of John VII in Saint Peter’s. (Copyright Alinari/Art Resource, NY.) [235] 12.5. Icon of the Archangel Michael, gold and enamel, treasury of the basilica of San Marco, Venice. (Copyright, Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY.) [236] 12.6. Ciborium in the oratory of John VII in Saint Peter’s, drawing in Grimaldi, Instrumenta Autentica, 1620, Vatican, BAV, Barb. lat. 2733, fol. 92r. (By permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved.) [238] 12.7. The Veronica, drawing in Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora II, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 16 II, fol. 53v. (Copyright, Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.) [240] 12.8. The Three Holy Mothers, fresco in Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome. Photo by J. Osborne. [249] 12.9. San Zeno chapel fac¸ade mosaic, Santa Prassede, Rome. (Copyright, Deutsches Arch¨aologisches Institut, Rome, neg. D-DAI-Rom 90–96.) [251] 12.10. Christological cycle in the oratory of John VII in Saint Peter’s, drawing in Grimaldi, Instrumenta Autentica, 1612, Vatican, BAV, Barb. lat. 2732, fols. 76v–77r. (By permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved.) [255] 13.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 13. [257] 13.2. Charlemagne’s epitaph for Hadrian I. Photo by J. Story. [260] 13.3. Jean Fouquet, ‘The Coronation of the Emperor Charlemagne’, Grandes Chroniques de France (1455–60), Paris, BnF Fr. 6465, fol. 89v. (Copyright, Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz.) [272] 14.1. The medieval ecclesiastical institutions and classical structures in the environs of Saint Peter’s. [274]

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List of figures

14.2. Detail of the panorama of Rome from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). (Copyright, Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge.) [277] 14.3. The Vatican obelisk. Photo by J. Osborne. [280] 14.4. Domenico Fontana, Del modo tenuto nel trasportare l’obelisco vaticano, e delle fabriche fatte da nostro signore Sisto V libro p[rimo] (Naples, 1604), fol. 8r. (Copyright, British School at Rome.) [281] 15.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 15. [288] 15.2. BAV, Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro A 2, fol. 75v. (By permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved.) [291] 15.3. BAV, Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro A 2, fol. 76v. (By permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved.) [292] 15.4. BAV, Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro A 2, fol. 77r. (By permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved.) [293] 16.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 16. [306] 16.2. Crucifix in stucco, Fabbrica di San Pietro, Rome. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [308] 16.3. Crucifix from Santa Maria Teodote, San Michele Maggiore, Pavia. Photo by K.C. Sch¨uppel. [309] 16.4. Crucifix, San Savino, Piacenza. (Copyright, L’Archivio Fotografico della Soprintendenza BSAE di Parma e Piacenza.) [315] 16.5. Crucifix in stucco, Fabbrica di San Pietro, Rome. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [317] 16.6. Silvester showing the portraits of Peter and Paul to Constantine in the chapel of Saint Silvester, Santi Quattro Coronati, Rome. (Copyright, Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della citt`a di Roma.) [319] 16.7. Diptych with Saints Peter and Paul from the Sancta Sanctorum, Vatican Museums, Rome. (Copyright, Vatican Museums.) [320] 17.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 17. [324] 17.2. Tomb of Urban VI, Vatican grottoes. (Copyright, Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, neg. no. A73/3137. Photo by James Austin.) [328]

List of figures

17.3. Maerten van Heemskerck, Saint Peter’s Square, 1532/6. (Copyright, Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina. Accession number 31681.) [332] 17.4. Medal of Paul II dated 1470, British Museum: 1906,1103.258. (Copyright, Trustees of the British Museum.) [333] 17.5. Isaia da Pisa, Altar of the Virgin and Child, and Saints Peter and Paul (1450s), Vatican grottoes. (Copyright, Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, neg. no. A73/3223. Photo by James Austin.) [336] 17.6. View of the left-hand/north aisle, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Photo by C. M. Richardson. [345] 17.7. View of the archpriest’s palace, from Giacomo Grimaldi, San Pietro (1619), Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 152v–153r. (By permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved.) [346] 18.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 18. [348] 18.2. Filarete, central doors, Saint Peter’s, Rome. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [349] 18.3. Filarete, the Saint Peter panel from the central doors. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [351] 18.4. Detail of Fig. 18.2, left door. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [353] 18.5. The central doors of Saint Peter’s in use. Photo by R. Glass. [357] 18.6. Detail of Fig. 18.2, the upper pair of panels and borders. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [358] 18.7. Detail of Fig. 18.3, right door, clothing and brooch in the Peter panel. (Copyright, Vatican Museums.) [359] 18.8. Detail of Fig. 18.2, right door, The Martyrdom of Peter. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [362] 18.9. Detail of Fig. 18.2, right door, upper left corner of the borders. (Copyright, Vatican Museums.) [364] 18.10. Detail of Fig. 18.2, left door, upper right corner of the borders. (Copyright, Vatican Museums.) [366] 19.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 19. [371] 19.2. Atrium gatehouse containing the church of Saint Mary ‘in Turribus’. [378] 20.1. Donato Bramante, parts of Old Saint Peter’s, foundations of Nicholas V and Paul II, and designs for new extensions, c. 1505–7.

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20.2.

20.3.

20.4.

20.5.

20.6.

App.1.

Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. (Copyright, Uffizi, Florence, U 20Ar.) [395] Donato Bramante, more than half of the western extension to Old Saint Peter’s, 1505. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. (Copyright, Uffizi, Florence, U 1Ar.) [397] Giuliano da Sangallo, centralized church plan, 1506. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. (Copyright, Uffizi, Florence, U 8Ar.) [398] Donato Bramante, studies of a western extension of Old Saint Peter’s with ambulatories and sketches of San Lorenzo Maggiore and the cathedral of Milan, 1506. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. (Copyright, Uffizi, Florence, U 8Av.) [399] Cristoforo Foppa (Caradosso), Portrait of Julius II and Bramante’s design for a new western extension of Saint Peter’s, gold, silver and bronze medal, 1506. British Museum, CM George III, Papal Medals AE III 6. (Copyright, Trustees of the British Museum.) [399] Agostino Veneziano, copy of Bramante’s design for a new western extension of Saint Peter’s, c. 1517. British Museum. (Copyright, Trustees of the British Museum.) [400] Plan showing the relationship between the Constantinian basilica and Saint Peter’s as completed by Carlo Maderno. [405]

Plates

The colour plates will be found between pages 34 and 35. 1 [foldout]. Tiberio Alfarano, plan of Old Saint Peter’s with its relationship to the new basilica. Etching made by Natale Bonifacio in 1590. (Copyright, Trustees of the British Museum.) [See Frontispiece b.] 2. Old Saint Peter’s, longitudinal section looking north. From Bosman, Power of Tradition, fig. 10. [See Fig. 3.3] 3. Saint Peter’s, aedicula with granite columns. Photo by L. Bosman. [See Fig. 3.5] 4. The vestibule of the Lateran baptistery. Photo by O. Brandt. [See Fig. 4.4] 5. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory in the north aisle of Saint Peter’s basilica. (Copyright, P. Pogliani and M. Carpiceci) [See Fig. 10.12] 6. Santa Prassede, Rome, view of the mosaic decoration. Photo by Jennifer Stern. [See Fig. 11.4] 7. San Marco, Rome. View of the mosaic decoration. Photo by M. Raguin. [See Fig. 11.6] 8. The Three Holy Mothers, fresco in Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome. Photo by J. Osborne. [See Fig. 12.8] 9. San Zeno chapel fac¸ade mosaic, Santa Prassede, Rome. (Copyright, Deutsches Arch¨aologisches Institute, Rome.) [See Fig. 12.9] 10. Jean Fouquet, ‘The Coronation of the Emperor Charlemagne’, Grandes Chroniques de France (1455–60), BnF Fr. 6465 fol. 89v. (Copyright, Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz.) [See Fig. 13.3] 11. The panorama of Rome from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). (Copyright, Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge.) [See Fig. 14.2] 12. Crucifix in stucco, Fabbrica di San Pietro, Rome. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [See Fig. 16.2] xvii

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List of plates

13. Crucifix in stucco, Fabbrica di San Pietro, Rome. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [See Fig. 16.5] 14. Diptych with Saints Peter and Paul from the Sancta Sanctorum. Vatican Museums, Rome. (Copyright, Vatican Museums.) [See Fig. 16.7] 15. Filarete, the Saint Peter panel from the central doors. (Copyright, with kind permission of the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano.) [See Fig. 18.3]

Tables

5.1. Burial places of 112 popes of the first to ninth centuries according to the Liber Pontificalis: Saint Peter’s [page 106] 5.2. Papal burial places other than Saint Peter’s [107] 8.1. The biblical lectionary of Saint Peter’s [169] 8.2. Calendars of the earlier recension compared [171] 8.3. Calendars of the later recension compared [173] 17.1. Papal burials at Saint Peter’s: end of the ninth to the beginning of the sixteenth century [327] 19.1. Imperial coronations in Saint Peter’s basilica after Calixtus II [381]

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Contributors

antonella ballardini is based at the Department of Art History, Archaeology and Conservation at Universit`a Roma Tre. Her research focuses on papal patronage, especially of the ninth century. She is an expert on the manuscripts of Giacomo Grimaldi and in particular the record they contain of mosaics in Old Saint Peter’s. She has published extensively on medieval art. lex bosman is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Amsterdam. His research currently involves the use of spolia in Rome and in Germany, focusing on the Early Christian churches of Rome and the cathedral of Magdeburg. His book on the basilica, The Power of Tradition: Spolia in the Architecture of Saint Peter’s in the Vatican, was published in 2004. olof brandt is Professor of Early Christian Architecture at the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology. His main field of research is the architecture of Early Christian baptisteries. His recent publications include Battisteri oltre la pianta. Gli alzati di nove battisteri paleocristiani in Italia (2012). ann van dijk is Associate Professor at Northern Illinois University. She has written extensively on the oratory of Pope John VII in Old Saint Peter’s and its reception during the early modern period. Her articles have appeared in The Art Bulletin, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Word & Image and Renaissance Studies. She is currently preparing a book on the oratory of Pope John VII (705–7) and the transformations it underwent during the course of its nine-hundred-year history. catherine fletcher is Lecturer in Public History at the University of Sheffield. Her work explores the cultures of politics and diplomacy in Renaissance Europe, particularly Italy, and she has held fellowships at the British School at Rome and the European University Institute. She is the author of Our Man in Rome: Henry VIII and his Italian Ambassador (2012) and of several articles on Renaissance diplomacy. xx

List of contributors

carmela vircillo franklin is Professor of Classics at Columbia University and was Director of the American Academy in Rome (2005–10). Her research focuses on medieval Latin texts and their manuscripts. Her recent books include The Latin Dossier of Anastasius the Persian: Hagiographic Translations and Transformations (2004) and Material Restoration: an Eleventh Century Fragment from Echternach in a Nineteenth-Century Parisian Codex (2009). She is now engaged in a book project provisionally entitled ‘The Liber Pontificalis of Pandulphus Romanus: from Schismatic Document to Renaissance Exemplar’, centred on the redaction of the papal chronicle created during the schism of 1130. richard gem was the first Secretary of the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England and is currently Honorary President of the Society for Church Archaeology. His research focuses on the study of architecture in the period from Late Antiquity to the high Middle Ages and he has published many papers on the subject. He is currently writing a book on the early history of Saint Peter’s basilica. robert glass is Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History at Oberlin College and a specialist in Italian Renaissance art. He is currently revising his dissertation on Filarete’s sculpture for publication as a monograph. peter jeffery is Scheide Professor of Music History Emeritus at Princeton University. He currently teaches at the University of Notre Dame, where he holds the Michael P. Grace Chair in Medieval Studies and is concurrent Professor of Theology. His research interests include Egyptian and Ethiopian liturgy and chant, medieval Christian chant repertories and psalmody of the Roman Mass. His book The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery was published in 2006. bram kempers is Professor of Sociology of Art at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on the artistic life of the Renaissance popes and more contemporary topics, including art sponsorship, the art market, advertising and graphic design. His book Painting, Power and Patronage (1987) was published in Dutch, English, German, Chinese and French. paolo liverani was from 1986 to 2005 Curator of Classical Antiquities at the Vatican Museums. He is currently Professor of Topography of Ancient Italy at the University of Florence. His research interests range from the topography and monuments of ancient Rome to Roman art and propaganda of the imperial period and the history of collecting classical antiquities in

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Rome. His recent books include The Vatican Necropoles (with G. Spinola) which was published in 2010. charles b. mcclendon is Sidney and Ellen Wien Professor in the History of Art at Brandeis University. His research focuses on medieval art and architecture. His most recent book, The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe AD 600–900, was published in 2005. meaghan mcevoy was British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (2010–12). Her research specialisms include late Roman/late antique imperial politics, ideology and ceremonial – and the management of child-emperor governments in particular – relations between elite groups (in both the eastern and western Roman empires), and the ceremonial use of urban space in Late Antiquity. Her book Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367–455 was published in 2013. rosamond mckitterick is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. Her current work within the field of the early medieval history of Europe focuses on the degree to which a people’s knowledge and use of the past is an important formative element of political identity, as well as a means of articulating it. Her most recent books include Perceptions of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (2006) and Charlemagne: the Formation of Carolingian Identity (2008). ´ ´ is Emeritus Professor at University College Cork. eamonn o´ carrag ain He has published widely on Anglo-Saxon poetry and on the city of Rome. His books include Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems (2005) and Roma Felix: Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome (ed. with Carol Neuman de Vegvar, 2008). john osborne is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa. He is a medievalist and cultural historian, with a special focus on the art and archaeology of the cities of Rome and Venice in the period between the sixth and thirteenth centuries. His publications cover topics as varied as the Roman catacombs, the fragmentary mural paintings from excavated churches such as San Clemente and Santa Maria Antiqua, the decorative programme of the church of San Marco in Venice, seventeenthcentury antiquarian drawings of medieval monuments, and the medieval understanding and use of Rome’s heritage of ancient buildings and statuary. paola pogliani is based at the Universit`a degli Studi della Tuscia, Lazio. Her research focuses on the problems of reconstructing mural paintings and questions relating to the workshops of medieval painters with particular focus on technical issues. She was one of the group of experts brought

List of contributors

together to reassemble fragments of detached fresco painting following the 1997 earthquake that damaged paintings in the upper church at Assisi. Her publications include contributions to the Corpus-Atlante della pittura medievale a Roma (IV–XV secolo). carol m. richardson is Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on the city of Rome and the patronage of the College of Cardinals in particular. She has recently published two books on this subject: Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century (2009) and (with Mary Hollingsworth) The Possessions of a Cardinal: Politics, Piety and Art (1450–1700) (2011). ¨ katharina christa sch uppel is a member of the Faculty of History, Art and Oriental Studies at Leipzig University. From 2006 to 2009 she was Assistant Curator at the Berlin National Museums. Her research focuses on religious imagery and art of the ‘Global Middle Ages’. She has recently edited La Croce dipinta nel medioevo. Akten des Studientags der Bibliotheca Hertziana am 3./4.11.2005 (2010). joanna story is Professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Leicester. Her research concentrates on the history of early medieval Europe, especially Anglo-Saxon England and Francia from the seventh to ninth centuries, as well as aspects of twelfth-century history and the archaeology of manuscripts. Her books include (as editor) Leicester Abbey: Medieval History, Archaeology and Manuscript Studies (2006), (as editor) Charlemagne: Empire and Society (2005), and Carolingian Connections: England and Francia c. 750–870 (2003). alan thacker is Consultant Editor to the Victoria County History and a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute for Historical Research at the University of London. His research interests include intellectual and cultural life in early medieval western Europe, and especially the early medieval church. He also has interests in local and regional history, and especially in towns in the earlier Middle Ages. He has published on hagiography, saints’ cults, and pastoral care in the early Middle Ages, on Bede as historian, exegete and reformer, on medieval Chester and early Medieval Rome. lacey wallace is an independent scholar based in Cambridge. Her research focuses on the archaeology of Roman Britain. Her forthcoming book, The Origin of Roman London, will be published by Cambridge University Press. All of the plans, maps and drawings in this book are by Dr Wallace, and she reserves all rights of reproduction.

xxiii

Foreword

We all think we know Saint Peter’s basilica, the vision of Pope Julius II and great temple of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Donato Bramante, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. What we forget is that this masterpiece of European architecture was not the building that for twelve hundred years, following the victory of the Christian Emperor Constantine, was recognized as the most important religious and pilgrimage site in Europe. The pilgrims who flocked to Rome in 1300 for Boniface VIII’s first great Holy Year gazed weary, footsore but jubilant, on a different basilica. Constantine’s Old Saint Peter’s was the centrifuge of Europe, where emperors were crowned – the last being Frederick III in 1452 – and from which, high above the tomb of Saint Peter, the first 216 of God’s Vicars on Earth derived their authority. It dominated a Rome before the Farnese, Borgia, Medici and Della Rovere parvenus, before the disastrous Sack of 1527, a still visible reminder of the early, pre-Schism Church when Rome and Constantinople were one, and Reform no more than a distant gleam in a Lollard’s eye. The rediscovery of Old Saint Peter’s as it emerges from the historical and architectural shadow cast by its great successor is redolent of a detective story in the finest tradition of the genre. It is a tale of alternative endings, twists in the plot, archaeological red herrings and a cast of characters, heroes and some villains (including, it must be said, lurking off stage left, that great architect known to some contemporaries as ‘Bramante ruinante’), not all of whom are what they initially appear. It is also a story of the Roman palimpsest – architectural, liturgical, artistic and historical – on whose surface the tracings of nearly forgotten dynasties, forms of worship, ceremonies and ideas may still be discerned. Through the collective and collaborative scholarship of this extraordinary volume, Old Saint Peter’s emerges once again in its late antique splendour and ramshackle high medieval glory. As we learn from these pages, this was no cold, empty shell, but a glittering repository of holy (and profane) function, a shrine, treasure-house, mausoleum, place of ecclesiastical encounter and pilgrims’ destiny, the site of worship, display, patronage and propaganda. And we learn how papacy and Rome developed together, in a xxv

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complex and uneven symbiosis of growth, triumph, decline and resurrection, the one nourished from the physical, spiritual and imperial legacy of the other. This is a Rome we can no longer touch, and barely discern, but it remains still an essential component of the city’s soul. The British School at Rome has for more than a hundred years led the way in the application of academic rigour and new perspectives to the Roman mosaic. Its dedication to the eternal study of the fumen et opes strepitumque Romae, of how the tesserae of the city’s history have been relaid and re-assembled by its successive masters, continues to illuminate and reveal the historical, artistic and cultural realities of the Eternal City, even in the obscurest or most forgotten (conveniently or otherwise) corners of its past. As Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Holy See, I am delighted to be supporting this further, multidisciplinary contribution to that academic detective story. All Roman journeys require collaboration. This volume is the fruitful result of the British School’s partnership with Cambridge University Press, brought together with the vital support of the Vatican authorities, particularly the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano, that essential reference point for all scholars wishing to explore the history of Saint Peter’s basilica, Old or New. Turning these pages reveals a different, unexpected Rome to the one that confronts us most obviously today. Its (re)discovery requires us to adjust our sights and reappraise what we know. In presenting the fruits of their scholarly labours, all who have collaborated on this volume have done us a great service. We shall no longer be able to look on Saint Peter’s through the same historical lens. Nigel Baker Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Holy See

Acknowledgements

This volume is the result of a successful and happy collaboration between scholars representing a range of disciplines, from countries across the world, and with a wide variety of backgrounds and experience. The editors are particularly grateful to the staff of the British School at Rome (Gill Clark, Alessandra Giovenco, Maria Pia Malvezzi, Sue Russell, Valerie Scott, Christopher Smith and Geraldine Wellington). We have dedicated the book to Maria Pia Malvezzi, Secretary of the British School at Rome from 1979 to 2012. Her help in accessing some of the most important – yet inaccessible – sites in Rome, and in smoothing the way for conversations and collaborations, lies behind the work of so many scholars. We are eternally grateful to her for her kindness, patience and perseverance. We would like to thank Carleton University, the Society for Renaissance Studies and the Leverhulme Trust (Philip Leverhulme Prize) for contributing towards the cost of the conference on which this volume is based and of the volume itself. Professor Pietro Zander and his colleagues at the Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano have been unfailingly helpful and generous with their time, expertise and access to the basilica; we are immensely grateful to them. Without their careful custodianship of the site and its documentary records, none of our work would be possible.

xxvii

Abbreviations

AASS Alfarano, DBVS

Andrieu, OR

Arch. Cap. S. Pietro Baronio, AE

BAV BHL

Blaauw, CD

BSPV

CBB

CBCR

CCSL CIL

xxviii

CSCO CSEL

Acta Sanctorum T. Alfarano, De Basilicae Vaticanae Structura, M. Cerrati (ed.), Tiberii Alpharani De Basilicae Vaticanae Antiquissima et Nova Structura (Studi e testi 26) (Rome, 1914) M. Andrieu (ed.), Les ‘Ordines Romani’ du haut ˆ 5 vols. (Spicilegium Sacrum Moyen Age, Lovaniense 11, 23, 24, 28, 29) (Louvain, 1931–61) Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro (BAV) Cesare Baronio (Caesar Baronius), Annales Ecclesiastici, 12 vols. (Rome, 1588–1607; Antwerp, 1597–1609; Mainz, 1601–8) Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis (Brussels, 1898–1901); Novum Supplementum (1986) S. de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor: liturgia e architetuttura nella Roma tardoantico e medievale, 2 vols. (Vatican City, 1994) A. Pinelli (ed.), Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano/The Basilica of St Peter in the Vatican, 4 vols. (Modena, 2000) Collectio Bullarum Brevium Aliorumque Diplomatum Sacrosancte Basilicae Vaticanae, 3 vols. (Rome, 1747–52) R. Krautheimer, A. K. Frazer and S. Corbett, Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae: the Early Christian Basilicas of Rome (IV–IX Cent.), 5 vols. (Vatican City, 1937–77) Corpus Christianorum Series Latina Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, ed. Deutsches Akademie der Wisseuschaffen zu Berlin, 17 vols. (Berlin, 1862) Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum

List of abbreviations

Davis, Book of Pontiffs

Davis, Eighth-Century Popes Davis, Ninth-Century Lives DBV DBV–M DBV–R Esplorazioni

Ferrua Grimaldi

ICUR ICUR-NS

ILCV ILS LP

LTUR LTURS

R. Davis, The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis): the Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to AD 715 (third revised edition, Liverpool, 2010) R. Davis, The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes (Liber Pontificalis) (Liverpool, 1992) R. Davis, The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes (Liverpool, 1995) ‘Descriptio Basilicae Vaticanae’: Valentini–Zucchetti, Codice III, 375–442 DBV, redaction by Mallius (c. 1154) DBV, redaction by Romanus (1192–8) B. Apollonj Ghetti, A. Ferrua, E. Jossi and E. Kirschbaum, Esplorazioni sotto la confessione di San Pietro in Vaticano eseguite negli anni 1940–1949, 2 vols. (Vatican City, 1951) A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana (Vatican City, 1942) G. Grimaldi, Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano: codice Barberini latino 2733, R. Niggl (ed.) (Codices e Vaticanis selecti 32) (Vatican City, 1972) G. B. de Rossi (ed.), Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae, 2 vols. (Rome, 1857–88) G. B. de Rossi, A. Silvagni and A. Ferrua (eds.), Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae. Nova Series, 8 vols. (Rome, 1922–83) E. Diehl (ed.), Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Berlin, 1925) H. Dessau (ed.), Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (Berlin, 1892–1916) L. Duchesne (ed.), Le Liber Pontificalis: texte, introduction et commentaire, 2 vols. (Paris, 1886–92; Additions and corrections, C. Vogel (ed.), Paris, 1957), cited subsequently as LP, I, II with vita number, chapter (where relevant) and page reference (for example: Life 96, c. 4, LP, I, 469) E. M. Steinby (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, 6 vols. (Rome, 1993–2000) A. La Regina (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae Suburbium, 5 vols. (Rome, 2001–8)

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List of abbreviations

MAH MGH MGH, AA PBSR PL

PLRE

RB RFSP RIS RJBH SPL Valentini–Zucchetti

´ M´elanges d’Archeologie et d’Histoire de l’Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome Monumenta Germaniae Historica MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi Papers of the British School at Rome J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina (Paris, 1844–90, supplement 1957–74) A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale and J. Morris (eds.), The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1971–92) Revue B´en´edictine Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano Rerum Italicarum Scriptores R¨omisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana San Pietro Legendary R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti (eds.), Codice topografico della citt`a di Roma, 4 vols. (Rome, 1940–53)



Introduction rosamond mckitterick, john osborne, carol m. richardson and joanna story

The Vatican basilica is arguably the most important church in western Christendom, and it is among the most significant buildings anywhere in the world (see Frontispiece a). However, the church that is visible today is a youthful upstart, only four hundred years old in comparison with the twelve hundred-year-old church whose site it occupies. A very small proportion of the original is now extant, entirely covered over by the new basilica, but enough survives to make reconstruction of the first Saint Peter’s possible. Consolidation, conservation and ongoing exploration of the present basilica and its surroundings, particularly in the past thirty years, have made available new evidence about its predecessor which has both excited and perplexed historians, archaeologists and art historians alike. Built over a protracted period in the fourth century, the first Saint Peter’s was a huge edifice designed to enclose and enhance that part of the area of the Vatican hill where the apostle Peter was reputed to have been buried, just above the Circus of Nero where he had been executed: the huge obelisk that now stands in front of the new basilica was quite probably the last thing he saw, albeit, according to later legend, upside down. The basilica built later in his honour became the focus of western Christendom for more than a millennium. However, the history of that first building has been overshadowed by the story of its protracted demolition and replacement in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This has become primarily an architectural history, which has distorted and oversimplified a narrative of competing demands and furious passions. Old Saint Peter’s is assumed to have been dispensable, a thing of the past that neither satisfied Renaissance aesthetic sensibilities nor offered suitable spaces for contemporary liturgy. As a result the importance of the original is often either ignored or taken for granted, and its history, form and function remain surprisingly unclear, unconsidered and indeed controversial. But, as this volume demonstrates, the new basilica was formed by the traditions established by the old, which were far more enduring than its brick walls and marble colonnades. In March of 2010, a group of historians, art historians, archaeologists and liturgists gathered at the British School at Rome to explore aspects of the basilica’s history, from its physical fabric to the activities that took place

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within its walls. The discussion was greatly enriched by the multidisciplinary perspectives brought to bear on questions new and old, and this volume brings together many of the papers presented. The chapters in the volume reconsider existing evidence, present new material for the first time, and tackle the complex history and historiography of the site.

Tu es Petrus The history of the first basilica of Saint Peter is the history of the relationship of the papacy and the city of Rome. In the years after his victory at the Milvian Bridge in October 312, the Emperor Constantine and members of his family began to manifest an interest in the shrines of Christian saints and martyrs that were situated outside Rome’s Aurelian walls. Constantine’s mother, Helena, was buried in a mausoleum adjoining the large funerary basilica at the cemetery of Santi Pietro and Marcellino on the Via Labicana, and his daughter, Constantina, was similarly laid to rest in a basilica-mausoleum complex adjacent to the tomb of the martyr Agnes on the Via Nomentana. But the largest of these imperial building projects outside the urban periphery in the first half of the fourth century was the basilica constructed on the right bank of the Tiber, outside the walls of the city and adjacent to the abandoned Circus of Nero, to mark the spot in a cemetery on the slope of the Vatican hill where the body of the apostle Peter was venerated by the Christian faithful.1 This was no small undertaking and, paradoxically, led eventually to the disappearance of any obvious physical sign of Saint Peter’s original burial site. Before building could even begin it was first necessary to bury the southern portion of the existing necropolis, in order to create a sizeable platform on which to erect the new structure. Work at the site continued for many decades, although from the mid-320s onwards Eusebius and other writers record the throngs of pilgrims who crossed the river to visit Rome’s most important shrine. Constantine’s name in golden letters appeared prominently in the inscription placed on the triumphal arch that terminated the nave,2 and it was not long before important Christians began to choose this site for their own burial, including the prefect of the city, Junius Bassus, in the year 359.3 1 2

3

P. Liverani and G. Spinola, with P. Zander, The Vatican Necropoles (Turnhout, 2010). P. Liverani, ‘Saint Peter’s, Leo the Great and the leprosy of Constantine’, PBSR 76 (2008), 155–72, who disagrees with G. W. Bowersock, ‘Peter and Constantine’, in W. Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 5–15. See also Gem, this volume, 35–64. Life 46, LP, I, 232; E. S. Malbon, The Iconography of the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (Princeton, NJ, 1990), 3–4, 139–40.

Introduction

The next century witnessed the dramatic withdrawal of the imperial court from Rome, with secular power shifting to Constantinople and, within Italy, to Milan and then Ravenna, as well as the shock occasioned by the attacks on Rome of first the Goths (in 410) and then the Vandals (in 455).4 The vacuum created by the loss of imperial patronage was increasingly filled by the city’s bishop, the pope; and while the papal residence and the city’s official ‘cathedral’ were located at the Lateran, the importance of Peter as the ‘rock’ on which the Christian Church was to be constructed underpinned ambitious papal claims to broader spiritual authority. This meant that the physical location of his earthly remains grew in importance as a site of authority, as well as a major draw for pilgrims. Significantly, Pope Leo I (440–61), whose sermons developed the ideology of Peter and Paul replacing Romulus and Remus as Rome’s special guardians, was the first pontiff to choose Saint Peter’s as his own place of burial, a practice that has continued with only a few exceptions until the present day.5 Leo I also established the first monastery at the site, since its growing importance created a need for resident clergy. From the second half of the fifth century onwards, the shrine of Peter was embellished by a series of significant building projects, all sponsored by popes. One of Leo’s successors, possibly Simplicius (468–83) or Symmachus (498–514), constructed a covered ‘porticus’, leading to the basilica from the bridgehead. Symmachus was also responsible for the addition of a baptistery, various chapels and fountains, and a series of rooms that the Liber Pontificalis refers to as episcopia.6 Here Symmachus resided during the years of the Laurentian schism, when the Lateran was controlled by his rival Laurentius. Symmachus also rebuilt the atrium and its exterior staircase. The interior of the basilica underwent a major reorganization in the time of Gregory I (590–604), who introduced the semi-annular crypt passage.7 This allowed pilgrims to venerate Peter’s remains without causing interruption to services at the altar above, a model that subsequently was copied in a number of other shrine churches across western Europe. The biographies of Gregory’s successors in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries are filled with references to the donations of silk curtains and altar vestments, glittering mosaics, and liturgical objects of gold and silver. 4 5

6

7

See B. Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford, 2005). W. Ullmann, ‘Leo I and the theme of papal primacy’, Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 11 (1960), 25–51, reprinted in his The Church and the Law in the Earlier Middle Ages (Variorum Collected Studies Series 38) (London, 1975). Life 53, LP, I, 262; J. D. Alchermes, ‘Petrine politics: Pope Symmachus and the rotunda of Saint Andrew at Old Saint Peter’s’, Catholic Historical Review 81 (1995), 1–40. CBCR, V, 51–191; Blaauw, CD, 530–4, 632–3.

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Many pontiffs also established subsidiary chapels within the church, replete with the relics of other saints, and intended to function as the sites of papal tombs.8 One of the best documented of these is the chapel dedicated to Mary, constructed against the counter-fac¸ade of the basilica at its northern end by Pope John VII (705–7), and intended as his own funerary chapel. But, as William Tronzo put it, albeit from the perspective of the inevitability of the new basilica, ‘medieval Christianity shattered the delicate metaphor of the fourth century by filling Saint Peter’s with the burgeoning material apparatus of the religion, the holy objects and bodies that were the focus of devotion and cult . . . At the same time, it diffused its singular focus on the altar in the apse and the tomb of Saint Peter.’9 Another way to interpret these accretions, however, was not as confusion or compromise of the original, but as the continual organic enrichment of a covered cemetery where the rare possibility of burial ad sanctos was feasible for only a very fortunate few.10 By the seventh century, pilgrimage to the tombs of the saints had become a major business, and it is probably no coincidence that the first surviving guidebook for Christian visitors to Rome, the De Locis Sanctis Martyrum, appears at almost exactly the same moment that Jerusalem fell to the Arabs, thus rendering pilgrimage to the Holy Land somewhat more difficult.11 It may also have been about this time that the Egyptian obelisk standing adjacent to the south flank of the basilica, on the site of Nero’s circus, came to be interpreted as the tomb of Julius Caesar, possibly to act as a foil to the tomb of Peter.12 The obelisk was one of three pre-Christian monuments believed to have been tombs of prominent Romans that medieval pilgrims passed en 8

9 10

11

12

See, for example, J. Story, J. Bunbury, A. C. Felici, et al., ‘Charlemagne’s black marble: the origin of the epitaph of Pope Hadrian I’, PBSR 73 (2005), 157–90. W. Tronzo, ‘Introduction’, in Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (above, n. 2), 2. Y. Duval, Aupr`es des saints, corps et aˆ me: l’inhumation ‘ad sanctos’ dans la chr´etient´e d’Orient et d’Occident du IIIe au VIIe si`ecle (Paris, 1988); I. Herklotz, ‘Sepulcra’ e ‘monumenta’ del medievo. Studi sull’arte sepolcrale in Italia (Naples, 2001; first published 1985), 48–56. R. Geyer, O. Cuntz, R. Franceschini, R. Weber, L. Bieler, J. Fraipont and F. Glorie (eds.), Itineraria et Alia Geographica. Itineraria Hierosolymitana. Itineraria Romana. Geographica (CCSL 175) (Turnhout, 1965); Valentini–Zucchetti, I and II for the Sylloges; M. d’Onofrio, Romei e giubilei. Il pellegrinaggio medievale a S. Pietro (350–1350) (Milan, 1999); V. Ortenberg, ‘Archbishop Sigeric’s journey to Rome in 990’, Anglo-Saxon England 19 (1990), 197–246; R. B. C. Huygens (ed.), Magister Gregorius: Narracio de Mirabilibus Urbis Romae (Leiden, 1970); J. Osborne, The Marvels of Rome (Master Gregorius) (Toronto, 1987); C. Nardello, Il fascino di Roma nel medioevo. Le meraviglie di Roma di Maestro Gregorio (Rome, 1997; second edition 2007); D. Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1998); C. Dietz, Wandering Monks, Virgins, Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterranean World AD 300–800 (University Park, PA, 2005); G. Walser, Die Einsiedler Inschriftensammlung und der Pilgerf¨uhrer durch Rom (Codex Einsidlensis 326) (Stuttgart, 1987); R. McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Notre Dame, IN, 2006), 35–62. See Osborne, this volume, 274–86.

Introduction

route from the Tiber crossing to the basilica. These monuments prefigured a fourth, greater, tomb, that of Saint Peter himself, and encouraged pilgrims to contemplate the wider ‘memorial landscape’ of the shrine. The pilgrims’ path to the obelisk continued into the basilican complex via the imperial mausolea that lay on its southern flank. As Joanna Story shows, this route was used in the eighth century and, she argues, formed a via sacra for the cult of Peter itself. She shows how oratories en route, as described in a late eighth-century Carolingian manuscript, were patronized by popes and by the kings of the Franks, especially Charlemagne. The Carolingian relationship with the basilica was particularly significant and enduring. In return for their promise to protect the papal territories, Stephen II (752– 7) had declared Saint Petronilla, the purported daughter of Peter himself, patroness of the Franks. The westernmost of the two round mausolea attached to the southern flank of the basilica was rededicated to Petronilla and embellished with a fresco cycle of the life of Constantine, commissioned by Stephen II’s brother, Paul I (757–67): it was subsequently known as the Chapel of the Kings of France. Charlemagne himself attended mass in the rotunda in 773 and his son, Carloman, was baptized there and given a new name, Pippin, in 781. The chapel of Saint Petronilla later contained the tombs of Agnes of Aquitaine, wife of the Emperor Henry III (1017–56), who was crowned with her husband in Saint Peter’s on Christmas Day 1046. Particularly important in Carolingian Saint Peter’s was the oratory of Saint Peter the Shepherd, which celebrated the apostle’s pastoral commission to preach the Gospel and to guard Christ’s flock. This oratory was thus a key part of the papacy’s claim to authority over the temporal Church, and complemented the power asserted through its control of the relics of the apostle. Gifts to the oratory of the Shepherd show that the Carolingian dynasty understood its doctrinal significance and was able to manipulate the liturgical topography of the basilica to ensure the eternal presence of the Carolingian family at the shrine of the apostle. Saint Peter’s itself, of course, was embellished by successive popes and the area around the basilica soon became filled with related buildings, not only monasteries to house the clergy who performed services and provided pastoral care to the many visitors, but also hospices and hospitals for the faithful, so many of whom came from the north that the district soon became known popularly as the ‘burgh’ or ‘borgo’.13 In the ninth century, following the shock of the Saracen sack of Saint Peter’s in 846, Pope Leo 13

L. Gigli, Rione XIV Borgo (Guide rionale di Roma) (Rome, 1990–4), 15–20; C. J. Goodson, The Rome of Paschal I: Papal Power, Urban Renovation, Church Rebuilding and Relic Translation, 817–824 (Cambridge, 2010); F. A. Bauer, Das Bild der Stadt Rom im Fr¨uhmittelalter:

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IV (847–55) enclosed the entire area in a defensive wall that finally brought the basilica inside the ring of the city walls.14 His ‘Leonine city’ was the only significant alteration to Rome’s defensive perimeter after the rim of Aurelian in the late third century. The shrine of Peter had become almost synonymous with the Christian Church of the Latin rite, and was much too important to be allowed to remain unprotected. But the basilica’s continued vulnerability to attack – victim of its significance – is made clear by Katharina Christa Sch¨uppel, who reconstructs the context for a monumental silver cross, one of the many precious objects presented to the basilica by popes, emperors and kings. The silver cross almost certainly replaced a golden one given to Saint Peter’s by Leo III (795–816) but stolen by supporters of the antipope Anacletus II (1130–8) in 1130. This turbulent period in papal history was the result of tensions between the pope and Holy Roman Emperor as to which of them had the greater temporal power. The iconography of the cross marks it as a papal gift and an assertion of papal primacy, a deliberate gesture as it was displayed in an area of the basilica associated with the coronation of emperors. Innocent III (1198–1216) sought to settle the question of papal primacy once and for all by asserting that the pope was ‘set midway between God and man, below God but above man’.15 He understood the symbolic power of Saint Peter’s basilica for his campaign: he had been a canon of the basilica and, on his election, took the risk of delaying his coronation by almost two months until 22 February, the feast of Saint Peter’s Chair, when he was enthroned on the wooden Cathedra Petri believed to have been used by Peter himself, though in fact a mid-ninth-century artefact, given by the Frankish king Charles the Bald to Pope John VIII.16 Together, Innocent III and his cousin, Gregory IX (1227–41), updated the most prestigious and visible parts of the basilica, the apse and the fac¸ade. Innocent III’s portrait appeared alongside the figure of Ecclesia in the lower portion of the apse mosaic, declaring in visual form what he preached in his third sermon In

14

15

16

Papststiftungen im Spiegel des Liber Pontificalis von Gregor dem Dritten bis zu Leo dem Dritten (Wiesbaden, 2004). S. Gibson and B. Ward-Perkins, ‘The surviving remains of the Leonine wall’, PBSR 47 (1979), 30–57, and ‘The surviving remains of the Leonine wall, part II: the passetto’, PBSR 51 (1983), ´ 222–39; J.-C. Picard, ‘Etude sur l’emplacement des tombes des papes du IIIe au Xe si`ecle’, MAH 81 (1969), 725–82; R. Ivaldi, Le mura di Roma: alla ricerca dell’itinerario completo di un monumento unico al mondo le cui vicende hanno accompagnato la storia millenaria della Citt`a eterna (Rome, 2005), 511–39. See the essays in J. M. Powell (ed.), Innocent III: Vicar of Christ or Lord of the World? (Washington, DC, 1994). L. Nees, A Tainted Mantle: Hercules and the Classical Tradition at the Carolingian Court (Philadelphia, PA, 1991), 147 and 169 (n. 5).

Introduction

Consecratione Pontificis – that the pope is the Vicar of Christ, not just the Vicar of Peter. No longer merely a donor figure, he was depicted literally between God in the upper part of the mosaic and man in the basilica itself.17 Gregory IX’s mosaic on the fac¸ade replaced the apocalyptic scheme of Leo the Great (440–61) with one that again stressed the papacy’s direct commission by Christ. In this case the donor-pope was represented kneeling at Christ’s right.18 The titulus added to the fac¸ade mosaic declared that Saint Peter’s, the Ecclesia Romana, shone like the sun, radiating the authority of the Church: As when the heavenly orb of the sun burns, and shines on everything, and gleams like gold above every other metal, thus, this haven of peace built of stone is filled with fervor by doctrine and by faith and expands its power everywhere.19

For a period of roughly twelve hundred years, ‘Old’ Saint Peter’s was the most significant religious site in western Europe, and in terms of architecture it was the continent’s most influential building.20 Restoration and embellishment of the already venerable building kept Old Saint Peter’s ‘alive and up-to-date, but always recognizable, ancient and modern at the same time’.21 It was also an important site for the development of Christian liturgy. As well as a major draw for pilgrims, Saint Peter’s was also a stage on which many of the most important political dramas of the Middle Ages were enacted. One of the most ideologically resonant was the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor on Christmas Day 800.22 At Old Saint Peter’s this culminated with the coronation of Frederick III in 1452.23 When, in 1530, 17

18 19

20

21 22

23

A. Iacobini, ‘Est haec sacra principis aedes: the Vatican basilica from Innocent III to Gregory IX (1198–1241)’, in Tronzo, Saint Peter’s in the Vatican, 50–1 (above, n. 2). Iacobini, ‘Est haec sacra principis aedes’ (above, n. 17), 60. Grimaldi, 163: ‘Ceu sol fervescit sidus super omne nitescit/Et velut est aurum rutillans super omne metallum/Doctrina atque fide calet et sic pollet ubique/Ista domus petram supra fabricata quietam’; translated in Iacobini, ‘Est haec sacra principis aedes’ (above, n. 17), 61. J. Emerick, ‘Building more romano in Francia during the third quarter of the eighth century: the abbey church of Saint-Denis and its model’, in C. Bolgia, R. McKitterick and J. Osborne (eds.), Rome across Time and Space, c. 500–1400: Cultural Transmission and the Exchange of Ideas (Cambridge, 2011), 127–50; R. Krautheimer, ‘The Carolingian revival of Early Christian architecture’, The Art Bulletin 24 (1942), 1–38, reprinted with a postscript in R. Krautheimer, Studies in Early Christian, Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York, 1969), 203–56; R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980); McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past (above, n. 11), 106 n. 31. Iacobini, ‘Est haec sacra principis aedes’ (above, n. 17), 48. See especially the section ‘Renovatio imperii’ in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), 799: Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Große und Papst Leo III. in Paderborn (Mainz, 1999), 35–123. See Fletcher and Glass, this volume, 371–85 and 348–70.

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Charles V, the last Holy Roman Emperor to be anointed by the pope, was crowned in Bologna, a plan of Saint Peter’s had been sent, along with four canons to provide continuity by proxy, to aid preparations and ensure the same positions were used by the main protagonists.24 The story of the rebuilding of Saint Peter’s is often traced back to the poor state into which the old basilica had fallen by the beginning of the fifteenth century, thanks to the exile of the papacy in Avignon which lasted from 1304 to 1374. But the Vatican basilica and its attached palace were in a better condition than many of the other basilicas and churches of Rome, including the Lateran and San Paolo fuori le mura.25 Earthquakes and civil strife had all but destroyed other sites while Saint Peter’s survived relatively well. Despite the absence of the pope throughout most of the fourteenth century, there were resident clergy at the basilica. The visits and donations of pilgrims and other devotees continued apace, and cardinals, canons and bishops continued to be buried at Saint Peter’s. Even the lack of a pope in Rome could not distract from the pull of the Vatican basilica and the shrine of the apostle. A particularly important patron was Jacopo Caetani Stefaneschi (c. 1260–1341), first of all as a canon of Saint Peter’s and then as a cardinal, who commissioned the huge double-sided altarpiece and the fresco of the navicella from Giotto, had the tribune redecorated, and much else besides, spending the huge sum of 2,200 florins.26 Even though he died in Avignon in 1341, Stefaneschi’s remains were returned to Rome so that he could be buried in Saint Peter’s.27 The local population also continued to look after Saint Peter’s, and may have taken advantage of the pope’s absence to develop a greater presence there. Roman clans, among them the Stefaneschi, the Tebaldeschi, and, most importantly, the Orsini, appear to have thought of Saint Peter’s as their own in the same way that the Colonna held sway at the Lateran. And, as has been suggested for other urban centres in the Italian peninsula, the Black Death of 1348 did not deprive affected 24 25

26

27

See Appendix, this volume, section 5, 410–13. P. Silvan, ‘S. Pietro senza papa: testimonianze del periodo avignonese’, in A. Tomei (ed.), Roma, Napoli, Avignone: arte di curia, arte di corte 1300–1377 (Turin, 1996), 229–30. J. Gardner, ‘The Stefaneschi altarpiece: a reconsideration’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 37 (1974), 57–103; B. Kempers and S. de Blaauw, ‘Jacopo Stefaneschi, patron and liturgist: a new hypothesis regarding the date, iconography, authorship and function of his altarpiece for Old Saint Peter’s’, Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome n.s. 12–47 (1987), 83–113; M. Lisner, ‘Giotto und die Auftr¨age des Kardinals Jacopo Stefaneschi f¨ur Alt-St. Peter: 1. das Mosaik der Navicella in der Kopie des Francesco Beretta’, RJBH 29 (1994), 45–95; M. Lisner, ‘Giotto und die Auftr¨age des Kardinals Jacopo Stefaneschi f¨ur Alt-St. Peter: 2. der Stefaneschi-Altar; Giotto und seine Werkstatt in Rom; das Altarwerk und der verlorene Christuszyklus in der Petersapsis’, RJBH 30 (1995), 59–133. Silvan, ‘S. Pietro senza papa’ (above, n. 25), 229–30.

Introduction

areas of patrons but rather increased the amount of money available to be spent on pious works.28 Even the popes in Avignon continued to pay for the basilica’s upkeep, especially the roof and campanile, which were damaged by storms and earthquakes. Then in 1378, with the start of the papal schism, Saint Peter’s became a particularly valuable propaganda tool: Urban VI was buried there in a sarcophagus bearing a representation of his receipt of the keys from Saint Peter himself, a powerful rebuff to his competitor pope in Avignon (see Fig. 17.2). Indeed, if Saint Peter’s was neglected during the fourteenth century because the pope resided in Avignon, the pattern merely mirrored the habits of the previous century, for the papal court had been largely itinerant since the twelfth century.29 With the return of the papacy to Rome under Martin V in 1420, the Vatican also became the primary papal residence, making Saint Peter’s the papal chapel par excellence that it remains today. It was this fact and its increased symbolic importance that made the resumption of papal patronage inevitable, some of it involving single altars, some of it substantial parts of the architecture. Every one of Martin V’s successors was buried in the basilica, reviving a tradition that had fallen out of favour in the ninth century.30 From the middle of the fifteenth century the history of Saint Peter’s is dominated by the inevitability of the ‘slow (though logical) process of growth from west to east, from the choir of Nicholas V and Bramante’s crossing, to Maderno’s nave and Bernini’s colonnade’.31 Important work by Christof Thoenes and Christoph Frommel has established what can be known for certain about Nicholas V’s project, described in fulsome terms by the Florentine humanist Gianozzo Manetti, who captured the pope’s (suspiciously coherent) deathbed oration.32 Accounts for the years 1452– 4 show that work on a new tribune or choir – for which a number of the original structures in the area of the apse and transept were demolished – was at least started and foundations laid. These were captured in Bramante’s plan (Uffizi 20A, see Fig. 20.1), which laid down his own proposals for a new domed crossing, firmly establishing the precedent for the subsequent 28

29

30 31

32

M. Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (Princeton, NJ, 1979); but see also H. B. J. Maginnis, Painting in the Age of Giotto: a Historical Re-evaluation (University Park, PA, 1997). B. Bolton, ‘A new Rome in a small place? Imitation and re-creation in the patrimony of Saint Peter’, in Bolgia et al., Rome across Time and Space (above, n. 20), 305–22. See Richardson, this volume, 324–47. C. Thoenes, ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’, in Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (above, n. 2), 89. See also the review of this book in The Art Bulletin 89/1 (2007), 162–4, by L. Bosman. Thoenes, ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’ (above, n. 31), 65–71.

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rebuilding.33 A substantial part of the old basilica was demolished to make way for the massive piers required to support the dome. But none of this area had been carefully documented. When Tiberio Alfarano, Clerico Benefitiato of Saint Peter’s from 1567, brought together what was remembered of the old structure in plans (1571, 1576 and 1582) and notes that led to the important publication in 1582 on which so many of the chapters in this volume rely, his challenge was enormous.34 There had been no careful inventory of the kind supervised by Giacomo Grimaldi (1568–1623) in the first decade of the seventeenth century when the remaining sections of the old building were torn down.35 This, in large part, explains why details of even the most important sites in the old basilica, such as the baptistery, are uncertain. From the moment of Bramante’s intervention, Saint Peter’s became an enormous, multidimensional jigsaw puzzle. Its reconstruction in the sixteenth century is dominated by the story of great Renaissance architects devising great architectural schemes. The view that the old basilica was not worth keeping was reinforced by influential authors such as Giorgio Vasari (1511–74), writing in the middle of the sixteenth century, who had been born after the demise of the original crossing. He suggests that only the classical remains had any value, that ‘the temple of the Prince of the Apostles in the Vatican was not rich except for the columns, bases, capitals, architraves, cornices, doors, and other revetments and ornaments, which had all been taken from . . . buildings erected earlier with great magnificence’.36 This neat story has been questioned in recent years.37 It occupies the domain of architectural history at the expense of all else. Even the canons of Saint Peter’s who wrote to Paul V in 1605 (in a letter published at the end of this volume), bemoaning the demolition of what was left of the old nave, warned that over-emphasis on the architecture had resulted in the loss of some of the basilica’s most important monuments and altars: Julius II and his associates had ‘demonstrated that they had more regard for the exterior 33 34 35

36

37

See Kempers, this volume, 386–403. Alfarano, DBVS, xi–xlii. R. Niggl, ‘Giacomo Grimaldi (1568–1623): Leben und Werk des R¨omischen Arch¨aologen und Historikers’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Munich, 1971). Vasari, Lives of the Artists, discussed in D. Kinney, ‘Spolia’, in Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (above, n. 2), 16–47. B. Kempers, ‘Diverging perspectives – new Saint Peter’s: artistic ambitions, liturgical requirements, financial limitations and historical interpretations’, Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 55 (1996), 213–51; L. Rice, ‘La coesistenza delle due basiliche’, in G. Spagnesi (ed.), L’architettura della basilica di San Pietro: storia e costruzione (Rome, 1997), 255–60.

Introduction

of the structure than for the spiritual and divine cult of the interior’.38 The chapters that make up this volume bring some of the remaining fragments back together again, emphasizing in particular the parts that have been excluded by the predominantly architectural history. As scholars such as Ann van Dijk and Lex Bosman have demonstrated in recent years, this reappropriation of the old started as soon as the superstructure of the old basilica physically disappeared. The reuse of the decorative schemes of chapels as significant as the oratory of John VII lent the new basilica and other sites in Rome some of the aura, mystique and raw power of the original.39

Old Saint Peter’s – new histories The chapters in this volume are multidisciplinary, representing the fields of archaeology, art and architectural history, and liturgical history. They focus in turn on the fabric of Old Saint Peter’s, its relationship with the city of Rome and the ceremonial and liturgical uses of its spaces. The range of evidence used by the contributions is as diverse and scattered as the remains of the basilica itself. The architectural evidence throws into relief both the sheer ambition of the basilica’s construction and the difficulty of interpreting the archaeological and documentary material relating to particular details. Richard Gem reconsiders the fourth-century chronology of the basilica and the sequence of its construction. Laying out the architectural, archaeological, epigraphic and narrative sources, he argues that building work at the Vatican began after Constantine’s victory at the battle of Chrysopolis in September 324, with the embellishment of the tomb monument that nevertheless remained for some years within an open air courtyard. Meanwhile, work began further to the south and east on the massive platform and foundations of the basilica. During Constantine’s reign, Gem argues, efforts focused on the construction of the huge nave, which functioned (in the traditional way) as a meeting place and as a civic work of high imperial prestige. The decision to arrange space around the tomb monument within a covered transept was also taken during Constantine’s 38 39

See Appendix, this volume, 404–15. A. van Dijk, ‘The afterlife of an early medieval chapel: Giovanni Battista Ricci and perceptions of the Christian past in post-Tridentine Rome’, Renaissance Studies 19 (2005), 686–98; A. van Dijk, ‘Reading medieval mosaics in the seventeenth century: the preserved fragments from Pope John VII’s oratory in Old Saint Peter’s’, Word and Image 22 (2006), 285–91; L. Bosman, The Power of Tradition: Spolia in the Architecture of Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Hilversum, 2004).

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reign but it was not completed (by the construction of the apse) until after the accession of his son Constans (337–50), at which time the atrium was also built. Gem’s interpretation of the diverse evidence thus offers a novel solution to the vexed questions regarding the date when construction commenced, the length of time that it took to complete this massive building, and the extent of Constantine’s involvement in the project. In contrast to Krautheimer, who argued that the complex was built before 333, in perhaps as little as eight years, Gem’s analysis proposes a chronology of nearer three decades commencing only after 324, when Constantine had secured victory in the east.40 The ostentatious use of scarce resources was a key part of imperial display – at Saint Peter’s as elsewhere. Lex Bosman shows how the majority of the coloured marble columns used in the fourth-century basilica could in fact be classed as spolia even before they were reused in the new building erected in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As Bosman proposes, however, the reuse of building materials in the fourth century, whether in stockpiles in builders’ yards or embedded in derelict buildings, can be interpreted in a number of different ways, and not necessarily as a signal of economic decline or the replacement of classical with Christian antiquity. Continuity with past emperors and comparison with the scale, effect and ambition of their projects was more important than any thought of establishing a new Christian aesthetic. As Olof Brandt demonstrates, it is even uncertain when the baptistery of Saint Peter’s was built, and where. Brandt deploys both literary and archaeological information to make a strong case for the baptistery originally having been an independent building north of the north transept, while the north transept itself acted as a vestibule for that external structure. A baptistery inside the basilica, as indicated by the famous sixteenth-century plan of Alfarano, may have been only a twelfth-century development. Paolo Liverani, on the other hand, reminds us of the social role of Saint Peter’s in the urban history of Rome as a whole, not least as a focus for the care of the poor and for pilgrimage, and the topographical, monumental and functional consequences for the basilica itself, with new approach roads, the bridges that connected it to the rest of the city, and the development of the settlement around it. The liturgical sources provide a rich resource for investigation both into the role of Saint Peter’s in promoting particular aspects of the liturgy in the 40

CBCR, V, 276; R. Krautheimer, ‘The building inscriptions and the dates of construction of Old Saint Peter’s: a reconsideration’, RJBH 25 (1989), 22.

Introduction

Roman and early medieval Church more widely, and in the performance ´ Carrag´ain considers the liturgi´ of liturgy in Saint Peter’s itself. Eamonn O cal innovations associated with Saint Peter’s and the degree to which they reflected liturgical innovations elsewhere in the Christian world, and discusses the ways in which papal Rome asserted its intellectual and political independence from imperial Constantinople. He documents, for example, the introduction from Byzantium in the seventh century of the new feast of the Annunciation (25 March), which enhanced the importance already attached to festivities at Saint Peter’s related to Christmas and the birth of Christ. He explains how a special theological rationale, the ‘Annunciation of the Lord and his Passion’, was developed for the feast of the Annunciation to counteract the fact that the feast invariably fell in Lent. He further suggests that the special mass developed for this feast could have been inspired also by developments in Gaul (specifically at Tours) in the sixth and seventh centuries. Another instance is the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (14 September), which also originated in Constantinople, but which is linked in the Liber Pontificalis with the finding of a relic of the Cross by Pope Sergius I (687–701) in the late seventh century and Pope Sergius’s explanation for the new feast in terms of an implied ancient Roman cult of the Cross at Saint Peter’s. Alan Thacker reconsiders the question of who was responsible for liturgical celebration, the administration of the basilica, and the guardianship of the cults that were housed in Saint Peter’s between the fourth and eighth centuries. As well as a study of the evidence for the emergence of the office of the archchantor and liturgical developments that can be associated with Saint Peter’s in the late seventh and eighth centuries, he considers the foundational role of the mid-fourth-century custos at Saint Peter’s and his relations with Pope Liberius and the emperor in particular. The question of to whom the custos was responsible and how he related to the urban clergy and the imperial bureaucracy is considered in relation to the changing fortunes and eventual disappearance of that bureaucracy, notably during the period of Pope Symmachus’s residence at the Vatican in the sixth century. Peter Jeffery explores the possibilities of the office and in particular the extant evidence for the degree to which the structuring and sequence of readings during the liturgical year at Saint Peter’s during the eighth century set a standard for Rome for the biblical readings associated with the office of the monasteries established to serve the Roman basilicas. He suggests that a fourfold liturgical year centred on Saint Peter’s began to give way to a new sequence organized around the twelve months associated with the person of the pope himself. Carmela Vircillo Franklin recovers the three oldest

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volumes of hagiographic readings from the basilica’s collection, dating to the end of the eleventh century. These three volumes of the Saint Peter’s Legendary comprise a compilation of saints’ lives marked for reading in services. Their production and subsequent annotation between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries offers a unique insight into the range of creative activity at Saint Peter’s. Important examples of the books produced within the basilica’s precincts with increasing impetus from the eleventh century, they are indicative also of the reform of the basilica’s resident canons in response to papal dictat that urged a return to the ideals of the early Church and the ways in which these manuscripts can inform our understanding of actual liturgical practice in the medieval Church. Other chapters throw into relief the way in which the popes themselves appear to have used, even manipulated, Saint Peter’s as a setting for the celebration and promotion of papal authority. Mosaics, frescoes, tomb monuments and other artefacts movable and immovable are put in their political, ceremonial and art historical context. With reference to the iconoclastic controversy, for example, Charles McClendon argues that in the eighth and ninth centuries Saint Peter’s and the recorded use of many religious images within the basilica served as a symbol of papal orthodoxy. He reinforces ´ Carrag´ain’s suggestion that the new chapel of All Saints within ´ Eamonn O Saint Peter’s offered a visual and liturgical image of the communion of saints and an eloquent refutation of iconoclasm. This complements Joanna Story’s analysis of the oratory of Saint Peter the Shepherd, and her discussion of the use of the basilica and its liturgical fittings as a theatre for the display of papal power. McClendon stresses, moreover, that the attention lavished on Saint Peter’s by the popes in the eighth and ninth centuries needs to be seen in the wider context of rebuilding and decoration of many churches in Rome, not least the sophisticated use of religious imagery at San Marco (elucidated by Claudia Bolgia in a seminal article in 2006) and the Roman revival of Early Christian architecture.41 The numerous surviving fragments of sculpture and mosaic decoration in the chapel dedicated to Saint Mary constructed by Pope John VII are studied by Antonella Ballardini and Paola Pogliani. In later centuries, the chapel of John VII would also house one of Christianity’s most venerated relics, the ‘Veronica’, as documented by Ann van Dijk. In her chapter on a sixteenth-century stucco copy of a twelfth-century silver cross, Katharina Christa Sch¨uppel offers a tantalizing glimpse into the riches that once adorned the old basilica. The cross had been melted down to 41

C. Bolgia, ‘The mosaics of Gregory IV at S. Marco, Rome: papal response to Venice, Byzantium, and the Carolingians’, Speculum 81 (2006), 1–34.

Introduction

provide materials to make vestments, even though it had survived the Sack of Rome in 1527, but, until now, it has been unclear what the original object was, when it was commissioned and where it was located. The fact that the copy was made at all is suggestive of its significance – although it also makes its destruction all the more shocking – and its iconography, which includes Peter and Paul, was a forceful statement of papal primacy over the emperor. Indeed the crucifix was incorporated into papal and imperial coronations in the old basilica until at least the twelfth century. The subsequent history of the coronation ceremonies, particularly of the Holy Roman Emperor, is the focus of Catherine Fletcher’s chapter, which considers the invention of a late tradition associating the ceremonies with a specific site, the altar of Saint Maurice. The significance of Saint Peter’s as a stage for the public expression of the relationship between pinnacles of secular and religious power in western Christendom was modified by the separation of sites relevant to pope and emperor: emphasis on the imperial coronation was subtly shifted to the altar of Saint Maurice, away from the shrine of Saint Peter, which was reserved to the popes. The ceremonial function of the central doors commissioned by Eugenius IV from the Florentine artist Filarete in the 1430s, one of the few monuments from the old basilica transplanted to perform the same function in the new, is the subject of the contribution by Robert Glass. The doors also featured in the coronation of emperors, which, he argues, accounts for their complex iconography, distinguished by rich textures and luxurious objects. In her study of the representation of Saint Peter’s basilica in the Liber Pontificalis, Rosamond McKitterick tackles another major text concerning the early medieval papacy. She builds on earlier work in which she has argued that the history of Rome itself was Christianized and reshaped in the Liber Pontificalis, not just by setting it within a new chronological framework from the time of Saint Peter, but also by appropriating the original Roman historiographical genre of serial biography. As Christian and Christianized Roman history, the Liber Pontificalis was designed to re-orient perceptions of Rome and its past, and construct the popes as the rulers of Rome, replacing the emperors. This remarkable text was constantly concerned with the popes and their claims to political and spiritual status within Rome. The various functions of Saint Peter’s as one key focus for the stational liturgy, as a venue for councils, a pilgrimage site, art treasure and holy place, are deployed by the Liber Pontificalis authors to enhance and promote papal authority, but many of these were very slow to develop and many were not recorded in the papal biographies until the eighth and ninth centuries. Yet this extraordinary text offers a skilful representation and documentation of the essential link between Saint Peter, prince of the apostles, and his successors in Rome.

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The chapter focuses in particular on the burial places of popes, claimed at first as part of a narrative strategy but then translated into reality. A proud tradition emerged with a concentration of burials at Saint Peter’s after an earlier attempt to establish a papal necropolis on the Via Appia whence Saint Peter was supposedly translated. The popes also made Saint Peter’s serve as a papal mausoleum to counteract any imperial mausolea and imperial claims to a special relationship with the prince of the apostles. It was a move possibly precipitated by the building of the mausoleum of Honorius, which was later rededicated to Saint Petronilla. A potential context of competition with the construction of this imperial mausoleum and its political motivation is elucidated by Meaghan McEvoy in a complementary chapter to that of McKitterick. She establishes how potent a symbol of Christian imperial rule this mausoleum was. Erected most probably to house the remains of the western imperial family, between 400 and 408, and apparently first used for the astonishingly lavish burial of the Empress Maria in 407/8, it neatly expresses both the fifth-century imperial interest in the city of Rome and the imperial function of religious piety. The mausoleum was part of a concerted programme of imperial benefactions to Rome’s churches in the fifth century more generally. McEvoy links the particular proximity of the mausoleum to the basilica of Saint Peter’s with a desire for association with the apostles in death also apparent in eastern imperial mausoleum building in the later fourth and fifth centuries, and suggests that the mausoleum itself needs to be recognized as an important aspect of the Christianization of the imperial office in Late Antiquity. Carol M. Richardson takes the story of papal burials started by Rosamond McKitterick to the end of the fifteenth century. She also locates Nicholas V’s apparent interventions within the longer trajectory of the career of the cardinal archpriest, Pietro Barbo, who became Paul II in 1464. Looking forward, she proposes that the fac¸ade of the new basilica, emblazoned with the name of Paul V, references the entrance into Old Saint Peter’s that had displayed the name of Paul I (757–67). Thus continuity and tradition are again found to transcend all other concerns, a theme that Bram Kempers confirms and transmits to the history of the new church in the last chapter in the volume. His important, and indeed controversial, reconsideration of the history of the rebuilding of the basilica has reopened what might have been presumed to be a closed narrative.42 Here he looks for the point in the sixteenth century at which the total reconstruction of Saint Peter’s was 42

Kempers, ‘Diverging perspectives’ (above, n. 37).

Introduction

first mooted and finds it much later than the papacy of Julius II. Without the benefit of hindsight, the history of Old Saint Peter’s, its traditions and physical legacy is brought to a conclusion perhaps more appropriate for such a significant building, shrine and symbol. The decision to replace did not come suddenly, but gradually, out of almost a century of restoration. The implications of Kempers’s argument consolidate one of the implications of this volume as a whole, that continuity and the preservation of venerable tradition should balance any sense of ‘convulsive change’ in the history of the new basilica.43 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Paul V finally decided that what remained of the old nave should be demolished, the canons of the basilica wrote begging the pope to reconsider his decision and urging him to put in place measures that would ensure that Old Saint Peter’s and what it represented would endure. Their letter is reproduced in transcript and translation at the end of the volume, but it seems appropriate to end with their warning as if it were addressed to all those who consider the new at the expense of the old: [We beseech you] that all that is possible is maintained of the ancient veneration and adornment of that church, and [therefore] of the devotion of the people and of all of Christianity, since it is an example to which all the others turn, . . . the universal example [in which] one may see things organized and set out to conform to the sacred ecclesiastical rites and ancient traditions of the Fathers . . . [which] maintain in the people the ancient devotions written and printed in so many books that are widespread in all Christendom.

A note about the use of English/Italian names for churches and basilicas Saint Peter’s basilica, with its attendant monasteries, chapels and oratories, is referred to throughout by its English name; this includes the four basilical monasteries that served Saint Peter’s in the eighth century that were dedicated to Saint Martin, Saints John and Paul, and to Saint Stephen (twice). Of these monasteries, only Saint Stephen Major survives and has been known since the late fifteenth century as Santo Stefano degli Abissini. All other churches and basilicas in Rome are given their Italian names. 43

Tronzo, ‘Introduction’ (above, n. 9), 3.

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N

Frontispiece a. Stylized plan of Saint Peter’s showing the broad phasing of the structures.

A note about plans used in this volume Much of our knowledge of the architecture and liturgical arrangement of Saint Peter’s basilica is based on a plan that was made by Tiberio Alfarano

Introduction

Frontispiece b. Alfarano’s 1590 plan of Saint Peter’s, detail.

in 1571, which shows the old basilica superimposed over the new structure that eventually replaced it. Alfarano had been a member of the clergy of the basilica since 1569 and probably had been associated with the church since the 1540s.44 When he compiled his drawing much of the western 44

Alfarano, DBVS, xii–xiv. On Alfarano’s life and work, see also M. Bury, The Print in Italy 1550–1620 (London, 2001), 101–2, no. 63.

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part of the Constantinian basilica had gone, and so for that part he relied on received wisdom and oral tradition for much of the detail about the architectural structure and the location of particular oratories. At one level, therefore, Alfarano provides us with an impressionistic interpretation of the old basilica rather than a structurally precise ground plan, albeit a wellinformed one. His hand-drawn plan (known as the Ichnographia) survives in the archive of the Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro, but it is much better known through the etching made of it by Natale Bonifacio in 1590, which was supplied with a list of the oratories and altars that corresponds to features numbered on the plan.45 The etching was also updated with changes made since the original plan had been drawn, and some architectural features were not transferred from drawing to etching (for example, the large claustral complex west of the southern arm of the transept; only a chapel in its northeast corner was copied on to the 1590 etching with a label that may have been intended for the whole zone, ‘Monasterium Sancti Martini’). Alfarano’s plan is iconic and is a seminal source for all studies of Old Saint Peter’s, but it is not infallible. Scholars have modified some of his data through examination of a variety of other sources, including early texts and plans as well as the results of limited excavation of parts of the old basilica – especially that which was undertaken in the late 1930s and ’40s.46 This additional information has informed others’ interpretations of the ground plan of the basilica, and our plans in this volume draw on this extended historiography.47 The 1590 etching of Alfarano’s plan is reproduced here and it is the basis for the stylized plan of Saint Peter’s showing the broad phasing of structures (frontispieces a and b, Plate 1) as well as the detailed figures that introduce the chapters of this book. Each of these detailed figures focuses on the section of the basilica under scrutiny in the chapter that follows, and each one shows the main liturgical elements that are relevant for the period under discussion. It is hoped that these figures will help readers to navigate the architectural features and liturgical topography of the basilica.

45 46

47

Alfarano, DBVS, xxvii–xxviii, pl. II. B. Apollonj Ghetti, A. Ferrua, E. Jossi and E. Kirschbaum, Esplorazioni sotto la confessione di San Pietro in Vaticano eseguite negli anni 1940–1949, 2 vols. (Vatican City, 1951). See also J. Toynbee and J. Ward-Perkins, The Shrine of St Peter and the Vatican Excavations (London, 1956). Especially important are: W. N. Schumacher, ‘Das Baptisterium von Alt-St. Peter und seine Probleme’, in O. Feld and U. Peschlow (eds.), Studien zur Sp¨atantiken und Byzantinischen Kunst F. W. Deichmann Gewidmet, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1986), I, 215–33; A. Arbeiter, Alt-St. Peter in Geschichte und Wissenschaft, Abfolge der Bauten. Rekonstruktion. Architekturprogramm (Berlin, 1988); Blaauw, CD, 451–756.

1

Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages paolo liverani

Richard Krautheimer – with that mixture of irony and seriousness that was typical of him – asked whether ‘Saint Peter’s had become part of Rome, or had Rome been incorporated by Saint Peter’s’.1 The question related to the medieval period but it is worth considering the degree to which this provocative question applies to the role of the basilica in Rome in Late Antiquity (Fig. 1.1). My aim is to gauge not the basilica’s impact on liturgy, but rather its urban role as a centre of social welfare and pilgrimage, and especially its repercussions on imperial ritual. More generally, how did the basilica function as an urban centre? These aspects have not always been emphasized sufficiently, in large part because studies of Saint Peter’s have mainly collected and used the sources that were relevant for its architectural history, as opposed to those mentioning the basilica in other contexts that relate to social and urban history. First of all, Saint Peter’s appears from its foundation to function as a centre of assistance for the poor. The most ancient source for this is the famous and much discussed passage in Ammianus Marcellinus concerning Lampadius at the beginning of his political career, that is, in the period 335–40. In his capacity as praetor, Lampadius ‘gave magnificent games and made very generous donations, being unable to endure the blustering of the commons, who often urged that many things could be given to those who were unworthy of them, in order to show his generosity and his contempt of the mob, he summoned some beggars from the Vatican and presented them with valuable gifts’.2 In other words, the liberality of Lampadius was considered scandalous, and Ammianus attributes a political intent to the donation of the praetor. Peter Brown clarified this issue quite nicely: the scandal derived from the 1 2

R. Krautheimer, Saint Peter’s and Medieval Rome (Rome, 1985), 38. Ammianus Marcellinus, 27.3.6: ‘Hic cum magnificos praetor ederet ludos, et uberrime largiretur. Plebis nequiens tolerare tumultum, indignis multa donari saeepe urgentis, ut et liberalem se e multitudinis ostenderet contemptorem, accitos a Vaticano quosdam egentes opibus ditaverat magnis.’ Translation by J. C. Rolfe (Loeb Classical Library) (London and Cambridge, MA, 1939).

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Saint Peter’s

Fig. 1.1. Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome.

fact that the distributions of money and grain were given to citizens not because they were indigent but simply because they were inscribed in the census registries and hence were citizens.3 The provision of Lampadius was both transgressive and limited with respect to traditional customs and 3

P. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity (Madison, WI, 1992), 91. See also R. Lim, ‘People as power: games, munificence, and contested topography’, in W. V. Harris (ed.), The

Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome

values because it was applied not to the citizenry in general but to the poor, that is, to those at the margins of, or outside, the civic system. This interpretation needs to be made more precise in order to highlight the topographical and familial contexts, both of which display a degree of ambivalence. The first arises from the coexistence on the Vatican hill of two important cult centres – one Christian, the other pagan. In this period the basilica of Saint Peter’s had already been built and was operating, at least for the most important things such as liturgy and pilgrimage. I shall not go into detail about the chronology, for this is discussed in a number of other contributions to this volume. In my own work I have tried to show how an early chronology for the basilica rests on good foundations, namely the monumental Constantinian inscriptions in the basilica itself as well as the Liber Pontificalis.4 The principal parts of the building, therefore, were built in the third decade of the fourth century. In contrast, a recent attempt to attribute the construction of the building to one of the sons of Constantine is unconvincing because of a superficial acquaintance with both the material evidence in relation to the portion of the Liber Pontificalis concerned with the fourth century, and the most recent studies of the architecture of Old Saint Peter’s.5 Long located on the Vatican hill and not far from the Christian basilica was a very important sanctuary dedicated to Cybele: the Phrygianum.6

4

5

6

Transformations of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity (Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 33) (Portsmouth, RI, 1999), 265–81, at pp. 275–6. P. Liverani, ‘L’architettura costantiniana, tra committenza imperiale e contributo delle e´ lites locali’, in A. Demandt and J. Engemann (eds.), Konstantin der Große. Geschichte – Arch¨aologie – Rezeption. Akten des Internationales Kolloquiums, 10.–15. Oktober 2005, Trier (Trier, 2006), 235–44; P. Liverani, ‘Costantino offre il modello della basilica sull’arco trionfale’, in M. Andaloro (ed.), La pittura medievale a Roma, 312–1431. Corpus I. L’orizzonte tardoantico e le nuove immagini, 312–468. (Milan, 2006), 90–1 n. 2b; P. Liverani, ‘Saint Peter’s, Leo the Great and the leprosy of Constantine’, PBSR 76 (2008), 155–72. G. B. Bowersock, ‘Peter and Constantine’, in J.-M. Carri´e and R. Lizzi Testa (eds.), ‘Humana ´ Sapit’. Etudes d’antiquit´e tardive offertes a` Lellia Cracco Ruggini (Biblioth`eque de l’antiquit´e tardive 3) (Turnhout, 2002), 209–17, repr. in W. Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 5–15. See also H. Geertman (ed.), Il ‘Liber Pontificalis’ e la storia materiale. Atti del colloquio internazionale, Roma, 21–22 febbraio 2002 (Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 60–1) (Rome, 2003); H. Geertman, Hic fecit basilicam. Studi sul ‘Liber Pontificalis’ e gli edifici ecclesiastici di Roma da Silvestro a Silverio (Leuven, 2004); L. Capo, Il ‘Liber Pontificalis’, i Longobardi e la nascita del dominio territoriale della chiesa romana (Spoleto, 2009) and the most recent studies of Saint Peter’s itself: A. Arbeiter, Alt-St. Peter in Geschichte und Wissenschaft, Abfolge der Bauten. Rekonstruktion. Architekturprogramm (Berlin, 1988); Blaauw, CD, 451–514; R. Krautheimer, ‘A note on the inscription in the apse of Old Saint Peter’s’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987), 317–20, and R. Krautheimer, ‘The building inscriptions and the dates of construction of Old Saint Peter’s: a reconsideration’, R¨omisches Jahrbuch f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 25 (1989), 3–23, at pp. 7–9. P. Liverani, ‘Il Phrygianum Vaticano’, in B. Palma (ed.), Testimonianze di culti orientali tra scavo e collezionismo. Atti del convegno: Roma, 23–24 marzo 2006 (Rome, 2008), 40–8; for some

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(sister)

Albina

Pammachius (m.) Paulina

Marcella

C. Ceionius Rufius Volusianus signo Lampadius

Asella

P. Ceionius Caecina Albinus

Sabina

Lollianus

Rufia Ceionius Ceionius Rufius Volusiana Rufius Albinus Volusianus

Fig. 1.2. Partial stemma of the Ceionii Rufii (according to PLRE I).

There is evidence to suggest that the way these two cults had to share the same space caused difficulties right from the start. The second ambivalence emerges if we examine the family situation of Lampadius, according to the stemma proposed in the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (Fig. 1.2).7 He was destined to have a brilliant career, and in AD 365 should have become praefectus urbi. He was definitely a pagan, moreover, and a devotee of Cybele. He had undergone the rite of the taurobolium in the sanctuary at Ostia, while among his numerous children Caeonius Rufius Volusianus celebrated the taurobolium in the Vatican sanctuary itself, once in 370 and a second time in 390. Sabina did the same in 377, and so too Rufia Volusiana in 370, together with her husband Petronius Apollodorus. A branch of the family, however, converted to the Christian faith, and among them we can count the sister Albina and her daughters: the ascetic Asella and the biblical scholar Marcella, who were correspondents of Saint Jerome. One could add that Lampadius’s nephew Pammachius was one of the better-known Christian senators at the end of the century. Pagans and Christians thus coexisted in the same family and in the same circle of acquaintances. There is reason to believe, therefore, that Lampadius knew both the pagan and Christian slopes of the Vatican hill rather well. Through his donations to the poor of the Vatican, moreover, it would appear that Lampadius, although a pagan, used Christian projects in an ambiguous manner. The system of church support to the poor was, indeed, open to exactly the same kind of criticism by Ammianus as the donations by Lampadius, inasmuch as the system was based on the social condition of individuals, rather than on their status as citizens. The ambiguity of the donation by the praetor lies in the fact that, on the one hand, Lampadius

7

different views see F. Coarelli, ‘Il Circo di Caligola in Vaticano’, Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 81 (2008–9), 3–13. PLRE, I, Volusianus 5.

Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome

used a Christian custom contrary to tradition for political ends, and in a provocative manner. On the other hand, he tried perhaps to compete against the Christians on their own turf. This is reminiscent of a similar attempt by Julian the Apostate. Returning now to our topic, we can conclude that the zone of the basilica of Saint Peter attracted throngs of the poor right from the start, even though they are better attested in later periods. After this first and precious piece of evidence we have some further indications that enrich and augment the picture. In a letter of 384, Saint Jerome writes ironically about an aristocratic Christian woman who made a great display in the basilica of her acts of charity.8 It is appropriate to share the doubts of Jerome on the sincerity of similar persons, but from a historical point of view such hypocritical behaviour is significant since it appears to be socially expected and thus can be considered as evidence of a relatively common practice. A few years later Paulinus of Nola described how Pammachius packed the whole basilica with beggars for the funerary banquet of 396 in memory of his wife.9 Still later, Gregory the Great recorded the alms that the shoemaker Deusdedit gave every Saturday to the poor of Saint Peter’s.10 Perhaps we can also interpret in this context a well-known passage in the Gothic War of Procopius, relating to the events of the year 537. Procopius describes how around the stadium ‘the ancients . . . built many and different kinds of dwellings’.11 With this term ‘stadium’ we ought probably to understand the Naumachia Vaticana, which rose a little to the north of the mausoleum of Hadrian and not far from the basilica (see Fig. 14.1 below). Thus the structures of the Naumachia were reused to create housing, probably of a humble kind. Procopius also tells us about ‘two Romans who lived near the temple of Peter the apostle’.12 They were corrupted by Witigis so that they made the guards drunk and permitted the Gothic army to break through the defences of the city along the Tiber. It is reasonable to speculate that these two poor individuals had nothing to lose and that they lived from alms in the neighbourhood of the basilica. Fragmentary evidence regarding poor people in the basilica is found also in the writings of Gregory of Tours, who recounts the appearance of the apostles Peter and Paul to a homo pauperculus, crapulatus a vino: a poor drunkard who had fallen asleep in a corner of the basilica, without the knowledge of the custodians who had the task 8 9 10 11 12

Jerome, Ep. 22.32, J. Labourt (ed.), Les belles lettres, I (Paris, 1949), 147. Paulinus of Nola, Ep. 13.13, CSEL, 29, G. Hartel (ed.) (Vienna, 1894), 94–5. Gregory I, Dial. 4.38.1, M. Simonetti (ed.) (Milan, 2006), 286. Procopius, Bell., 6.1.5–6, G. Wirth (ed.) (Leipzig, 1963), 150. Procopius, Bell. 6.9.17 (above, n. 11), 191.

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Fig. 1.3. Saint Peter’s in the early sixth century.

of closing the building each evening.13 The Dialogues of Gregory the Great report the story of a paralysed girl who lived in the church, crawling here and there on all fours, until she obtained a miraculous cure through the intercession of Saint Peter.14 We should not interpret this notice literally, as if the girl actually lived in the church. It is more likely that she lived nearby, given the information provided by the Liber Pontificalis about the shelters for the poor built in the immediate neighbourhood of the basilica by Pope Symmachus at the beginning of the sixth century (Fig. 1.3).15 That account is particularly interesting, because it coincides with a decree from King Theodoric, issued in 500. Theodoric ordered (to quote Procopius) ‘that the treasury distribute each year three thousand medimni of grain to the beggars at the church of the apostle Peter’.16 The Anonymus

13

14 16

Gregory of Tours, Historiae 2.7 (AD 451), B. Krusch and W. Levison (eds.), Gregorii Episcopi Turonensis Libri Historiarum X, MGH, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum 1, Part 1 (Hanover, 1884), I, 69–70. 15 Life 53, c. 7, LP, I, 262. Gregory I, Dial. (above, n. 10), 3.25.1, 108. Procopius, Anecdota 26.29, J. Haury (ed.) (Leipzig, 1963), 163.

Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome

Valesianus generically records a donation of 120,000 modii given to the entire populus Romanus and to the pauperes.17 I have discussed the difficulties of interpretation presented by these sources elsewhere, so will not repeat them here.18 I simply note two points. The first is that this decree of Theodoric crucially coincided with the moment when the bishops started to be invested with the office of the annona.19 Secondly, the importance of these measures does not consist so much in their magnitude and their social impact (which were probably negligible) as in the fact that they are the first state and institutional interventions recorded as far as social welfare is concerned. They thereby changed customs and well-established administrative traditions. In other words, what a little more than a century before had scandalized Ammianus Marcellinus and the traditionalists was now considered a virtue on the part of the Gothic king. Thus assistance to the poor at the beginning of the sixth century is no longer a matter for private persons in conflict with civic practices. Poor relief now begins to find its place in the sphere of urban administration and it is carried out in specifically designated places. These places began to modify the logistic structure of the city, and symbolize a significant cultural transformation of the concept of citizenship. The recognition of new welfare duties at the basilica of Saint Peter has still more topographical, monumental and functional consequences. The notice already cited in the Liber Pontificalis informs us that Pope Symmachus built habitacula pauperibus, that is, dwellings for the poor, not only at Saint Peter’s but also at San Paolo and San Lorenzo.20 In other words, provision of the poor near the principal extra-urban basilicas comprised three wellseparated poles to the north, south and east of the city. If alms giving to the indigent took place in the form of distributions of bread – as was normal for the annona at least since the time of Aurelian – we ought not to think that near the basilica of the apostle Saint Peter there existed only one structure for distribution. We can also assume that there were some related warehouses and a bakery needed for the storage of the foodstuffs as well as for baking the loaves of bread. Finally, there also must 17 18

19

20

Anonymus Valesianus, Exc. Vales. 65–7, T. Mommsen (ed.), MGH, AA 9 (Hanover, 1892), 324. P. Liverani, ‘Interventi urbani a Roma tra il IV e il VI secolo’, Cristianesimo nella Storia 29/1 (2008), 1–31, at pp. 16–19. G. Arnaldi, ‘L’approvvigionamento di Roma e l’amministrazione del “Patrimonio di S. Pietro” al tempo di Gregorio Magno’, Studi Romani 34 (1986), 25–9; J. Durliat, De la ville antique a` la ville byzantine. Le probl`eme de subsistance (Rome, 1990), 134–7, 313–19. Life 53, c. 10, LP, I, 263. Compare the distributions of Pope Zachary (741–52), Life 93, c. 27, LP, I, 435, ‘pauperibus et peregrinis qui ad beatum Petrum demorantur’; Pope Hadrian (772–95), Life 97, c. 69, LP, I, 506, assigned the revenues from the ‘domusculta Capracorum: pro alimonies pauperum beato Petro apostolorum principi nutritori suo’. For later periods compare, for example, Leo IV, Life 98, c. 89, LP, II, 27.

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have been housing for the persons entrusted with these operations and their administration. All these fragmentary notices seem to fit together into a fairly coherent picture and show some of the motivations behind the creation of the Borgo di San Pietro, the area that can be identified with clarity in the vicinity of the basilica only from about the ninth century. Perhaps we can push our hypotheses further and imagine that – thanks to the already cited passages in the Liber Pontificalis – something similar to what happened at Saint Peter’s could also be found at the other two extra-urban basilicas of San Paolo and San Lorenzo. This would mean that there was a conscious attempt to construct three poles along three of the main axes of communication that converged on Rome: for people coming from the north, Saint Peter’s was on the arterial road system comprising the Viae Triumphalis and Flaminia; for people arriving from the port of Ostia, San Paolo was on the Via Ostiensis; and for people arriving from the hinterland of Latium, and from the Adriatic Sea, San Lorenzo was well placed on the Via Tiburtina. All three basilicas are cornerstones of Roman pilgrimage and they are distinguished by similar structures, in particular by porticated roads that connected them to the city. Probably in Pope Symmachus’s habitacula pauperibus use was made of what had been learnt from the private foundations of the xenodochia of the Anicii and of the Valerii and – at Portus – of Pammachius.21 Up till now we have seen Saint Peter’s through the lens of welfare granted to the poorest stratum of the population. Let us now try to see it from the opposite point of view, that of imperial ceremony (Fig. 1.4). As is well known, the ceremony of the triumph in its traditional form was abolished from Constantine’s reign onwards. The procession no longer ended at the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Instead, the emperor entered the city using the adventus, a ceremony that inherited the terminology and part of the functions of the triumph, but maintained only its civil connotations. The imperial procession stopped in the area of the forum and the emperor met the Senate in the Curia and the people at the Rostra. Celebrations followed, including games in the Circus Maximus, but the sacred dimension was lost.22 There is evidence, moreover, at first circumstantial and slight but from the reign of Honorius onwards rather more certain and richer in detail, relating to the visits of emperors to the Vatican basilica.23 Here the emperor 21

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R. Santangeli Valenzani, ‘Pellegrini, senatori e papi. Gli xenodochia a Roma tra il V e il IX secolo’, Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte (1996–7), 203–26. M. McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in the Medieval West (Cambridge, 1986); A. Fraschetti, La conversione da Roma pagana a Roma cristiana (Bari, 1999), 9–63. P. Liverani, ‘Victors and pilgrims in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages’, Fragmenta 1 (2007), 82–102, and ‘Dal trionfo pagano all’adventus cristiano: percorsi della Roma imperiale’, Anales de Arqueologia Cordobesa 18 (2007), 385–400.

Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome

11. Naumachia Vaticana

9. Mausoleum of Hadrian ber r Ti

10. Saint Peter’s Porta Aurelia Sancti Petri

8. Arch of Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I 7. Arch of Arcadius, Honorius and Theodosius II

Porta Settimiana

Via Aurelia Vetus

2. Arcus Claudii 3. Arcus Novus

6. Curia and Rostra

5. Arch of Constantine

Porta Aurelia Sancti Pancratii

Via

Vit ell ia

N

1. Porta Triumphalis

e Riv

0

500m

1.0 km

4. Circus Maximus

Fig. 1.4. The imperial processions of the late antique adventus and of the visit to Saint Peter’s.

presented himself as a pilgrim and humbled himself ostentatiously, laying down the symbols of his power before the tomb of Saint Peter. If in the triumph he was practically on equal terms with Jupiter, in Saint Peter’s basilica his status was lowered to that of an ordinary pilgrim. Obviously, the result was always a reinforcement of his position, but this occurred through an inversion of external signs in the changed cultural and cultic climate of a Christianized empire. Elsewhere I have tried to show how the basilica of San Paolo fuori le mura also was affected by imperial visits and how Prudentius preserves the memory of the imperial inauguration of the new basilica of San Paolo in 403.24 This is yet another example of how the basilicas of Saint Peter and Saint Paul had functions in common. Once again it is not until the time of Theodoric that an important shift in the ceremonial status of Saint Peter’s can be observed. Even before that 24

P. Liverani, ‘La cronologia della seconda basilica de S. Paolo f.l.m.’, in H. Brandenburg and F. Guidobaldi (eds.), Scavi e scoperte recenti nelle chiese di Roma. Atti della giornata tematica dei Seminari di Archeologia Cristiana (Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 13 marzo 2008) (Sussidi allo studio delle antichit`a cristiane 24) (Vatican City, 2012), 107–23; preliminary version published as ‘San Paolo fuori le mura e le visite degli imperatori’, in U. Utro (ed.), San Paolo in Vaticano. La figura e la parola dell’Apostolo delle Genti nelle raccolte pontificie (exhibition catalogue, Vatican City 26.6.–27.9.2009) (Todi, 2009), 91–7.

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the basilica was to some extent tied to the victories of Constantine. One can recall in this connection the inscription on the apsidal arch that seems to relate to the victory over the Sarmatians in 322,25 and that over the triumphal arch that is connected to the victory over Licinius.26 The basilica was not integrated structurally into the ceremony of the adventus, however; the emperor brought himself to the basilica after his entrance into Rome when he had fulfilled his political and social duties. The sources do not specify when the emperor visited the basilica, and that is something that does not seem determined by any custom but was probably dictated each time by various contingencies. With the adventus of Theodoric in 500 all this changes. Although an Arian, he shows himself to be devotissimus ac si catholicus – to quote the Anonymus Valesianus – that is to say, extremely respectful of the customs of the Catholic emperors.27 Indeed, so respectful is he that he subverts them with the aim of appearing more devoted than they were. Theodoric visits Saint Peter’s before entering Rome and paying homage to the Senate and to the Roman people. The precedent thus established was followed to some extent by the Arian Totila who, having entered Rome on the night of 17 December 546, betook himself in the morning to pray at Saint Peter’s. The most notable case of a king who followed Theodoric’s example was perhaps that of Charlemagne in 774. At this point Saint Peter’s had finally replaced the Capitoline in imperial ceremony, restoring to the adventus the religious dimension that Constantine had removed. I should like to observe how at this time such a role is particularly emphasized from an urban perspective: the road approaching the basilica from the city centre was marked, at least starting from the track that led directly towards the Pons Aelius: the present Via dei Banchi Vecchi/Via Banco di Santo Spirito. I have some doubts about whether this route is the same as that which the sources of the first century call the Via Tecta, but certainly at the end of the fourth century it had been monumentalized by the Porticus Maximae, along the course of which two imposing arches were erected. The first one encountered if coming from the centre of the city was dedicated to Arcadius, Honorius and Theodosius II at the beginning of the fifth century on the occasion of a victory over the Goths. One may presume 25 26

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ICUR-NS, II, no. 4095; Krautheimer, ‘The building inscriptions’ (above, n. 5), 9–15. ICUR-NS, II, no. 4092; Krautheimer, ‘The building inscriptions’ (above, n. 5), 7–9; Liverani, ‘L’architettura costantiniana’ (above, n. 4); Liverani, ‘Costantino offre il modello’ (above, n. 4), 90–1 n. 2b; Liverani, ‘Saint Peter’s, Leo the Great’ (above, n. 4), 155–8. Anonymus Valesianus, Exc. Vales. 65–67, MGH, AA 9 (Hanover, 1892), 65; and compare McKitterick, this volume, 95–118.

Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome

that it rose at a spot corresponding today to the intersection between the Via Banco di Santo Spirito and the Via dell’Arco della Fontanella.28 In contrast, the second arch was older: it dated back to some time between AD 379 and 383, and was commissioned by Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I to mark the end of the Porticus Maximae and to give access to the Pons Aelius.29 After the bridge, now fortified because of the Gothic Wars, the route continued with the Porticus Sancti Petri, which seems to be attested for the first time by Procopius,30 and we may suspect was built by Pope Symmachus. In fact, this pope was the instigator of decisive works giving access to the basilica and had also been active on the Porta Sancti Petri.31 Located on the Trastevere side of the Pons Aelius, the Porta Sancti Petri was adorned by Symmachus with an image of Christ – as if to prefigure the Chalke Gate reconstructed by Justinian at Constantinople. The fresco was completed with a verse inscription in which Peter was declared ianitor of the city,32 something that acquires a special significance in the light of the route chosen by Theodoric. In the meantime the connection of Saint Peter’s with the emperor had become ever closer. Honorius, the emperor who, more than anyone else in Late Antiquity, had emphasized the role of Rome within the western empire, had built his dynastic tomb just outside the end of the southern transept. Here were found the final resting places of himself, his wife Maria, Galla Placidia with Theodosius III, the son of her first marriage to the Goth Athaulf, and also Valentinian III.33 Through this imperial connection and through the authority of the apostle, the basilica of Saint Peter was also the place in which delicate political and religious questions could be raised that interested both the emperor and the Roman bishop. Here are some examples: Valentinian III, his mother Galla Placidia, and his wife Eudoxia came to the Vatican in 450 the day after their 28 29 30 31

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Liverani, ‘Victors and pilgrims’ (above, n. 23), 86–9. Liverani, ‘Victors and pilgrims’ (above, n. 23), 85–6. Procopius, Bell. 5.22.21 (above, n. 11), 111. P. Liverani, ‘La basilica di S. Pietro e l’orografia del colle Vaticano’, in R. Harraither, P. Pergola, R. Pilliger and A. P¨ulz (eds.), Fr¨uhes Christentum zwischen Rom und Konstantinopel. Akten des XIV. Internationalen Kongresses f¨ur Christliche Arch¨aologie, Wien 19.–26.9.1999 (Vienna and Vatican City, 2006), 501–8, at pp. 506–7. ICUR-NS, II, no. 4107; H. Grisar, Analecta romana: dissertazioni, testi, monumenti dell’arte riguardanti principalmente la storia di Roma e dei papi nel medioevo (Rome, 1988), 96–7. S. I. Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta: a Biographical Essay (Chicago, 1968), 134; M. J. Johnson, ‘On the burial places of the Theodosian dynasty’, Byzantion 61 (1991), 330–9, at p. 337; G. Mackie, ‘The mausoleum of Galla Placidia’, Byzantion 65 (1995), 396–404; A. Gillett, ‘Rome, Ravenna and the last western emperors’, PBSR 69 (2001), 131–67, at p. 147; F. Paolucci, ‘La tomba dell’imperatrice Maria e altre sepolture di rango di et`a tardoantica a S. Pietro’, Temporis Signa 3 (2008), 225–52. See also McEvoy, this volume, 119–36.

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arrival in Rome for the festival of the Cathedra Petri on 22 February.34 On this occasion many bishops of other Italian dioceses came together with the pope for the celebration. The imperial family participated in the liturgy and met the pope and bishops who took advantage of this informal occasion to express their concerns to the emperor about the heterodox tendencies of Theodosius II. In 467, the Emperor Anthemius visited Saint Peter’s, probably on the occasion of a papal liturgy, and in this case too the pope profited from the occasion to obtain the emperor’s support by making him swear on the tomb of the apostle.35 The apostle thus was an important witness and guarantor for pledges and donations. Even without having recourse to the striking examples just cited, the confessio of the basilica served both as a notarial ‘archive’ for the oral professiones fidei, recorded in writing by notaries of the Lateran scrinium,36 and later for attestations of important donations.37 We can recall also that the atrium of the church, in at least one case, was selected to make public a decree of Athalaric, who confirmed an earlier senatusconsultum relating to alms that were distributed by candidates for consecration to a patriarchal or metropolitan see. In theory, the Lateran cathedral might have been equally suitable, but the marble tablets elegantly inscribed were placed ‘in front of the atrium of Saint Peter the apostle’ because – according to the words of the Gothic king – this “is the place worthy to preserve both our glorious reward and praiseworthy decrees of the mightiest senate”.38 The intervention of the king was presented as a ‘reward’, that is, as a gift in defence of ecclesiastical dignity, and the basilica itself as the correct destination for those in need of alms. This refers to a decision made by the Senate necessitated by previous abuses of the process of alms giving to obtain the episcopal office. Perhaps in this way this distribution of alms was placed under the seal of the apostle Peter, by a 34

35

36 37 38

Letter of Valentinian III to Theodosius II, Inter ep. Leonis, Ep. 55, PL, LIV, cols. 857, 859. Compare also the letters of Galla Placidia (Ep. 56, PL, LIV, cols. 859, 861) and Eudoxia (Ep. 57, PL, LIV, cols. 861, 863). Gelasius I, ‘ad episcopos Dardaniae’, CSEL 35, Epistulae Imperatorum Pontificum aliorum inde ab a. CCCLXVII usque ad a. DLIII datae Avellanae quae dicitur collectio, O. G¨unther (ed.) (Prague, Vienna and Leipzig, 1895), I, Ep. 95.61, 390–1. Liber Diurnus, Form. LXXXIII, LXXXV, E. De Rozi`ere (ed.) (Paris, 1869), 182, 202, 203. Stephanus II, Life 94, c. 47, LP, I, 454; Hadrian I, Life 97, cc. 37–43, LP, I, 497–8. Cassiodorus, Variae 9.16.3, T. Mommsen (ed.), MGH, AA 12 (Hanover, 1894), 278. Compare M. Humphries, ‘From emperor to pope? Ceremonial, space and authority at Rome from Constantine to Gregory the Great’, in K. Cooper and J. Hillner (eds.), Religion, Dynasty and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900 (Cambridge, 2007), 21–58, at pp. 47–8. I am indebted to Rita Lizzi who let me read in advance her unpublished commentary on this passus and clarified for me the historical context.

Saint Peter’s and the city of Rome

kind of extension of the notarial and public functions to which I have drawn attention already. On the other hand, as I have tried to show, Saint Peter’s in the immediately preceding years had tended more and more to acquire a public role in the ceremonial and civic life of Rome, with such events as the adventus of Theodoric and the state contribution decreed by him to support distributions to the poor. A similar role – at least as presented in the sources – does not emerge with equal clarity for the Lateran. Finally, I offer a brief note concerning the cultural role of the basilica. In one of Rome’s darkest moments, during the Gothic Wars, the subdeacon Arator, follower of Claudian and Prudentius, composed a versified version of the Acts of the Apostles. The poet offered his work to the pope, who on 6 April 544 had him read out passages ‘in the presbytery before the confessio of Saint Peter in the presence of various bishops, presbyters, and deacons and with the greatest crowd of clergy’.39 It was a success: by popular demand Arator had to give a complete reading at San Pietro in Vincoli over four days between April and May of the same year. In this case it is obvious that the sacred and apostolic subject was well suited to places linked more or less closely to Saint Peter. But it was an innovation to use the basilica in the same way as rooms for public readings in Rome’s libraries, where such a practice was usual for works of poetry and prose.40 Thus the basilica of Saint Peter is a special case because of its relatively abundant documentation. We see it affected by the flow of pilgrims and beggars, an alternative and subsidiary centre of assistance for the grain distributions in a changed concept of civic duties, a place of imperial legitimation and notarial confirmation for decisions of particular importance. The architectural evolution, not only of the basilica, but also of the structures that tied it to the city, progressively emphasized its importance. The logistic, administrative and charitable functions added to the basic cultic role together provided the basis for the creation of an extension of the inhabited area between the city walls and the church. The inhabited area – the Borgo – took its full form only somewhat later, but it must have had late antique roots. At a certain point, this evolution transformed the orientation of the city and shifted its centre of gravity, attracting it towards the ancient Campus Martius to the detriment of more distant areas, with an urban 39

40

Arator, in A. MacKinlay (ed.), De Actibus Apostolorum, Praefatio (CSEL 72) (Vienna, 1951), p. XXVIII = A. P. Orban (ed.), CCSL 130A (Turnhout, 2006), 1. Compare C. Sotinel, ‘Arator, ´ un po`ete au service et la politique du Pape Vigile?’, M´elanges de l’Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome. Antiquit´e 101/2 (Rome, 1989), 805–20. For example, the library on the Palatine: P. Gros, ‘Apollo Palatinus’, in LTUR, I, 55; D. Palombi, ‘Curia in Palatio’, in LTUR, I, 334.

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pull stronger than the positive ecclesiastical pole at the Lateran. This had consequences still apparent today in the different feelings that the two basilicas evoke in the hearts of Romans. In summary, it is clearly an exaggeration to say that Saint Peter’s incorporated the city of Rome, but certainly the basilica succeeded in acting as a strong force field for the city, and one that is manifest in the physical and functional structures of the urban fabric.

Plate 2. Old Saint Peter’s, longitudinal section looking north, with columns and their material. From Bosman, Power of Tradition, fig. 10.

Plate 3. Saint Peter’s, aedicula with granite columns, showing horizontal lines.

Plate 4. The vestibule of the Lateran baptistery, seen from the southeast.

Plate 5. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory in the north aisle of Saint Peter’s basilica.

Plate 6. Santa Prassede, Rome. View of the mosaic decoration on the triumphal arch and main apse, looking northwest.

Plate 7. San Marco, Rome. View of the mosaic decoration of the apse and surrounding arch.

Plate 8. The Three Holy Mothers, fresco in Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome.

Plate 9. San Zeno chapel fac¸ade mosaic, Santa Prassede, Rome.

Plate 10. Jean Fouquet, ‘The Coronation of the Emperor Charlemagne’, Grandes Chroniques de France (1455–60), BnF Fr. 6465 fol. 89v.

Plate 11. Detail of the panorama of Rome from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493).

Plate 12. Crucifix in stucco. Fabbrica di San Pietro, Rome.

Plate 13. Crucifix in stucco, Fabbrica di San Pietro, Rome. Lower end of the cross with Saints Peter and Paul.

Plate 14. Diptych with Saints Peter and Paul from the Sancta Sanctorum. Vatican Museums, Rome.

Plate 15. Filarete, the Saint Peter panel from the central doors showing the donor, Pope Eugenius IV (1431–47), kneeling and receiving the keys from the apostle.

2

From Constantine to Constans The chronology of the construction of Saint Peter’s basilica richard gem

Introduction There has been a fair degree of scholarly consensus prevailing on the general outline of the building history of Saint Peter’s basilica in the fourth century, such that, in the absence of significant new data, there might seem little justification for going back over old ground.1 That consensus is well represented by the various irreplaceable publications of Richard Krautheimer, whose mature views on the history of the basilica were set out in 1989.2 According to him, the basilica was built substantially in the 320s, with work progressing systematically from west to east, beginning with the apse and transept. However, Krautheimer’s carefully considered analysis was challenged in 1995–6 by Alberto Carpiceci, who argued that the design of the basilica, rather than following a definitive plan drawn up at the outset of I would like to thank first the organizers of the conference held at the British School in Rome in March 2010 for bringing together a stimulating gathering of scholars working on a wide range of topics relating to Saint Peter’s: I have benefited from all their papers and from discussions during the conference. I am very grateful to Dr Pietro Zander of the Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro for generously giving his time to make accessible to me the excavations below Saint Peter’s. In advance of the conference Prof. Paolo Liverani very kindly read and commented on my draft paper; he has also helped me subsequently with a range of questions relating to my topic, and I have benefited greatly from his unrivalled knowledge. Finally I would like to thank the anonymous readers of chapters for the present volume, and also members of the Oxford Late Antique and Byzantine seminar: their questions and scepticism have encouraged me to revisit several issues and to reformulate some of my answers to the questions posed by the evidence. 1

2

In addition to the important publications by Krautheimer and Liverani cited further below, comprehensive studies of Saint Peter’s have included: J. H. Jongkees, Studies on Old Saint Peter’s (Archaeologica Traiectina 8) (Groningen, 1966); J. Christern, ‘Der Aufriss von Alt-St.-Peter. I’, R¨omische Quartalschrift f¨ur christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 62 (1967), 133–83; J. Christern and K. Thiersch, ‘Der Aufriss von Alt-St.-Peter. II’, R¨omische Quartalschrift f¨ur Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 64 (1969), 1–34; A. Arbeiter, Alt-St.-Peter in Geschichte und Wissenschaft, Abfolge der Bauten. Rekonstruktion. Architekturprogramm (Berlin, 1988); Blaauw, CD, 451–756, esp. pp. 451–511. R. Krautheimer, ‘The building inscriptions and the dates of construction of Old Saint Peter’s: a reconsideration’, R¨omisches Jahrbuch f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 25 (1989), 3–22. See also, CBCR, V, 165–279; R. Krautheimer, ‘A note on the inscription in the apse of Old Saint Peter’s’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987), 317–20; R. Krautheimer, ‘The ecclesiastical building policy of Constantine’, in G. Bonamente and F. Fusco (eds.), Costantino il Grande dall’antichit`a all’umanesimo (Macerata, 1993), 509–52.

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work, emerged through a series of radical changes.3 A few years later, in 2002, a thoroughly revisionist account of the historical origins of the basilica was published by Glen Bowersock, who proposed that the foundation and construction of the basilica should be attributed not to Constantine, but probably to Constans.4 The present chapter does not seek to respond in detail to the latter two publications, but takes the doubts they have raised as an opportunity to reconsider both the chronology of the fourth-century basilica, and also the evidence for possible changes in its design during construction. The conclusions that will be reached, however, are provisional to the extent that some of the questions raised by the limited available evidence are susceptible to answers only within circumscribed parameters, while others must be left fully open to debate.

The evidential basis for the chronology of construction Historical evidence The Vatican site as it existed around the time of Constantine’s conquest of Rome is recorded by Eusebius, writing c. 313 in his Historia Ecclesiastica. There he states that Saint Peter’s earthly remains were buried at the Vatican at a place marked by a tropaion, a monument of victory; and also that the apostle was offered prosr¯esis, or salutation, in the cemetery.5 A few years later, c. 325, he reported in his Theophania that great multitudes flocked to Saint Peter’s sepulchre outside the city, as to a great shrine.6 But neither in these works, nor in his Vita Constantini of the late 330s, did Eusebius 3

4

5

6

A. Carpiceci and R. Krautheimer, ‘Nuovi dati sull’antica basilica di S. Pietro in Vaticano’, Bolletino d’Arte 93–4 (1995), 1–70; 95 (1996), 1–84. Despite the dual authorship claimed by the publication, it is clear that in relation to the interpretation of the building it represented essentially the views of Carpiceci alone. On this see the critical comments by L. Bosman in Journal f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 9 (2005), 297–301. The present author by no means accepts Carpiceci’s account of how the basilica developed. G. W. Bowersock, ‘Peter and Constantine’, in J.-M. Carri´e and R. Lizzi Testa (eds.), ‘Humana ´ Sapit’. Etudes d’antiquit´e tardive offertes a` Lellia Cracco Ruggini (Biblioth`eque de l’antiquit´e tardive 3) (Turnhout, 2002), 209–17; repr. in W. Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Cambridge, 2005), 5–15. Here, page references are cited from the Tronzo edition. Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, 2.25, Eusebius Werke, 2.1–2, E. Schwarz (ed.), Die Kirchensgeschichte (Leipzig, 1903–8); English trans. K. Lake, J. Oulton and H. Lawlor, Eusebius: the Ecclesiastical History, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1926–32). Eusebius, Theophania, 4.7. Syriac text, S. Lee (ed.), On the Theophania or Divine Manifestation of our Lord and Saviour . . . a Syriac Version (London, 1842); English trans., S. Lee, Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea on the Theophania Translated into English from an Ancient Syriac Version (Cambridge, 1843), 221. The relevant passage is absent from the incomplete surviving Greek text.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

make any mention of Saint Peter’s basilica among the churches founded by Constantine – though this in itself is likely to reflect no more than his general lack of detailed information about church building in the western part of the empire. Only during the second half of the fourth century, from the time of popes Liberius (352–66) and Damasus (366–84) onwards, do the basilica and the functions attendant upon it start to be attested explicitly in contemporary sources. The first detailed description of the whole basilica complex comes later still, with the account by Paulinus of Nola of the funeral of Paulina in 395–6, during the pontificate of Siricius (384–99): by this time it is clear that the four-aisled basilica with its coffered ceilings and also with its atrium was altogether complete.7 But no fourth-century source provides firm dates for either the inception or completion of the building programme. The classic account of the foundation of the basilica is that contained in the Liber Pontificalis, written in the 530s. This may seem to be a long time after events attributed to the period of Constantine, but the account does appear to incorporate earlier sources. There is a bare initial statement that Constantine founded the basilica (at the request of Pope Silvester, according to some versions of the text), but the account then goes on to describe in detail a list of the benefactions made by the emperor.8 These included: r the adornment of the monument above the loculus of Saint Peter’s burial

with porphyry columns, and also with twisted columns carved with vine ornament brought from the Greek East; r a ceiling adorned with gold leaf; r a gold cross with an inscription recording its donation by Constantine and Helena; r a wide range of other fittings and vessels in gold, silver and aurichalcum (probably brass); 7

8

Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae, ep. 13.11–14: G. de Hartel (ed.), Sancti Pontii Meropii Paulini Nolani Opera, I. Epistulae (CCSL 29) (Vienna, 1894), 92–6; (ii) English trans. P. G. Walsh, Letters of Saint Paulinus of Nola, 2 vols. (Ancient Christian Writers 35–6) (Westminster, MD and London, 1966–7), I, 127–30. Life 34, cc. 16–20, LP, I, 176–8; H. Geertman, ‘Le biografie del Liber Pontificalis dal 311 al 535’, in H. Geertman (ed.), Il ‘Liber Pontificalis’ e la storia materiale. Atti del colloquio internazionale, Roma, 21–22 febbraio 2002 (Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 60–1) (Rome, 2003), 285–355; repr. in H. Geertman, Hic fecit basilicam. Studi sul ‘Liber Pontificalis’ e gli edifici ecclesiastici di Roma da Silvestro a Silverio (Leuven, 2004), 169–235, at pp. 178–81; trans. Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 18–20. The reference to Silvester’s involvement is found only in manuscripts of Class III. See also McKitterick, this volume, 95–118.

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richard gem r an extensive series of landed properties throughout the Diocese of the

Orient. Since Constantine was not in a position to donate properties in the Orient before his victory over his co-emperor Licinius at the battle of Chrysopolis in September 324, this date provides a terminus post quem for the endowment. As to the preceding items, these would be consistent with what is known about Constantine’s donations to other churches in the empire. Specifically we have Constantine’s letter of c. 326 to Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem concerning the construction there of the Martyrium basilica.9 In this the emperor informed the bishop that he had given instructions to the relevant state authorities to undertake the work and provide the resources; but Macarius was to inform him directly what columns and marbles were required, and also whether gold was needed for a coffered ceiling. The coincidence between this and the Liber Pontificalis list is such as to suggest that the latter in effect records a closely comparable imperial donation to Saint Peter’s.

Epigraphic evidence The surviving epigraphic evidence relating to the fourth-century basilica has been much discussed and only facts directly relevant to the chronology can be considered here.

The gold cross The gold cross, listed in Liber Pontificalis as being part of Constantine’s donation, bore the niello inscription:10 constantinvs avgvstvs et helena avgvsta [ . . . . . . . . . ?] hanc domvm regalem simile fvlgore corvscans avla circvmdat Constantine Augustus and Helena Augusta [ . . . . . . . . . ?] This royal dwelling the aula surrounds, shining with like brightness.

This inscription can be dated fairly closely insofar as Helena was accorded the title of augusta probably in the late autumn of 324, while she died in 328 or early 329. A possible occasion for the donation then would have 9

10

¨ Eusebius, Vita Constantini, 3.31–2, F. Winkelmann (ed.), Eusebius Werke, I. Uber das Leben des Kaisers Constantin (Berlin, 1975); English trans. A. Cameron and S. G. Hall, Eusebius, Life of Constantine (Clarendon Ancient History Series) (Oxford, 1999), 134–5. Life 34, c. 17, LP, I, 176; ICUR-NS, II, no. 4093.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

been in July or August 326, when the two augusti were together in Rome for Constantine’s vicennalia. Bowersock, seeking to divert the implication this might have for the foundation date of Saint Peter’s, suggested that the cross was originally presented not to the basilica but to the Sessorian palace, on the grounds that it referred to a domus regalis. However, the word domus need not be read in this sense. In II Corinthians 5.1, Saint Paul had referred to our mortal condition as one of residing in an earthly ‘house of the body’ (oikia tou sk¯enous), and it was only a small extension of the Pauline metaphor to see the apostle’s tomb monument as the oikia or domus for his mortal remains. For comparison, a law of Constantius (and Julian) in 363 specifically refers to funerary monuments as the domus of the dead.11 It may be argued, therefore, that the domus referred to in the gold cross inscription is indeed Saint Peter’s funerary monument; the domus in turn was surrounded by the aula; and both shone brightly. The word aula means literally a ‘court’, but in standard fourth-century usage a ‘basilica’ – a word in turn deriving from the Greek adjective basilik¯e, ‘royal’. The word regalis then referred either to the royal patronage of the monument and its rich embellishment, or to its context within the basilica or aula regalis. The inscription thus makes clear that by 324 × 329 both the tomb monument and the aula had been embellished, at least proleptically, by Constantine and Helena.

The triumphal arch inscription A second inscription, referring unambiguously to Constantine as the founder of Saint Peter’s, was located on the triumphal arch of the basilica and was executed in letters of gold, forming part of a mosaic scene.12 This read: qvod dvce te mvndvs svrrexit in astra triumphans hanc constantinvs victor tibi condidit avlam Because with you [Christ] leading the world has risen triumphant to the stars, Constantine the Victor has founded for you this aula. 11

12

Codex Theodosianus, 9.17.4: T. Mommsen and P. M. Meyer (eds.), Theodosiani libri XVI cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes, 3 vols. (Berlin 1914): ‘aedificia manium . . . domus ut ita dixerim defunctorum’. ICUR-NS, II, no. 4092; D. Schaller and E. K¨onsgen (eds.), Initia Carminum Latinorum Saeculo Undecimo Antiquiorium (G¨ottingen, 1977), no. 13892. The associated mosaic is discussed most recently by P. Liverani, ‘Constantino offre il modello della basilica sull’arco trionfale’, in M. Andaloro (ed.), La pittura medievale a Roma, 312–1431, Corpus I. L’orizzonte tardoantico e le nuove immagini, 312–468 (Milan, 2006), 90–1.

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The ascription of the title uictor to the emperor indicates that the inscription post-dates his victory at the battle of Chrysopolis in September 324, in consequence of which he adopted the title. It has been pointed out also that the use of the word mundus with reference to the re-unification of the empire was characteristic of compositions by Optatianus in honour of Constantine in the years 324–5.13 Moreover, the use of the word aula clearly parallels its occurrence on the gold cross of Constantine and Helena, and certainly refers here to the basilica as a whole. There is every reason to believe, therefore, that the inscription in question was actually composed in or not very long after 324. Furthermore, on one reading the text may be taken as indicating that the basilica was actually founded in fulfilment of a vow in relation to that battle.

The two apse inscriptions A third inscription was located in the apse, probably in a band below the semi-dome. This read: ivstitiae sedes fidei domvs avla pvdoris haec est qvam cernis pietas qvam possidet omnis qvae patris et filii virtvtibvs inclyta gavdet avctorvmqve svvm genitoris lavdibvs aeqvat The throne of justice, the house of faith, the court of modesty, such is this which you behold, this which all piety possesses; renowned, it rejoices in the virtues of father and son, and makes equal its author with praises of the begetter.14

There has been much controversy over the meaning of this inscription, and particularly over the third and fourth lines.15 But the most likely interpretation is that the third line referred to an imperial father and son, not to the Father and Son of the Trinity. The fourth line then referred to the imperial auctor of the building (or part of the building) where the inscription was erected, whose work proclaimed him the equal of his father. Those who have followed this reading have generally taken the father to be the Emperor 13

14 15

P. Liverani, ‘L’architettura costantiniana, tra committenza imperiale e contributo delle e´ lites locali’, in A. Demandt and J. Engemann (eds.), Konstantin der Große. Geschichte– Arch¨aologie–Rezeption. Akten des Internationales Kolloquiums, 10.–15. Oktober 2005, Trier (Trier, 2006), 235–44, at p. 239; P. Liverani, ‘Saint Peter’s, Leo the Great and the leprosy of Constantine’, PBSR 76 (2008), 155–72, at pp. 156–7. ICUR-NS, II, no. 4094; Schaller and K¨onsgen, Initia Carminum (above, n. 12), no. 8587. For a summary of recent views and references see Andaloro, Pittura medievale, Corpus (above, n. 12), I, 87.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

Constantine, and the son to be Constans or Constantius II – though more recently it has been proposed that if the auctor of the building were Constantine, then the father might be Constantius I.16 There is not space here to discuss the series of epithets in the first line of the inscription, but it may be noted that their closest parallel is to be found in the distich that once adorned the basilica of Saint Mary in Trastevere founded by Pope Julius I (337–52).17 Another inscription from the apse, in this case from the arch leading into it, was presumably intended to be read as a pair with the former. But unfortunately the text was already dilapidated when it was recorded in the fifteenth century: . . . constantini . . . expiata hostili incvrsione . . . . . . of Constantine . . . a hostile attack having been expiated . . . 18

Since the text was defective, the reading may not be wholly reliable. But, if the imperial name was indeed in the genitive case, it would suggest a reconstruction with the formula [Nomen] filius Constantini. The surviving name would thus be that of the father of the person actually commemorated; and, therefore, the latter may have been a son of Constantine. In the second phrase of the inscription, the reference to the expiation of a hostile attack is striking. The verb expiare denoted the establishment or re-establishment of a favourable religious situation having regard to some fault, person or object.19 If, as seems to be the case, this refers to the hostile attack (and it can hardly refer to a fault on the part of the imperial dedicator), then the attack must have involved something that was religiously impermissible (nefas). It was not, therefore, a just response to a barbarian invasion, such as the Sarmatian incursion of 322 as has been claimed.20 Rather it raises a question as to whether the reference could have been to a civil war. Constantine’s victory over Maxentius in 312 is unlikely, since this was regarded as the divinely inspired and just revenge of the state against a tyrant (as indicated by the inscription on the Arch of Constantine, dedicated in 315). Not much more likely is Constantine’s bloody victory over Licinius in 324, which had something of the character of a religious 16 17

18 19

20

Liverani, ‘Leprosy of Constantine’ (above, n. 13), 160–1. ICUR, II.1, 15: ‘Haec domus est Christi, semper mansura pudori / iustitiae cultrix plebi seruauit honorem’. ICUR-NS, II, no. 4095. H. Fugier, Recherches sur l’expression du sacr´e dans la langue latine (Publications de la Facult´e des Lettres de l’Universit´e de Strasbourg 146) (Paris, 1963), 332–41. See also Oxford Latin Dictionary and Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, s.v. Krautheimer, ‘Building inscriptions’ (above, n. 2), 12–15.

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Fig. 2.1. Stamp on bricks recovered from the apse of Saint Peter’s in 1594, version as illustrated by Baronio AE, III, addendum.

crusade, and was marked by annual triumphal games in Rome. But if the inscription were later in date, the incursion could more easily be equated with the hostile attack of Constantine II on his brother Constans in 340, in which two Christian emperors and armies engaged one another and in which Constantine was killed.

The apse brick stamps The final inscription to be considered is that on a number of stamped sesquipedales bricks discovered during the demolition of the apse walls in 1594; it is this inscription that has been one critical element in Bowersock’s hypothesis concerning the date of foundation of the basilica.21 As reported at the time by Caesare Baronio, and as illustrated by him (Fig. 2.1), the stamp read: d. n. constantinvs avg.22 In 1619 Giacomo Grimaldi gave an account of apparently the same brick stamp: this again he accepted as referring to Constantine, but in the accompanying illustrations (Fig. 2.2) he actually showed the reading: d. n. constant. avg.23 Since there can be little doubt that Grimaldi would have illustrated any brick stamp that bore the full name of Constantine, it is clear that it was the abbreviated version that was actually discovered in 1594. Baronio probably, therefore, 21 22

23

Bowersock, ‘Peter and Constantine’ (above, n. 4), 11. Baronio, AE, III, addendum to p. 247, printed on unnumbered final page of index of second (1594) edition. The stamp is included in H. Dressel, Inscriptiones Urbis Romae Latinae: Instrumentum Domesticum, 2 vols. (CIL, XV, 1) (Berlin, 1891–9), no. 1656.1. Grimaldi, 205. The dating of the demolition to 1594 is at p. 198.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

Fig. 2.2. Stamps on bricks recovered from the apse of Saint Peter’s in 1594, version as illustrated in 1619 by Giacomo Grimaldi in his Instrumenta Autentica.

expanded the name to correspond with the then universally accepted belief that Constantine was the founder of Saint Peter’s basilica. There are today apparently no surviving bricks in Rome or elsewhere with an inscription in the precise form claimed by Baronio, while others that have been claimed to bear the formula, but no longer survive, must be regarded as dubious at best.24 On the other hand, a brick recorded by Marini in a collection belonging to a corresponding friend of his bore the inscription: d. n. constantis avg.25 More concretely, the excavations below Saint Peter’s in the 1940s recovered two tiles with the stamp . . . costantis. av . . . 26 One of these tiles had been used in the covering of a grave dug down from the pavement of the basilica into the infilling of a tomb near the monument of Saint Peter. In this case the incomplete inscription (Fig. 2.3) was the result not of the brick being broken, but of the original use of a damaged stamp for impressing the bricks. Taking into account the spacing of the surviving letters in the impression, the completed stamp would have read: d. n. costantis avg. Apart from the examples just referred to, there are no other surviving stamped bricks with comparable formulae referring to the house of 24

25

26

The statement by Francesco Maria Torrigio, Le sacre grotte Vaticane (Rome, 1635; second corrected impression, 1639), 448, that a tile with the inscription D. N. Constantinus Aug. (= Dressel, CIL, XV, 1, no. 1656.2) was on display in the Grotte cannot be taken as independent evidence, since he may have simply accepted Baronio’s reading and Grimaldi’s interpretation of the abbreviated reading. There was apparently a brick stamp in the Olivieri collection that was claimed to have Baronio’s formula (Dressel, CIL, XV, 1, no. 1656.3), but this was missing by the late nineteenth century. G. Marini and G. B. de Rossi (eds.), Iscrizione antiche doliari (Bibliotheca dell’Accademia Storica Giuridica 3) (Rome, 1884), 74, no. 147; Dressel, CIL, XV, 1, no. 1658. Esplorazioni, 58, 148 n. 2. The mausoleum (T ) is that which, on the coin evidence, had still been in use until some time after 317/18.

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Fig. 2.3. Stamp on an excavated tile found covering a grave southeast of the tomb of Saint Peter, dug down from the transept floor level above infilled tomb T. After Apollonj Ghetti et al. Esplorazioni, fig. 37.

Constantine, and it is clear that the known stamps do not represent a common type. There is a high degree of probability, therefore, that the abbreviation on the bricks from the apse of Saint Peter’s should be expanded as a variant on the attested tile stamp with the name of the Emperor Constans in the genitive case. Before leaving the topic, however, it should be noted that the original sources referring to the discovery of the stamped bricks do not specify exactly where they came from in the apse wall. This leaves their precise significance in relation to the fabric open to question. They could have come from a bonding course in the main walls of the apse and thus date its construction as a whole. Or, alternatively, they may have been confined to a level at the top of the walls and be related only, for instance, to the construction of the semi-dome over the apse.

Archaeological evidence Given the epigraphic evidence that the triumphal arch bore the dedicatory inscription of Constantine, while arguably the apse bore inscriptions of Constans in its mosaics and also incorporated bricks with his stamp in its walls, significant questions are raised about the building history of the western parts of the basilica. At this point, therefore, it is apposite to take into account the evidence from the archaeological excavations of the

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

Fig. 2.4. Mid-second-century funerary monument of Saint Peter standing in an open courtyard; reconstruction drawing by G. U. S. Corbett. After Toynbee and Ward-Perkins, The Shrine of Saint Peter (below, n. 27), fig. 17.

1940s.27 This evidence is presented and illustrated in the extensive report on the excavations and has been well summarized by Krautheimer in the Corpus Basilicarum; some additional observations have been made by Carpiceci, but these cannot always be relied upon. There is not room here to repeat what is set out in detail in those sources, and only the salient points can be summarized. The second-century tropaion marking the site held to be that of the apostle’s grave was set against the west wall of a small rectangular courtyard within the Vatican cemetery (Fig. 2.4). This courtyard was given a new mosaic floor at an uncertain date (perhaps in the late third century), but it continued thereafter in use for burials into the early fourth century. 27

On the original excavations and their interpretation see principally: Esplorazioni; J. M. C. Toynbee and J. Ward-Perkins, The Shrine of Saint Peter and the Vatican Excavations (London, 1956); E. Kirschbaum, The Tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (London, 1959); CBCR, V, 165–279.

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Everything then changed with the decision to erect the great basilica on the site, extending eastward from the monument. For this process a relative chronology can be deduced from the findings of the excavations. The first step seems to have been to isolate the tropaion over Saint Peter’s grave by demolishing the immediately surrounding structures and transforming the remaining masonry into a cubic, marble-encased monument with an open niche on its east side. At the same time, a new marble-paved podium was laid surrounding the monument, and on this podium were set pedestals to carry the (still surviving ex situ) twisted vine-decorated columns, which supported a canopy over the monument (Fig. 2.5).28 The podium on its west, north and south sides occupied the same area as the pre-existing courtyard, but it extended further east in front of the monument (Fig. 2.6). Clearly the intention was to preserve the memory of the previous courtyard layout, while transforming its physical manifestation, so that the podium became a metaphor for the original courtyard. The new horizontal level thus established around the monument seems to have been taken, more or less, as the datum for calculating the top of the foundations of the whole basilica complex that was to follow on.29 This being the case, it seems clear that the apostolic monument must have been isolated before the foundations of the basilica were topped out. But, what is more, other tombs in the surrounding area of the cemetery must have had their superstructures removed so that clear sight lines could be established for taking levels across the site. The foundation structure for the basilica complex took the form of a huge platform, measuring approximately 230 by 690 Roman feet, terraced into the hillside to the north and west and with a podium-like brick face along its southern side.30 Foundation walls were built where the main walls of the superstructure were to rise, and, between these, the material for levelling up the ground surface of the platform was stabilized by the retention of the 28

29

30

The immediate contemporaneity between the podium and the pedestals for the columns is demonstrated by C. Papi, ‘Il nome di Pietro nel presbiterio Costantiniano della Basilica Vaticana: un’iscrizione inedita’, in M. L. Caldelli, G. L. Gregori and S. Orlandi (eds.), Epigraphia 2006. Atti XIV rencontre sur l’´epigraphie in onore di Silvio Panciera (Rome, 2008), 425–36. On the columns see J. B. Ward-Perkins, ‘The shrine of Saint Peter and its twelve spiral columns’, Journal of Roman Studies 42 (1952), 21–33; B. Nobiloni, ‘Le colonne vitinee della basilica di San Pietro a Roma’, Xenia Antiqua 6 (1997), 81–142. The one exception to this is the wall running north and south in line with the west side of the monument; the top of this foundation is at a lower level than is the case elsewhere in the basilica. On the hill and its relationship to the levels of the basilica, see P. Liverani, ‘La basilica di San Pietro e l’orografia del colle Vaticano’, in Acta Congresus Internationalis XIV Archaeologiae Christianae [1999] (Vienna and Vatican City, 2006), 501–8.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

Fig. 2.5. Constantinian monument of Saint Peter, with a podium and canopy (omitting secondary features). Modified after Ward-Perkins, ‘The shrine of Saint Peter’ (above, n. 28), fig. 1.

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Fig. 2.6. Plan based on excavated evidence, showing the Constantinian monument, podium edge (exaggerated for clarity) and column bases, in relation to the earlier monument and courtyard marking Saint Peter’s grave. Reconstruction by R. Gem.

partly demolished tombs together with the addition of further compartment walls. One of the tombs (tomb T) thus incorporated into the foundations was still in use when there was placed in it the cremation urn of Trebellena Flacilla, which included a coin struck at the Arles mint c. 317/18: this gives a clear terminus post quem for this phase of the operation.31 On the foundation platform, at an interval of approximately 60 Roman feet from the apostolic tomb monument, were laid out the nave and four flanking aisles of the basilica, measuring 220 Roman feet between the median lines of the outer walls; this dimension was then multiplied by 2 to give 31

P. M. Bruun, ‘Constantine and Licinius, AD 313–337’, in C. H. V. Sutherland and R. A. G. Carson (eds.), The Roman Imperial Coinage, VII (London, 1966), 249 no. 148. This proposed date is not absolute, but is relative to the overall sequence for the chronology of the type in question at the Arles mint.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

Fig. 2.7. Plan of the foundations for the west end of Saint Peter’s basilica, based on the limited excavated evidence. Primary foundation walls faced in opus listatum and opus testaceum; secondary foundations of opus caementicium. Reconstruction by R. Gem.

a length of just over 311 feet from west to east.32 This overall dimension of the nave seems to have been the controlling principle of the design for the whole complex, for the rest of the plan was then derived from it in simple ratios such as 2:3 and 2:5. Because of this geometrical consistency, it seems clear that the plan of the four-aisled nave must have been established at an early stage in the design process. The apparent overall consistency in the design and construction process is marked, however, by a number of anomalies at foundation level (Fig. 2.7).33 The majority of foundations, where these have been explored, are built up 32 33

R. Gem, in preparation. Esplorazioni, 149–60; CBCR, V, 185–90. Illustrations of the different foundations will be found in these sources.

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from the pre-existing ground surface and are neatly faced with coursed tuff and bands of brick (opus listatum) or with brick only (opus testaceum). This is the case not only with the foundations supporting the main walls and colonnades of the superstructure, but also, though more roughly, with those constructed simply as compartment walls to retain the fill within the foundation platform. However, in distinction from the comparatively minor variations among these foundations, a number of other foundations were built using an entirely different technique, with irregular fragments of marble, tuff and travertine set in mortar (opus caementicium); these lack a regularly coursed facing and were in part at least built with shuttering.34 The excavators commented on the fact that these foundations bore no resemblance to any of the others in the basilica.35 Attention has been drawn to their similarity to foundations at the Lateran basilica, but it is doubtful whether any chronological conclusions can be drawn from this.36 It is reasonably clear, however, that the strong differences in foundation technique must have some relationship to the relative sequence in which they were constructed; therefore, each occurrence should now be assessed carefully.

The triumphal arch The foundation discovered on the line of the triumphal arch was essentially a sleeper or chain built across between the piers of the arch and it did not actually carry any structure on its surface.37 It was constructed with caementica of marble and travertine, while its lower section had an irregular facing in tuff (opus incertum). Krautheimer, in answer to why this foundation varied from the standard technique, suggested that ‘the decision to link the foundations of the northern and southern arms of the east wall of the transept was taken ad hoc after construction had begun’.38 This is surely correct, but it raises a question as to how long after construction commenced was the decision taken. The operation would clearly have been easier if carried out before the tombs on its line were infilled, but the archaeological evidence does not demonstrate whether this was the case or not. No evidence was recorded for a foundation trench cut down through the infill, but this may simply reflect the archaeological techniques deployed under difficult circumstances. 34 36

37

35 Esplorazioni, 156. Esplorazioni, 33–4, 79–81, 153, 155–6; CBCR, V, 187–8. CBCR, V, 187. Paolo Liverani has observed (personal communication) that, as far as he is aware, we do not know how to differentiate building techniques clearly as between the periods of Constantine and Constantius. 38 CBCR, V, 187. Esplorazioni, 33–34, 153, fig. 16, pls. iv–v; CBCR, V, 187–8.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

The insertion of the sleeper foundation has implications for the relationship between the nave and transept of the basilica as first envisaged. If there was no foundation laid on this line at the outset (and it is very unlikely that the excavated foundation was a replacement for an earlier foundation), it is clear that there was never intended to be a closure wall at this point: a major opening must always have been intended between the nave and transept. Therefore the triumphal arch must have been envisaged at the time the first phase of foundations was laid. However, since the piers for such an arch must have stood upon some sort of foundations, and if the sleeper wall in anomalous technique is secondary, there must have been other primary foundations for the piers. In fact, the line of the excavated sleeper foundation has not been traced back as far as the point where the arch piers would have stood, so there is no obstacle to suggesting that the piers initially stood on independent foundations. In this case the sleeper wall would have been inserted secondarily to abut and strengthen such independent pier foundations. Another issue is whether the triumphal arch was from the start provided with column shafts set en d´elit against the piers as described by Alfarano. At San Paolo fuori le mura, for comparison, it has been held that the original arch between the nave and transept was carried on plain rectangular piers, and that the columns set against the piers were introduced later by Leo I (440–61) as part of a consolidation of the arch following damage to the basilica caused by an earthquake or lightning-strike, but this interpretation has been challenged.39 At Saint Peter’s it has been suggested that the triumphal arch saw giant columns introduced by Nicholas V to open a way into the proposed crossing of his new transept and west arm.40 But whether or not the arch piers were altered in the fifteenth century does not affect the separate questions of whether in the late antique basilica there were columns of more modest height in this position and, if so, whether these were a primary or secondary feature.

The apse and west wall The foundation wall on which the apse stood was built in its upper part with large caementa of tuff, and in its lower part almost exclusively of marble and travertine; the excavators considered it similar to the triumphal arch foundation.41 It stood in marked contrast to the foundations of the west 39

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CBCR, V, 137–40; H. Brandenburg, ‘Die Architektur der Basilika San Paolo fuori le mura’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Arch¨aologischen Instituts, R¨omische Abteilungen 112 (2005–6), 237–75, has argued convincingly that the columns were part of the primary construction. G. Satzinger, ‘Nikolaus V, Nikolaus Muffel und Bramante: monumentale Triumphsbogens¨aulen in Alt-St.-Peter’, RJBH 31 (1996), 91–105. Esplorazioni, 79–81, 155–6, fig. 55; CBCR, V, 188.

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wall of the transept on either side of the apse, which were neatly faced in brickwork.42 As with the triumphal arch, therefore, it would appear that the apse foundations in their present form indicate a change at some point after the west wall foundations had been laid. In this case, however, the change must represent a rather different situation. The primary foundation for the west wall was aligned on the apostolic tomb monument and must always have stopped short to avoid impacting on the monument. Equally, there must always have been some sort of exedra behind the apostle’s tomb, and very likely this was always intended to take the form of a hemicycle. But this raises questions as to why and when a primary apse foundation should have been replaced by a secondary one. A structural explanation of some sort seems to be called for. This could be provided, hypothetically, if the original foundation had failed through subsidence; alternatively or additionally, there could have been an intention to replace a lighter structure with a heavier one above the foundation. One possibility might be the substitution of a masonry semi-dome in place of a wooden ceiling, while the stair turret attached to the south side might indicate the substantial nature of the apse as finally built. At the junction of the apse with the west wall of the transept on the north side, evidence was excavated of a secondary strengthening of the west wall foundation.43 This involved the addition in front of the original, primary foundation, of a secondary foundation projecting forward 1.5 m near the junction with the apse, but tailing back into the earlier foundation line further north. This added foundation, however, was not built using the same technique as the apse foundation, but in rough brickwork; it is uncertain, therefore, whether it belongs to the same secondary phase as the latter, or to a tertiary phase. But what the additional masonry does reveal is that there were structural issues of some sort at this point, and Krautheimer commented that this masonry ‘was the result of an ad hoc decision to reinforce the critical point at the foot of the arch to the apse’.44 What is less clear is the nature of the junction between the apse and the west wall of the transept at superstructure level (Fig. 2.8.) The lower part of the apse wall itself survives in the grottoes beneath the basilica, encased in the wall between the sixth-century ring crypt of Gregory I and the sixteenth-century annular corridor of Clement VIII: where it has been seen it is constructed with a well-built brick facing. However, the actual point of junction between the apse wall and the transept wall was cut through by

42

Esplorazioni, 156–7, pl. lxii.

43

Esplorazioni, 156; CBCR, V, 189.

44

CBCR, V, 189.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

Fig. 2.8. Plan showing the relationship of the superstructure to the foundations, based on the limited excavated evidence. Reconstruction by R. Gem.

the Clementine corridor. It was only, therefore, the ‘shoulders’ of the brickfaced transept wall abutting the apse that could be examined during the 1940s excavations.45 Accordingly it is uncertain whether the superstructure of the apse and the west wall of the transept were built in one construction phase, or whether in two phases corresponding with the two phases of their respective foundations.

The transept exedrae As to the nature of the foundations of the terminal exedrae of the transept there is some doubt. Only the exedra at the north end of the transept has 45

Esplorazioni, 155–6. Carpiceci and Krautheimer, ‘Nuovi dati’ (above, n. 3), part I, 13, note that parts of the evidence on the north side were destroyed after it had been uncovered.

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been examined archaeologically, and here the evidence is complicated by the later construction of a vault over a sixteenth-century lime pit, which the excavation report says obscured the fourth-century walls.46 Krautheimer noted that, although the west side was obscured by the vault, part of the north wall and its foundation were visible, but he did not comment on the nature of the foundation.47 Carpiceci, however, claimed that the foundations could be inspected on three sides of the lime pit and that they were of very similar type to those beneath the apse; but he contrasted the well-built foundations on the south and west sides of the exedra with the foundation on the north, and suggested that the latter had been reinforced and underpinned when the lime pit was built.48 Without further investigation, no secure conclusions can be drawn from these conflicting accounts, and the nature of the foundations for the exedrae remains an open question.49 A consideration of a different nature arises from the plan of the transept (Fig. 2.9). As has been indicated above, the whole basilica complex is raised on a great terraced foundation platform that, considered as a whole, forms a uniform rectangular block. The exedrae at the ends of the transept break out from the north and south boundaries of this rectangular block and, as such, have very much the appearance of an afterthought in the preparation of the plan. Clearly it would be easier to sustain this point if it could be shown that the foundations between the transept and exedrae were primary and only the foundations beyond them were secondary. But, in the absence of further investigation, the suggestion that the exedrae belong to a secondary phase of the plan can be regarded as no more than a possibility. One other point that has to be noted is that, above their respective foundations, the superstructure of the exedrae and the superstructure of the west wall of the transept have been shown to be of one build, together with the colonnaded screen walls between the transept and exedrae.50 Logically then, if the foundations of the exedrae are secondary, the uniformity of the superstructure has to be explained in one of two ways. Either the revision of the foundations must have taken place before any of the superstructure was erected; that is, it took place at an early stage in the sequence of construction. Or, alternatively, if the west wall of the transept had already been built before the foundations for the exedrae were added, this primary wall must have 46 48 49

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47 CBCR, V, 193, figs. 163–4. Esplorazioni, 156. Carpicece and Krautheimer, ‘Nuovi dati’ (above, n. 3), part I, 13. The author was unable to obtain permission to enter this vaulted space while preparing for the conference. Esplorazioni, 156, 157–8; CBCR, V, 192, 194–5.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

Fig. 2.9. Reconstruction of the west end of Saint Peter’s basilica, showing the massing of the transept relative to the nave. After Christern and Thiersch, ‘Der Aufriss von Alt-St.-Peter’ (above, n. 1), fig. 9a.

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been taken down and rebuilt when the exedrae were added. But since the nature of the exedrae foundations is open to doubt, neither of these two alternatives should be pushed too far.

Archaeological summary The evidence considered above suggests that the whole extent of the basilica complex was envisaged from the start of the works on site, and that it was intended to be focused on the remodelled and newly embellished tomb monument of Saint Peter. However, in the area of the transept the initial scheme represented by the primary foundations was subject to a number of secondary adjustments. New foundations were laid for the apse and a sleeper foundation was inserted on the line of the triumphal arch; and these two foundations, judging from their technique, are likely to have been constructed in a single phase of work. The sleeper foundation across the triumphal arch could well have been inserted while leaving an already built triumphal arch still in place; so the triumphal arch cannot be used to date this phase of work. On the other hand, the apse must be posterior in construction to the foundation on which it stands, but that does not necessarily mean that it is contemporary with that foundation; it could have been rebuilt at some later date to replace an earlier apse that was contemporary with the foundation: in which case there would be three phases of work at this point. Possibly also belonging to a secondary phase was the provision of foundations for the exedrae at the ends of the transept, but the superstructure of the exedrae was built in one campaign of work with the west wall of the transept. What is unknown is the relationship of the superstructure of the west wall of the transept to that of the apse. These archaeological facts seem susceptible of three possible chronological interpretations. The first is that the alterations to the foundations may have taken place before much, or any, of the superstructure had risen above the foundation platform; the alterations then would represent, as Krautheimer thought, ad hoc decisions taken on site for structural reasons. The second alternative is that the modifications, at least to the apse and triumphal arch foundations (there is uncertainty about the exedrae), related to changes in the design of the building at some stage significantly later than the first campaign of construction. The third alternative is that the alterations to the foundations took place at an early stage in the construction programme, but that an apse erected at the same early stage was subsequently rebuilt.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

Any one of the above alternatives would be a reasonable interpretation of the archaeological evidence, while any one of them would also be compatible with the epigraphic evidence that seems to assign the triumphal arch to Constantine and the apse to Constans. Important questions are thus brought into focus. Was the definitive conception of the transept area, as represented by the modified foundations, established at an early stage of the project, soon after Constantine had commissioned the basilica and work had started on site? Or, alternatively, was an initial design for the transept area modified at a significantly later date, involving more or less extensive alteration to the fabric, perhaps under Constans? Or, was work undertaken under Constans confined to minor alterations to the walling of the apse and to its embellishment with mosaic?

Interpretation of the chronology of construction The firm evidence that the foundations at the west end of the basilica in the vicinity of the apostle’s tomb had not been constructed (or at least not completed) till some uncertain number of years after 317/18 would point to a probable start of work on the superstructure of the basilica in the 320s. This then would be congruent with the text of the inscription on the triumphal arch, ascribing the foundation of the basilica to Constantine and alluding to his victory in 324. There would then have been no great interval before the donation, in the summer of 326 (or before 329), of the gold cross of Constantine and Helena, the inscription on which indicates that by that date the tomb of the apostle and part of its surroundings had been embellished. In practice the fabric of the basilica’s superstructure cannot have advanced very far in less than two years, and so exactly what was in place by that date must be to some extent a matter of surmise. However, if the dedication inscription was composed in the mid- or late 320s there is no reason why the triumphal arch should not have been erected by that date, and there is every likelihood that by then it was in fact in place. The erection of the triumphal arch around this date has certain implications. The foundation platform must have been completed and above it the superstructure commenced. More particularly, if the west gable wall of the basilica containing the triumphal arch was in place, so must have been the immediately surrounding walls. The arch in turn led into the area surrounding the apostle’s tomb monument, now newly embellished. This area must have been defined by its perimeter walls: on the east by the triumphal arch wall; on the west by the wall aligned on the apostle’s tomb and

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by an exedra behind the tomb; and on the north and south by walls standing on the line of the outer edge of the foundation platform. Furthermore, the size of the triumphal arch would indicate that the area was intended to be roofed over. So clearly by this stage there was a transverse hall of some form between the triumphal arch and the tomb: but was this yet in its definitive form? It may seem a natural assumption that the very presence of the tomb of Saint Peter, forming the focal point of the basilica, should have called forth in the first instance some decisive concept for its architectural setting. But the inevitability of this assumption is thrown open to question by a comparison with Constantine’s contemporary project to mark the site of Christ’s passion in Jerusalem (Fig. 2.10). The devotional foci of the Jerusalem complex were undoubtedly the rock of Calvary and the tomb of Christ, but these were left in courtyard areas while the lavish Martyrium basilica was under construction to their east.51 The great domed rotunda over the tomb had not yet been built when the complex was described by Eusebius around the time of its dedication in 335.52 The rotunda must have followed on later, perhaps under Constantius or Valens, and was first described by Egeria c. 381 × 384.53 A further comparison with the double-cathedral complex in the imperial capital at Trier indicates that Jerusalem was not unique in developing a design progressively over several decades.54 A vast extension of the complex was begun probably in the late 320s or early 330s, but then, in or following 329, the simple east termination of the northern cathedral as first planned was superseded by a much more elaborate structure; work on the whole basilica complex remained in progress still around 345 under Constans, and was further substantially remodelled in the 360s under Valentinian I. At the Vatican, in comparison, it is certain that the actual tomb monument of Saint Peter was remodelled and embellished under imperial patronage at 51

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For a summary of archaeological knowledge of the complex see S. Gibson and J. E. Taylor, Beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem: the Archaeology and Early History of Traditional Golgotha (Palestine Exploration Fund Monograph, Series Major 1) (London, 1994), with further detailed references. I am most grateful to Shimon Gibson for supplying an updated version of their plan for this chapter. Eusebius, Vita Constantini (above, n. 9), 3.33–40. J. Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels (third edition, Warminster, 1999), 142–64. The final multi-volume publication of the excavations is in progress, Die Trierer Domgrabung (Trier, 2001–) under the general editorship of W. Weber. For convenient provisional summaries, see F. J. Ronig, Der Trierer Dom (Rheinischer Verein f¨ur Denkmalpflege und Landschaftsschutz, Jahrbuch 1978/9) (Neuss, 1980); B. Weber-Dellacroce and W. Weber, ‘“Dort, wo sich Gottes Volk versammelt” – die Kirchenbauten konstantinischer Zeit’, in A. Demandt and J. Engemann (eds.), Imperator Caesar Flavius Constantinus (Ausstellungskatalog, Trier 2007) (Mainz, 2007), 244–55.

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

Fig. 2.10. Plan of the Martyrium basilica and Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, after S. Gibson. The tomb of Christ and rock of Golgotha initially stood in the open, accessed from the porticoed courtyard to the west of the basilica erected c. 326–35; the rotunda and ambulatory around the tomb were added later, encroaching on the west side of the courtyard.

an initial and definitive moment of the project on the site. Furthermore, the erection of the triumphal arch by the mid- or late 320s would indicate that by that date the tomb must have stood in a transverse hall opening towards the nave of the basilica. But could the function and design of this hall have remained still somewhat tentative at this early stage of the project? One relevant consideration may be that the tomb had stood in an open courtyard

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for 175 years, and this constituted part of its pre-existing character. The dimensions of this courtyard were respected by the podium surrounding the tomb in the new layout: but the pre-existing arrangement gave little sense of direction for how the design of the new hall surrounding the tomb should be developed. A second consideration is that, if the Constantinian basilica in Jerusalem failed to provide a final resolution of the architectural setting for the tomb of Christ, it would not be surprising if uncertainties existed also in respect of the tomb of Saint Peter at the Vatican. It would not be surprising, then, if such uncertainties resulted in more than one phase of work in the fabric. The construction and decoration of the basilica complex is not likely to have occupied less than some ten to fifteen years or so, estimated on the basis of comparable examples. Thus the Martyrium basilica in Jerusalem was begun c. 326 but not dedicated till 335, while in the case of San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome at the end of the century, the construction took up to eighteen years.55 If, therefore, the construction of Saint Peter’s was initiated around 325, it would have been unlikely to have been completed before the mid- to late 330s. Even without any changes in design, therefore, this could have taken the final stages of the work into the reign of Constans. Within this continuous building period it is likely that any developments in the design, whenever they occurred, took place under the same architectural supervision and within the same workshop. In conclusion of this section it has to be said that there is no obvious way of deciding definitively on which of the possible interpretations of the archaeological evidence is the closest approximation to what actually happened on site. To summarize these alternatives: (i) either, the primary foundations were laid and then immediately modified in the mid-320s, before any work had begun on the superstructure; the superstructure then proceeded immediately on the modified foundations; or (ii) work was begun in the mid-320s on the superstructure according to the plan represented by the primary foundations (including primary 55

The work at San Paolo fuori le mura seems to have begun c. 386 and been completed by c. 404. For a discussion of the chronological issues see P. Liverani, ‘Basilica di S. Paolo, basilica nova, basilica Piniani’, BOREAS. M¨unstersche Beitr¨age zur Arch¨aologie 26 (2003), 73–81; G. Filippi, ‘La tomba di San Paolo e le fasi della basilica tra il IV e VII secolo’, Bollettino dei Monumenti, Musei e Gallerie Pontificie 24 (2004), 187–224; P. Liverani, ‘La cronologia della seconda basilica di S. Paolo f.l.m.’, in H. Brandenburg and F. Guidobaldi (eds.), Scavi e scoperte recenti nelle chiese di Roma. Atti della giornata tematica dei Seminari di Archeologia Cristiana (Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 13 marzo 2008) (Sussidi allo studio delle antichit`a cristiane 24) (Vatican City, 2012).

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

foundations beneath the triumphal arch piers); only then at a secondary stage, and perhaps not until the building project was quite well advanced in the 330s, was the design of the transept as a whole reconsidered and revised; or (iii) the work proceeded as in alternative (i), but around 340 the apse alone was remodelled or rebuilt. These alternatives are brought forward here for consideration without any special advocacy by the author for one rather than the other as the correct solution to the critical problems presented by the evidence.

The building in its context The apparent sequence of works indicated by the fabric, when combined with the chronology suggested by the historical and epigraphic sources, permits a tentative reconstruction of the building history of the basilica in its context. When Constantine entered Rome in 312 the annual commemoration of the depositio of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on 29 June had been celebrated at the cemetery ad Catacumbas on the Via Appia since the middle of the third century.56 Insofar, then, as the authorities may have been concerned with making better provision for the faithful attending this public event, the construction of a basilica at that site may have seemed a first priority.57 This could fit into a more general pattern of provision at this moment for the Christian community in Rome, which above all required functional places of assembly (such as the Lateran cathedral), rather than the honouring of holy places. There were in any case impediments to taking immediate action on the Vatican site, since the tomb of Saint Peter stood in a cemetery where it was closely surrounded by the tombs of families of substance. However, Eusebius bears testimony to the crowds of pilgrims who by c. 325 were being drawn to the Vatican site, and measures to alleviate the pressures in the small courtyard around the tomb certainly would have been called for. This would have coincided with a new emphasis in the imperial policy of Constantine and Helena at this moment: one of honouring the Christian holy places with royal splendour.58 56 57

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Depositio Martyrum (in Filocalus’s almanac for 354), apud LP, I, 11. The most recent discussion of the dating of the basilica is A. M. Nieddu, La Basilica Apostolorum sulla via Appia e l’area cimiteriale circostante (Pontificia Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, Monumenti di Antichit`a Cristiana 12) (Vatican City, 2009), 140–8. Eusebius, Vita Constantini (above, n. 9), 3.25–53.

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Following the battle of Chrysopolis in September 324 and perhaps as an ex voto for his victory, it is here argued, Constantine gave instructions for the erection of the Vatican basilica out of state funds, while personally donating marbles for the embellishment of the tomb monument of Saint Peter, and also gold for the coffered ceiling of the intended basilica. The emperor’s action in making this foundation should be seen in parallel with his contemporary foundation of the Martyrium basilica complex in Jerusalem at the site of Christ’s tomb. And in parallel with Constantine’s instructions regarding the construction of the latter, the imperial constitution for Saint Peter’s is likely to have been quite general in tenor. Thus, it may be surmised that the instructions called for the site of Saint Peter’s burial to be honoured with worthy buildings commensurate with imperial munificence. From Constantine’s perspective a great aisled basilica, decorated with marble and gold, would be a statement of imperial largesse of a traditional architectural type in a very tradition-minded city and it would mark in the capital city the re-unification of the empire under its Christian emperor. However, exactly what was required from a functional point of view would be for Pope Silvester to determine, including how Saint Peter’s tomb should be incorporated into the basilica. For a solution to the latter problem the pope was unaided by precedent other than the existing arrangement of the courtyard tomb, and it was probably the placement of the tomb on the west side of the earlier courtyard that suggested the arrangement of the remodelled tomb on the west side of the new transverse hall. In July and August 326 Constantine was in Rome together with Helena for his vicennial celebrations. It was perhaps on this occasion that the augusti presented their gold cross, or, if not then, by 329 at the latest. The inscription on the cross recorded the embellishment of the tomb monument and of its setting in the gleaming aula surrounding the tomb. It is perhaps no coincidence, therefore, that it was also in the mid- or late 320s that Constantine’s dedicatory inscription was composed for the triumphal arch, which must have been erected around this time. None the less, work must have continued on the project well after the imperial visit of 326 and this would allow for revisions to have taken place in the design of the transept and basilica before they were brought to completion. During this construction period there could have been changes in the functional brief for the completion of the transept, as successive popes (Silvester, Mark and Julius) pondered the question of how to integrate the tomb of Saint Peter with the imperial basilica. Initially the complex combined two practical functions: as a martyrium of the apostle and as a covered cemetery. But to these must have been added developing requirements for

The chronology of Saint Peter’s basilica

liturgical use. That in practice the design of the transept proved somewhat deficient is suggested by a comparison with the later basilica of Saint Paul. There the narrow transept was rejected in favour of one the same width as the nave, and scarcely projecting beyond the line of the aisles, with the apostolic tomb located just behind the triumphal arch; this must have provided much more convenient space for liturgical events and for pilgrims to access the apostolic tomb. By comparison the design of the transept at Saint Peter’s must be seen as a rather unresolved response to how these practical functions should be addressed. Whatever the precise chronology of the preceding stages of development, the remodelling or rebuilding of the apse in its definitive form seems to have followed on only after the accession in 337 of Constans, whose probable stamp occurred on bricks used in its construction. The apse mosaic programme with its paired inscriptions may then have been completed following c. 340, as a piaculum in response to the war waged on Constans by his brother Constantine II.59 If the construction of the basilica had been protracted into the 330s and even early 340s, it was perhaps towards the later part of this period that the atrium was realized to the east of the basilica, bringing the whole complex to completion. The completion of the Vatican basilica would then take its place alongside two other major church buildings that were in progress under Constans: the continuation of the work at Trier cathedral initiated under Constantine; and work at Aquileia cathedral (perhaps the enlargement of the north basilica) – both of which were under construction when Athanasius visited the emperor at the two cities in 343 and 345 respectively.60 As an imperial foundation, a formal dedication authorized by the emperor would have been a normal requirement before the basilica was brought into use, but for the year in which this may have taken place there is no substantial evidence.61 However, the basilica was certainly in use by a year between 352

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The possibility that Constans was actually in Rome in 340/1 (or at some other time) is discussed by T. D. Barnes, ‘Constans and Gratian in Rome’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 79 (1975), 325–33. Athanasius, Apologia ad Constantium, 15, in J. M. Szymusiak (ed.), Athanase d’Alexandrie, Apologie a` l’Empereur Constance; Apologie pour sa Fuite (Sources Chr´etiennes 56) (Paris, 1958), 104. The feast of the dedication on 18 November was probably instituted in the eleventh century: ´ P. Jounel, Le culte des saints dans les basiliques du Latran et du Vatican (Collection de l’Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome 26) (Rome, 1977), 311–12. This feast, therefore, cannot be used to identify the date of the dedication in the fourth century as proposed by J. Ruysschaert, ‘L’inscription absidale primitive de S.-Pierre’, Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia Cristiana. Rendiconti 40 (1967–8), 171–90, at p. 187.

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and 354 when Pope Liberius celebrated Christmas there.62 By no later than the middle of the century, therefore, and through whatever developmental steps the design had evolved, the basilica had reached its definitive, one might say canonical, form. From then on it was able to take its place as the prestigious model that was to be so influential in later Christian architecture. 62

Ambrose of Milan, De Virginibus, 3. (1). 1: E. Cazzaniga and F. Gori (eds.), Sancti Ambrosii Episcopi Mediolansis Opera, XIV.i, Opera Moralia, I (Milan and Rome, 1989); English trans., P. Schaff and H. Wace (eds.), Saint Ambrose: Select Works and Letters (Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers 10) (Edinburgh, 1886).

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1

Transept

Nave

White granite Cipollino White granite

Cipollino

Red granite

White granite

Cipollino

Portasanta

Africano

Porta Argentea Narthex Atrium N

The interpretative possibilities of spolia in architecture since Late Antiquity have been especially recognized in the past few decades. A wealth of literature has been produced on the topic of spolia in general, studies ranging from the earliest uses of spolia to the latest in the twentieth century, and from detailed analyses to broad surveys explaining its uses. From a word that was used to indicate the supposed necessity of reusing older materials because economic and cultural decline had made new materials unobtainable, the notion of spolia has become a respected and highly informative element in scholarly literature on architecture of Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and well beyond. But, for many centuries, no single word existed to indicate the specificity of reused architectural elements and sculpture. It is only since the early sixteenth century that the word spolia has been used to describe recycled architectural elements that are visibly recognizable as such; the word was apparently used to distinguish such elements from new material.1 In a very interesting text dating from the first quarter of the sixteenth century most of the important monuments of Rome are described rather briefly, as in the case of San Giovanni in Laterano: ‘Andate a santo Ianni laterano; et tutto de spoglie’ (‘Go to Saint John in

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Fig. 3.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 3.

A. Esch, ‘Spolien. Zur Wiederverwendung antiker Baust¨ucke und Skulpturen im mittelalterlichen Italien’, Archiv f¨ur Kulturgeschichte 51 (1969), 1–62; D. Kinney, ‘Rape or restitution of the past? Interpreting spolia’, in S. C. Scott (ed.), The Art of Interpreting (University Park, PA, 1995), 53–67; D. Kinney, ‘Roman architectural spolia’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145 (2001), 139–61; D. Kinney, ‘The concept of spolia’, in C. Rudolph (ed.), A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe (Oxford and Malden, MA, 2006), 233–52.

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the Lateran; it is completely built with spolia’). Obviously the author was not impressed with this important church for he only mentions two of the bronze columns before moving on.2 The building with which this text opens, however, is Saint Peter’s in the Vatican, which is given rather more attention than most other cases. The opening sentence reads as follows: ‘In Saint Peter’s one should pay attention to the greatness of the church which was completely made of spolia, and it was constructed after the glorious period of great architects; nonetheless one can see beautiful columns with Corinthian capitals’.3 (Fig.3.1.) In the same period, that is, a few years before 1520, Raphael and Baldassare Castiglione famously wrote to Pope Leo X. Their letter offers an interesting programme for the documentation of antique architecture and monuments in Rome. In this text the word spolia is used in the same way as in the anonymous text, notably in the description of the Arch of Constantine. The architecture of the arch was judged overall to be a good composition and well executed, but the sculptures were assessed rather differently. Those sculptures dating from the time of Constantine were considered to be both poorly executed and poorly designed. The ‘spoglie di Traiano e di Antonin Pio’ on the other hand were praised as ‘excellentissime e di perfetta maniera’.4 The fact that the word spoglie occurs in this text points to a specific awareness of the reuse of material from older buildings and sculptures. But, of course, an application of such architectural elements is itself much older than the sixteenth century. Significantly, neither the anonymous text of the early sixteenth century, nor Raphael and Castiglione are negative about the use of spolia as such. The sharply critical remarks about the Constantinian relief sculpture concern the composition and the artistic execution, not the fact that part of the material was reused and evidently originated from a period before the construction of the arch itself. These are specific points of interest that we should be aware of when studying the use of spolia in buildings and monuments pre-dating 1500. A number of important questions are raised by the spolia apparently incorporated into the Early Christian basilica of Saint Peter. First of all, 2

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A. Fantozzi (ed.), Nota d’anticaglie et spoglie et cose maravigliose et grande sono nella cipta de Roma da vederle volentieri (Rome, 1994), 24. Fantozzi, Nota d’anticaglie (above, n. 2), 15 (trans. Bosman): ‘A santo Pietro in Roma ponete mente a la grandezza della chiesa fatta tutta de spoglie, et fu fatta in tempo che era passata la chaldezza de’ mirabili architetti, non de meno vedrete colonne bellissime con chapitegli chorinti’. F. P. di Teodoro, Raffaello, Baldassar Castiglione e la Lettera a Leone X con l’aggiunta di due saggi raffaelleschi (Bologna, 2003), 82. A good translation of this text is provided by V. Hart and P. Hicks (eds.), Palladio’s Rome (New Haven and London, 2006), 177–92, this passage p. 183.

Spolia in the fourth-century basilica

can it be established that spolia was actually used in the basilica? If so, is it possible to determine why spolia was used instead of new, previously unused, material? Was there a distinction in the first half of the fourth century between the use of new material and the use of spolia? If there was such a distinction, does the choice of spolia instead of new material indicate a preference for one or the other? Further, if spolia was used, did it matter to anybody that no new material was used? How would we know this? Therefore, can specific meanings be read into the use of spolia at Saint Peter’s? The fourth-century basilica incorporated several important features that are symptomatic of the architecture of Late Antiquity in general, but there is a limit to how certain we can be of the details: although the original plan of Old Saint Peter’s is generally agreed upon by scholars, the height and volume of the transept, for example, has proved especially difficult to establish.5 Since no contemporary written sources exist to inform us about the nature of the building materials that were used in the fourth century, we have to rely on later evidence, including written descriptions, drawings and measurements. We know that the main elements in the architecture of this massive basilica – its nave and four aisles with a transept to the west terminating in an apse – were the columns (Figs. 3.1 and 3.2). The anonymous text from the early sixteenth century is very probably the first to mention the spolia in Saint Peter’s. After that other sixteenth-century authors, among them Fra Mariano from Florence and Giorgio Vasari, labelled the columns as spolia.6 In 1588 Pompeo Ugonio referred to the original ‘cento superbe colonne’, when forty of these original hundred columns could still be admired in the existing eastern part of the old basilica.7 In modern scholarly literature the identification of the columns as spolia has been accepted widely, based on the fact that there were no uniform rows of columns of the same material in the basilica. Instead, they were a vari-coloured group of column shafts. This labelling of the columns as spolia is very interesting because it seems to imply that the ideal for such a colonnade in Late Antiquity would have been rows of columns of the same material. It remains to be seen if that was really the case. Several years ago I studied the material of the columns of Old Saint Peter’s and concluded that indeed most, but certainly not all, of the columns of the 5

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CBCR, V, 165–279; A. Arbeiter, Alt-St. Peter in Geschichte und Wissenschaft. Abfolge der Bauten. Rekonstruktion. Architekturprogramm (Berlin, 1988). L. Bosman, The Power of Tradition: Spolia in the Architecture of Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Hilversum, 2004), 29, 38–9. P. Ugonio, Historia delle stationi di Roma che si celebrano la quadragesima (Rome, 1588), fol. 90v.

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Fig. 3.2. Old Saint Peter’s, axonometric reconstruction. From Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome, fig. 9.

nave could be called spolia.8 Different kinds of coloured marbles and granites were deployed in the colonnade of the nave, where columns of various varieties of stone were organized in pairs.9 Upon entering the basilica the first pair of columns was of africano marble, one of the rarest kinds of marble in the Roman Empire (Figs. 3.1 and 3.3, Plate 2). From east to west the other column shafts were made of such striking materials as portasanta, cipollino and different varieties of red and white granite. Two things persuaded me that at least some of these columns had not been used before they were placed in Saint Peter’s in the fourth century, however. One is the column base that is still in its original position, visible today in the grotte underneath 8 9

Bosman, Power of Tradition (above, n. 6), 19–56. Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann was the first to point out the use of column shafts and capitals in pairs, see F. W. Deichmann, ‘S¨aule und Ordnung in der fr¨uhchristlichen Architektur’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Arch¨aologischen Instituts. R¨omische Abteilung 55 (1940), 130; F. W. Deichmann, Die Spolien in der Sp¨atantiken Architektur (Munich, 1975), 91–2. On other spolia in Saint Peter’s, cf. D. Kinney, ‘Spolia’, in W. Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Cambridge, 2005), 16–47.

Spolia in the fourth-century basilica

Fig. 3.3. Old Saint Peter’s, longitudinal section looking north, with columns and their material. From Bosman, Power of Tradition (above, n. 6), fig. 10.

Saint Peter’s (Fig. 3.4). This crude-looking base was interpreted by Richard Krautheimer and others as a sign of the poor craftsmanship in the time of Constantine.10 This base, however, had never been finished: it looks exactly like other column shafts, capitals and bases delivered from the quarries. These were delivered in an unfinished state so that they could be finished as necessary for specific projects. Such architectural elements were supplied in very large quantities, and stockpiled in Ostia and Portus, as well as in Rome itself and elsewhere. Semi-finished bases can still be found in various places in Italy, including Rome, for example near the Baths of Diocletian.11 In the sixteenth century most of the column shafts of Old Saint Peter’s were drawn and measured, notably by Baldassare Peruzzi and Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane in the course of their work on building new Saint Peter’s. They recorded that five of these column shafts had lengths of more than 30 feet, the height of the majority of the columns.12 When in the Roman 10 11

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CBCR, V, 203–5. Also, for example, in Carrara in the garden of the Museo Civico del Marmo. See M. De Nuccio and L. Ungaro (eds.), I marmi colorati della Roma imperiale (exhibition catalogue) (Rome, 2002), 517–20, 536, cat. 269–72, 298. On the dimensions and proportions of columns in Early Christian churches in Rome, including Saint Peter’s and San Giovanni in Laterano, see P. Barresi, P. Pensabene and D.

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Fig. 3.4. Saint Peter’s, grotte. An Early Christian column base between the nave and inner side aisle, north side.

Empire a shaft of 30 Roman feet (8.92 m) was delivered from the quarry it was left slightly longer, in order to allow for a specific finish when it was actually used.13 Thus it is unusual to find used column shafts that are still taller than the intended measure, in this case 30 Roman feet. In other words, if a shaft is longer than 30 feet it is unlikely to have been used previously. Still another interesting element supports the idea that at least part of the material in Old Saint Peter’s had not been used before. Column shafts were transported from their original quarry to Italy in an equally semi-finished state, allowing for an accurate finish once they were actually used. In an unused marble column which has survived in Ostia horizontal lines are clearly visible. Similar, albeit rather less visible, horizontal lines can be seen on an unfinished granite column in the Baths of Caracalla. Between the

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Trucch, ‘Materiali di reimpiego e progettazione nell’architettura delle chiese paleocristiane di Roma’, in Ecclesiae Urbis. Atti del congresso internazionale di studi sulle chiese di Roma (IV–X secolo). Roma, 4–10 settembre 2000, II (Vatican City, 2002), 799–842. On the measurements in Saint Peter’s by Peruzzi and Sangallo see Bosman, Power of Tradition (above, n. 6), 30–4, 40–1. On the way column shafts were produced, see M. Wilson Jones, Principles of Roman Architecture (New Haven and London, 2000), 130–1, 155.

Spolia in the fourth-century basilica

Fig. 3.5. Saint Peter’s, aedicula with granite columns, showing horizontal lines.

horizontal lines the surface of the shaft had yet to be finished, which never happened in the case of either of these examples. These horizontal lines, at regular distances from the top to the bottom of the column shaft, point to a feature that is present in eleven of the granite columns that were originally used in Old Saint Peter’s and that were redeployed in the new basilica (Fig. 3.5, Plate 3). The darker horizontal lines on these columns may well be the result of influences of weather and light, when these semi-finished shafts were stockpiled for any number of years in the period preceding their eventual use.14 They were finally finished in order to be used for the first time in Old Saint Peter’s. Since they have been inside the Early Christian 14

The horizontal lines or marks on the granite column shafts in Saint Peter’s were discussed for the first time in Bosman, Power of Tradition (above, n. 6), 41–3. For the column shafts in Ostia and in the Terme di Caracalla see P. Pensabene, ‘Sulla tecnica di lavorazione delle colonne in marmo proconnesio del portico in Summa Cavea del Colosseo’, in P. Pensabene (ed.), Marmi antichi, II. Cave e tecnica di lavorazione, provenienze e distribuzione (Rome, 1998), 299; De Nuccio and Ungaro (eds.), I marmi colorati (above, n. 11), cat. 298. See also G. Ponti, ‘Tecniche

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basilica and its successor from the 320s to the present, and therefore never exposed to the elements, the discoloured horizontal lines are still visible: weathering would have caused the granite column shafts to fade to an even colour over the years. All these considerations indicate that at least some of the original fortyfour columns in the nave were not spolia when they were used in the Early Christian basilica of Saint Peter’s, since these sixteen shafts – five of them more than 30 feet tall and eleven bearing horizontal marks – were apparently used for the first time. It can be assumed that the other twenty-eight nave columns were in fact spolia, which means that previously unused column shafts and spolia-column shafts were mixed together in the nave when the basilica was built. Equally important is the notion that new material (from stockpiles) was used as well, albeit not always properly finished. Whether or not the craft-skills necessary to cut a good profile on the base mentioned above (Fig. 3.4) were unavailable in the first quarter of the fourth century will not be discussed here in detail, although such an assumption seems unrealistic in the light of all the building activity in Rome in the period of Maxentius and Constantine.15 All the same, in the literature the evidence mentioned thus far has given rise to far-reaching theories about the use of spolia in this era and its significance. Deichmann disagreed with the interpretation by Krautheimer of certain examples of spolia use in the fifth century as a way to produce some kind of classicism. Krautheimer interpreted certain applications of spolia in the fifth century as a form of classicism that represented continuity: for him the classical era of Roman architecture remained both a landmark and a major point of reference for subsequent periods. According to Deichmann, however, the use of spolia represented change. It sprang from a new aesthetic that was not so much the result of an attempt to revitalize the classical era as an attempt to look

15

di estrazione e di lavorazione delle colonne monolitiche di granito troadense’, in De Nuccio and Ungaro (eds.), I marmi colorati (above, n. 11), 291–5. F. W. Deichmann, ‘Die Architektur des Konstantinischen Zeitalters’, in Rom, Ravenna, Konstantinopel, Naher Osten. Gesammelte Studien zur sp¨atantiken Architektur, Kunst und Geschichte (Wiesbaden, 1982), 112–15, 124–5; J. R. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 2000), 76–90; H. Brandenburg, Die Fr¨uhchristlichen Kirchen Roms vom 4. bis zum 7. Jahrhundert. Der Beginn der Abendl¨andischen Kirchenbaukunst (Regensburg, 2004), 16–18; E. Marlowe, ‘That Customary Magnificence which is your Due’: Constantine and the Symbolic Capital of Rome (Ann Arbor, MI, 2004); M. J. Johnson, ‘Architecture of empire’, in N. Lenski (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (second edition, Cambridge, 2012), 278–97; S. de Blaauw, ‘Konstantin als Kirchenstifter’, in A. Demandt and J. Engemann (eds.), Konstantin der Grosse: Geschichte, Arch¨aologie, Rezeption. Internationales Kolloquium vom 10.–15. Oktober 2005 an der Universit¨at Trier (Trier, 2006), 163–71.

Spolia in the fourth-century basilica

forward and use elements of the past to create an architecture both different and new. Other scholars have pursued this line of thought. Beat Brenk, for example, elaborated this hypothesis of a new aesthetic and introduced the concept of varietas in late antique architecture to explain the use of spolia. According to this somewhat ill-defined notion, an increasing lack of new material supposedly led to the desirability and even necessity of using spolia.16 This building method, adopted by the builders for both practical and ideological reasons, was a new late antique way of using vari-coloured materials together in one building. Other scholars, such as Lindros Wohl, Anguissola and Fabricius Hansen developed arguments on similar lines.17 What may have been overlooked in theories like these is the abundance of semi-finished granite and marble building elements like capitals, bases and columns, as well as large blocks of different kinds of marble. In the first and second centuries enormous quantities of these materials had been imported from different regions in the Mediterranean, such as Egypt, Greece, the Aegean islands and north Africa.18 The use of a variety of coloured marble had increased since the first century and it is very likely to have been used, to mention just one example, in the Basilica Ulpia. That the importation of building materials with different colours peaked in the third century and subsequently declined cannot be gainsaid, nor should the increasingly difficult economic situation in the Roman Empire in general be contested. However, the building activities that developed during the reigns of Maxentius and, from 312 onwards, Constantine are not suggestive of the architecture of poverty-stricken emperors. Funds, although probably more limited than in the second and third centuries, were by no means lacking for those who had 16

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B. Brenk, ‘Spolia from Constantine to Charlemagne: aesthetics versus ideology’, Dumbarton ¨ Oaks Papers 41 (1987), 103–9; B. Brenk, ‘Spolien und ihre Wirkung auf die Asthetik der varietas. Zum Problem alternierender Kapitelltypen’, in J. Poeschke (ed.), Antike Spolien in der Architektur des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Munich, 1996), 49–92; Marlowe, ‘That Customary Magnificence which is your Due’ (above, n. 15), 228. See also the critical reaction in R. Coates-Stephens, ‘Attitudes to spolia in some late antique texts’, in L. Lavan and W. Bowden (eds.), Theory and Practice in Late Antique Archaeology (Leiden and Boston, 2003), 341–58. B. Lindros Wohl, ‘Constantine’s use of spolia’, in J. Fleischer, J. Lund and M. Nielsen (eds.), Late Antiquity: Art in Context. Acta Hyperborea. Danish Studies in Classical Archaeology (Copenhagen, 2001), 85–115; A. Anguissola, ‘Note alla legislazione su spoglio e reimpiego di materiali da costruzione ed arredi architettonici, I sec. a.C.–VI. sec. d.C.’, in W. Cupperi (ed.), Senso delle rovine e riuso dell’antico (Pisa, 2002), 13–29; M. Fabricius Hansen, The Eloquence of Appropriation: Prolegomena to an Understanding of Spolia in Early Christian Rome (Rome, 2003). J. C. Fant, ‘The Roman imperial marble yard at Portus’, in M. Waelkens, N. Herz and L. Moens (eds.), Ancient Stones: Quarrying, Trade and Provenance (Leuven, 1992), 116–17; M. Maischberger, Marmor in Rom. Anlieferung, Lager- und Werkpl¨atze in der Kaiserzeit (Wiesbaden, 1997), 24–5, 159.

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attained the heights of power in the Roman Empire.19 Although the costly production of the luxurious categories of granite and coloured marble in different parts of the Mediterranean and its transportation to Rome had already been abandoned long before Constantine was born, this does not mean that such materials were unavailable. One of the surprising elements of late antique architecture may be that, even though, in general terms, new building material was harder to come by, its lack did not constrain those of the highest rank, probably because there were stockpiled materials waiting to be used. In other words, new material in the days of Constantine – that is, coloured marbles and granites – would of course refer to material that was imported in the second and third centuries, which was warehoused or stockpiled for later use. Such considerations should make us cautious when we try to evaluate and interpret the buildings of the first quarter of the fourth century and the different kinds of stone that were employed to shape them. It may be helpful, therefore, to compare the architecture of Saint Peter’s with the most obvious other monuments of that time, and analyse the way spolia was used in these buildings as well. Two of the most appropriate monuments are the Basilica Constantiniana and the Arch of Constantine, since they offer interesting and important comparative material. The initial stages of the planning and construction of all three buildings can be safely placed in a time-frame of no more than fifteen years. Of these three structures the church building for the bishop of Rome, the Basilica Constantiniana – later known as the Basilica Salvatoris and later still as San Giovanni in Laterano – was the first to have been built. Most probably begun shortly after Constantine’s victory over Maxentius on 28 October 312, the construction of this large basilica was followed in 315 by the Arch of Constantine. In the Basilica Salvatoris two rows of nineteen columns each separated the nave from the inner aisles. Most likely these columns were of red granite, while the inner and the outer aisles were connected by rows of twenty-two columns of the green verde antico marble. Moreover, it is highly probable that four column shafts of the yellow giallo antico marble were used in the continuation of the arcades between the inner and the outer aisles.20 Of the red granite columns only two have survived, reused to support the triumphal arch, and a fragment 19

20

See R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980), 28–31; de Blaauw, ‘Konstantin als Kirchenstifter’ (above, n. 15). See L. Bosman, ‘Constantine’s spolia: a set of columns for San Giovanni in Laterano and the Arch of Constantine in Rome’, in prep. On the architecture of San Giovanni in Laterano see CBCR, V, 1–92; Blaauw, CD, 109–60; Brandenburg, Die Fr¨uhchristlichen Kirchen (above, n. 15), 20–37.

Spolia in the fourth-century basilica

of another column shaft of red granite is kept in the archaeological area underneath San Giovanni. Of the green marble columns quite a few are still visible in the apostle niches in the current basilica, where they were placed in the course of the far-reaching remodelling undertaken by Borromini for Pope Innocent X. Whereas these green columns have a shaft length of 12 Roman feet (3.50 m), the much taller red granite columns are 32 feet long (9.52 m). The former is a standard length, while the latter may point to a specific commission. The four yellow marble column shafts possess a shaft length of 24 Roman feet, or 7.14 m. Thus it is very difficult to state whether or not all these shafts were spolia columns. I am inclined to consider the forty-two green columns as previously unused, whereas the four yellow marble columns are most probably spolia, and the thirty-eight red granite shafts may have been either new or reused. The colourful interior that we encountered in Saint Peter’s had also been a noteworthy feature of San Giovanni, albeit in a different form. In other words, no indication can be found here to favour the interpretation that a deliberate choice to use spolia instead of new material was made. Another choice seems to have taken precedence, that is, to make the interior of San Giovanni in Laterano express the importance of the building and its imperial patron. It seems fair to say that the overall impression may have taken precedence over specific details. This may also have resulted in the use of various kinds of capitals, with the possible differences in them being taken for granted, although any evidence for a reconstruction of the capitals is inconclusive on this point. The arch offered to Constantine at the occasion of his decennalia in 315 is not obviously a monument made up of left-over elements, even though to a very large degree it was constructed of various kinds of spolia. The entire design may have been based very carefully on the Arch of Septimius Severus, from which also the length of the column shafts it incorporates was copied: 24 Roman feet or 7.14 m.21 The materials that were applied on the Arch of Constantine were also colourful, even though today it is difficult to discern those colours due to weathering: the eight column shafts are of the 21

P. Pensabene and C. Panella, ‘Reimpiego e progettazione architettonica nei monumenti tardo-antichi di Roma’, Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 66 (1993–4), 111–283; P. Pensabene, ‘Progetto unitario e reimpiego nell’arco di Costantino’, in P. Pensabene and C. Panella (eds.), Arco di Costantino. Tra archeologia e archeometria (Rome, 1999), 17, 28–31; M. Wilson Jones, ‘Genesis and mimesis: the design of the Arch of Constantine in Rome’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 59 (2000), 50–77; P. Cicerchia, ‘L’analisi metrologica’, in Adriano. Architettura e progetto (exhibition catalogue, Tivoli) (Milan, 2000), 131–5; P. Cicerchia, ‘Considerazioni metrologiche sull’arco’, in M. L. Conforto, A. Melucco Vaccaro, P. Cicerchia, G. Calcani and A. M. Ferroni (eds.), Adriano e Costantino. Le due fasi dell’arco nella valle del Colosseo (Milan, 2001), 61–77.

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yellow giallo antico marble – apart from one that has been replaced later by a shaft of pavonazetto – and the pedestals are made of the green cipollino, on which the pavonazetto statues of prisoners are standing. Green and purple porphyry were also used, along with several kinds of white marble. It seems reasonable to assume that, as for the large San Giovanni in Laterano – the first newly built church for the bishop and the Christian community of Rome – so for the even larger basilica to commemorate the apostle Peter, as well as for the monument to honour Constantine’s first decade in power, calculated choices were made with respect to the design and the materials. These choices obviously had to reflect the high level of the patronage of all three structures. Neither the first Christian emperor, nor the Christian god, would be honoured by creating a building that visibly was assembled from the ruins of other monuments. In other words, care had to be taken to create spaces and monuments that were appropriate for their specific functions. The high and very prestigious level of these building commissions was amply reflected in the use of rich and colourful material for the interior, both for the structural elements such as columns and for the walls and pavement. Parts of the ceiling above the high altar were also gilded, another aspect of this deployment of rich materials.22 Constantine was the emperor honoured in the arch which was raised for him, but in the same period it might be problematic to call him the patron of the two churches, as distinct from acting as the benefactor of these two large Christian basilicas.23 On the other hand, the Basilica Salvatoris was originally known as the Basilica Constantiniana, which may, of course, be accepted as a positive and unambiguous indication of his role as patron of that basilica. The quality of the building materials used in all three cases was closely linked to Constantine’s imperial status. In addition, the remarkable richness of Rome’s architecture before the fourth century was as yet by no means diminished, nor had the buildings begun to fall down, so the availability of any ruins that did exist as potential quarries for building material was probably limited. Stone could not just be taken by anyone who fancied it as building material. In this light a few remarks about the way legislation reflects something about the attitude towards spolia are pertinent. 22

23

Bosman, Power of Tradition (above, n. 6), 52–6, 141–2; H. Brandenburg, ‘Prachtentfaltung und Monumentalit¨at als Bauaufgaben fr¨uhchristlicher Kirchenbaukunst’, in J. Gebauer, E. Grabow, F. Junger and D. Metzler (eds.), Bildergeschichte. Festschrift Klaus St¨ahler (M¨ohnesee, 2004), 59–76; H. Geertman, ‘Il fastigium lateranense e l’arredo presbiteriale: una lunga storia’, in H. Geertman, Hic fecit basilicam. Studi sul ‘Liber Pontificalis’ e gli edifici ecclesiastici di Roma da Silvestro a Silverio (Leuven, 2004), 137–41. See Gem, this volume, 35–64.

Spolia in the fourth-century basilica

The use of spolia was apparently already becoming more general during the reign of Constantine, and during the course of the fourth century laws and regulations point to interesting attitudes towards the material remains of classical Rome. Confronted with the continuous process of decay of the city, the buildings and their decorations were increasingly considered as belonging to the integral image of the city, and as such had to be preserved and maintained in a proper manner. A revealing law issued by Constantine in 321, for instance, forbids citizens to take away marble elements and columns from buildings in the city to transport them to their possessions in the country. This apparent tendency threatened to damage the city of Rome and its respected image. On the other hand, an apparent scarcity of building materials and/or the means to obtain luxurious marbles tempted many citizens to remove usable and costly architectural materials and decoration from other buildings. Several laws in the Codex Theodosianus of 357 and of around 362 testify to this attitude. For the repair and rebuilding of both public and private buildings, provision was made for the use of elements of buildings that already were in ruins, to halt the demolition of still-standing buildings so that their best marble and decoration could be recycled. Towards the end of the fourth century this tendency to regulate the use of spolia increased. When in the second half of the fourth century the availability of building materials apparently worsened and new became increasingly hard to find, it was necessary to allow buildings to be demolished to provide otherwise unavailable material for new structures. This involved coloured marbles and granites, not only for columns and capitals but also for floors. The evidence both from legislative material and from still existing buildings seems to make such an interpretation inescapable.24 What we can learn from this is that at least there was an awareness of the potential of spolia, but not much more than that. One obvious possibility is that there was an element of aesthetic judgement involved, that is, people used spolia because they liked the material. The availability of suitable material also may have played a role, that is, such material could not be obtained in any other way. This does not mean that people preferred either spolia or new material. Spolia, in short, was an additionally available rather than a substitute building resource. The difference of opinion between Krautheimer and Deichmann that was discussed above was fuelled by assumptions about the status of architectural ‘style’ as a driving force for practical decisions. Whereas Krautheimer saw a 24

J. Alchermes, ‘Spolia in Roman cities of the late Empire: legislative rationales and architectural reuse’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 48 (1994), 167–78; Anguissola, ‘Note alla legislazione’ (above, n. 17).

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return to classicist architecture in the fifth century, Deichmann highlighted the break with classical rules and the purity of architectural style, which in his opinion was an inevitable result of the use of spolia.25 Again I must reiterate that the use of colourful material was not a new way of building; it had already existed for well over a century. Coloured marbles and granites were used from Augustan times onwards, with such rich examples as the Forum of Augustus and the Temple of Apollo Sosiano, the Forum of Trajan and the Basilica Ulpia. One might observe that the tendency to use spolia in late antique architecture was increasing, but the phenomenon as such is by no means late antique or even distinctively Christian. At the same time, however, it seems likely that at least part of the material that is usually referred to as spolia was in fact new and had never been used before, as I argued for San Giovanni in Laterano and Saint Peter’s. When spolia was carefully selected and used in such designs for monuments of the highest imperial and religious level, it is impossible to ignore it. Conversely, the often supposed preference of overtly displaying spolia as part of a ‘new aesthetic’ seems unlikely. Several authors have tried to resolve this problem of how a presumed lack of new marble and granite, or lack even of the means to obtain them, could be given a positive ‘spin’ to express new values and a new, Christian aesthetic. Indeed, with reference to the different kinds of coloured marble and granite in Saint Peter’s, Lindros Wohl remarked: ‘The necessity of this mixture, dependent on uneven availability of marble, was apparently turned into a virtue by the late antique users of spolia’.26 The implication is that by the time of the construction of San Giovanni in Laterano more or less the last sets of columns of the same material and of equal proportion had been used up – the thirty-eight red granite columns, the forty-two green marble columns and probably four yellow marble columns as well – leaving the builders of the basilica for the sepulchre of the apostle Peter no other choice than to hunt for column pairs, as a result of which the nave was filled with a colourful colonnade. In the light of the involvement of the Emperor Constantine and given the importance of both basilicas I would find it very hard to believe that this would offer a realistic reconstruction of the building process of these churches. In conclusion, therefore, three elements that have been used and progressively refined in the scholarly debate since Deichmann’s work was published 25

26

Deichmann, ‘S¨aule und Ordnung’ (above, n. 9), 119–26, 130; Deichmann, ‘Die Architektur’ (above, n. 15), 117–18; R. Krautheimer, ‘The architecture of Sixtus III: a fifth-century renascence?’, in M. Meiss (ed.), Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, 2 vols. (De Artibus Opuscula 40) (New York, 1961), I, 291–302; Krautheimer, Rome (above, n. 19), 45–54. Lindros Wohl, ‘Constantine’s use of spolia’ (above, n. 17), 95.

Spolia in the fourth-century basilica

no longer seem to be as persuasive as they once were. First of all, the use of coloured marble and granite had already started in the first century and gradually became more and more visible throughout Rome. For instance, in the ambitious building projects of Emperor Trajan in the second century the rich and colourful kinds of marble and granite (pavonazetto, giallo antico and other kinds) may very well have been intended to emulate the prestige of the nearby Forum of Augustus. Thus the use of these rich materials in the first quarter of the fourth century did not mark a real break with tradition, nor should it be considered as the announcement of a new era. The use of spolia was not a new phenomenon in the time of Constantine but existed well before he manoeuvred himself into the centre of power. During the late third and early fourth centuries an increasing use of spolia can be traced, however. It is impossible, moreover, to distinguish between the use of multicoloured new building materials and variants that happened to be spolia. This weakens the theory that spolia was used above all to convey a specific Christian message.27 The examples of the churches of San Giovanni in Laterano and Saint Peter’s, and of the Arch of Constantine, do not show mutual differences in the way spolia was used, which also weakens the notion of the new, Christian, meaning of the use of spolia in Late Antiquity. As I stressed earlier, we have no means of ascertaining whether the use of spolia together with new building and decorative material was acknowledged at all, or whether it mattered to anybody in the first thirty years of the fourth century. In any case, the basilica as a type of building was not chosen from a range of typological alternatives when the plans to build San Giovanni in Laterano and Saint Peter’s were first developed and discussed. A basilica was simply a type of building that had already been used for centuries to accommodate large groups of people gathered together.28 It was only natural to continue along well-established lines as much as possible, and thus also to make a connection with traditional aspects of Roman architecture. Rather than the creation of a supposedly new and Christian language in architecture, continuity in predominant elements of architecture was crucial, both in the typological features of the basilica and in the use of rich and striking materials. Since, in the first quarter of the fourth century the use of spolia was not a new phenomenon, it is more than likely that the difference between the two alternatives of new, never before used, material and spolia was not acknowledged as an important element at all. The richness of the material 27 28

Coates-Stephens, ‘Attitudes to spolia’ (above, n. 16), 342–4. Deichmann, ‘Die Architektur’ (above, n. 15), 112–25.

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was by far the most important consideration during the process of design and construction, not the question of whether the material was brand new or recycled.29 The decision to use spolia in some cases was not determined by a shortage of materials or a wish to save money, though the economic situation in the Mediterranean region more generally in the fourth century may have contributed to an increasing use of spolia. The colourful, rich and striking architecture created in this period was meant to impress all who saw it, and to express the highest level of architectural commissions. It was entirely in keeping with the monumental display and representation of earlier emperors. These remarkable buildings were a way of connecting with the past, rather than deliberately breaking away from it.

29

See D. Kinney, ‘Bearers of meaning’, Jahrbuch f¨ur Antike und Christentum 50 (2007), 139–53.

4

The Early Christian baptistery of Saint Peter’s olof brandt

Fig. 4.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 4.

Many late antique and medieval sources show that the Early Christian basilica of Saint Peter’s had a baptistery, but it has left no physical traces. Much has been written about this baptistery, discussing two fundamental questions: when was it built, and where? (Fig. 4.1.) The first question relates to its date of construction. The baptistery at Saint Peter’s must have been in existence during the pontificate of Simplicius (468–83), who, according to the Liber Pontificalis, organized the celebration of Easter baptism in the Roman sanctuaries of Peter, Paul and Lawrence: ‘He fixed the weekly turns at Saint Peter’s, Saint Paul’s and Saint Lawrence’s, so that priests should remain there for penitents and for baptism’.1 There are three main sources that suggest there was a baptistery before the time of Simplicius: two of these are inscriptions traditionally attributed to 1

Life 49, c. 2, LP, I, 249; ‘Hic constituit ad sanctum Petrum apostolum et ad sanctum Paulum apostolum et ad sanctum Laurentius martyrem ebdomadas ut presbyteri manerent, propter penitentes et baptismum’; Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 43.

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Pope Damasus (366–84) (Ferrua, nos. 3, 4); a third is another inscription that mentions Damasus by name (Ferrua, no. 4I ). A fourth source is a hymn of Prudentius, which describes the channelled waters of the spring at Saint Peter’s; but it is not clear whether the poem refers to the fountain in the atrium of Saint Peter’s or if it is an account of the baptistery.2 Many scholars have discussed these ancient sources in detail and here it will be enough to mention them rather briefly. Only one of the two inscriptions attributed to Damasus is assigned to the baptistery by Brandenburg.3 It is known only from an incomplete early medieval transcription where it is introduced by the rubric ad fontes with no explicit reference to Saint Peter’s: non haec humanis opibus, non arte magistra, ... ... sed prestante petro cui tradita ianua caeli est, antistes christi conposuit damasus. una petri sedes, unum verumq. lavacrum; vincula nulla tenent . . . Not by human work and not with the help of art, ... ... but with the aid of Peter to whom the doors of heaven have been entrusted, Damasus, bishop of Christ, did these things. One is the seat of Peter and one true baptism; Chains do not bind . . .

Ihm doubted the attribution to Damasus because of the expression antistes Christi, which he believed fitted better in the fifth century, concluding that the inscription talked about Damasus but that it had not been written 2

3

Prudentius, Peristephanon, H. J. Thomson (ed.) (Cambridge, MA, 1949–53), 12.31–44. Blaauw, CD, 487–91, at p. 488; H. Tr¨ankle, ‘Der Brunnen im Atrium der Petersbasilika und der Zeitpunkt von Prudentius’ Romaufenhalt’, Zeitschrift f¨ur Antikes Christentum 3 (1999), 97–119; H. Brandenburg, ‘Das Baptisterium und der Brunnen des Atriums von Alt-Sankt Peter in Rom’, BOREAS. M¨unstersche Beitr¨age zur Arch¨aologie 26 (2003), 55–71. The text is edited in ICUR II.1, XIII.10, p. 147; ICUR–NS, no. 4096; M. Ihm (ed.), Damasi Epigrammata (Leipzig, 1895), no. 5; A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana (Vatican City, 1942), no. 4; D. Schaller and E. K¨onsgen (eds.), Initia Carminum Latinorum Saeculo Undecimo Antiquiorium (G¨ottingen, 1977), no. 10417. See also J. Zettinger, ‘Die a¨ ltesten Nachrichten u¨ ber Baptisterien der Stadt Rom’, R¨omische Quartalschrift 16 (1902), 326–49, at pp. 332–3; C. Smith, ‘Pope Damasus’ baptistery in Saint Peter’s reconsidered’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 64 (1988), 257–86, at p. 259; G. Cuscito, ‘Epigrafi di apparato nei battisteri paleocristiani d’Italia’, in L’edificio battesimale in Italia. Aspetti e problemi. Atti dell’VIII congresso nazionale di archeologia cristiana. Genova, Sarzana, Albenga, Finale Ligure, Ventimiglia 21–26 settembre 1998 (Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri. Atti dei convegni 5) (Bordighera, 2001), 441–66, at pp. 446–8. The translation here is adapted from Smith, ‘Pope Damasus’ baptistery’, 259 n. 5.

The Early Christian baptistery

by him.4 On the other hand, Ferrua accepted Damasus’s authorship, and argued that the inscription was from Saint Peter’s not least because it occurs in the manuscript as part of a coherent set of inscriptions derived from that basilica.5 The second inscription attributed to Damasus is preserved partially in the Vatican grottoes and has often been attributed to the basilica’s baptistery. Its text, which was widely copied in medieval sylloges, is as follows:6 cingebant latices montem teneroque meatu corpora multorum cineres atque ossa rigabant non tulit hoc damasus communi lege sepultos post requiem tristes iterum persolvere poenas protinus adgressus magnum superare laborem aggeris immensi deiecit culmina montis intima sollicite scrutatus viscera terrae siccavit totum quidquid madefecerat humor invenit fontem praebet qui dona salutis haec curavit mercurius levita fidelis. Hidden springs and narrow channels encircle the mountain and many bodies, both ashes and bones were flooded. Damasus did not tolerate that those buried by common law had to pay again, after their rest, this sad penalty. Setting about the great task of construction, he threw down the top of the mountain. Carefully he scrutinised the viscera of the earth and dried all that had been flooded. He discovered the font which gives health. Mercurius, faithful deacon, took care of these works. 4 5

6

Ihm, Damasi Epigrammata (above, n. 3), 9. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana (above, n. 3), 94. The text is part of the first Lorsch sylloge, contained in Rome, BAV, Pal. Lat. 833 fol. 30r. It follows two Carolingian inscriptions that are discussed by Story, this volume, 266. The text is ICUR II.1, 349; ICUR–NS, no. 4098; Ihm, Damasi Epigrammata (above, n. 3), no. 4; Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana (above, n. 3), no. 3; Schaller and K¨onsgen, Initia Carminum (above, n. 3), no. 2315. See also Zettinger, ‘Die a¨ ltesten Nachrichten’ (above, n. 3), 331–2; Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana (above, n. 3), 88–93; J. Ruysschaert, ‘Prudence l’espagnol po`ete des deux basiliques romaines de S. Pierre et de St. Paul’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 42 (1966), 267–87, at pp. 272–3; M. Cecchelli, ‘Intorno ai complessi battesimali di S. Pietro in Vaticano e di S. Agnese sulla Via Nomentana’, Quaderni dell’Istituto di Archeologia e Storia Antica 3 (1982–3), 181–99, at p. 184; Smith, ‘Pope Damasus’ baptistery’ (above, n. 3), 257–9; Tr¨ankle, ‘Der Brunnen im Atrium’ (above, n. 2), 98; Cuscito, ‘Epigrafi di apparato’ (above, n. 3), 448–51; Brandenburg, ‘Das Baptisterium’ (above, n. 2), 56–8; R. Coates-Stephens, ‘Gli acquedotti in epoca tardoantica nel Suburbio’, in P. Pergola, R. Santangeli Valenzani and R. Volpe (eds.), Suburbium. Il suburbio di Roma dalla crisi del sistema delle ville a Gregorio Magno (Rome, 2003), 415–36, at p. 429. The translation is adapted from Smith, ‘Pope Damasus’ baptistery’ (above, n. 3), 258 n. 4.

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Fig. 4.2. The transept of Old Saint Peter’s, from the north, in a drawing made after 1538 by a follower of Maerten van Heemskerck. A large inscription is shown here on the external wall of the north transept between the central window and the round-headed niche at ground level.

Early descriptions of the location of this inscription are particularly interesting. Until the fifteenth century, the inscription was not inside the basilica but outside, fixed on the external wall near the hillside. This may well have been its original location. Three fifteenth-century commentators noted its position: Mapheus Vegius wrote lateri basilicae adfixus; Cyriacus of Ancona said in clivo super ecclesiam B. Petri in fontibus; Petrus Sabinus added in exteriore fronte parietis ad latus dextrum templi divi Petri, which would mean outside the north transept. Many believe that this inscription is the same as the marble slab that is visible on the outside of the north transept on a drawing by the school of Maerten van Heemskerck made not before 1538 (Fig. 4.2).7 By 1574 the inscription had been moved from its old position to the floor of the basilica.8 The text of this inscription informs us how Damasus drained the water that was invading the tombs and excavated the hillside. The language alludes to the water of salvation with expressions like fontem qui praebet dona salutis 7

8

J. Christern, ‘Der Aufriss von Alt-St.-Peter’, R¨omische Quartalschrift 62 (1967), 133–83, at pp. 157–8, Taf. 14, and Ruysschaert, ‘Prudence l’espagnol po`ete’ (above, n. 6), 272. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana (above, n. 3), 90.

The Early Christian baptistery

but is rather different from the more dogmatic language normally used in inscriptions in baptisteries. Some scholars have preferred to attribute this inscription to the fountain in the atrium of the basilica, but both this text and the verses of Prudentius (composed after a visit to Saint Peter’s in the first years of the fifth century or the last years of the fourth) that describe the watercourses at Saint Peter’s could allude simultaneously both to work executed outside the north transept and to the construction of the atrium fountain, as proposed by Pietri.9 The inscription’s relationship to the baptistery is not clear, but it strongly implies that Damasus made some kind of water arrangement outside the north transept. A third relevant inscription at Saint Peter’s is also cut in the style of the characteristic lettering created by Filocalus for Damasus’s inscriptions.10 The fragmentary text, dated epigraphically to the late fourth century, mentions a senatorial noble woman named Anastasia who had sponsored the marble decoration of something that had been made by Damasus. Most scholars associate this text with Damasus’s baptistery, but it is not explicitly mentioned. Again, little useful information comes from this text except for the unsurprising inference that the baptistery of Saint Peter’s had marble decoration. Many, both ancient and modern, from the sixth-century author of the Gesta Liberii, to Alfarano, and to contemporary scholars like Cecchelli and Brandenburg, attribute the baptistery to Damasus because of these inscriptions.11 This attribution is plausible, since the baptistery is absent from the account of Constantine’s foundation of Saint Peter’s and it must have been built before the pontificate of Simplicius in the second half of the fifth century. But the question ‘when’ is not at the centre of this chapter, which rather focuses on the second question concerning its location: where was the baptistery? About this, much has also been written.12 9

10

11

12

Prudentius, Peristephanon (above, n. 2), 12.31–44; Tr¨ankle, ‘Der Brunnen im Atrium’ (above, n. 2), 97–8; R. Klein, ‘Prudentius in Rom’, R¨omische Quartalschrift 98 (2003), 93–111; Brandenburg, ‘Das Baptisterium’ (above, n. 2); C. Pietri, Roma Christiana: recherches sur l’´eglise de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son id´eologie de Miltiade a` Sixte III (311–440), ´ 2 vols. (Biblioth`eque des Ecoles Franc¸aises d’Ath`enes et de Rome 224) (Rome, 1976), 520. The text is ICUR–NS, no. 4097; Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana (above, n. 3), no. 4 and pp. 94–6; for commentaries on this text see Cuscito, ‘Epigrafi di apparato’ (above, n. 3), 451–2; Brandenburg, ‘Das Baptisterium’ (above, n. 2), 64. Cecchelli, ‘Intorno ai complessi battesimali’ (above, n. 6), 181–99; Brandenburg, ‘Das Baptisterium’ (above, n. 2), 56. For comments on its location in the north transept, see LP, I, 266, n. 20; J. P. Kirsch, ‘Beitr¨age zur Baugeschichte der alten Peterskirche’, R¨omische Quartalschrift 4 (1890) 110–24, at pp. 113–22; J. H. Emminghaus, ‘Die Taufanlage ad sellam Petri Confessionis’, R¨omische Quartalschrift 57 (1962), 78–103; Ruysschaert, ‘Prudence l’espagnol po`ete’ (above, n. 6), 274; Cecchelli, ‘Intorno ai complessi battesimali’ (above, n. 6), 182–6; Brandenburg, ‘Das Baptisterium’ (above, n. 2), 68. For arguments relating to Saint Andrew’s, see A. de Waal, ‘Das

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Alfarano indicated the position of the baptistery of Old Saint Peter’s on his late sixteenth-century plan (Plate 1, no. 31) (see also Fig. 4.1). The caption to the plan describes it as a ‘baptismal font decorated with verses by Damasus’. A circular font is shown within the north exedra, that is, in the space created and delineated by two columns at the northern end of the transept. The northern wall of this room was occupied, Alfarano says, by three altars, two of which were dedicated to Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist (Plate 1, nos. 30 and 32); these and another oratory nearby (Plate 1, no. 35) dedicated to the Holy Cross had been made, he says, ‘by Symmachus’. All this seems to correspond to indications in written sources from the sixth century onwards, such as the Gesta Liberii, which say that the baptistery was found ‘to the right when you enter the basilica’ and which attribute it to Damasus. There seems to be little space for doubt. (Fig. 4.3.) It is possible to trace the position of the font as indicated by Alfarano a thousand years back in time to the early sixth century, when the Gesta Liberii clearly states that the baptistery was in the right transept: a dextra ineuntibus in basilicam. The text tells how Damasus drained a spot to the right of the basilica and ‘built a font’: Damasus . . . fecit autem cuniculos duos et exinanivit locum illum qui est a dextra intraeuntibus in basilicam beati Petri apostoli. Habebat enim ibidem fontem qui non sufficiebat. Et caecidit montem Damasus manu sua. Et introivit plus quam consuetum est. Et construxit fontem.13 Damasus . . . made two channels and dried that place which is to the right when you enter the basilica of the blessed apostle Peter. Because it had an insufficient font. And Damasus cut the mountain with his own hand. And more than usual came in. And he built a font.

The altars and oratoria mentioned by Alfarano and attributed by him to Pope Symmachus (498–514) also correspond to the account in the biography of

13

Baptisterium des Papstes Damasus bei St. Peter’, R¨omische Quartalschrift 16 (1902), 58–61. Others argue that it was first in Saint Andrew’s, and then moved by Leo III to the north transept: W. N. Schumacher, ‘Das Baptisterium von Alt-St. Peter und seine Probleme’, in O. Feld and U. Peschlow (eds.), Studien zur Sp¨atantiken und Byzantinischen Kunst F. W. Deichmann Gewidmet, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1986), I, 215–33; F. Tolotti, ‘I due mausolei rotondi esistiti sul lato meridionale del vecchio S. Pietro’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 64 (1988), 287–315. For the argument that the baptistery was located inside the basilica, see A. Ferrua, ‘Dei primi battisteri parrocchiali e di quello di S. Pietro in particolare’, La Civilt`a Cattolica 90/2 (1939), 146–57, at p. 154. For arguments that it was on the Janiculum, see Smith, ‘Pope Damasus’ baptistery’ (above, n. 3); for an independent building see G. Mackie, ‘The Santa Croce drawings: a re-examination’, Revue d’Art Canadienne/Canadian Art Review 24/1 (1997), 1–14, and Tr¨ankle, ‘Der Brunnen im Atrium’ (above, n. 2), 99. Gesta Liberii, PL, VIII, cols. 1387–1410, at 1392, dated to the first years of the sixth century by G. N. Verrando, ‘Liberio-Felice. Osservazioni e rettifiche di carattere storico-agiografico’, Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 35 (1981), 91–125, at p. 108.

The Early Christian baptistery

Fig. 4.3. Maerten van Heemskerck (1498–1574), interior of the transept of Old Saint Peter’s half torn down, from the north exedra. Pen and brown ink, brown wash. 20 × 27.5 cm.

that pope in the almost-contemporary Liber Pontificalis, which states that Symmachus built three oratoria or chapels by the baptistery of Saint Peter’s, dedicated to the Holy Cross and to the two Saint Johns: the Apostle and the Evangelist. There is a close correspondence between the descriptions recorded in the sixteenth and sixth centuries – perhaps too close: Alfarano may have been inspired by the Liber Pontificalis for some details of his plan. Nevertheless, it seems highly improbable that the baptistery had been moved around in the meantime. It also seems improbable that the baptistery, whenever it was built, had a different position before the sixth century. As Brandenburg also concludes, this makes it necessary to leave out of the discussion all proposals that imply that the baptistery was not in the north transept, such as the suggestion that it was in Saint Andrew’s, the easternmost of the circular mausolea to the south, or that it was on the Janiculum hill, some distance from the basilica.14 On its position in the north transept there 14

On Saint Andrew’s, see de Waal, ‘Das Baptisterium’ (above, n. 12), 58–61, and Schumacher, ‘Das Baptisterium’ (above, n. 12). For arguments relating to the Janiculum, see Smith, ‘Pope Damasus’ baptistery’ (above, n. 3), 257–86.

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is an agreement among most scholars, and most follow Louis Duchesne, the nineteenth-century editor of the Liber Pontificalis, in thinking that Alfarano’s plan shows the position of the Early Christian baptistery.15 This is as far as the certainties can be stretched. What follows is a discussion of aspects of the question that are and will probably remain uncertain. Some things do not fit in the reconstruction discussed above or with Alfarano’s plan, of which the following are the most important. 1. In 1902 Anton de Waal questioned the consensus on the north transept: ‘The shape and position of this baptistery would be a total exception from the baptisteries of the fourth and fifth centuries’, he writes. Baptisteries were in his opinion usually circular or octagonal with a vestibule. The baptistery on Alfarano’s plan is not satisfying, he writes, because it was separated from the basilica only by two columns of the exedra screen, and the catechumens had to enter it from the basilica.16 While de Waal was not completely right to insist that baptisteries were always round or octagonal, it is difficult to ignore his objection that baptisteries normally were separated from the basilica by a vestibule and had their entrance from the outside. More modest and less monumental baptisteries could be square or rectangular, that much is not a problem, but they were usually separated from the church by a room, as is evident in the Roman baptisteries of San Clemente and Santa Cecilia, for example.17 Monumental baptisteries were usually completely independent from the church, and in front of the main entrance they had a vestibule, as seen at the Lateran baptistery (Fig. 4.4, Plate 4) and also in the probably original late antique vestibule of the baptistery of Sant’Eufemia in Grado.18 A monumental baptistery might also be united to the church, but separated from it by a portico of a different shape, as seen at Porec¸ (Istria) or in the external baptistery of the cathedral at Aquileia.19 15 16 17

18

19

See Duchesne’s comments in LP, I, 263. De Waal, ‘Das Baptisterium’ (above, n. 12), 58–60. San Clemente: F. Guidobaldi, ‘San Clemente. Gli scavi piu` recenti (1992–2000)’, in Roma dall’antichit`a al medioevo, II (Rome, 2004), 390–415, figs. 1b and 12a; 1997, tav. IIId; Santa Cecilia: N. Parmegiani and A. Pronti, ‘Il titulus Sanctae Caeciliae e il suo battistero’, in C. La Bella, A. Lo Biarco, P. Marchetti et al., Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (Rome, 2007), 41–55, at p. 52, fig. 68. On San Giovanni in Laterano: O. Brandt and F. Guidobaldi, ‘Il Battistero Lateranense: nuove interpretazioni delle fasi strutturali’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 84 (2008), 189–282, fig. 1; on Grado: P. L. Zovatto, ‘Il battistero di Grado’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 23–4 (1947–8), 231–51, fig. 8. Porec¸: M. Mirabelli Roberti, ‘I battisteri dell’arco adriatico’, in Aquileia e Ravenna (Antichit`a ´ Altoadriatiche 13) (Udine, 1978), 489–503; Aquileia: K. von Lanckoronski, Der Dom von Aquileia. Sein Bau und seine Geschichte (Vienna, 1906), Taf. VII.

The Early Christian baptistery

Fig. 4.4. The vestibule of the Lateran baptistery, seen from the southeast.

2. The Gesta Liberii does seems to refer to the interior of the basilica when it talks about a place a dextra introeuntibus in basilicam beati Petri apostoli but it continues with the comment that Damasus cut down a mountain, caecidit montem, which clearly refers to a situation outside the basilica; so the text should probably most correctly be translated ‘to the right of the basilica’. 3. The biography of Pope Symmachus in the Liber Pontificalis states clearly that the three oratoria that this pope added to the baptistery of Saint Peter’s were cubicula: cubicula omnes a fundamento perfecta construxit.20 While the altars shown on Alfarano’s plan could perhaps be described as oratoria, they could hardly be defined as cubicula, and the expression a fundamento construxit could fit only a separate building or chapel. The situation described in the sixth century is not the one on Alfarano’s plan. 4 Things become even more complicated when we arrive at the long and detailed life of Pope Leo III (795–816) in the Liber Pontificalis.21 The 20 21

Life 53, c. 7, LP, I, 261; Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 47. Life 98, c. 65, LP, II, 17: commentary in C. Huelsen, ‘Osservazioni sulla biografia di Leone III’, Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia. Rendiconti 1, 1921–1922/1922–1923 (1923), 107–19, at p. 110.

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text is detailed but at the same time rather obscure. The Liber Pontificalis first describes how Leo III made a new ciborium in Saint Andrew’s, the easternmost of the rotundas outside the south transept. The text seems to say that the baptistery was found in front of Saint Andrew’s (baptisterium ubi supra conspiciens), that it was old and small, and that the pope rebuilt it bigger, this time circular. He also enlarged the font and decorated it with porphyry columns, probably in a ciborium imitating that of the Lateran baptistery, and decorated the walls all around with paintings: baptisterium ubi supra conspiciens quia iam prae nimia vetustate ruinae proximae inerat, et quia angustior locus populi existebat qui ad baptismum veniebant, isdem praesul a fundamentis ipsum baptisterium in rotundum ampla largitate construens in meliorem erexit statu, atque sacrum fontem in medio largiori spatio fundavit, eumque in circuitu columnis porphireticis decoravit et in medio fontis columnam posuit . . . Ipsum vero baptisterium diversis in circuitu decoravit picturis. realising that the baptistery in the same place was now close to collapse from its great age and that the place for people coming to baptism was too constricted, [Leo] improved its condition by building the baptistery from its foundations as a rotunda of adequate size, set the sacred font in the wider central space, decorated it all round with porphyry columns, placed a column in the middle . . . The baptistery itself he decorated all round with various paintings.22

At least three times in this short text there are clear allusions to a circular shape: in rotundum, and in circuitu repeated twice. The text distinguishes clearly between the font itself (sacrum fontem) and the building around it, the round baptisterium, so it is not possible to make a reductionist interpretation and argue that Leo III made only a circular font.23 Leo III’s baptistery was round, but a round baptistery is not what is shown on Alfarano’s plan. Leo’s reconstruction of the Vatican baptistery has been dated to 806.24 5 Christern has observed that the three internal niches on the north wall of the north transept on Alfarano’s plan hardly can fit with the three huge external niches (of which the central one seems to be a window) shown on the same wall on Renaissance drawings (see Fig. 4.2).25 What is more, excavations in this area show the presence of a door in the north wall of the exedra, 1.03 m east from the northwestern corner, in the place where 22 23 24 25

Life 98, c. 65, LP, II, 17; Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 206. Emminghaus, ‘Die Taufanlage’ (above, n. 12), 83. Huelsen, ‘Osservazioni’ (above, n. 21), 110. Christern, ‘Der Aufriss’ (above, n. 7), 158 n. 59.

The Early Christian baptistery

Alfarano said the oratory of Saint John the Evangelist had been located.26 This part of Alfarano’s plan is simply wrong. This is how we can describe the problem, which, in my opinion, makes it impossible to see an Early Christian baptistery in the arrangement in the north transept on Alfarano’s plan: we may even conclude that that arrangement is simply wrong because it contradicts Renaissance drawings. Another solution is necessary. The best solution is, in my opinion, that the north transept was the vestibule of the baptistery, which was an independent building north of the transept. This has already been proposed by several scholars, with little success, but remains the best solution considering that Alfarano’s depiction is unacceptable.27 This independent building may have been abandoned some centuries before the demolition of Old Saint Peter’s, as it was witnessed – perhaps – by Alfarano, but also by other late descriptions that correspond to his plan. A baptistery inside the northern transept may perhaps go back to the twelfth century, when the walls of the north exedra were raised to the height of the transept ‘above the font’ by Hadrian IV (1154–9).28 Soon after, Peter Mallius seems to talk about the situation described by Alfarano when he mentions an ecclesia of the Holy Cross in the transept, in front of the baptistery. In his Descriptio Basilicae Vaticanae (1159–81) he mentions in some detail porphyry columns and a mosaic in the ‘church’ of the Holy Cross, and adds that ‘after that there is the baptistery’, but he gives no details at all about it, nothing about its columns, mosaics or paintings, except the attribution to Damasus, which he explicitly takes from texts, not from the monument itself.29 This seems rather odd and may indicate that the monumental baptistery had been abandoned. However, other late descriptions seem to describe a monumental baptistery. In the mid-fifteenth century, Mapheus Vegius writes that Damasus’s baptistery was a ruin, dirutum, but that the subterranean channels attributed 26 27

28

29

CBCR, V, 192–3; Blaauw, CD, 490. Zettinger, ‘Die a¨ ltesten Nachrichten’ (above, n. 3), 332, n. 2; Mackie, ‘The Santa Croce drawings’ (above, n. 12), 1–14; Tr¨ankle, ‘Der Brunnen im Atrium’ (above, n. 2), 99. LP, II, 395: ‘super oratorium sancti Ioannis in fonte murum a tribus lateribus erigens navi eiusdem ecclesiae coequavit’. ‘Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae’, in ICUR, II.1, 199–223, esp. pp. 218–19; Valentini–Zucchetti III, 421–2: ‘Ante ecclesiam Sancti Iohannis ad fontes, est oratorium sanctae Luciae; quod, ut a nostris maioribus accepimus, consecravit beatus Gregorius papa . . . Ab alia parte est ecclesia sanctae Crucis, quam construi fecit beatae recordationis Symachus papa, cuius absidam columnis porfireticis et optimo mosibo decoravit, et x. libras ligni sanctae Crucis in ea recondidit. Postea sunt fontes quos fieri fecit beatus Damasus papa, sicut in scriptis invenimus.’

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to Damasus were still visible. He describes the baptistery as an oratorium with many altars.30 In the same period, Nicolaus Muffel, who visited Rome in 1450, saw, after the chapel of the Holy Cross, a round baptistery with six columns ‘as in the Lateran baptistery’.31 Muffel’s description is not very clear, but it definitely does not fit with Alfarano’s plan. Both Vegius and Muffel seem to refer to Leo III’s baptistery. The so-called exedra of the northern transept, where many scholars wish to imagine the baptistery, is a rectangular room with one of the long sides replaced by two columns carrying an architrave (an arrangement clearly visible on a Heemskerck drawing from 1532–6; see Fig. 4.3). The columns, in pavonazzetto marble, are now on the north side of the Porta del Popolo.32 The north exedra may well be interpreted as a vestibule and can be compared to that of the Lateran baptistery, which has an identical arrangement of two columns with architrave (see Fig. 4.4, Plate 4). The dimensions of this room have been calculated with precision by Krautheimer: long sides external length 20 m, internal length 16.82 m; short sides external length 12.26 m, internal length 10.76 m; the side that was open towards the basilica had pillars 1.82 m wide abutting the transept wall at both ends; the intercolumnium between the two columns was 4.64 m, and between the columns and the pillars 4.27 m. The total height of columns with bases and capitals was, according to Arbeiter, about 8.4 m.33 If we consider this room a vestibule of the baptistery, the arrangement with a completely perforated wall towards the basilica and a door between the vestibule and the baptistery itself would be quite normal and can, again, be compared to the Lateran baptistery. One may wonder whether this is the porticus mentioned by the eighthcentury pilgrim’s itinerary preserved in a Salzburg manuscript of c. 800, which tells the anonymous pilgrim to go to the portico where the Holy Cross is preserved, and then to enter the baptistery: ‘Then you must go to the portico, where the vexillum of the life-giving Cross is kept. When you enter the baptistery, in the wall there is an altar of the blessed martyr George. Then to Saint John the Evangelist; after having greeted him, you come to Saint John the Baptist.’34 Porticus could be a description of the 30

31 32

33 34

ICUR, II.1, 349: ‘Oratorium, multis altaribus munitum, quod sacri fontis causa sanctus Damasus papa extruxerat. Quod etsi nunc dirutum sit, extant tamen subterranei ipsi meatus, quibus per multa miliaria aqua ducebatur, magna arte atque impensa fabricati.’ W. Vogt, Nikolaus Muffels Beschreibung der Stadt Rom (T¨ubingen, 1876), 24. A. Arbeiter, Alt-St. Peter in Geschichte und Wissenschaft, Abfolge der Bauten. Rekonstruktion. Architekturprogramm (Berlin, 1988), 161. Arbeiter, Alt-Saint-Peter (above, n. 32), 161–2, Beil. 3. Valentini-Zucchetti II, 95–9, at pp. 97–8: ‘Tum etiam tibi pergendum est ad porticum, ubi vivificae crucis vexillum servatur. Teque ad fontem ingrediente, altare est in muro beati Georgii

The Early Christian baptistery

north exedra separated from the transept by two columns, or of a structure outside the transept, but even if the porticus is inside the north transept, the font itself must be outside it, because the pilgrim entered the baptistery from the porticus. The Salzburg manuscript is not easy to interpret, but it can be useful to observe that it does not describe the situation on Alfarano’s plan (Fig. 4.1), where the altar of the Holy Cross is situated outside, not inside, the porticus in the north end of the transept. This fact makes it interesting to consider also the possibility that this late eighth-century source describes a situation outside the north transept and not inside it. But if the texts seem to indicate a position outside the north transept, it is difficult to compare this with the archaeological situation, about which almost nothing is known. The detailed archaeological map of the Vatican shows nothing at all here – this area, outside the transept of the Constantinian basilica but inside the transept of the present basilica, is terra incognita.35 Brandenburg states that the Vatican hill rose sharply just north of the transept and that there was no space for an independent baptistery,36 but I have the impression that there was enough space. Alfarano’s plan shows, outside the north transept, two chapels and remains of other constructions. Sixteenth-century drawings showing the north transept from the north show only that the ground was somewhat higher, but also that the transept had windows and a door and that there were structures outside it.37 The idea that the baptistery of Saint Peter’s was monumental and independent was developed some time ago by Gillian Mackie.38 She observed that two sets of anonymous fifteenth-century drawings of the chapel of the Holy Cross at the Lateran show a building that had some details, such as small corner rooms, that were different from the Lateran Holy Cross chapel that, although demolished in the late sixteenth century, is well known from many detailed Renaissance plans and drawings by Baldassarre Peruzzi and others. She proposed that these anonymous drawings may depict not the Lateran Holy Cross but rather the Vatican copy that was added to the Vatican baptistery by Pope Symmachus according to the Liber Pontificalis. According to Mackie, the Vatican copy was not a side altar in the north transept, as shown by Alfarano’s plan and accepted thence by many scholars,39 but

35 36 38 39

martyris. Tum ad sanctum Ioannem Evangelistam; eoque salutato, pervenies ad sanctum Ioannem Baptistam.’ On the earlier part of this itinerary see Story, this volume, 261–6. P. Liverani, La topografia antica del Vaticano (Vatican City, 1999), tav. I. 37 CBCR, V, figs. 204–7. Brandenburg, ‘Das Baptisterium’ (above, n. 2), 65–6. Mackie, ‘The Santa Croce drawings’ (above, n. 12), 1–14. See, for example, Kirsch, ‘Beitr¨age zur Baugeschichte’ (above, n. 12); Emminghaus, ‘Die Taufanlage’ (above, n. 12), 94.

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an independent building added to a baptistery, which itself was independent. According to Mackie, what Alfarano shows is the situation after the demolition of the Vatican Holy Cross oratory, in a moment of transition with a temporary arrangement for baptism waiting for the construction of the new basilica. Johnson criticized this theory, because in his opinion it is improbable that the anonymous drawings could have been made before the demolition of the Vatican Holy Cross chapel in 1453.40 But exactly because the drawings are anonymous, they are difficult to date, and in the context of the observations made above, Mackie’s interpretation is worth some consideration. The Vatican baptistery may have been an independent monumental building, surrounded by three external chapels, of which perhaps some remains can be identified on the right of the drawing by Heemskerck’s school (Fig. 4.2). Many observations seem to indicate that the baptistery of Saint Peter’s was a monumental one. As a matter of fact, it may not even be the only monumental baptistery in Rome that has disappeared. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope Sixtus III (432–40) made a new baptistery in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and decorated it with porphyry columns just as he had done at the Lateran baptistery.41 The baptistery of Santa Maria Maggiore has gone, but was most probably an independent building because in the ninth century it had its own roof, separate from that of the basilica; at least that is the most logical deduction when the Liber Pontificalis informs us that Pope Benedict III (855–8) repaired the baptistery that had remained without a roof for a long time.42 In fact, there are good reasons to believe that there were independent, monumental and centrally planned baptisteries decorated with porphyry columns not only at the Lateran but also in Santa Maria Maggiore and in Saint Peter’s. The Lateran baptistery may have had two brothers in Rome. These are, of course, pure hypotheses. But at the end of this hypothetical discussion of solutions that will be very difficult to prove, it remains certain that the place of the Vatican baptistery must be associated with the north transept where it was described from the sixth-century Gesta Liberii to Alfarano a thousand years later, but the exact place indicated on Alfarano’s plan was probably only the vestibule of an external independent and monumental baptistery. 40

41

M. J. Johnson, ‘The fifth-century oratory of the Holy Cross at the Lateran in Rome’, Architectura. Zeitschrift f¨ur Geschichte der Baukunst 25/2 (1995), 128–55. 42 Life 106, c. 21, LP, II, 144. Life 46, c. 7, LP, I, 234.

5

The representation of Old Saint Peter’s basilica in the Liber Pontificalis rosamond mckitterick

c.

Fig. 5.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 5.

The first section of the Liber Pontificalis was completed c. 535, and presents a history of the popes from Saint Peter to Pope Silverius in the form of serial biography.1 The original conception and structure of the Liber Pontificalis then determined the form of the subsequent extension added between 625 and 638 in the pontificate of Honorius. The decisions to continue the text on a life-by-life basis up to the end of the ninth century included the maintenance of this format. It is obvious, therefore, that there will potentially be many different perspectives, emphases and prejudices incorporated into the various sections of the text. It is not my purpose in this chapter to debate when or where the first or subsequent sections of the Liber Pontificalis were compiled. But I want at least to emphasize that the first section of the Liber Pontificalis was written during the Ostrogothic wars, after the death of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, 1

H. Geertman, ‘La genesi del Liber Pontificalis romano. Un processo di organizzazione della ´ memoria’, in F. Bougard and M. Sot (eds.), Liber, Gesta, histoire. Ecrire l’histoire des evˆeques et des papes, de l’antiquit´e au XXIe si`ecle (Turnhout, 2009), 37–107, esp. p. 37.

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when anyone’s control both of Rome and within Italy as a whole was very uncertain. Against this volatile political background, and also in the historiographical context of history writing in Italy between the fourth and sixth centuries, the Liber Pontificalis offers a distinctive presentation of the Roman past designed to change its audience’s understanding of Roman history. That is, as I have argued elsewhere, the history of Rome itself was Christianized and reshaped in the Liber Pontificalis, not just by setting it within a new chronological framework from the time of Saint Peter, but also by appropriating the original Roman historiographical genre of serial biography. Rather than early accounts of martyrs providing the principal inspiration for the extraordinary format of the Liber Pontificalis, the most influential models for the sixth-century compilers and authors were the serial biographies of Roman emperors, not least those by Suetonius, Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, the author of the so-called ‘Enmann Kaisergeschichte’, and the perpetrator of the Historia Augusta. Thus the Liber Pontificalis, as Christian and Christianized Roman history, was designed to re-orient perceptions of Rome and its past, and construct the popes as the rulers of Rome, replacing the emperors.2 It is within this interpretation of the text, and its aims first set out in the sixth century, even if earlier material was incorporated, that the Liber Pontificalis’s (re)presentation of Saint Peter’s basilica needs to be seen. Although magnificent and often perplexing in its detail, this remarkable text was nevertheless constantly concerned with the popes and their claims to political and spiritual status within Rome. Many of the details presented in what follows have become familiar elements of the history of the papacy, but it is essential to register their very specific chronology and thus avoid projecting back developments and perceptions recorded for the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries on to the earlier portion of the narrative. The Liber Pontificalis in all its sections, moreover, is clever and carefully constructed. It invents traditions, especially about the liturgy and in relation to the Lombards; it assigns chronology with intent; its calculated omissions are as significant as what its authors chose to include. There is no hint, for example, of the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410, on which only Orosius offers a narrative to counter the melodramatic and delayed reaction from Jerome 2

R. McKitterick, ‘Roman texts and Roman history in the early Middle Ages’, in C. Bolgia, R. McKitterick and J. Osborne (eds.), Rome across Time and Space, c. 500–c. 1400: Cultural Transmission and the Exchange of Ideas (Cambridge, 2011), 19–34. Some elements of this argument are also in R. McKitterick, ‘La place du Liber Pontificalis dans les genres ˆ , in Bougard and Sot (eds.), Liber, Gesta, histoire (above, historiographiques du haut Moyen Age’ n. 1), 23–35.

Old Saint Peter’s in the Liber Pontificalis

in Palestine.3 The Vandal attack on Rome is only mentioned in passing in connection with Pope Leo I (440–61) as ‘after the Vandal disaster’.4 It is also intriguing that little effort is made to present the popes as intellectuals, or even as particularly interested in learning. Only Hilarus is said to have built two libraries at San Lorenzo; Gelasius produced five books against the Nestorians and Eutychians; Gregory I’s writings are listed briefly, Gregory II was a man of learning, and Zacharias possessed a library.5 Even papal gifts of books to churches, let alone Saint Peter’s itself, are very rare. Paschal I (817–24), for example, is one of the few popes who donated a book when he gave a Gospel book (actually noted for its silver cover!) to Saint Peter’s.6 The Liber Pontificalis’s ostensible facts were often difficult even for its authors to determine. Both Felix I (†273) and Felix II (†365), for example, are credited with building a basilica on the Via Aurelia, and both Boniface II c. 530 and Boniface III c. 607 are presented as convening synods at Saint Peter’s in order to attempt to regulate papal elections.7 It is not difficult to imagine the author having information about a Pope Felix and uncertainty making him decide to play safe. The apparent confusion over Boniface, on the other hand, may simply be due to carelessness. Despite all these characteristics, the Liber Pontificalis can be understood as an extended argument about the popes’ historical role as the successors of Saint Peter, as perceived by a very partisan group of writers within the groups of clerical papal officials in early medieval Rome who wanted their audiences to understand the history of the popes in a particular way.8 The relationship with Saint Peter, and the promotion of the cult of Saint Peter that can be deduced from so many of the actions attributed to the popes by the Liber Pontificalis, are as prominent in the text as the pope’s relationship with Rome as a whole. How the basilica of Saint Peter itself is used and presented within the text has proved far more diverse than can be discussed in the space of this chapter, but I shall rehearse a few of the most 3

4 6 8

Paulus Orosius, Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII, VII.39, 1–40, M.-P. Arnaud-Lindet (ed.), Orose histoires (contre les pa¨ıens), 3 vols. (Paris, 1991), III, 113–17, and compare Jerome, Epistle 127, 12 in I. Hilberg (ed.), Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae (CSEL 56) (Leipzig and Vienna, 1918), 154–5, addressed to Marcella’s prot´eg´ee Principia, and presumably influenced by her account of Marcella’s experience in Rome at the time. 5 Lives 51, c. 6, 66, 91, c. 1, and 93 c. 19, LP, I, 255, 312, 396, 432. Life 47, c. 6, LP, I, 239. 7 Lives 27 and 38, 57 and 68, LP, I, 158, 211, 281, 316. Life 100, c. 27, LP, II, 59. For guidance on the extensive debate concerning the authors of the Liber Pontificalis, see R. Pollard, ‘The decline of the cursus in the papal chancery and its implications’, Studi Medievali 50/1 (2009), 1–40. On the audience and dissemination of the Liber Pontificalis, see McKitterick, ‘La place du Liber Pontificalis’ (above, n. 2).

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striking developments before focusing on one particular issue, the text’s orchestration of information about papal burials. I shall do so primarily with reference to the earliest portion of the Liber Pontificalis, that is, up to the middle of the sixth century, with occasional observations about some of the later sections. This focus on the representation of Saint Peter’s as part of the strategy of constructing the popes as the rulers of Rome in place of the emperors has obvious implications for how Saint Peter’s and the popes were subsequently perceived by those who read the Liber Pontificalis. As will become clear in what follows, the text’s presentation cannot be read merely as a source of information apparently corroborating the extant material evidence that has been so exhaustively studied over the past century and a half.9

Presentation of the uses of Saint Peter’s basilica in the Liber Pontificalis Certainly the Liber Pontificalis is a fundamental source for lengthy descriptions of the elaborate gifts of gold and silver vessels and furnishings, silverand gold-worked veils, embellishments in the form of frescoes, mosaics, marble columns, panels, beams, silver screens, inscriptions, repair work (especially to the roof), and the construction of tombs, altars and canopies in Saint Peter’s basilica.10 Most of these are presented as work initiated by the pope or as gifts from the pope. Yet the gifts to Saint Peter are matched by 9

10

The obvious starting points for the material evidence of both the catacombs and the Early Christian churches of Rome are G. B. de Rossi, La Roma sotterranea cristiana, 3 vols. (Rome, 1864–77) and J. Spencer Northcote and W. R. Brownlow (ed. and trans.), Roma Sotterranea, or, Some Account of the Roman Catacombs, Especially of the Cemetery of San Callisto, Compiled from the Works of Commendatore de Rossi, with the Consent of the Author (London, 1969), and CBCR; G. Matthiae, Le chiese di Roma dal IV al X secolo (Bologna, 1962). For useful recent assessments, see F. Guidobaldi and A. Guiglia Guidobaldi (eds.), Ecclesiae Urbis. Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi sulle chiese di Roma (IV–X secolo). Roma 4–10 settembre 2000, 3 vols. (Studi di antichit`a cristiana) (Vatican City, 2002), and for orientation the surveys by F. Coarelli, Rome and Environs: an Archaeological Guide (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2007), M. Webb, The Churches and Catacombs of Early Christian Rome: a Comprehensive Guide (Eastbourne, 2001), and A. Claridge, Rome: an Oxford Archaeological Guide, second edition (Oxford, 2010). See H. Geertman, More veterum. Il ‘Liber Pontificalis’e gli edifici ecclesiastici di Roma nella tarda antichit`a e nell’alto medioevo (Archaeologica Traiectina 10) (Groningen, 1975); H. Geertman, Hic fecit basilicam. Studi sul ‘Liber Pontificalis’ e gli edifici ecclesiastici di Roma da Silvestro a Silverio (Leuven, 2004); T. F. X. Noble, ‘Paradoxes and possibilities in the sources for Roman society in the early Middle Ages’, in J. M. H. Smith (ed.), Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough (The Medieval Mediterranean: Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1453 28) (Leiden, 2000), 55–83.

Old Saint Peter’s in the Liber Pontificalis

many to the other four great late antique basilicas in Rome: the Lateran or Constantinian basilica, Santa Maria Maggiore, San Lorenzo fuori le mura and San Paolo fuori le mura. Indeed, the complex roles of the Lateran and San Paolo fuori le mura as presented in the Liber Pontificalis should also be explored, but I shall leave these for another occasion.11 It is striking not only how many functions Saint Peter’s basilica fulfilled, but also how gradual particular developments appear to have been. As late as the reign of Sergius II (844–7), for example, there is still a lack of urgency about the defence of Saint Peter’s against possible attacks by Saracens, though Leo IV (847–55) restored the walls and constructed the Leonine city to protect Saint Peter’s.12 Originally this church, outside the city walls, was an elaborate shrine, built on the site understood by the fourth century at least to be that of Saint Peter’s burial.13 This is entirely in keeping with what is currently understood about both the transformation of major mausolea into functioning churches and the appropriation of imperial ritual for relics of the saints in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.14 The popes, however, made the basilica far more than Saint Peter’s shrine. The Liber Pontificalis is one means by which they did so. The text shaped sixthcentury and subsequent perceptions of the basilica and its role in papal politics. The Liber Pontificalis presents the diverse functions of the basilica as historical reality; it may present to us a reality constructed by this text no earlier than the sixth century. The text itself provided a model that could subsequently be built on and emulated. First of all, Saint Peter’s is presented as a place of pilgrimage.15 It is in the Life of Symmachus I (498–514) that the Liber Pontificalis sets the provision for the growth in pilgrim traffic and the provision of fountains and a convenience for people to use when needed (et usum necessitatis humanae 11

12

13 14

15

P. Liverani, ‘La cronologia della seconda basilica di S. Paolo f.l.m.’, in H. Brandenburg and F. Guidobaldi (eds.), Scavi e scoperte recenti nelle chiese di Roma. Atti della giornata di studi, Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana 13 marzo 2008 (Vatican City, 2012), and Liverani, this volume, 28–9. Life 104, cc. 26, 47, LP, II, 96, 100; compare the Emperor Lothar’s Capitulary, A. Boretius and V. Krause (ed.), MGH, Capitularia Regum Francorum, II (Hanover, 1890), no. 203, c. 7, p. 66, and Life 105, cc. 38–40 and 68–74, LP, II, 115 and 123–4. See also H. W. Dey, The Aurelian Wall and the Refashioning of Imperial Rome AD 271–855 (Cambridge, 2011). See this volume, 105, 108–11. See the reports of CARE, IV–X saec.: corpus europ´een des edifices religieux anterieurs a` l’an mil, under the direction of Pascale Chevalier and Christian Sapin, and P. Kitzinger, ‘The cult of the saints and religious processions in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages’, in M. dal Santo, P. Sarris and P. Booth (eds.), An Age of Saints? Power, Conflict and Dissent in Early Medieval Christianity (Leiden, 2011), 36–48. See Liverani, this volume, 25–8.

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fecit), presumably a lavatory.16 Further accommodation was attributed to Stephen II; and the water supply, hostels, a new road, and social welfare and baths to Hadrian I and Leo III respectively.17 Leo III, furthermore, is said to have built a triclinium close to the ‘Needle’, that is, the obelisk, moved to the present Piazza San Pietro in the sixteenth century.18 A fire in the English pilgrim burgus is recorded in the early ninth century and is familiar to many from the fresco by Raphael in the Vatican.19 It is significant in terms of the papal image that the Liber Pontificalis represents the provision for pilgrims as something that the pope initiates and that it does not develop before the beginning of the sixth century. Accommodation, such as the living quarters by the obelisk for the pope and his retinue to rest in when visiting Saint Peter’s for Matins and mass attributed to Leo III and Gregory IV, is a further consequence of the growth of pilgrim traffic.20 Saint Peter’s status as a shrine is greatly enhanced by the Liber Pontificalis’s records of the gifts and visits from foreign kings and envoys. Yet both Saint Peter’s and the pope himself acquire an interesting role in diplomacy. Diplomacy centred on Saint Peter’s is presented as another means by which the pope asserts papal authority and status as the ruler of Rome, manipulating devotion for Saint Peter on the part of the foreign rulers. The Life of Hormisdas, for example, notes that gifts come to Saint Peter from Clovis, king of the Franks, the Emperor Justin and Theodoric the Ostrogoth.21 None of these rulers is recorded, in the Liber Pontificalis at least, as visiting the basilica itself. The Emperor Justin presented other treasures that Pope John distributed among the churches of Saint Peter, San Paolo fuori le mura, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Lorenzo fuori le mura.22 Justinian’s gifts are recorded in the Life of John II, and through Pope Vigilius (537–55) the general Belisarius donated spoils from the conquest of the Vandals to Saint Peter.23 Here again the pope’s role is consistently given prominence. The first actual visit to Saint Peter’s by a secular ruler is that of the Emperor Constans II in the middle of the seventh century, during the papacy of Vitalian (657–72). He travelled to Saint Peter’s in order to pray, and presented a gift, though this is also, of course, the occasion on which he 16 17 18

19 20

21 23

Life 53, c. 7, LP, I, 262. Life 94, c. 4; Life 97, c. 59, 72; Life 98, c. 89, LP, I, 440, 503, 510, II, 28. Life 98, c. 27, LP, II, 8 and compare Life 105, c. 111, LP, II, 134. See Osborne, this volume, 274–86. Life 100, c. 7, LP, II, 53. Life 98, c. 27 and Life 103, c. 35, LP, II, 8 and 81. For a useful survey see D. J. Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1998), and R. McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Notre Dame, IN, 2006), 42–56. 22 Life 55, c. 7, LP, I, 276. Life 54, c. 10, LP, I, 271. Life 58, c. 2 and Life 61, c. 2, LP, I, 285 and 296.

Old Saint Peter’s in the Liber Pontificalis

looted the roof tiles of the Pantheon/Santa Maria ad Martyres.24 Thereafter a number of Frankish and Lombard rulers visited the basilica, such as Liutprand and Desiderius, kings of the Lombards. Of Desiderius, however, the Liber Pontificalis sourly claims that he pretended he was coming to Rome to pray at Saint Peter’s shrine, and sent envoys to ask Pope Stephen III to meet him there.25 Carloman, brother of Pippin III, prayed there and Fulrad of Saint Denis presented the keys of the cities of the Pentapolis and placed them in the confessio of Saint Peter.26 Charlemagne himself visited Rome and Saint Peter’s in 774, 781, 786/7 and 800. On the Wednesday after Easter in 774, for example, Pope Hadrian went out to Saint Peter’s with his judges, both of the clergy and of the militia, and met the king for discussion about the papal territories. Their agreement, recorded by Charlemagne’s chancellor Hitherius, was itself placed intus super corpus beati Petri.27 The contribution of foreign rulers to the enhancement of the cult of Saint Peter, and their motives for so doing, needs a more detailed consideration than has been possible here.28 When Leo III was restored to Rome he was taken first to Saint Peter’s and there celebrated mass. The next day he entered Rome and the Lateran. Saint Peter’s was also the venue chosen for the meeting at which Charlemagne together with ‘archbishops, bishops, abbots, and all the nobility of the Franks and the Senate of the Romans’ met to discuss the charges against Leo III, and it was in Saint Peter’s that Leo III swore his innocence.29 Quite aside from the coronation of Charlemagne in Saint Peter’s on Christmas Day 800, the significance of which historians and political theorists have been debating with undiminished vigour ever since, it seems to have been Charlemagne who is portrayed as the first foreign ruler to behave like a pope in himself giving presents to four of the five major churches of Rome (Saint Peter’s, San Paolo fuori le mura, Santa Maria Maggiore and San Lorenzo fuori le mura).30 24 25

26 27

28

29

30

Life 78, c. 2, LP, I, 343. Life 96, c. 28, LP, I, 478. See J. T. Hallenbeck, Pavia and Rome: the Lombard Monarchy and the Papacy in the Eighth Century (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 72) (Philadelphia, 1982). Life 93, c. 21 and Life 94, c. 47, LP, I, 433 and 454. Life 97, cc. 37–43, LP, I, 497–8. Hitherius is described as ‘religious and most prudent’ (‘religiosus et prudentissimus’). But see S. Scholz, Politik-Selbstverst¨andnis-Selbstdarstellung. Die P¨apste in Karolingischer und Ottonischer Zeit (Stuttgart, 2006). Life 98, cc. 15, 21 and 22, LP, II, 5–7; K. Herbers, ‘Der Pontifikat Papst Leos III. (795–816)’, in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Große und Papst Leo III. in Paderborn, 3 vols. (Mainz, 1999), III, 13–18. Life 98, c. 23, LP, II, 7. For the context, see the useful summary with reference to the older literature in M. Becher, ‘Karl der Große und Papst Leo III. Die Ereignisse der Jahre 799 und 800

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The theme of the role of Saint Peter’s in enhancing the pope’s authority is further developed by the Liber Pontificalis in its presentation of Saint Peter’s as the venue for synods, notably those discussing doctrinal matters. Although Symmachus was reinstated to sit in Saint Peter’s as the prelate of the apostolic see by ‘bishops, priests, deacons, the whole clergy and people’, the first Liber Pontificalis reference to a synod is that already mentioned concerning papal elections and convened by Boniface II or Boniface III in the mid-sixth century or early seventh century. Not until the reign of Theodore (642–9) is a synod an opportunity for the pope as convenor to highlight his role as guardian of the faith in conjunction with Saint Peter’s. The synod convened by Theodore condemned Pyrrhus, the former patriarch of Constantinople.31 Gregory III held a synod there at the beginning of the eighth century in order to discuss images.32 The Synod of Rome in 769, however, was held in the Lateran. Only after everything had been completed in that council did the whole gathering move to Saint Peter’s, where Leontius the scriniarius ‘read out loud to the people all that had been done in the council’.33 Not only did Saint Peter’s gradually become a proper venue for synods concerned with doctrine, but images of synods were also provided for the walls of Saint Peter’s, such as that recorded under Constantine in the eighth century, when ‘the whole population of Rome in their burning enthusiasm for the faith, erected in Saint Peter’s the image which the Greeks call Botarea: it includes the six holy universal synods’.34 In the ninth century other images of synods are described as being installed as well. Saint Peter’s is thus increasingly presented as a symbol of orthodoxy and legitimacy. The basilica’s status as holy place cannot be doubted, but there are no miracles credited to Saint Peter’s or any indication that the basilica is serving

31

32 33

34

aus der Sicht der Zeitgenossen’, in Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Kunst und Kultur (above, n. 29), I, 22–36. See also the chapters by F. A. Bauer, S. de Blaauw, U. Nilgen and R. Santangeli Valenzani, in Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Kunst und Kultur (above, n. 29), III, 513–57, and the summary in R. McKitterick, Charlemagne: the Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008), 114–18. Life 75, c. 3, LP, I, 332. On the background, see C. Cubitt, ‘The Lateran Council of 649 as an ecumenical council’, in R. Price and M. Whitby (eds.), Chalcedon in Context: Church Councils 400–700 (Translated Texts for Historians, Contexts 1) (Liverpool, 2009), 133–48. Life 92, c. 3, LP, I, 416. Life 96, c. 24, LP, I, 477: ‘cuncta quae in eodem peracta sunt concilio extensa voce legit populo’; trans. Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 100. Given that the reference is only to a church dedicated to Peter this could be ‘S. Pietro in vinculo’. Life 90, c. 8, LP, I, 391: ‘causa zelo fidei accensus omnis coetus Romanae urbis, imaginem quod Graeci Botarea vocant, sex continentem sanctos et universales synodos, in ecclesia beati Petri erecta est’; trans. Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 89. Compare McClendon, this volume, 214–28, and earlier discussion of the possibilities suggested by this description, such as R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980), 91.

Old Saint Peter’s in the Liber Pontificalis

as a sanctuary for people in trouble before the ninth-century sections of the Liber Pontificalis. Under Paschal I, for example, there is a quasi-miracle in that the pope’s arrival coincides with the quenching of a fire in the English burgus. It was at Saint Peter’s, moreover, that Paschal had his vision of Saint Cecilia, which led to the finding of her body.35 With Hadrian II there is a miracle of the fire burning the dogma of Photius: a deluge of rain acted like oil to make the flames burn more fiercely.36 Of developments in the liturgy involving Saint Peter’s basilica it only needs to be noted here that the chronology assigned to such innovations and the attribution of particular developments to individual popes may be the result of intelligent and creative reconstruction on the part of the authors of the Liber Pontificalis in the middle of the sixth century and in the seventh century, especially as far as the stational liturgy is concerned.37 The stationes, for instance, are associated with Hilarus (461–8), and penance and baptism with Simplicius (468–83). The developments in the mass under Gregory I (590–604) may reflect a seventh-century perception. The association of vigils and chant with Gregory III (731–41), on the other hand, is more likely to represent a contemporary record.38

Papal consecrations It was not until the eighth century that the consecration of a pope is recorded as taking place in Saint Peter’s and then it is actually of the antipope Constantine, noted in the Life of Stephen III in 768.39 Constantine was first ordained subdeacon and deacon on a Monday in Saint Lawrence’s oratory at the top of the Scala Sancta. On the Sunday following, he made his way 35

36

37

38

39

Life 100, cc. 7 and 15, LP, II, 53 and 56. See also C. J. Goodson, The Rome of Pope Paschal I: Papal Power, Urban Renovation, Church Rebuilding and Relic Translation, 817–824 (Cambridge, 2010) and her references to the earlier literature. Life 108, c. 33, LP, II, 179. The classic account is F. Dvornik, The Photian Schism: History and Legend (Cambridge, 1970), but see also J. A. Meijer, A Successful Council of Union: a Theological Analysis of the Photian Synod of 879–880 (Thessalonike, 1975). ´ Carrag´ain in this volume, 137–56 and 177–89, and J. F. Baldovin, The See Thacker and O Urban Character of Christian Worship: the Origin, Development and Meaning of Stational Liturgy (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 228) (Rome, 1987). On music and the existence of the schola cantorum, see the hypothesis put forward by J. McKinnon, The Advent Project: the Later Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper (Berkeley, 2000), but compare the reviews by S. Rankin, Plainsong and Medieval Music 11 (2002), 73–98, J. Dyer, Early Music History 20 (2001), 290–301, P. Jeffery, Journal of the American Musicological Society 56/1 (2003), 169–79, and the discussion in C. Page, The Christian West and its Singers: the First Thousand Years (New Haven and London, 2010), 243–60. Life 96, c. 4, LP, I, 469.

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to Saint Peter’s with a host of armed men and was consecrated pontiff by George, bishop of Palestrina, Eustratius of Albano and Citonatus of Porto, sees very close to Rome. But Constantine only did this because he could not get into the Lateran; Saint Peter’s was outside the walls. All the same, the choice of Saint Peter’s basilica may well have been an attempt on Constantine’s part to gain extra spiritual legitimation to counter the importance of the Lateran as the place in which papal consecrations were normally held, but it is significant that at this stage the Liber Pontificalis actually implies that this particular venue was insufficient in this respect. The next consecration to take place in Saint Peter’s was not until that of Pope Stephen IV in 816.40 The Liber Pontificalis does not record where either Paschal I or Eugenius I was consecrated, but for the ephemeral pope Valentine in 827 an elaborate procedure is set out by the author with the Romans praying for guidance, the process of election and acclamation, and the movement from the Lateran to Saint Peter’s.41 Similarly, Benedict III (855–8) was first set upon the pontifical throne at the Lateran. After many adventures, and the attempt by Anastasius to force himself upon the papal throne, Benedict was brought to Saint Peter’s on a Sunday some days later and consecrated. The importance of Saint Peter’s itself as part by now of the process of legitimation and recognition is indicated by the comment made by the author of the Life of Benedict: Anastasius’s entry into Saint Peter’s is described as an intrusion into Saint Peter’s where he ought not to have entered.42 Nicholas I was consecrated at Saint Peter’s after acclamation at the Lateran.43 From this it would seem that consecration at Saint Peter’s was first used in the middle of the eighth century as a political expedient to establish a pope in the face of a contested election, or at least as an attempt to thwart an election. Not until the second and sixth decades of the ninth century does it apparently happen again, and far more space was devoted by the authors to an elaboration of the process to enhance the special selection of the pope. Consecration on a Sunday, moreover, is not referred to as ‘according to custom’ (secundum morem), for Hadrian II, until 867.44 The ninth-century emergence of Saint Peter’s as the proper venue for papal consecration underlines how late many of the functions of Saint Peter’s appear to be, many not recorded until the seventh-century section or in the 40 42 43

44

41 Life 102, cc. 5–8, LP, II, 71–2. Life 99, c. 1, LP, II, 49. Life 106, cc. 4, 20 and Life 11, LP, II, 140, 144 and 142. Life 107, cc. 6 and 7, LP, II, 152. For discussion, see F. A Parton, ‘The Liber Pontificalis and Franco-Papal relations 824–891’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2009). Life 108, c. 9, LP, II, 175.

Old Saint Peter’s in the Liber Pontificalis

lives of the popes in the eighth and ninth centuries. Above all, there is no indication of most of these matters having any role to play in the narrative in the portion of the text compiled in the sixth century.

The development of Saint Peter’s as a papal necropolis There is, however, one major aspect of the narrative function of Saint Peter’s in the earliest portion of the Liber Pontificalis that needs fuller discussion, namely, the invention and manipulation of the tradition of the use of Saint Peter’s not only as the burial place for the popes, but as the final resting place of Saint Peter himself (see Table 5.1). In focusing on the claims concerning papal burials made in the Liber Pontificalis, and their implications, I offer here a different perspective to complement the studies by Jean-Claude Picard in 1969 on the location of papal tombs, especially within the basilica of Saint Peter, Michael Borgolte in 1995 on the actual burials of popes,45 and the wealth of archaeological excavation and interpretation since Giovanni de Rossi first published his findings on the catacomb of San Callisto.46 Although this pattern of papal burials is well known,47 I wish to suggest that the Liber Pontificalis’s claims are of particular significance in relation to my interpretation of the text’s overall role in constructing the popes as rulers of Rome in succession to the emperors. This is what the Liber Pontificalis offers: the very first biography in the Liber Pontificalis records the alleged burial of Peter soon after his execution ‘in the Via Aurelia at the temple of Apollo, close to the place where he was crucified, and to Nero’s palace on the Vatican, and to the Triumphal territory’.48 Peter’s successor, Linus, allegedly was buried close to Saint Peter’s body on the Vatican, as was Cletus, who reappears as Anacletus in Life 5. The latter is credited also with constructing and arranging (construxit et conposuit)

45

46 47

48

´ J.-C. Picard, ‘Etude sur l’emplacement des tombes des papes du IIIe au Xe si`ecle’, MAH 81 (1969), 725–82, and M. Borgolte, Petrusnachfolge und Kaiserimitation. Die Grablegen der P¨apste, ihre Genese und Traditionsbildung (Verr¨offentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts f¨ur Geschichte 95) (G¨ottingen, 1995). Henceforth, the numbers in brackets after the names of popes indicate their position in the papal succession as well as the Life number in the Duchesne edition of the LP. See also Tables 5.1 and 5.2. De Rossi, La Roma sotterranea cristiana (above, n. 9). In addition to the lists in Tables 5.1 and 5.2, provided for convenience, see for example Borgolte, Petrusnachfolge (above n. 45), 343–60, who includes information about subsequent translations, such as those translated to Santa Prassede by Pope Paschal I in 817. Life 1, LP, I, 118: ‘qui sepultus est via Aurelia, in templum Apollinis, iuxta locum ubi crucifixus est, iuxta palatium Neronianum, in Vaticanum, iuxta territurium Triumphalem’.

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Table 5.1. Burial places of 112 popes of the first to ninth centuries according to the Liber Pontificalis: Saint Peter’s Peter†64 (1) moved from Via Appia by Cornelius (22) Linus 66–78 (2) ‘close to Peter’ Cletus 79–91 (3) who reappears as Anecletus (5) Evaristus 100–9 (6) Sixtus I 116–25 (8) Telesphorus 125–36 (9) Hyginus 138–42 (10) Pius I 142–55 (11) Eleuther (174–89 (14) Victor 189–98 (15) AD 195–440 SEE TABLE 5.2 BELOW Leo I 440–61 (47) his body was later removed by Sergius I (687–701) to an altar in a new oratory dedicated to him Simplicius 468–83 (49) Gelasius I 492–6 (51) Anastasius II 496–8 (52) Symmachus 498–514 (53) Hormisdas 514–23 (54) John I 523–6 (55) Felix IV 526–30 (56) Boniface II 530–2 (57) John II 533–5 (58) Agapitus 535–6 (59) transported back to Saint Peter’s in a lead coffin from Constantinople where he had died End of first redaction of LP Pelagius I 556–61 (62) John III 561–74 (63) Benedict I 575–9 (64) Pelagius II 579–90 (65) Gregory I 590–604 (66) in front of the secretarium Sabinian 604–6 (67) Boniface III 607 (68) Boniface IV 608–15 (69) Deusdedit 615–18 (70) Boniface V 619–25 (71) Honorius 625–38 (72) Severinus 640 (73)

John IV 640–2 (74) Theodore 642–9 (75) Eugene I 654–7 ( 77) Vitalian 657–72 (78) Adeodatus 672–6 ( 79) Donus 676–8 (80) Agatho 678–81 (81) Leo II 682–3 (82) Benedict II 684–5 (83) John V 685–6 (84) Conon 686–7 (85) Sergius I 687–701 (86) John VI 701–5 (87) John VII 705–7 (88) buried at Saint Peter’s in front of the altar of the Holy Mother of God which he had constructed Sissinius 708 (89) Constantine 708–15 (90) Gregory II 715–31 (91) Gregory III 731–41 (92) Zacharias 741–52 (93) Stephen II 752–7 (94) Paul I 757–67 (95) Stephen III 768–72 ( 96) Hadrian I 772–95 (97) Leo III 795–816 (98) Stephen IV 816–18 (99) Paschal I 817–24 (100) Gregory IV 827–44 (103) Sergius II 844–7 (104) Leo IV 847–55 (105) Benedict III 855–8 (106) buried before the doors of Saint Peter’s Nicholas I 858–67 (107) also buried before the doors of Saint Peter’s John VIII 872–82 (109) Marinus 882–4 (110)

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107

Table 5.2. Papal burial places other than Saint Peter’s San Paolo fuori le mura (2) Paul I 757–67 (95) died at San Paolo in the summer but was moved to Saint Peter’s Felix II 355–65 (50) Via Appia, cemetery of Callixtus (17) and others close by (16) Sixtus III 433–40 (46) had the names of the bishops buried there recorded on a plaque. Anicetus c. 160 (12) Soter c. 170 (13) Zephyrinus 198/9–217 (16) cemetery close to that of Callixtus Urban I 222–30 (18) cemetery of Praetextatus Pontian 230–5 (19) Anteros 235–6 (20) Fabian 236–50 (21) Cornelius 251–3 (22) on Lucina’s estate Lucius 253–4 (23) Stephen I 254–57 (24) Sixtus II 257–8 (25) Dionysius 260–7 (26) Eutychian 274–82 (28) Gaius 282–95 (29) Eusebius 308 (32) Miltiades 310–14 (33) Via Aurelia Callixtus 217–22 (17) cemetery of Calepodius Felix I 268–73 (27) in his own basilica Felix II 355–65 (38) (conflated with Felix I?) Julius 337–52 (36) cemetery of Calepodius Via Salaria cemetery of Priscilla Marcellinus 295–303 (30) Marcellus 305/6–306/7 (31) Silvester 313–35 (34) Liberius 352–66 (37)

Siricius 384–99 (40) Boniface I 418–22 (44) close to the body of Saint Felicity Celestinus 422–32 (45) Vigilius 537–55 (61) at Saint Marcellus Via Ardeatina, cemetery of Balbina Mark 336 (35) Damasus 366–84 (39) close to his mother and sister, in his own basilica on the Via Ardeatina Via Portuensis Anastasius 399–401/2 (41) in his own cemetery Ad Ursum Pileatum Innocentius 410/12–17 (42) in the cemetery Ad Ursum Pileatum Via Tiburtina, close to the body of Saint Laurence the martyr Zosimus 417–18 (43) Sixtus III 432–40 (46) Hilarus 461–8 (48) Via Nomentana Alexander c. 110 (7) at the seventh milestone Elsewhere, not in Rome Clement c. 95 (4) buried in Greece Silverius 536 (60) died in exile in Pontiae where he was buried Martin 649–53 (76) died an exile in Cherson and buried in the church of Saint Mary Hadrian II 867–82 (108) Nonantola Not recorded Eugenius II 824–7 (101) Valentine 827 (102) though consecrated in Saint Peter’s Hadrian III 884–5 (111) Stephen V 885–91 (112)

the memorial of Saint Peter.49 Among Anecletus’s successors, the Liber Pontificalis claims that Evaristus (6), Sixtus I (8), Telesphorus (9), Hyginus (10), Pius I (11), Eleuther (14) and Victor (15) were similarly buried close to Saint Peter’s body. 49

Lives 2 and 5, LP, I, 122, 125.

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According to the Liber Pontificalis, however, most of the other popes before the middle of the fifth century were buried neither in Saint Peter’s itself nor at the site of Saint Peter’s martyrdom. Clement (4) c. AD 95 is said by the Liber Pontificalis to have died as a martyr in the time of Trajan and to have been buried in Greece. Other cemeteries in Rome are recorded in the Liber Pontificalis as the resting places of the popes from Zephyrinus (16) to Sixtus III (46), that is, from the early third century to the middle of the fifth century. Thus Zephyrinus (16) was buried in his own cemetery close to that of Callixtus. Similarly, Urban I (18) was laid to rest in the cemetery of Praetextatus, also on the Via Appia. The cemetery of Pope Callixtus (17) on the Via Appia received between AD 160 and AD 314 the bodies of Anicetus (12), Soter (13), Pontian (19), Anteros (20), Fabian (21), Lucius (23), Stephen I (24), Sixtus II (25), Dionysius (26), Eutychian (28), Gaius (29), Eusebius (32) and Miltiades (33). This cluster of papal burials on the Via Appia may reflect claims about the first resting place of Saint Peter himself, for the links between Saint Peter the apostle, Saint Peter’s basilica, Peter’s initial martyrdom alongside Paul and immediate burial on the Vatican hill as recorded at the beginning of the Liber Pontificalis, are subsequently adjusted in the second claim about Peter’s burial. This is included in the Liber Pontificalis’s account of Pope Cornelius (22), which claims that the first burial of Peter had taken place in unspecified catacombs: Cornelius, at the request of a certain lady Lucina, took up the bodies of the Apostles Peter and Paul from the catacombs at night . . . Cornelius took the body of Saint Peter and put it close to the place where he was crucified among the bodies of the holy bishops at the temple of Apollo on the Mons Aureus, on the Vatican at Nero’s palace on 29 June.50

Neither the first burial of Peter at the Vatican in the first century noted by the Liber Pontificalis, nor the second burial in the middle of the third century, also at the Vatican but after removal from an original resting place at the catacombs, long associated with the cemetery ad catacumbas (now San Sebastiano on the Via Appia, within easy walking distance of the catacomb of Callixtus), fits the date of the tomb now revered as that of Saint Peter in 50

Life 22, c. 4, LP, I, 150: ‘rogatus a quodam matrona Lucina, corpora apostolorum beati Petri et Pauli de catacumbas levavit noctu . . . beati Petri accepit Cornelius episcopus et posuit iuxta locum ubi crucifixus est inter corpora sanctorum episcoporum in monte Aureum, in Vaticanum palatii Noeroniani III Kal. Iul.’; Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 8–9. On 29 June, see Thacker, this volume, 144–5. See also the analysis by J. Guyon, Le cimeti`ere ‘Aux deux lauriers’. Recherches sur les catacombes romaines (Vatican City, 1987), 248–63.

Old Saint Peter’s in the Liber Pontificalis

the modern basilica of Saint Peter.51 As might be imagined, the problems surrounding the reality of Peter’s burial have been discussed exhaustively, not least since the excavations beneath Saint Peter’s basilica initiated by Pope Pius XII (1941–5).52 Doubt has been cast even on whether Peter was ever actually in Rome, let alone executed and buried there.53 The tradition about the burial place of the apostle obviously was strong enough by the time of Constantine to warrant the erection of Saint Peter’s basilica on the site. Certainly too, that Peter joined Paul in Rome was well established by the time Jerome made his additions to the Chronicle of Eusebius.54 The Liber Pontificalis may preserve, therefore, the deliberate selection of a burial place close to the site of Peter’s death by subsequent popes in order to associate themselves with Saint Peter. What is striking here is both how little the Liber Pontificalis actually tells us and how unspecific it is. It may, of course, be simply due to a simple lack of information on the author’s part, so that mere hearsay is here preserved, and perhaps too an echo of some protest by Christians accustomed to Peter’s presence on the Via Appia. But it may also have more to do with changes in the sixth century than the realities of the third. Firstly, it claims a papal contribution to the sanctity of the Vatican site even before Constantine decided to build the shrine to Saint Peter there on the emperor’s personal land.55 Secondly, the secrecy recorded in the third-century disinterment accords with one aspect of Roman regulations on burial, namely that they should not be a spectacle and should be carried out in a seemly manner. But the description in the Liber Pontificalis also might throw light on dissension in Rome concerning the translation of any relics. Digging up the 51

52

53

54

55

Reuse of an earlier tomb is one possibility entertained. For the earlier discussions, see J. Toynbee and J. Ward-Perkins, The Shrine of Saint Peter and the Vatican Excavations (London, 1956), and E. Kirschbaum, The Tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (London, 1959) from the German edition of 1957, Borgolte, Petrusnachfolge (above n. 45), 16–21, and for a recent survey of the issues, P. Liverani and G. Spinola with P. Zander, The Vatican Necropoles (Turnhout, 2010), 47–55. See especially P. Zander, ‘The necropolis underneath Saint Peter’s basilica: conservation and restoration’, in Liverani and Spinola, Vatican (above, n. 51), 287–329. Most recently O. Zwierlein, Petrus in Rom: die Literarische Zeugnisse (Untersuchungen zur Antiken Literatur und Geschichte 96) (Berlin, 2009). Eusebius–Jerome, Chronicon, R. Helm (ed.), Eusebius Werke 7 (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der Ersten Jahrhundert 70), second edition (Berlin, 1956), 185. See the useful summary by Davis, Book of Pontiffs, xvii–xix, and H. L. Kessler, ‘The meeting of Peter and Paul in Rome: an emblematic narrative of spiritual brotherhood’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1984), 265–75. For incisive commentary on Richard Krautheimer’s many discussions of Constantine’s churches in Rome, not least Old Saint Peter’s, see D. Kinney, ‘Krautheimer’s Constantine’, in Guidobaldi and Guiglia Guidobaldi, Ecclesiae Urbis (above, n. 9), 1–10.

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bodies at night could reflect a need to avoid falling foul of Roman burial regulations in the city and Roman legal prohibition in the Theodosian Code (dated February 276, 386) of the movement of bodies already buried: ‘No person shall transfer a buried body to another place.’ These were reiterated by Justinian in 534 at around the time of the composition of the Liber Pontificalis, which also roughly coincides with the exertion of clerical control over the processes of burial in Rome.56 The celebration of Cornelius’s action in translating Peter’s relics is thus of a deliberate transgression of imperial law by a pope. This is entirely in keeping with the assertion of papal over imperial authority embodied in the text as a whole. Too little is understood about the precise social and ritual circumstances of the interment, as distinct from the officials (fossores) involved, consequent burial site, sarcophagi, funerary monuments, inscriptions and places for ceremonial feasting after the event, of all but a few of those who died in Rome in these early centuries. It may be that immediate burial so close to the place of execution of someone of lowly social status and killed as a criminal may not have been feasible, so Peter’s body had to be taken out to the catacombs on the Via Appia after his execution.57 Material evidence supports the impression offered by the Liber Pontificalis that the third milestone of the Via Appia was associated with a belief that both Saint Peter and Saint Paul had initially been buried there, for it is memorably recorded in Pope Damasus’s inscription in the Basilica 56

57

Codex Theodosianus, 9.17.6, 9.17.7: ‘Humatum corpus nemo ad alterum locum transferat’. Compare 9.17.5 on the privacy of burial: T. Mommsen and P. M. Meyer (eds.), Theodosiani Libri XVI cum Constitutionibus Sirmondianis et Leges Novellae ad Theodosianum Pertinentes, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1905–14), and reaffirmed by Justinian in 534: Corpus Iuris Civilis, P. Kr¨uger, T. Mommsen, R. Sch¨oll and W. Kroll (eds.) (Frankfurt am Main, 1954), Codex: 1.2.3, 3.44.14. See J. Osborne, ‘Death and burial in sixth-century Rome’, Classical Views – Echos du Monde Classique 28 (1984), 291–9 (suggesting the Gothic wars as the catalyst of the cessation of extra-mural burial), and (on clerical control and more recent archaeological findings) M. Costambeys, ‘The culture and practice of burial in and around Rome in the sixth century’, in Guidobaldi and Guiglia Guidobaldi, Ecclesiae Urbis (above, n. 9), 721–7; C. Lambert, ‘Le sepolture in urbe nella norma e nella prassi (tarda antichit`a – alto medioevo)’, in L. Paroli (ed.), L’Italia centro-settentrionale in et`a longobarda (Florence, 1997), 285–93; G. P. Brogiolo and G. Cantino Wataghin (eds.), Sepolture tra IVe e VIII secolo (Mantua, 1998) – though the principal focus of these studies is on the changes from burials without to burials within the walls of the city. On the reception of Justinian’s Code in Rome in the sixth century, see S. Bjornlie, Politics and Tradition between Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople: a Study of Cassiodorus and the ‘Variae’ (Cambridge, 2013). For the context, see J. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (London, 1971); J. Patterson, ‘Living and dying in the city of Rome: houses and tombs’, in J. Coulston and H. Dodge (eds.), Ancient Rome: the Archaeology of the Eternal City (Oxford, 2000), 259–89; and V. Fiocchi Nicolai, F. Bisconti and D. Mazzoleni, The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decoration, Inscriptions (Regensburg, 2006). See also B. Caseau, ‘Sacred landscapes’, in G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown and O. Grabar, Late Antiquity: a Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 21–59.

Old Saint Peter’s in the Liber Pontificalis

Apostolorum on the Via Appia. Both the popes and Christian community do indeed appear to have inclined to the belief that burial in the Via Appia was burial ad sanctos and Henry Chadwick’s classic article nearly sixty years ago certainly identified the possible competition between the Vatican and Via Appia over the memory and guardianship of the body of the apostle Peter.58 Building on this, Kate Cooper saw the Liber Pontificalis as a ‘legitimating history for the presence of the body of Peter at the Vatican’.59 The Liber Pontificalis does more than this, however, for it exposes the complex politics of papal burials in the first five centuries of Christian presence in Rome. Even if we discount Popes Soter (13) and Anicetus (12) as simply being somewhere on the Via Appia and afterwards assumed to have been in the cemetery of Callixtus, the group from Pontian (19) to Miltiades (33), located by the Liber Pontificalis in the cemetery of Callixtus, is significant. It is the largest group of popes linked to any single cemetery other than Saint Peter’s itself. It is not a perfect sequence, for Felix I (27) built a basilica on the Via Aurelia and was buried there,60 and the bodies of Marcellinus (30) and Marcellus (31), who had both been executed during the persecutions of Diocletian and Maxentius (295–307), were taken to the cemetery of Priscilla in the Via Salaria. Pope Cornelius (22), however, adds to the concentration of papal burials in the Via Appia, for he was interred ‘in a crypt on Lucina’s estate close to the cemetery of Callixtus’.61 For the cemetery of Callixtus, moreover, Sixtus III (432–40) provided a tablet on which the names of the bishops were recorded.62 This suggests that Pope Callixtus, although himself buried in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Via Aurelia, as was Julius, may be credited with an attempt to create a papal necropolis on the Via Appia.63 Despite the commemoration of the Via Appia burials by Sixtus III, his own burial place was on the Via Tiburtina, close to the body of Saint Laurence the martyr and in the same place as one of his predecessors, Zosimus (43), and his successor, Hilarus (48). The only burial at Saint Peter’s with which Sixtus is associated is that of ‘one Bassus’ by whom he had actually 58

59

60 63

H. Chadwick, ‘Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Rome: the problems of the memoria apostolorum ad catacumbas’, Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 8 (1957), 31–52, provides discussion, text and translation. See also M. Saghy, ‘Scinditur in partes populus: Pope Damasus and the martyrs of Rome’, Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000), 273–88. K. Cooper, ‘The martyr, the matrona and the bishop: the matron Lucina and the politics of martyr cult in fifth- and sixth-century Rome’, Early Medieval Europe 8 (1999), 297–317. 61 Life 22, c. 6, LP, I, 151. 62 Life 46, c. 7, LP, I, 234. Life 27, LP, I, 158. ´ Rebillard, The Care of Compare Lives 17 and 36, LP, I, 141 and 205 and the discussion by Eric the Dead in Late Antiquity (Ithaca and London, 2009), revised English version of the original French edition: Religion et sepulture: l’´eglise, les vivants et les morts dans l’antiquit´e tardive (Paris, 2003), 2–7.

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been arraigned. Bassus was interred in the family tomb chamber and Sixtus himself is recorded in this curious story as seeing to the wrapping of the body with linens and spices.64 Given the prominence of the spectacular Christian sarcophagus of the newly baptized Junius Bassus, praefectus urbi (d. 359), in Old Saint Peter’s, this may be an attempt on the part of the sixth-century authors both to account for its presence and to associate a pope with it.65 Two other smaller concentrations of papal burials documented by the Liber Pontificalis are notable. The first of these is the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria where Marcellinus (30), Marcellus (31), Silvester (34), Liberius (37), Siricius (40), Celestinus (45) and Vigilius (61) were all buried. Boniface I (44) is also recorded on the Via Salaria ‘close to the body of Saint Felicity’.66 Other papal burial sites mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis can be categorized as close to, if not at, the actual site of execution of the pope concerned. The Via Nomentana at the seventh mile was the site of Pope Alexander’s beheading (7), and the cemetery of Praetextatus on the Via Appia may have been where Urban I (18) was martyred. The burial places of some other popes are noted as on the sites of churches they built. Thus Felix I (268–73) was buried at his own basilica on the Via Aurelia, though this becomes less secure if we note that Felix II (355–65) is credited with the same basilica and the same burial place.67 The burial of Mark too is recorded in the cemetery of Balbina on Via Ardeatina close to a basilica he had built, and Damasus was buried with his family, at the site of his basilica on Via Ardeatina and ‘close to his mother and sister’.68 While Julius (36) joined Callixtus in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Via Aurelia, he also built three cemeteries: on the Via Flaminia, Via Aurelia and Via Portuensis. Another papal cemetery builder, presumably with the intention of making provision for other Christians, was Pope Anastasius I ( 41) in his own cemetery ad ursum Pileatum, where he was joined by Innocentius (42). Felix III (50), however, was buried in San Paolo fuori le mura and Silverius (60) died in exile at Pontiae, so was buried there. 64

65

66 67 68

Life 46, c. 2, LP, I, 232: ‘Incriminatur a quodam Basso . . . Cuius corpus Xystus episcopus cum linteaminibus et aromatibus, manibus suis tractans, recondens sepellivit ad beatum Petrum apostolum, in cubiculum parentum eius.’ Although the sarcophagus inscription includes consular dating (Eusebius and Hypatius), the consular dating of the papal reigns in the Liber Pontificalis ceases with Julius I (Life 36), predecessor of Liberius. On the iconography of the sarcophagus, see J. Elsner, ‘Inventing Christian Rome: the role of Early Christian art’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge, 2006), 71–99, at pp. 82–6. See also the discussion by Thacker, this volume, 139–40. Life 44, c. 7, LP, I, 227: ‘in cymeterio sanctae Felicitatis iuxta corpus eius’. Life 27, c. 3 and Life 38, c. 2, LP, I, 158 and 211. Life 35, c. 5 and Life 39, c. 5, LP, I, 202 and 213: ‘iuxta matrem suam et germanam suam’.

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Before Leo I (47) was buried at Saint Peter’s and began the more or less unbroken sequence of popes being buried there from Simplicius (49) (468–83) onwards,69 therefore, the Liber Pontificalis records not only papal provision for the burial of Christians, so crucial for the later development of martyrs’ shrines and saints’ cults, but several attempts to create special concentrations of papal burials: 1. on the Via Appia between at least 230 and 314, close to or at the cemetery of Callixtus at the third milestone and not far from the original resting place of Saint Peter; 2. on the Via Salaria between 295 and 432, close to or at the cemetery of Priscilla (with the later burial of Pope Vigilius in 555 being a significant addition); 3. at the church of San Lorenzo on the Via Tiburtina between 417 and 468. The possible practical complications and immediate political and family circumstances of papal burials need to be registered, despite our ignorance of these. They may not necessarily be attributed to the circumstances of the deaths or to the availability of particular patrons such as the ubiquitous matron Lucina, inspired perhaps to provide tombs for men perceived as holy by the example of Joseph of Arimathea’s gift of a tomb for Christ. The burial of the first popes, members of a small community of Christians in Rome about whose social and economic circumstances we know too 69

See Tables 5.1 and 5.2, and Fig. 5.1. Duchesne, LP, I, 241, n. 15 acknowledged that it was Sergius who put Leo I properly inside the basilica, but drew attention to John the Deacon having seen the now lost inscription/epitaph of Leo. John the Deacon, Vita Sancti Gregorii, IV, 68, PL, LXXV, col. 221: ‘Huius praeterea venerabile corpus in extrema porticu basilicae beati Petri apostoli ante secretarium, tunc antiquissimum, quo videlicet Leo, Simplicius, Gelasianus atque Symmachus, apostolicae sedis episcopi, cum nonnullis aliis tumulati, suis hactenus epitaphiis praedicantur, sepultum tali titulo decorator.’ Alan Thacker translates this as follows: ‘Whose (Gregory the Great’s) venerable body was buried in the furthest limit of the porticus of the basilica of Saint Peter the apostle, before the secretarium, (by) then very ancient, in which namely Leo, Simplicius, Gelasius and Symmachus, bishops of the apostolic see, with several others, were buried, (and) are proclaimed to this very day by their epitaphs’. He comments further (personal communication to the editors of this volume) that the quo (masculine/neuter) must refer to the secretarium not to the porticus, which could be masculine but in this case is clearly treated as feminine since the adjective applied to it is the feminine extrema. So the place in which these popes are buried and in which they are proclaimed in their epitaphs must be the secretarium itself, not the porticus outside. This fits with the information in the Liber Pontificalis and Sergius I’s famous epitaph for Leo’s new shrine and makes better sense than Duchesne’s suggestions that the epitaphs relating to the burials of all these late fifth- and early sixth-century popes were set up on the wall outside the secretarium. I am very grateful to Alan Thacker for this clarification. Agapitus (59) was transported back to Saint Peter’s in a lead coffin from Constantinople where he had died. For the exceptions, Felix III (50), Martin (76) and Hadrian III, see also Tables 5.1 and 5.2. Some ninth-century papal burial places are not recorded in the Liber Pontificalis.

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little, may have been more likely to have been in the poorer cemeteries or tombs rather than the richer mausolea of the Vatican necropolis or the Via Appia. Third- and fourth-century burials could well have been in places related more to individual family membership (as in the case of Damasus) or institutional affiliation with particular cemeteries and newly developed tituli. So much would have depended on the ownership of cemeteries and the degree to which the clergy were able to exert any control over the act of deposition. In this respect the Liber Pontificalis from its sixth-century perspective is retrospectively asserting a far more prominent role for the Church in relation to burial than it appears to have had in reality.70 The burials are more usually associated with development of the martyr cults as a medium of papal self-assertion. Kate Cooper, for instance, has referred to the development of a martyr cult focused on Saint Peter’s under Pope Symmachus in particular, who she describes as the ‘impresario of martyr cult on the Vatican hill’ with ‘the renovation of Saint Peter’s basilica he commissioned in the first part of his reign’.71 The Liber Pontificalis presents Damasus as playing a prominent role for martyrs more generally.72 Too much concentration on the martyr cult and the illuminating discussions in recent years of Christian burial and burial ad sanctos should not prevent acknowledgement of the powerful message the Liber Pontificalis sends concerning the burial of popes, especially those up to the third decade of the sixth century. The reference to both Anicetus and Soter being interred in a cemetery only attributed to Callixtus fifty years later also naturally raises questions about the kind of information relating to papal burials available to the sixth-century compiler of the Liber Pontificalis. What surmises, or assumptions, might the author have made in the attempt to construct his sequence of information about each pope’s burial? What was his agenda in so doing?

Imperial models The development of the burial place assigned to Saint Peter’s was from lowly tomb to resplendent mausoleum. The Liber Pontificalis in one version 70

71 72

On the tituli, see C. Pietri, ‘R´egions eccl´esiastiques et paroisses romaines’, in Actes da XIe congr`es international d’arch´eologie chr´etienne. Lyon, Vienne, Grenoble, Gen`eve et Aoste (21–28 ´ septembre 1986) II (Collection de l‘Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome 123) (Rome, 1989), 1035–62. For a thorough reassessment of the scholarly interpretations of the evidence for burial generally, see Rebillard, The Care of the Dead (above, n. 63). Cooper, ‘The martyr, the matrona, and the bishop’ (above, n. 59). See Saghy, ‘Scinditur in partes populus’ (above, n. 58).

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of the text asserts that Constantine built the basilica of Saint Peter on the suggestion of Pope Silvester. If correct, and if original, this would make papal initiative involved from the start. It may be necessary, however, to consider papal actions in relation to Saint Peter’s as a campaign to counteract the initial imperial claims of a special relationship with Saint Peter that the construction of the basilica itself suggests.73 The Liber Pontificalis certainly eventually makes the strongest possible case for the basilica of Saint Peter as the proper resting places of popes, but this and the claims made about earlier burial programmes need to be seen not only as the spiritual power derived from clusterings of holy men, but also as the provision of papal cemeteries and mausolea rivalling and replacing those of the emperors. The particular importance of the monumental tombs of Roman emperors in Late Antiquity and how they were not only ‘the repositories of imperial remains but served also as settings for the practice of cultic functions directed at the divi’ has been highlighted by Mark Johnson.74 That is, the mausolea were themselves temples and shrines just as the basilica of Saint Peter and the other concentrations of papal burials were focused on mausolea and basilicas. Imperial mausolea in Rome itself included those of Hadrian (now the Castel Sant’Angelo), of Galienus, of Maxentius, the Tor di Schiavi (possibly built as an imperial tomb and sometimes known as the mausoleum of the Gordiani), and the Christian mausolea of Helena and Constantina. The model for papal burials, from the fourth century onwards at least, was clearly imperial and there was a venerable Roman tradition of the politics of burial. Hadrian’s mausoleum, after all, can be regarded as an architectural response to the mausoleum of Augustus. It was dedicated in AD 139 and used for imperial burials until AD 218 or 219. It contains Hadrian himself, Marcus Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Caracalla, Commodus, Septimius Severus and a number of imperial women. As Johnson points out, the clergy had become increasingly involved in imperial funerals (though no depositio of a Christian emperor is described in any source). Some imperial mausolea were intended as dynastic mausolea for all members of a particular family. Others were ‘extra dynastic’ but came to be used by all heirs. Vespasian and Titus, for example, were also buried in the mausoleum of Augustus, but Domitian built a new templum gentis Flaviae on the Quirinal hill apparently still visible in the fourth century. Trajan’s column and the mausolea of Hadrian 73

74

Life 34, c. 16, LP, I, 176. The phrase ex rogatu Silvestri episcopi is added in the ‘E’ group manuscripts. I shall explore the implications of this text in a subsequent article. M. J. Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2009); see also P. J. E. Davies, Death and the Emperor: Roman Imperial Funerary Monuments from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge, 2000).

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and of Honorius remained very visible. Johnson has observed, moreover, that cult practices directed towards deceased emperors continued into the Christian period.75 These were eventually assimilated into Christian liturgy in the form, at the very least, of masses in honour of the dead emperor or empress, offerings and commemorations at the tomb, and family visits. A cult site, for example, developed at the tombs of Helena and Constantina. The mausoleum of Helena, so imperial in its rotunda form, might even be seen as a Christian counter-assertion as well. By the sixth century many of the former imperial mausolea had become sacred buildings used in Christian worship.76 An obvious example is the conversion of the Pantheon into the church of Santa Maria ad martyres in 609.77 With the commemoration of deaths of the Christian emperors and conception of imperial mausolea as sacred buildings that became places of Christian worship in due course, the buildings would have been understood as expressions of the emperors’ place in the cosmos and as settings for the funerary and imperial cult. The tomb of Honorius, like a ‘pimple on the flank of the basilica’, was the most audacious imperial claim to a special relationship with Saint Peter.78 Its building is not even mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis apart from an aside about the ‘mausoleum close to Saint Andrew’s’ in the ‘Frankish redaction’ of the eighth-century ‘Life of Paul I’ (757–67).79 The mausoleum may have housed most imperial burials until 476, possibly including the infant Theodosius, son of Galla Placidia and the Gothic ruler Athaulf.80 Honorius’s mausoleum could be interpreted as the prime impetus for a papal counterblast to such an assertion of imperial power in Rome on Pope Leo I’s part, though Leo’s actions also appear as a complete contradiction of the celebration of the papal necropolis on the Via Appia under his predecessor Sixtus III. Leo I now appropriated the basilica of Peter as a papal mausoleum and placed popes in even closer proximity than any emperor to the tomb of Saint Peter, inside the shrine itself. The mausoleum of Honorius thus needs to be set beside the mausolea of Hadrian and Augustus as prominent and dominating expressions of imperial power in Rome. Similarly, the promotion of the sacred ground and burial of the 75 76

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78 79 80

Johnson, Mausoleum (above, n. 74), 15, 190. Compare Johnson, Mausoleum (above, n. 74), 139–56, 192 and ‘Appendix B. “Ubi sepulti sunt”: the burial places of Roman emperors and members of their families from Caracalla (217) to Anastasius (518)’, 203–18 and his references. S. Rankin, ‘Terribilis est locus iste: the Pantheon in 609’, in M. Carruthers (ed.), Rhetoric beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2010), 281–310. See McEvoy, this volume, 119–36. Life 95, c. 3, LP, I, 464, and compare Liverani, this volume, 31. Johnson, Mausoleum (above, n. 74), 202.

Old Saint Peter’s in the Liber Pontificalis

popes at the third milestone on the Via Appia may have been in part a papal move to offset the earlier attempt by Maxentius to establish an imperial mausoleum on the Via Appia and make it a strong monument to Rome’s past, with his son Romulus interred there.81 By its omission of any reference to the imperial funerary topography of Rome, and its highlighting of papal burials, the Liber Pontificalis makes it seem indeed as though the popes are Christianizing memoria of the past and directing even the burial of the popes in a political way.

Conclusion The Liber Pontificalis appears to preserve rival traditions and rival ambitions concerning Saint Peter’s own burial place as distinct from the site of execution, though the location of the burial site was sufficiently securely understood by the fourth century for Constantine (and perhaps Silvester) to establish, with such extraordinary effort, the basilica there. The Liber Pontificalis also documents Leo I’s decision to make Saint Peter’s into a papal resting place. I suggested at the outset that the Liber Pontificalis offers an alternative history of Rome, and presents the popes as taking the place of the emperors. As part of this narrative strategy, initial claims about the burial places of popes at Saint Peter’s were subsequently translated into reality. This is not just about Saint Peter and the creation of a shrine to this saint, the ‘rock on whom Christ’s church was built’ (Matthew 18.18). A proud tradition is recorded, in the Liber Pontificalis as well as clearly evident in the material remains, of a concentration of burials at Saint Peter’s after an earlier attempt to establish a papal necropolis on the Via Appia at the cemetery of Callixtus. This was certainly close to the catacomb whence Saint Peter was supposedly translated, but the establishment of a papal necropolis on the Via Appia in the third century probably had more to do with the politics of papal burial than with the cult of Saint Peter. But from the fifth century, the material and documentary evidence indicates that these two aspects became increasingly intertwined. The popes made Saint Peter’s serve as a papal mausoleum to counteract any imperial mausolea and imperial claims to a special relationship with the prince of the apostles. It was a move possibly precipitated by the building of the mausoleum of Honorius. It is entirely in keeping with the papal trumping of emperors that the mausoleum of Honorius should be converted in the eighth century into the church of Saint Petronilla, allegedly 81

J. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 2000), 54–63.

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the daughter of Saint Peter.82 It is clear that the Emperor Honorius’s perspective was not shared by the authors of the Liber Pontificalis. Equally, the Liber Pontificalis only records the orchestration of papal burials and gives no inkling of the imperial funerary presence in Rome. By recording the creation of alternative and special sacred sites for their own burials, the Liber Pontificalis presents the popes as creating a veritable papal dynasty of apostolic succession which was marked by burial as well as in liturgy, monumental buildings in imperial style, assertions of spiritual authority in the day-to-day organization and beliefs of the Christian Church, and cleverly orchestrated historical writing in the style of imperial biography. Not until the sixth century does the balance of the narrative details between martyr’s shrine and papal mausoleum lean more towards the shrine as far as the Liber Pontificalis authors are concerned. Saint Peter’s basilica thereafter, and its various functions as one key focus of the stational liturgy, venue for councils, pilgrimage site, art treasure and holy place, are all deployed by the Liber Pontificalis authors to enhance and promote papal authority. The earliest section of the Liber Pontificalis was itself a resource for later popes as much as it appears to have been for pilgrims. It was this extraordinary text that offered a skilful representation and documentation of the essential link between Saint Peter, prince of the apostles, and his successors in Rome. 82

See Life 95, c. 3 (Frankish redaction), LP, I, 464, and McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past (above, n. 20), 48.

6

The mausoleum of Honorius Late Roman imperial Christianity and the city of Rome in the fifth century meaghan mcevoy

Fig. 6.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 6.

The mausoleum of Honorius, which once stood adjacent to the Constantinian basilica of Saint Peter, in alignment with the south transept, was still known as a mausoleum – though not clearly as an imperial mausoleum – in the eighth century, approximately four hundred years after its construction (Fig. 6.1).1 According to the Liber Pontificalis’s ‘Life of Pope Stephen’, in 1

The most comprehensive work on the mausoleum thus far is H. Koethe, ‘Zum Mausoleum der westr¨omischen Dynastie bei Alt-Sankt-Peter’, R¨omische Mitteilungen 46 (1931), 9–26. It has

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the place called ‘the mausoleum’, beside the chapel of Saint Andrew, the pope created a further chapel dedicated to Saint Petronilla, where he had promised the Frankish king Pippin that he would place the body of this saint (who was believed – mistakenly – to have been the martyred daughter of Saint Peter), while the chapel is also termed ‘mausoleum’ in the life of Stephen’s successor, Paul.2 By the eighth century, therefore, it seems that although the original patrons of the building had been forgotten, Honorius’s burial place was still recognized as a mausoleum. Yet thereafter the rotunda became known more commonly as the chapel of Saint Petronilla, or the Cappella dei Re Franchi.3 It was the remarkable discovery of three rich late antique burials below the floor of the chapel, between 1450 and 1550, which refocused attention on the rotunda’s original function. Whether originally they had been placed below the floor of the rotunda at the time of burial, or only later for protection in more troubled times, the lack of visible sarcophagi above ground in the chapel must have aided the loss of memory of the building’s earlier purpose.4 The unearthing of these three burials, in 1458, 1519 and 1544, was recorded in contemporary Italian chronicles, and makes for fascinating, if also sometimes frustrating, reading.5 The first two burials discovered in the mausoleum could not be identified securely, and are recorded in the chronicles as being the burials of an infant and adult together

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received scholarly attention most recently from M. J. Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2009), 167–74, and F. Paolucci, ‘La tomba dell’imperatrice Maria e altre sepolture di rango di et`a tardoantica a San Pietro’, Temporis Signa: Archeologia della Tarda Antichit`a e del Medioevo 3 (2008), 225–52. See also R. Gem, ‘The Vatican Rotunda: a Severan monument and its early history, c. 200 to 500’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 158 (2005), 13, 36–7; J. D. Alchermes, ‘Petrine politics: Pope Symmachus and the rotunda of Saint Andrew at Old Saint Peter’s’, Catholic Historical Review 81 (1995), 8–9. Life 94, c. 256, LP, I, 455–6. In fact the relics of Petronilla were placed in the mausoleum in 757 by Stephen’s successor, Pope Paul I: Life 95, c. 261, LP, I, 465. On the significance of these particular references to Carolingian interest in Saint Peter’s appearing in the Frankish recensions of the Liber Pontificalis, see R. McKitterick, ‘The illusion of royal power in the Carolingian annals’, English Historical Review 115/460 (2000), 1–20, at p. 12, and also R. McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2004), 145–8. Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 167; Paolucci, ‘La tomba dell’imperatrice Maria’ (above, n. 1), 225. Alchermes, ‘Petrine politics’ (above, n. 1), 9; also Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 170. Like the late Roman porphyry imperial sarcophagi outside the Istanbul archaeological museum today, none of the sarcophagi unearthed at Rome bore any identifying inscriptions: Gem, ‘Vatican Rotunda’ (above, n. 1), 36. Also P. Grierson, ‘Tombs and obits of the Byzantine emperors (337–1042)’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 16 (1962), 1–63, at p. 3. The discoveries were recorded in a number of contemporary Italian chronicles, such as that of Niccola della Tuccia of Viterbo: Niccola della Tuccia, Cronaca di Viterbo, in I. Ciampi (ed.), Cronache e statute delle citt`a di Viterbo (Florence, 1872). This and other sources for the discoveries are discussed in Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 171–4, also p. 247, n. 251, and Paolucci, ‘La tomba dell’imperatrice Maria’ (above, n. 1), 225–31.

The mausoleum of Honorius

(quite possibly that of the infant prince Theodosius and his mother the Empress Galla Placidia),6 and a further adult, all interred in beautiful marble sarcophagi, the bodies wrapped in gold cloth and accompanied by rich jewellery, clearly suggesting imperial identities.7 The final burial, unearthed in 1544, however, could be positively identified, due to the particular treasures buried with the body. The sarcophagus, in one account reported to be of Egyptian red granite, measured more than eight feet long and six feet high, and within it, the body of the Empress Maria was accompanied by an estimated 180 precious items within two silver boxes: gold and crystal vessels, a gold band inscribed with her name, an emerald engraved with a bust of the Emperor Honorius, and a bulla or seal, one of only two items from the burial that can be identified today, inscribed with the names of Maria, Honorius and other members of Maria’s family – arranged in the shape of a Chi-Rho.8 No record was kept of the dispersal of these priceless late antique treasures, and as with the two burials discovered previously in the mausoleum, the gold from the shroud and the burial robe was melted down.9 The site of the mausoleum has never been excavated, and as Johnson tantalizingly points out, the remains of the rotunda almost certainly still exist below the current basilica.10

The mausoleum of Honorius in the sources Although there has been some debate in recent years as to when the mausoleum was constructed,11 particularly whether it was a new foundation 6

7

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10 11

See Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 172; and see further, this volume, 123 and n. 17. The discovery of the burial of the infant and adult together, in 1458, is recorded by Niccola della Tuccia, Cronaca (above, n. 5), a. 1458, 256; the further adult burial, unearthed in 1519, is recorded in the diary of Marcantonio Michiel, on which see E. Cicogna, ‘Intorno alla vita e alle opera di Marcantonio Michiel’, in Memorie dell’Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 9 (1861), 359–425, at p. 404. Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 173–4; Paolucci, ‘La tomba dell’imperatrice Maria’ (above, n. 1), 223, 232. The bulla is now in the Louvre, Paris. According to Paolucci, the other surviving item from Maria’s burial treasure is an agate ladle, now in the Museo degli Argenti in Florence. When melted down, the gold from Maria’s burial apparently amounted to 35–40 lb of gold, and as Johnson points out, this is a significantly higher amount of gold than the two previous burials had yielded – possibly arguing for there having been more than one burial in Maria’s sarcophagus: see further, this volume, 131 n. 52; Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 173. Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 168. See W. N. Schumacher, ‘Das Baptisterium von Alt-St. Peter und seine Probleme’, in O. Feld and U. Peschlow (eds.), Studien zur Sp¨atantiken und Byzantinischen Kunst F. W. Deichmann Gewidmet, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1986), I, 215–33; followed by F. Tolotti, ‘I due mausolei esistiti sul

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under Honorius or was constructed at the same time as its neighbour, the Vatican Rotunda,12 the argument for its having been purpose-built between 400 and 408 to house the remains of the western imperial family, beginning with the Empress Maria, remains most convincing, not least because the early plans of it suggest that it respects the alignment of the basilica.13 Of the physical appearance of the mausoleum, we know very little: from before its demolition only the plan by an Anonymous Florentine survives (dating to about 1514) which shows a round building attached to the south transept of Old Saint Peter’s, very similar in appearance to the Vatican Rotunda beside it (Fig. 6.2).14 Similarly, the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493 printed an engraving of the Vatican displaying a squat round building that we must assume to be the mausoleum (see Fig. 14.2, Plate II); but neither of these vague depictions provides us with a very clear idea of its appearance or structure.15 Honorius was emperor of the west from 395 until his death in 423, and although it is most likely he was interred in this mausoleum at Rome, the earliest record of his burial there dates only to the eighth century, in the history of Paul the Deacon.16 His wife Maria died in late 407 or early 408, and though no record of her burial survives in the sources, the discovery of her sarcophagus in the sixteenth century provides irrefutable proof that the empress was interred in this mausoleum, and raises the possibility – indeed the strong probability – that other imperial, and similarly unrecorded, burials took place in this small rotunda adjacent to Saint Peter’s. The first reference to the mausoleum in the sources occurs in 450, when the Reichenau

12

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lato meridionale del vecchio S. Pietro’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 64 (1988), 287–315; and generally also by G. Mackie, Early Christian Chapels in the West: Decoration, Function and Patronage (Toronto, 2003), 59. Compare R. Biering and H. von. Hensberg, ‘Zur Bau- und Kultgeschichte von S. Andreas apud S. Petrum. Vom Phrygianum zum Kenotaph Theodosius d. Gr.?’, R¨omische Quartalschrift f¨ur christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 82 (1987), 145–82. Gem dates this convincingly to the third century: Gem, ‘Vatican Rotunda’ (above, n. 1), 31–5. The rotunda was later converted to a chapel dedicated to Saint Andrew by Pope Symmachus (498–514). See also Alchermes, ‘Petrine politics’ (above, n. 1). For Maria’s death c. 407/8, see Zosimus 5.28.1, in Zosime: Histoire nouvelle, F. Paschoud (ed. and trans.), 3 parts, 5 vols. (Paris, 1971–89); also PLRE, II, 720. On the axial relationship between the Honorian rotunda and the basilica, see Gem, ‘Vatican Rotunda’ (above, n. 1), 13. On the anonymous plan in the Uffizi, see Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 168–9, fig. 124, and Gem, ‘Vatican Rotunda’ (above, n. 1), 1. Also on the mausoleum’s design and appearance, see J. J. Rasch, ‘Zur Rekonstruktion der Andreasrotunde an Alt-St.- Peter’, R¨omische Quartalschrift 85 (1990), 1–18. H. Schedel, Das Buch der Chroniken (Nuremberg, 1493; fasc. edition New York, 1976), Blat 58; on the engraving, see also Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 169–70, fig. 125. Pauli Diaconi Historia Romana, A. Crivellucci (ed.) (Rome, 1914), 13.7: ‘Corpusque eius iuxta beati Petri apostolic martyrium in mausoleo sepultum est . . . ’. See also Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 202, and also PLRE, I, 442, for sources on Honorius’s life and reign.

The mausoleum of Honorius

Fig. 6.2. Plan of the rotundas of Saint Andrew and Saint Petronilla; drawing by an anonymous Florentine draftsman of the second half of the sixteenth century, based on information gathered before 1513.

addition to the Prosper chronicle records that the remains of Theodosius were interred in the mausoleum – in all likelihood the infant Theodosius, the long-dead first son of the elderly Empress Galla Placidia (who would herself die later the same year, and was almost certainly also buried in the mausoleum).17 The mention of this event is very brief, but does note that the interment was conducted in the presence of Pope Leo and the entire senate of Rome, as well as the elderly empress – and with great ceremony. The Emperor Olybrius who reigned for only a few months in 472 (and was related through marriage to the house of Theodosius) may have been 17

The chronicle states: ‘Theodosius cum magna pompa a Placidia et Leone et omni senatu deductus et in mausoleo ad apostolum Petrum depositus est’ (‘Prosper Tironis epitome chronicon’, in T. Mommsen (ed.), Chronica Minora I, MGH, AA 9 (Berlin, 1892), 341–499, s.a. 451[sic]). And compare Olympiodorus, fragment 26, in R. C. Blockley (ed.), The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus and Malchus (Liverpool, 1983); and see S. I. Oost, ‘Some problems in the history of Galla Placidia’, Classical Philology 60 (1965), 1–10, at pp. 7–8. See PLRE, II, 1100 for this Theodosius, and PLRE, II, 888–9 for his mother, Galla Placidia. The so-called ‘mausoleum of Galla Placidia’ at Ravenna is unlikely ever to have been the burial place of the empress: Mackie, Early Christian Chapels (above, n. 11), 174; and D. M. Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), 74–84.

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the last Roman imperial burial in the mausoleum,18 but in 483, we hear of it being used for an official meeting of clergy and senators under the leadership of Caecina Basilius, the chief minister of King Odoacer.19

Fifth-century imperial interest in the city of Rome In recent years, the seminal article of Andrew Gillett on the last western emperors has challenged the once traditional and widespread view that by the fifth century the city of Rome had become abandoned and neglected by the Roman emperors.20 Despite the general absences and extremely occasional visits of emperors to the city across the course of the fourth century (only five visits are firmly attested after 312),21 when the evidence for the fifth century is assembled, it immediately becomes apparent that Romans were seeing their emperors far more frequently, with at least six visits recorded for the Emperor Honorius, and many more, including eventual long-term residency at Rome, by his successor, Valentinian III.22 18

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See further below, 131, and PLRE, II, 796–8 – Olybrius was also a member of the Anicii family, some of whose members were already buried at Saint Peter’s. See also Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 202; and on Olybrius’s time at Rome, A. Gillett, ‘Rome, Ravenna and the last western emperors’, PBSR 59 (2001), 131–67, at p. 153. I am grateful to Richard Gem for bringing to my attention the last ‘imperial’ burial in the mausoleum – that of the Empress Agnes ‘of Poitou’ in the eleventh century: T. Struve, ‘Die Romreise der Kaiserin Agnes’, Historisches Jahrbuch 105 (1985), 1–29, at p. 26. The meeting was held ‘in mausoleo quod est apud beatissimum Petrum apostolorum’; see T. Mommsen (ed.), Acta Synhodorum Habitarum Romae, MGH, AA, 12, appendix 2 (Berlin, 1894), 445. See also Gem, ‘Vatican rotunda’ (above, n. 1), 36, and Alchermes, ‘Petrine politics’ (above, n. 1), 9. Gillett, ‘Rome, Ravenna’ (above, n. 18). For statements of the traditional viewpoint of Rome as a political backwater already by the fifth century, see, for example, R. Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics: Rome, Constantinople, Milan (Berkeley, 1981), 93; also R. Krautheimer, ‘The architecture of Sixtus III: a fifth-century renascence?’, in M. Meiss (ed.), Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky (De Artibus Opuscula 40), 2 vols. (New York, 1961), I, 291–301, esp. p. 301; B. Lanc¸on, Rome in Late Antiquity: Everyday Life and Urban Change, AD 312–609 (trans. A. Nevill) (Edinburgh, 2000), 18, 35–6. Constantine I visited Rome in 312, 315 and 326; Constantius II in 357; and Theodosius I in 389. The rather more expansive list compiled by A. Demandt, Die Sp¨atantike: R¨omische Geschichte von Diocletian bis Justinian, 284–565 n. Chr. (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 3/6) (Munich, 1989), 376 and n. 7, has rightly been questioned by Mark Humphries and should be treated with caution: M. Humphries, ‘Roman senators and absent emperors in Late Antiquity’, Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia n.s. 17/3 (2003), 27–46, esp. p. 28. On the visits of Honorius, see Gillett, ‘Rome, Ravenna’ (above, n. 18), 137–8; and on the visits and eventual residency of Valentinian III, 142–5. I am grateful to Mark Humphries for generously making available to me prior to publication his article ‘Valentinian III and the city of Rome (AD 425–55); patronage, politics, and power’, in L. Grig and G. Kelly (eds.),Two

The mausoleum of Honorius

In the context of this imperial refocus on Rome, the foundation of an imperial mausoleum adjacent to Saint Peter’s begins to make more sense, but we should pause to consider what a remarkable development this was. An imperial mausoleum was, after all, a marked statement of enduring and constant care of the imperial house for a particular site, particularly when that mausoleum was intended not merely for an individual but for a dynasty, as the mausoleum of Honorius appears to have been.23 Yet it was a very long time since an emperor had been buried at Rome – not for a hundred years or more, though members of Constantine’s family had been laid to rest in or near the city.24 In the east, Constantine the Great’s foundation of his new metropolis of Constantinople had seen the building of the great Apostoleion, or church of the Holy Apostles, although scholarly debate continues about Constantine’s intentions and the church and mausoleum’s phases of construction.25 According to Eusebius, at any rate, here Constantine had planned to gather relics of each of the twelve apostles, and to have himself buried in their midst upon his death. And in 337 when Constantine died, he was laid to rest there, as many eastern emperors to follow him would be.26 The western empire of the late fourth century possessed no such extradynastic Christian imperial mausoleum.27 In fact, when Valentinian I died in 375 – an emperor of the west, who died in the west – his body was transported all the way to Constantinople for burial in the Apostoleion; similarly when Constantia, the first wife of the western emperor Gratian,

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Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity (Oxford and New York, 2012), 161–82, which deals specifically with that emperor’s interest in the city. See P. J. E. Davies, Death and the Emperor: Roman Imperial Funerary Monuments from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge, 2000), 136–7. Romulus, the son of the usurper-emperor Maxentius, was buried at Rome c. 309 on the Via Appia: PLRE, I, 772; Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 92–3, 201. Constantine I’s mother, Helena, who died c. 329, was buried in a mausoleum attached to a newly built basilica by the Via Labicana (Life 34, c. 44, LP, I, 182; PLRE, I, 410–11; also Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 110–18). Constantina and Helena, the daughters of Constantine, were buried in a mausoleum beside the church of Sant’Agnese by the Via Nomentana, between c. 350 and 360: see Ammianus Marcellinus, in Res Gestae, J. C. Rolfe (ed. and trans.) (Cambridge, MA, 1935–9), PLRE, I, 222, 21.1.5, 25.4.2 for Constantina, PLRE, I, 409–10 for Helena; also Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 139–56. For the most recent analysis, see Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 119–28. ¨ Eusebius, Vita Constantini, in Eusebius: Werke, I.1. Uber das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin, F. Winkelmann (ed.), (Berlin, 1975), IV, 60, 2; 71, 2; G. Dagron, Emperor and Priest: the Imperial Office in Byzantium, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge, 2003), 139. However, in 359 Constantius II had his father’s body moved into a mausoleum adjacent to the church: Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals (above, n. 20), 59–60. By 400, the Apostoleion had received imperial burials not only from the house of Constantine, but also from the houses of Valentinian and Theodosius as well.

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died in c. 383 her body was also carried to Constantinople for burial.28 It might be said that it was only western emperors who died in embarrassing or compromised circumstances in the late fourth century who were buried in the west – and even then, not at Rome. The Emperor Gratian, who was assassinated in 383, probably was eventually buried at Milan,29 and when his younger brother Valentinian II committed suicide in 392, his body was taken for burial at Milan also, rather than Constantinople.30 The chapel now known as Sant’Aquilino, adjacent to the church of San Lorenzo at Milan, may have served as the mausoleum of Gratian and Valentinian II:31 it has been argued that the church itself was a ‘palace church’, standing close to the imperial precinct, with the expensive stonework used in its construction also suggesting imperial patronage.32 Yet much speculation remains as to the date of the chapel’s construction (with estimates ranging from the early fourth century and into the fifth century),33 and also the identity of its imperial patron – and it should be noted that such patronage could have come from a lesser member of the imperial family, rather than necessarily the emperor himself. At any rate, from c. 400 onwards, the focus of imperial interest was slowly but steadily returning to Rome, and the conscious foundation of an imperial dynastic mausoleum attached to Saint Peter’s could be interpreted as a significant demonstration of renewed imperial commitment to the old capital – and perhaps too of an attempt to restore the imperial profile itself in Rome.34

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Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae (above, n. 24), 30.10.1. For sources on the life and reign of Valentinian I, see PLRE, I, 933–4. Constantia was the posthumous daughter of Constantius II: Chronicon Paschale s.a. 383; also PLRE, I, 221. N. B. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley, 1994), 161–3, 217, and PLRE, 1.401 for sources on Gratian’s life and reign. M. J. Johnson, ‘On the burial places of the Valentinian dynasty’, Historia 40 (1991), 501–6; and PLRE, I, 934–5 for sources on Valentinian II’s life and reign. On the burials of Gratian and Valentinian, see Johnson, ‘Burial places’ (above, n. 30), 503–5; on Sant’Aquilino generally, Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 156–67. On San Lorenzo as a palace church, its potential patrons and the likelihood of its monumental stonework being obtained from the nearby amphitheatre (with imperial permission), see Mackie, Early Christian Chapels (above, n. 11), 158; D. Kinney, ‘The dating evidence of S. Lorenzo in Milan’, Journal for the Society of Architectural Historians 31/2 (1972), 92–107, at pp. 101–2; Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals (above, n. 20), 91; Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 165; M. L¨ox, ‘Die Kirche San Lorenzo in Mailand: eine Stiftung des Stilicho?’, R¨omische Mitteilungen 114 (2008), 407–38; M. David, ‘Un decennio di ricerche di archeologia cristiana a Milan: il caso S. Lorenzo’, in E. Russo (ed.), 1983–1993: dieci anni di archeologia cristiana in Italia. Atti del VII congresso nazionale di archeologia cristiana (Cassino, 2003), 49–57. On the debate over the dating of Sant’Aquilino, see Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 164–7. Alchermes, ‘Petrine politics’ (above, n. 1), 8; Koethe, ‘Mausoleum’ (above, n. 1), 10–11.

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Political context: child-emperor regimes of the late Roman west Not only were fifth-century emperors spending far more time in Rome than had their fourth-century predecessors, in addition, a major transformation was taking place in the nature and perception of the imperial office across this period, and this transformation also had its part to play in the foundation of the mausoleum of Honorius. I have argued elsewhere for the development of the child-emperor phenomenon in the late Roman Empire,35 but for the purposes of this chapter, the briefest explanation of my conclusions will have to suffice. Over the course of the period from the late fourth to the middle of the fifth century, the western Roman empire witnessed an astonishing and completely unprecedented succession of four child-emperors to the throne. In 367, Valentinian I raised his eight-year-old son Gratian (reigned 367–83) as his co-emperor; when Valentinian died in 375, a political clique made his younger son, the four-year-old Valentinian II (375–92), co-emperor also. In 393 Theodosius I made his eight-yearold younger son co-emperor, and in 395, the then ten-year-old Honorius became sole emperor of the western Roman Empire (395–423), and in 425, Honorius’s nephew Valentinian III (425–55) was made western Roman emperor at the age of six years. The lengthy and consecutive reigns of these child-emperors in turn made for long-term change in the nature and perception of the imperial office itself.36 These child-emperor accessions took place for various and complex reasons – matters of political opportunism, dynasticism and avoidance of civil war. But one of the many significant repercussions that this transformation had, I would argue, was this refocus on the city of Rome as a key political stage in this era of repeated minority regimes: for these child-emperors needed this urban and civilian arena for spectacular ceremonial display far more than had the military regimes of the fourth-century emperors. One of the most conspicuous ways in which imperial presentation was adapted across this period, to make the rule of child-emperors plausible, was through emphasizing the ceremonial and religious functions of these emperors as foremost, with special attention to the particular piety, purity and divine blessing that could be attributed to a child in such a role, as his military function was delegated on a long-term basis to a single dominant general.37 35

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M. McEvoy, ‘Rome and the transformation of the imperial office in the late fourth–mid-fifth centuries AD’, PBSR 78 (2010), 151–92, at pp. 154–70; also M. McEvoy, Child-Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367–455 (Oxford, 2013). See generally, McEvoy, Child-Emperor Rule (above, n. 35). Powerful generals such as Merobaudes, Bauto, Arbogast, Stilicho, Fl. Constantius (later Constantius III) and Aetius tended throughout these child-emperor regimes to fulfil the

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Many sources from the period provide a wealth of evidence in support of this novel imperial presentation for each of these western boy-emperors.38 To choose just one example, the diptych of Probus, issued in 406, provides a wonderful visual depiction of this emphasis on the piety and divine blessing of an emperor as his most exceptional virtue: it displays Honorius, who was then aged twenty-one, dressed in military attire, though he had never yet been near a battlefield, and beside him a banner topped with a ChiRho and declaring ‘may you always conquer in the name of Christ’.39 The young emperor’s piety was being credited with his armies’ successes despite his absence from the battlefield, even when he was in fact old enough to take up such a role. Seen against the background of the imperial refocus on Rome in the fifth century, this depiction is a reminder that the marked emphasis on the Christian piety of young emperors like Honorius was one that continued well into the adulthood of emperors who came to the throne as children, and indeed only grew in importance as a justification for the emperor’s position as others continued to lead the imperial armies. For non-military emperors like Honorius and his successor, Valentinian III, Christian, ceremonial function was becoming paramount in imperial presentation.40 The rise of child-emperor regimes in the late Roman world was by no means purely a western phenomenon: in the east during the same period, the regime of the youth Arcadius followed by that of his son, the child-emperor Theodosius II, showed similarly marked Christian emphases in the image of the emperor.41 I am certainly not suggesting that imperial piety had not always been desirable, or that the religious function of an emperor only became important with the rise of child-emperors – since the conversion of

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emperor’s military function on his behalf, even once these child-emperors reached adulthood. See McEvoy, ‘Rome and the transformation’ (above, n. 35), 162. See, for example, Ambrose on Gratian: Ambrose of Milan, De Obitu Valentiniani, 3, in O. Faller (ed.), CSEL, 73, 327–67 (Vienna, 1955); and on Valentinian II: De Obitu Valentiniani, 16; Orosius on Christ’s special protection for Honorius: Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII: in K. Zangemeister (ed.), CSEL, 5, 7.36.2–3, and similarly Ambrose on Honorius: De Obitu Theodosii, 5, 66 in CSEL, 73, 39–401, and Merobaudes on Valentinian III: Carmina 1.5–10, in Flavius Merobaudes: a Translation and Historical Commentary, F. M. Clover (ed. and trans), in Transactions of the American Philological Association n.s. 61/1 (1971), 1–78. in nomine xpi vincas semper: see S. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1981), 228. Similar depictions appear on Honorius’s coinage: see J. Kent, Roman Imperial Coinage X. The Divided Empire and the Fall of the Western Parts, AD 395–491 (London, 1994), 48, 133. Though the soldier-emperor model of imperial rule still endured, as the later fifth-century accessions of emperors like Avitus (455–6) and Majorian (457–61) attests. On the famously pious presentation of Theodosius II, for example, see Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, 7.22, in G. C. Hansen (ed.), Kirchengeschichte (Berlin, 1995).

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Constantine, Christian emperors had striven to fulfil their religious functions in a variety of ways, such as through anti-pagan legislation, church benefaction and the calling of ecclesiastical councils.42 What I am suggesting, however, is that the repeated minority regimes of the period brought the imperial function of religious piety ever more to the forefront of imperial presentation, as one that even a child could plausibly fulfil. And within this framework, the decision to build an imperial mausoleum at Rome, adjacent to Saint Peter’s basilica, can be seen as part of this particular emphasis in imperial presentation: picking up on pre-existing trends in imperial ideology, such as the desire for association with the apostles, and employing them to suit the needs of the more ceremonial and non-military emperors of this later period.

Saint Peter’s and imperial and papal burials in the fifth century As mentioned above, the church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople had been built largely in the first half of the fourth century. And at about the same time as the mausoleum of Honorius was being constructed at Rome in the first decade of the fifth century, Honorius’s brother, the Emperor Arcadius, was adding his own personal mausoleum to the church of the Holy Apostles.43 An element of competition between the two imperial capitals – and indeed the two imperial courts – should certainly not be ruled out.44 Relations between east and west certainly had their ups and downs during this period, and it would hardly be surprising if, in the early fifth century, the western emperor’s ability to link his dynastic mausoleum with the shrine of Saint Peter was in some way a reassertion of Rome’s equality with – or indeed superiority to – the eastern capital.45 The arguments for cooperation versus competition between the two imperial courts are complex, and for the purposes of this chapter do not need to be explored in detail, but we should at least note that, however friendly or hostile we choose to view the 42 43

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See further McEvoy, ‘Rome and the transformation’ (above, n. 35), 163–5. The so-called ‘South Stoa’, built c. 404: see most recently Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 127; also Grierson, ‘Tombs and obits’ (above, n. 4), 6–7. As other scholars have already highlighted: Koethe, ‘Mausoleum’ (above, n. 1), 10–11; also Alchermes, ‘Petrine politics’ (above, n. 1), 8; Schumacher, ‘Baptisterium’ (above, n. 11), 228; and Oost, ‘Some problems’ (above, n. 17), 7. On relations between the two courts generally, see A. Cameron and J. Long, with a contribution by L. Sherry, Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius (Berkeley, 1993), at 165–7, 246– 50.

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relations as during this period, either argument at the very least suggests mutual influence, of which we need to be aware. In 404, a spectacular ceremonial entry to Rome was staged by the Emperor Honorius as he arrived in the city to take up his sixth consulship.46 A sermon of Saint Augustine asserts that, upon his arrival, the emperor visited the tomb of Saint Peter, and knelt down and removed his crown before the shrine.47 Honorius’s own mausoleum may have been under construction already, only metres away, at the time of his visit; or perhaps it was on this visit that the idea was born. We know that in the mid- to late fourth century, members of Rome’s Christian elite were choosing to be buried at the Vatican, including members of the high-profile Anicii family, and Junius Bassus, urban prefect in 359.48 The building of the imperial mausoleum therefore could be seen also as an attempt to build bridges with the powerful Christian senatorial aristocracy at Rome.49 But a further layer of complexity is added to the picture when we notice that while fifth-century emperors were being buried at Saint Peter’s, fourth-century and early fifth-century popes, the bishops of Rome themselves, were not. During the first few centuries of the Christian era, according to the tradition of the Liber Pontificalis, the Vatican hill, close to the tomb of Saint Peter, had been a common place of burial for bishops of Rome, with many – though certainly not all – down to Victor (c. 195) being laid to rest there. But after this point, from c. 195 down to the death of Pope Leo the Great in 461, not a single pope is known to have been buried at the Vatican, with sites such as the cemetery of Callistus, or that of Priscilla, often being preferred (and in fact, if we leave aside the tradition of the Liber Pontificalis entirely, even more strikingly, the first securely attested papal burial in the basilica only takes place in 461).50 In contrast, over the course of the fifth century, 46

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Claudian’s poem, Panegyricus de Sexto Consulatu Honorii Augusti, in Claudian, M. Plautnaeur (trans.), 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1972–6), II, 70–123, was dedicated to describing the auspicious occasion. Augustine of Hippo, Cum Pagani Ingrederentur 26, in F. Dolbeau (ed.), Vingt-six sermons au peuple d’Afrique (Paris, 1996), 266; see also P. Liverani, ‘Victors and pilgrims in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages’, Fragmenta 1 (2007), 83–102, at p. 83. Petronius Probus had even had a mausoleum of his own attached to the apse of Saint Peter’s basilica – see Alchermes ‘Petrine politics’ (above, n. 1), 7–8, and also R. Krautheimer, ‘The crypt of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin and the mausoleum of Petronius Probus’, in L. Freeman Sandler (ed.), Essays in Memory of Karl Lehmann (New York, 1964), 173–4. The sarcophagus of Junius Bassus was discovered in 1597; CIL, VI, 1, no. 1737; PLRE, I, 155. On imperial/senatorial relations during this period, see generally Humphries, ‘Roman senators’ (above, n. 21). On papal burials and the Liber Pontificalis’s representations of these, see McKitterick, this volume, 105–6, 113. Also on the source in general, see H. Geertman, ‘La genesi del Liber Pontificalis romano. Un processo di organizzazione della memoria’, in F. Bougard and M. Sot

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the mausoleum of Honorius conceivably could have received as many as ten members of the imperial house, interred close to the martyred apostle’s tomb: the Empress Maria (d. 408); her sister Thermantia (also later empress, d. 415); the Emperor Constantius III (d. 421); the Emperor Honorius (d. 423); Theodosius, the first son of the Empress Galla Placidia (d. 415, but re-interred at Rome 450); the Empress Galla Placidia (d. 450); the Empress Justa Grata Honoria (d. 450–5?); the Emperor Valentinian III (d. 455); and possibly also the later Emperors Libius Severus (d. 465) and Olybrius (d. 472).51 Although the question of where a number of these individuals were buried remains debatable, I believe a case can at least be made that the location for each was the mausoleum at Saint Peter’s: with three attested imperial interments there in the fifth century, and other members of the imperial house in need of burial during this time whose resting places remain otherwise unknown, it seems reasonable to assume that Honorius’s mausoleum was the site of further imperial burials.52 Regardless of precisely how many imperial burials took place here, however, the most significant factor is that the mausoleum in itself staked a strong, public, visual claim to the piety of the imperial house. And in contrast to this list of potential imperial burials, of the bishops of Rome after the founding of the Constantinian basilica, none was buried at Saint Peter’s until the 460s, while even after 400, for the six papal deaths before Leo I in 461, locations such as San Lorenzo fuori le mura or the cemetery Ad Ursum Pileatum were preferred for burial (at least according to the Liber Pontificalis).53 Despite our long-held belief in the Vatican as the burial place of the bishops of Rome from the earliest times, it was, in fact, not until after imperial burials had begun to take place at Saint Peter’s that the tradition of papal burial at the basilica truly arose.

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´ (eds.), Liber, Gesta, Histoire. Ecrire l’histoire des ´evˆeques et des papes de l’antiquit´e au XXIe si`ecle (Turnhout, 2009), 37–107. See similarly the list of Johnson, who, however, omits Justa Grata Honoria from among the possible imperial burials; Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum (above, n. 1), 202. The Empress Thermantia (PLRE, II, 1111–12) may be a more dubious case than others, given her repudiation by Honorius shortly after their marriage; nevertheless she was a member of the imperial family by blood as well as marriage, and allegedly went to live in Rome upon her departure from the emperor’s court: Zosimus (above, n. 13), 5.35.3, 37.5; the very first record of the discovery of Maria’s body also claimed there were two bodies in the sarcophagus, the other being that of Thermantia (though other sources mention only one body); see Bullengerus, in P. Mazzuchelli, La bolla di Maria moglie d’Onorio imperatore che si conserva nel Museo Trivulzio, brevemente spiegata (Milan, 1819), 24; see also n. 9. Between AD 400 and 500, twelve papal burials occurred – for details of their locations, see ´ McKitterick, this volume, 107. See also J.-C. Picard, ‘Etude sur l’emplacement des tombes des papes du IIIe au Xe si`ecle’, MAH 81 (1969), 746–55.

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Imperial–papal relations in fifth-century Rome It used to be thought that by the fifth century the popes had already taken over the role of emperors within the city of Rome in authority, patronage and church-building efforts.54 Yet we know that when the evidence is assembled, it reveals that the imperial court frequently visited, and eventually took up residence in Rome once more between 400 and 455.55 Furthermore, it was the regime of Valentinian III, from 425 to 455, that saw the greatest imperial investment in church decoration at Rome since the Constantinian dynasty, a particularly striking development in view of how much western imperial revenues had shrunk by this time.56 This young emperor’s reign happened to coincide with the pontificates of two popes known for their extensive activity in this area – Sixtus III (432–40) and Leo I (440–61).57 But the imperial family itself also was involved often in substantial donations, not only to Saint Peter’s, but also to the Lateran basilica, to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme,58 and to another church dedicated to Saint Peter – which we call today San Pietro in Vincoli, and which once even carried the name of the Empress Licinia Eudoxia, as the Basilica Eudoxiana, in recognition of her support.59 The great basilica of San Paolo fuori le mura moreover provides an important example of explicitly attested imperial and papal cooperation in church renovation at Rome during these years – where, after its original foundation under imperial orders in the 380s, following fire damage in the 54

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For example, Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals (above, n. 20), 99, 121. Scholars such as Humphries have pointed out already that this dating is premature: M. Humphries, ‘From emperor to pope? Ceremonial, space and authority at Rome from Constantine to Gregory the Great’, in K. Cooper and J. Hillner (eds.), Religion, Dynasty and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900 (Cambridge, 2007), 21–58, at pp. 25, 46–7, 54–7. See generally, Gillett, ‘Rome, Ravenna’ (above, n. 18). Gillett, ‘Rome, Ravenna’ (above, n. 18), 145. The reign of Valentinian III is also known for its church-building and benefaction programme at Ravenna: see most recently Deliyannis, Ravenna (above, n. 17), 60–105. Sixtus III is credited with the building of the basilica of Saint Mary (now Santa Maria Maggiore) (Life 46, c. 63, LP, I, 232), and Leo I with renewing Saint Peter’s basilica (Life 47, c. 66, LP, I, 239). For further details see Krautheimer, ‘The architecture of Sixtus III’ (above, n. 20), 291–7; Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals (above, n. 20), 96–100; C. Pietri, Roma Christiana: recherches sur l’´eglise de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son id´eologie de Miltiade a` Sixte III (311–440), 2 vols. (Rome, 1976), I, 503–14. See also on imperial and papal architectural patronage in fourth- and fifth-century Rome: D. Kinney, ‘Edilizia di culto cristiano a Roma e in Italia centrale dalla met`a del IV al VII secolo’, in S. de Blaauw (ed.), Storia dell’architettura italiana da Costantino a Carlo Magno, 2 vols. (Milan, 2010), I, 54–97. Life 46, c. 65, LP, I, 233 records that Valentinian III donated a valuable gold image to Saint Peter’s basilica, and also made expensive donations to the Lateran basilica. Galla Placidia made the gift of mosaics to a chapel of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem: ILS, 817; CBCR, I, 167. ILS, 819; CBCR, III, 181.

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early 440s, Pope Leo and the Empress Galla Placidia jointly contributed to the renewal of the building, as the mosaic inscription on the triumphal arch proclaimed.60 The foundation of the mausoleum of Honorius was by no means, therefore, an isolated instance of imperial interest in the Christian life of the city, or of imperial desire to claim a place within that Christian life. With the far more frequent presence of the imperial family at Rome in the fifth century, it is important to recognize that, while papal power was on the rise during this period, this rise was in all probability supported by the western imperial court, rather than occurring at its expense.61 Two particular episodes stand out during the reign of Valentinian III in their reinforcement of the idea that papal power at this time remained at least to some degree dependent upon secular authority, and also the idea of continued imperial–papal cooperation. In 445, Pope Leo appealed for support from Valentinian III over the issue of the deposition of a fellow bishop in Gaul who had been accused of abusing his position by claiming superiority over other bishops in the province.62 The emperor issued a law in response that not only confirmed Pope Leo’s ruling, but explicitly confirmed also the primacy of the bishop of Rome – the pope’s position as the highest Christian authority in the empire. According to the emperor, the conduct of this wayward Gallic bishop constituted crimes ‘committed both against the majesty of the Empire and against reverence for the Apostolic See’.63 This coupling of the majesty of the empire and reverence for the apostolic see is an important one that already had been expressed earlier in the building of the mausoleum of Honorius adjacent to Saint Peter’s. A few years later in February 450, the same year that two members of the imperial family (the long-dead infant Theodosius and his now elderly mother, Galla Placidia) would be interred in the mausoleum of Honorius, the entire imperial family made a special visit to Saint Peter’s to celebrate 60

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For the imperial founding of the basilica, see Collectio Avellana, W. G¨unther (ed.), CSEL 35 (Vienna, 1895–8), 3; and CBCR, V, 97–8, 161–2. For the inscription recording the joint effort of Pope Leo and Galla Placidia, see ILCV, 1761, a, b, c; ICUR, II.1, 28, 68; and CBCR, V, 99. As Gillett has pointed out: ‘Rome, Ravenna’ (above, n. 18), 145. Pope Leo’s appeal to Valentinian III in 445 over the issue does not survive, but his ruling on the case does (Leo I, Epistolae, in PL, LIV: 581–1213 [hereafter Ep.], Ep. 10) and the surviving law of Valentinian III deals explicitly with the case, making Leo’s appeal to the emperor undisputed. On the case of Hilary of Arles, see S. Wessel, Leo the Great and the Spiritual Rebuilding of a Universal Rome (Leiden, 2008), 58–9. ‘Leges novella Valentiniani III’, in Codex Theodosianus, T. Mommsen and P. Meyer (eds.), Theodosiani Libri XVI cum Constitutionibus Sirmondianis (Berlin, 1905) ii: 69–154 [hereafter NVal.], NVal. 17.2: ‘his talibus et contra imperii maiestatem et contra reverentiam apostolicae sedis admissis’.

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the Feast of Peter’s Chair. The emperor may have timed his return to Rome especially to coincide with this important feast.64 On this particular occasion, Pope Leo and other members of the Roman clergy accosted the imperial family as they entered the basilica, and tearfully the pope entreated the emperor and his family to write to the eastern emperor, Theodosius II, requesting that the findings of the ‘Robber Synod’ at Ephesus in 449 (which had ignored Leo’s famous Tome) be overturned, and a new synod be convened.65 Moved by Pope Leo’s pleas, Emperor Valentinian III solemnly agreed, and surviving letters testify that he, his mother and his wife (who was Theodosius II’s daughter) all wrote to the eastern emperor to remonstrate with him as Pope Leo had requested.66 Although this episode generally has been seen as an indication of Pope Leo’s dominance over a weak western emperor, it seems rather more likely, in fact, that this was a carefully stage-managed confrontation, which once again revealed the underlying cooperation between emperor and pope at this time, as well as the undercurrent of continuing competition between western and eastern imperial courts in displays of piety. It was, after all, an episode that allowed both emperor and pope to display their authority: at the celebration of a feast that marked the authority of Saint Peter and the papacy over the Church, Pope Leo publicly and dramatically urged Valentinian III to step in to uphold the doctrinal position of Rome. And in so turning to the emperor, Leo allowed Valentinian to claim still greater authority and influence even than the pope, as well as moral superiority over his colleague, the wayward eastern emperor.67 Even as late as 450, a bishop as powerful as Pope Leo the Great was still looking to the Roman emperor for support. With this record of papal–imperial cooperation in mind, as well as the longrecognized growth in the claim of papal primacy under Pope Leo, it hardly comes as a surprise that, upon his death in 461, Leo became the first pope for more than two centuries to be buried in Saint Peter’s basilica. Although, admittedly, it was not unusual for bishops of Rome to be buried in churches to which they had contributed in terms of funding or decoration, and Pope 64

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Gillett, ‘Rome, Ravenna’ (above, n. 18), 147. The family’s presence at the feast is recorded in Leo, Ep. (above, n. 62), 55.1. On the controversial ‘Robber Synod’ and events surrounding it, see Wessel, Leo the Great (above, n. 62), 40–2, and on Leo’s request that the western imperial family intervene, pp. 261–2. The communications survive in the collected letters of Leo I: Epp. 55–8 (above, n. 62). The letter of Galla Placidia in particular refers to Leo’s sighs and tears as he delivered his request (Ep. 58). An unusual but perhaps appealing position for Valentinian III, who owed the creation of his regime back in 425 to his famously pious cousin Theodosius. For sources on the life and reign of Valentinian III generally, see PLRE, II, 1138–9.

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Leo is credited with undertaking restoration at Saint Peter’s, it seems highly likely to have been a consideration that the basilica was also by now the resting place of the fifth-century western imperial family.68

Conclusion The construction of the mausoleum of Honorius at Rome was a striking statement of the renewal of imperial commitment to the city in the fifth century. It reflected the particular Christian image that the minority regimes of the period sought to project, while tapping in to pre-existing imperial trends, such as the desire for association with the apostles in death, apparent in both western and eastern imperial mausoleum building during this period. This mausoleum was not an isolated example of imperial commitment to Rome or to Saint Peter’s, but was rather part of a concerted programme of imperial benefactions to Rome’s churches in the fifth century, and should serve as an important reminder that imperial power and patronage remained very much a factor in the Christian life of the city down to the final decades of the western Roman empire. An imperial mausoleum was a powerful statement of commitment to a city and of dynastic continuity; and a mausoleum adjacent to Saint Peter’s basilica was an exceptionally potent statement of this kind, linking the emperor and his family with the apostles in a visible and dramatic way. With such a construction, the imperial house could take part in all of the theatrical potential that Saint Peter’s offered (and that would come to be increasingly exploited over the following centuries), both as a political stage and as a place of worship – and for the imperial house, such strands of activity were by no means separated. Though our evidence is sadly sparse, the hints that we do possess from the sources suggest that the establishment of this mausoleum provided opportunities for impressive displays of both imperial pomp and ceremony, and imperial piety: if the treasures buried with the Empress Maria are any indication, state funerals for members of the imperial house must have been lavish affairs. And indeed, the respect paid to Saint Peter’s by Theoderic, the Arian king of the Ostrogoths, upon his visit to Rome in 500,69 or centuries later by the Carolingian dynasty, whose 68

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association with the cult of Saint Petronilla even coincidentally focused on the mausoleum of Honorius,70 indicates that the value of such a political stage was not forgotten. The notion of imperial or royal desire for association with the apostles in death would appear to have endured also in the mausoleum Theoderic built for himself at Ravenna: the dome-like slab on top of the structure is carved with twelve spurs, each bearing the name of an apostle.71 While the Emperor Honorius and his government have rarely been deemed worthy of much admiration or enthusiasm by modern scholars, the foundation of his mausoleum was a shrewd political act with enduring ramifications, not only for his own regime but for many to follow, forming an important part of the continuing Christianization of the imperial office, and the old imperial capital, in the later Roman empire. 70

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McKitterick, ‘Illusion of royal power’ (above, n. 2), 13–14, and also McKitterick, History and Memory (above, n. 2), 145–8. I am very grateful to Joanna Story for first suggesting to me this continuation of ideas between the Roman and Carolingian ruling houses. See M. Johnson, ‘Towards a history of Theoderic’s building program’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 42 (1988), 73–96, at pp. 93–5; also Deliyannis, Ravenna (above, n. 17), 134–5.

7

Popes, emperors and clergy at Old Saint Peter’s from the fourth to the eighth century alan thacker

Fig. 7.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 7.

This chapter will explore the way in which Saint Peter’s was managed and staffed in the period from the fourth to the eighth century, and in so doing will seek to throw light on its position in the political and urban life of Rome. 137

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Let us look first at the foundation of Saint Peter’s.1 Constantine’s role of course is central; the inscriptions on the triumphal and apsidal arches made that very clear.2 It was an ex-voto for Constantine’s victory over the Emperor Licinius in 324,3 and in the accompanying mosaic on the triumphal arch Constantine was shown presenting a model of the church to Christ and Saint Peter (Fig. 7.1).4 An important necropolis was closed and largely destroyed to make way for Saint Peter’s and, as its successor, the basilica was itself a Christian cemetery. All this means, while clearly the analogy is not exact, that like the imperial temples and votive monuments established before the peace of the Church, Saint Peter’s was a public building.5 As John Curran has noted, it was ‘constructed within the framework of the public architecture of the late empire, where particular importance was attached to size, grandeur and richness’.6 Appropriately therefore, its large endowments in the Orient were established by imperial decree.7 It is worth comparing Saint Peter’s with other large cemeterial basilicas founded by Constantine and his family, in particular those eventually known as Santi Pietro e Marcellino, San Lorenzo fuori le mura and Sant’Agnese. These were established on the great imperial estates and gardens that lay to the northeast and east of the city, and two at least (most likely all three) had large imperial tombs attached.8 Although endowed with extensive treasure, lands and revenues, they probably all continued to be regarded in some sense as the property of the imperial family. Certainly that was still the case at Sant’Agnese in the later fourth century, for Ammianus Marcellinus expressly records that when Julian’s wife Helena died in 360 the emperor 1 3 5

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2 ICUR-NS, II, nos. 4092, 4095. See also Gem, this volume, 35–64. 4 CBCR, V, 171. Blaauw, CD, 451–3. For imperial temple-building, see M. Beard, J. North and S. Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1998), I, 196–201, 253–60. For the position of the imperial pagan cults after the accession of Constantine, see J. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital (Oxford, 2000), 171. For imperial endowment of temples, see Valentinian I’s ruling, sent to the comes rerum privatarum, that all parcels of land and estates in the possession of temples that had been donated by various emperors (diversi principes) were to be reclaimed by the imperial fisc: Codex Theodosianus, T. Mommsen and P. M. Meyer (eds.) (Berlin, 1905), X, 1.8, 529. 7 Life 34, c. 19, LP, I, 177–8. Curran, Pagan City (above, n. 5), 112. ´ ´ O A. Thacker, ‘Rome of the martyrs: saints, cults and relics, fourth to seventh centuries’, in E. Carrag´ain and C. Neuman de Vegvar (eds.), Roma Felix: Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome (Aldershot, 2007), 13–49, at p. 26; U. Fosco, ‘Sant’Agnese nel quadro delle basiliche circiformi di et`a costantiniana a Roma e nel suo contesto topografico: lo stato degli studi’, in M. Magnetti Cianetti and C. Pavolini (eds.), La Basilica Costantiniana di Sant’Agnese (Milan, 2004), 10–29; M. Torelli, ‘Le basiliche circiformi di Roma. Iconografia, funzione, simbolo’, in G. Senna Chiesa and E. A. Arslan (eds.), Felix Temporis Reparatio. Atti del convegno archeologico internazionale ‘Milano capitale nell’impero romano’ (Milan, 1992), 203–17; Curran, Pagan City (above, n. 5), 99–105, 128–9.

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sent her body to be interred with that of her sister, at ‘his estate near Rome (suburbanum) on the Via Nomentana’.9 Constantine, at least after his removal to Byzantium, apparently did not envisage an imperial dynastic tomb attached to Saint Peter’s. The basilica was intended from the first to honour the tomb of the apostle and to be a cemeterial church for the Christian community. As became a major imperial foundation, it immediately attracted important imperial officials and senatorial aristocrats. One of the first was Junius Bassus, newly baptized Christian prefect of the city,10 who after a high-profile public funeral11 was buried in a magnificent sarcophagus in 359, less than twenty years after the basilica’s completion.12 We cannot be entirely sure of its exact location or how it was displayed. But one very plausible interpretation, offered recently by John Matthews, is that it stood behind (or perhaps beside?) the Constantinian memoria in the basilica’s western apse, that is to say, in either case, in the most desirable of positions, as near as possible to the apostle’s resting place (see above, Fig. 2.5).13 That would accord with the extreme splendour of the decoration of the sarcophagus and the sophistication and complexity

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‘Helenae coniugis defunctae suprema miserat Romam, in suburbano viae Nomentanae condenda, ubi uxor quoque Galli quondam (soror ius) sepulta est Constantina’: Ammianus Marcellinus, XXI, 1.5, J. C. Rolfe (ed.), 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1935–9), II, 92; Curran, Pagan City (above, n. 5), 128. For the meaning of suburbanum, see J. den Boeft, D. den Hengst and H. C. Teitler (eds.), Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus, XX (Groningen, 1987), 80; XXI (Groningen, 1991), 9. The prefect of Rome had the same dignity as a praetorian prefect, although he was concerned only with the municipal administration of the city: A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1964), I, 385–6. Apparently traditional for urban prefects who died in office: A. Cameron, ‘The funeral of Junius Bassus’, Zeitschrift f¨ur Papyrologie und Epigraphik 139 (2002), 288–92. Gem, this volume, 61, suggests completion c. 340. J. Matthews, ‘Four funerals and a wedding’, in P. Rousseau and M. Papoutsakis (eds.), Transformations of Late Antiquity: Essays for Peter Brown (Aldershot, 2009), 129–46, at pp. 133–4. Basing himself on the report of the location of the sarcophagus at its discovery in 1597, Matthews suggests that it probably lay in its original position, having been buried during the raising of the floor level of the sanctuary by Gregory the Great. If, however, as Matthews argues, it was found in the area that became the passage from the ring crypt to the altar of Saint Peter’s head, it must have been disturbed since the floor of that passage was lower than the Constantinian floor. All we can safely say is that it lay either beside or behind the Petrine memoria. If in the former position, it may have simply been buried in the infill that lay beneath the Gregorian altar platform; if in the latter, it was presumably moved and thrown into that infill. Cf. ICUR-NS, II, no. 4164 (‘sarcophagus prope Petri apostoli sepulchrum repertus’); J. Toynbee and J. Ward-Perkins, The Shrine of Saint Peter and the Vatican Excavations (London, 1956), 210; Esplorazioni, 221–2. Cf. the discussion by A. de Waal, ‘Zur Chronologie des Bassus-Sarkophags in den Grotten von Sankt Peter’, R¨omische Quartalschrift f¨ur christliche Altertumskunde und f¨ur Kirchengeschichte 21 (1907), 117–34, at pp. 117–21. I am grateful to Richard Gem for discussion of this matter.

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of the imagery.14 In the fourth century the prefect of the city was president of the senate and intermediary in all its dealings with the emperor.15 And Bassus was extremely well connected: he was the son of another Junius Bassus, a very prominent Christian supporter of Constantine, ‘praetorian prefect for an unparalleled thirteen years and in 331 consul’.16 In the absence of an imperial mausoleum, this burial was the best way to stamp the governing elite’s presence on the new basilica. It demonstrated not only the supreme status of the apostle, but also Saint Peter’s close links with the highest echelons of the city’s imperial administration. It seems that Saint Peter’s was first put to liturgical use shortly after the mid-fourth century, in the time of Pope Liberius (352–66), who, according to the Liber Pontificalis, ‘held’ (tenuit) the basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul and the Lateran for the last six years of his pontificate.17 Ambrose tells us that Liberius celebrated Christmas at Saint Peter’s in the presence of a large group of nuns, witnessing one of their novices make her vows.18 Whether, however, the main Petrine feast – the double celebration of the two Roman apostles on 29 June – was also observed there in Liberius’s time is not so certain. The early Roman calendar, the Depositio Martyrum, which in its final form dated from 354, is evidence that at that date the dual feast was still being celebrated ad catacumbas.19 By the 350s, and presumably for the fifteen or so years since its completion, the basilica and its shrine seem to have been in the charge of a warden or custos. According to Athanasius, writing in 358, in the mid-350s the Emperor Constantius sent his agent, the eunuch Eusebius, to Liberius offering him gifts to comply with his condemnation of Athanasius’s Nicene orthodoxy. The pope refused to subscribe and Eusebius thereupon went to the martyrium Petri apostoli and presented his gifts there. Hearing of this, Liberius was very angry with the custos loci for receiving the offerings and 14

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For a good summary of this much discussed monument, see J. Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (Oxford, 1998), 193–7. See also E. S. Malbon, The Iconography of the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (Princeton, NJ, 1990). Cameron, ‘Funeral’ (above, n. 11), 288–92. Matthews, ‘Four funerals’ (above, n. 13), 133. Life 37, c. 6, LP, I, 208. For the problems of interpreting the first section of the LP, completed c. 535, see now McKitterick, this volume, 95. Ambrose, De Virginibus, O. Faller (ed.) (Bonn, 1933), III, 1. Probably Saint Peter’s was functioning soon after 354: LP, I, 11. LP, I, pp. vi–vii, 11–12; C. Pietri, Roma Christiana: recherches sur l’´eglise de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son id´eologie de Miltiade a` Sixte III (311–440), 2 vols. (Biblioth`eque ´ des Ecoles Franc¸aises d’Ath`enes et de Rome 224) (Rome, 1976), I, 40–6, 365–80; II, 1539–41; A. Donati (ed.), Pietro e Paolo. La storia, il culto, la memoria nei primi secoli (Milan, 2000); Thacker,‘Rome of the martyrs’ (above, n. 8), 20–1 and references there cited.

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threw them out as unlawful (‘ipsaque dona ut illicitum abiecit’), an action that allegedly provoked Constantius to send letters to the prefect of Rome demanding that Liberius be expelled from the city (he was in fact exiled to Thrace).20 This episode has been seen by some as evidence of Liberius’s firm control of the new basilica.21 It seems more plausible, however, to view the fact that the administrator of the shrine received the pro-Arian emperor’s offerings as an indication that the pope had little influence there. It is moreover likely that in any exercise of authority at Saint Peter’s Liberius was assisted by members of the senatorial aristocracy opposed to Constantius’s pro-Arian policies. The custos has been supposed a lowly papal official,22 but his obedience to the eunuch suggests that he may well have been regarded, indeed may have thought of himself, primarily as a member of the imperial bureaucracy in Rome in charge of a public building rather than as a dependent of the pope – also, of course, a middle-ranking imperial official.23 The office is mentioned again, by Sozomen, writing in Constantinople in the 440s. Sozomen tells of custodes guarding Saint Peter’s during Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410, wording that indicates that by then there was more than one. These wardens received six pieces of gold from a Goth to look after a woman who had impressed him by her defence of her chastity.24 There is no evidence that they or their predecessors were ordained or were even clerics of any kind. Saint Peter’s retained its connections with the imperial governing class in Rome in the late fourth century. A fragmentary inscription found in the pavement of John VII’s oratory at its destruction in 1609 records an edict of three emperors of the 370s or early 380s, addressed to Eutherius (probably prefect of Rome); it condemned scoffing at the relics of the apostles and martyrs, and prohibited alienation of the estates dedicated to the maintenance of their cult, making, according to de Rossi’s reconstruction, special reference to Saint Peter’s.25 All this suggests that the later fourth-century emperors still regarded themselves and their leading Roman officials as the particular patrons of the Vatican basilica. Their continuing sense of proprietorship over Rome’s great martyrial churches is also indicated by the intervention of Theodosius and his youthful colleagues Arcadius and 20 21 23

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Athanasius, Historia Arianorum, V, 35–41, esp. cap. 37 (Patrologia Graeca 25, col. 735). 22 Blaauw, CD, 455. E.g. Blaauw, CD, 454–5. M. Humphries, ‘From emperor to pope? Ceremonial, space and authority at Rome from Constantine to Gregory the Great’, in K. Cooper and J. Hillner (eds.), Religion, Dynasty and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900 (Cambridge, 2007), 21–58, at p. 55. Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, IX, cap. 10 (Patrologia Graeca 67, cols. 1617–18). ICUR-NS, II, no. 4099.

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Valentinian II at San Paolo fuori le mura in the 380s. The emperors commissioned the prefect of Rome to negotiate with the civic authorities about changes to the course of a local road to allow for a greatly enlarged and reoriented basilica to expand westwards away from the Via Ostiense. The vast church that was subsequently built at their expense appears to have been dedicated, while still unfinished, in 390; a mutilated inscription of that date referred to Flavius Filippus as administrator and, according to one reconstruction, to an architect or curator of the works.26 The emperors’ proprietorial attitude to this basilica continued under Theodosius’s son, Honorius (395–423). An inscription commemorated his completion of the building, and Prudentius records the bonus princeps’s dedication of the lavishly embellished church, c. 400.27 The Christian senatorial aristocracy of Rome retained their close links with Saint Peter’s, alongside the emperors. As Richard Gem has pointed out,28 that association is architecturally apparent in the line of mausolea, which Alfarano’s plan suggests fringed the north side of the basilica (Fig. 7.2). There is also plenty of textual evidence to confirm this. Senatorial control of the basilica is indicated by a comment of Ammianus Marcellinus, who tells us that the pagan Lampadius, a member of the consular family of the Ceionii Rufini and eventually (365) prefect of the city, when he was praetor, probably in the late 330s, summoned the needy from the Vatican and bestowed rich presents upon them, perhaps the earliest reference to senatorial almsgiving in connection with Saint Peter’s.29 In 396, the rich senator Pammachius held a great funeral feast there for his wife Paulina, at which he entertained crowds of paupers sufficient to throng both the atrium and the nave of the basilica. Pammachius too was very well connected. His wife, another relative of the Ceionii Rufini, allegedly was a descendant of 26

27

28 29

CBCR, V, 97–8; Pietri, Roma Christiana (above, n. 19), I, 514–19; P. Liverani, ‘Basilica di San Paolo, basilica nova, basilica Piniani’, BOREAS. M¨unstersche Beitr¨age zur Arch¨aologie 26 (2003), 73–81; H. Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome from the Fourth to the Seventh Century (Turnhout, 2005), 114–30, 325; ICUR-NS, II, no. 4778; J. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, 364–425 (Oxford, 1975), 228, 365; Donati, Pietro e Paolo (above, n. 19), ‘Schede’, nos. 101–2 (G. Filippi), pp. 228–9. ICUR-NS, II, no. 4780; Prudentius, Peristephanon, XII, lines 47–50, H. J. Thomson (ed.), 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1949–53), II, 326. During discussion at a conducted tour of the papal grottoes, 22 March 2010. ‘ . . . ut et liberalem se et multitudinis ostenderet contemptorem, accitos a Vaticano quosdam egentes, opibus ditaverat magnis’: Ammianus Marcellinus XXVII, 3. 6, Rolfe (ed.), III, 16; Boeft et al., Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus, XXVII. (Leiden, 2009), 52; PLRE, I, 978–80. Brandenburg assumes that almsgiving took place in the atrium: Ancient Churches of Rome (above, n. 26), 94, 100 (nn. 32 and 41). On aristocratic largesse see also Liverani, this volume, 21–34.

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Fig. 7.2. Line of the presumed funerary structures, perhaps senatorial mausolea, on the north flank of the basilica, as shown on Alfarano’s plan (1590).

the Gracchi and the Scipiones.30 Equally rich and powerful was Sextus Petronius Probus, a former consul and praetorian prefect, who died c. 388/95, and who was buried at Saint Peter’s in a mausoleum built by his wife, Faltonia Proba, a member of the great Anician family. Probus, famous for his ‘morbid ambition’, which rendered him the victim of Ammianus’s barbed irony, clearly wanted a position of maximum prominence at the basilica. 30

Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae, G. de Hartel (ed.), CSEL, 29 (Vienna, 1894), 13, pp. 92–5; PLRE, I, 663, 674–5.

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The best place inside having already been taken by Bassus, he was forced into a mausoleum constructed immediately outside, probably abutting the western apse and thus achieving as much proximity to the apostle as was still possible at the time.31 The culmination of this funerary involvement with the imperial Christian elite came with the construction of a mausoleum by the western emperor Honorius, initially for his wife Maria, but eventually for himself and other members of the western imperial family.32 Throughout this period, apart from their regular liturgical duties and a certain amount of secondary building activity, the popes seem to have been curiously detached from Saint Peter’s. None of the fourth- or early fifth-century pontiffs was buried there; indeed the first to have that honour after the peace of the Church was Leo I in 461, and then only very inconspicuously in the secretarium, the sacristy and hence the pope’s especial space in the basilica, located at its south-eastern corner, far away from the apostolic tomb.33 The pope’s relatively limited role in the later fourth and early fifth centuries is indicated by Augustine’s well-known criticism of the daily drunkenness at Saint Peter’s, presumably in the course of funerals and funerary commemorations, refrigeria, of the kind celebrated by Pammachius. Augustine comments that, although such excesses had often been forbidden, they had not been suppressed because the place was ‘remote from the bishop’s presence’ (remotus . . . ab episcopi conversatione).34 It does not sound as though in the 390s at Saint Peter’s Pope Siricius had much control over the traditional funerary and commemorative rites of the senatorial aristocracy in a great public building that they clearly regarded very much as their own. Let us look now at how the popes were actually involved in Saint Peter’s. Within some fifteen years of the building’s completion, they clearly did come to the basilica on certain great festival days, in particular Christmas. The increasingly important feast of Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June had been moved there from its earlier site ad catacumbas by the late fourth century, when (exhaustingly for the pope) it was celebrated first at Saint Peter’s and

31 32

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Blaauw, CD, 468–9; PLRE, I, 736–40; Matthews, ‘Four funerals’ (above, n. 13), 134–7. M. J. Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2009), 167–74; McEvoy, this volume, 119–36. Life 47, c. 9, LP, I, 375; M. Borgolte, Petrusnachfolge und Kaiserimitation. Die Grablegen der P¨apste, ihre Genese und Traditionsbildung (Ver¨offentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts f¨ur Geschichte 95) (G¨ottingen, 1995), 15, 52–9. For the representation of papal burials in LP see McKitterick, this volume, 105–14. Augustine of Hippo, Epistulae I–XXX, A. Goldbacher (ed.), CSEL, 30/1 (Vienna, 1895), Ep. XXIX, 9–10 (pp. 119–20).

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then at San Paolo fuori le mura on the Via Ostiense.35 We can also assume that the (perhaps earlier) 22 February feast, eventually known as Saint Peter’s Chair (Cathedra Petri), was also celebrated at Saint Peter’s from quite an early period.36 What we do not know with any degree of certainty is how these events were serviced. We cannot indeed be sure that there were any resident ordained clergy at Saint Peter’s in the fourth century. Most recent commentators have assumed that the ecclesiastical participants in the great ceremonies of the developing stational liturgy were either drawn from the urban clergy or based at the Lateran, where the pope was installed and the Easter triduum, the holiest period of the Church’s year, was celebrated.37 Nevertheless, it is clear that by the late fourth century popes such as Damasus I (366–84) were attempting to enhance their presence at the imperial basilica. Damasus’s establishment of a baptistery (whether just inside or just outside the north transept) and of a fountain in the atrium is evidence of this, but significantly his interventions were at the periphery of the Vatican complex.38 It has been suggested that the baptistery implies the presence of some kind of pastoral clergy at Saint Peter’s, but it is quite possible that at first it was reserved for occasional ceremonies performed by the pope alone.39 We gain some insight into the role of the extramural cemeterial basilicas in the pontificate of Innocent I (401–17). Son of the previous pope, Anastasius I (399–401),40 he was clearly an able and forceful man, who enhanced 35

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Prudentius speaks of the ‘sleepless bishop’ (pervigil sacerdos) who on the joint feast day of the two apostles performs the ‘sacred ceremonies’ (sacra vota) first at Saint Peter’s and then hurries across the Tiber to San Paolo on the Via Ostiense: Peristephanon, XII, lines 63–4, Thomson (ed.) (above, n. 27), II, 326–7. Ambrose refers to the feast as celebrated on three roadways (triis celebrator viis/festum sacrorum martyrum): Ambroise de Milan, Hymnes, J. Fontaine, J. L. Charlet, S. Del´eani and Y.-M. Duval (eds.) (Paris, 1992), no. XII, 513–46, at p. 525. Cf. Blaauw, CD, 498–9; Pietri, Roma Christiana (above, n. 19), I, 40–6, 365–80; II, 1539–41. The first explicit reference to the feast in Saint Peter’s is during the pontificate of Leo I, probably a little before the death of Theodosius II in 450: Deposito Martyrum, LP, I, 11; Epistolae Sanctae Leonis Magni, Ep. 55 (from Valentinian III to Theodosius), PL, LIV, cols. 857–60; Blaauw, CD, 499–50; Pietri, Roma Christiana (above, n. 19), I, 381–9; II, 1538–9. De Blaauw argues that Saint Peter’s, like San Paolo on the Via Ostiense and San Lorenzo on the Verano, had its own college of clergy (either parrochiani or forenses) dependent on the papal administration and formally guided by a group of titular priests representing the chiesa cittadina: CD, 501–2. For the Lateran, see Blaauw, CD, 139–40, 155–7, 160, 168–9. Epigrammata Damasiana, nos. 3–4, A. Ferrua (ed.) (Rome, 1942), 88–94; Prudentius, Peristephanon, XII, lines 35–8; H. Brandenburg, ‘Das Baptisterium und der Brunnen des Atriums von Alt-Sankt Peter in Rom’, BOREAS. M¨unstersche Beitr¨age zur Arch¨aologie 26 (2003), 55–71; Brandt, this volume, 82–5. Note that in 386 Pope Siricius held a synod ad sancti apostoli reliquias, perhaps evidence of an emerging papal presence at the basilica: Blaauw, CD, 502. LP, III, 83.

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papal standing within the city; in 409, he accompanied Attalus, shortly to be made prefect of Rome, to Ravenna to urge Honorius to negotiate with Alaric and secure the lifting of the Gothic siege of Rome; indeed, the pope remained at Ravenna and so escaped the sack of 410.41 In 417, in the period of uncertainty and recovery following the events of 410, he regulated papal distribution of the fermentum, the consecrated host distributed to the urban presbyterate; in so doing he distinguished between the clergy of the intramural tituli, whom he evidently wished to bind closely to himself as their bishop, and the clergy of the distant parochiae and the coemeteria, who were not to receive the fermentum but to consecrate the host themselves.42 The parochiae appear to have been extramural churches charged, like the tituli, with pastoral care, while the coemeteria were exceptional institutions that nevertheless had priests. The term coemeteria presumably designated the martyrial cemeterial basilicas,43 but it is unclear whether it encompassed Saint Peter’s. Innocent may have been referring simply to clergy who served the numerous martyrial sites in the catacombs that had been identified and adorned with inscriptions by Damasus. A further factor here is Innocent’s provision of clergy for another of the great imperial extramural cemeterial basilicas, that of Sant’Agnese on the Via Nomentana, the burial place of Constantine’s daughters, Constantina and Helen. This was bound up with his participation in the rich Roman noblewoman Vestina’s foundation of an intramural titulus dedicated to Saints Gervasius and Protasius. According to the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis, Innocent decreed that Sant’Agnese should be delivered into the power of the priests in charge of the titulus Vestinae, who were to see that it was roofed and decorated.44 Since the imperial family of Constantine had 41

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Orosius, Historiae Adversum Paganos Libri VII, K. Zangemeister (ed.), CSEL, 5, book 7, 39.2 (p. 545); Zosimus, Histoire Nouvelle, F. Paschoud (ed.), 3 parts, 5 vols. (Paris 1971–89), V, 45 (3.1, pp. 65–7); B. Lanc¸on, Rome in Late Antiquity (Edinburgh, 2000), 38; Matthews, Western Aristocracies (above, n. 26), 292–3. Innocent I. Epistola, La lettre du pape Innocent I a` D´ecentius de Gubbio, R. Cabi´e (ed.) (Biblioth`eque de la Revue d’Histoire Eccl´esiastique 58) (Louvain, 1973), 26–8; J. Hillner, ‘Families, patronage and the titular churches of Rome’, in Cooper and Hillner (eds.), Religion, Dynasty and Patronage (above, n. 23), 225–61, at pp. 233–4; V. Saxer, ‘La chiesa di Roma dal V al X secolo: amministrazione centrale e organizzazione territoriale’, in Roma nell’alto medioevo (Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 48), 2 vols. (Spoleto, 2001), 493–632, esp. pp. 507–11, 553–71. Cf. the location of homily XXVIII of Gregory the Great’s Homilies on the Gospels, in cimiterio ´ ´ sanctorum Nerei et Achillei: Gr´egoire le Grand, Hom´elies sur l’Evangile, R. Etaix, C. Morel and B. Judic (eds.), 2 vols. (Sources Chr´etiennes 485, 522) (Paris, 2007, 2008), I, 188. Life 42, c. 7, LP, I, 222: ‘Hic constituit ut basilicam beatae Agnae martyris a presbiteris Leopardo et Paulino sollicitudini gubernari et tegi et ornari; eorum dispositione tituli . . . Vestinae presbiteris concessa potestas’. That there was later a link is confirmed by an

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been extinct for some half a century,45 it looks as though the church built on the emperor’s family land and containing family tombs had fallen into decay and by papal arrangement was to be maintained through attachment to a well-endowed, newly established intramural titulus. These arrangements perhaps suggest that this particular extramural martyrium lacked permanent presbyteral clergy in the early fifth century. The building of the imperial mausoleum at Saint Peter’s marks a new and closer association of the western emperors with Rome.46 This process was characterized on the one hand by the emperors’ increasing involvement with Saint Peter’s and on the other by the popes’ rise to a greater prominence in imperial affairs. We should remember, however, that the pope remained an imperial official, who presumably then as later ‘had to pay induction fees like other officers of the empire’.47 The emperor’s continuing role is evident from the urban prefect’s intervention in, and Honorius’s eventual resolution of, the disputed papal election of 418, ultimately ended by imperial decree.48 The enhanced position of the bishops of Rome in the earlier fifth century is apparent in their grand building projects.49 It was also evidenced by interventions at Saint Peter’s where Sixtus III (432–40) decorated the confessio of the saint with 400 lb of silver and where in 433 he convened a synod ad beatum apostolum Petrum.50 Such activity was in partnership with Honorius’s successor as emperor, the youthful Valentinian III (425–55), who clearly spent more time in Rome than his predecessors. According to the Liber Pontificalis, during Sixtus’s pontificate Valentinian presented a magnificent gold and jewelled image (imago) of the Saviour and the twelve apostles to

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inscription commemorating a seventh-century acolyte of the titulus Vestinae, found at Sant’Agnese fuori le mura: ICUR, I, no. 1185. We have to bear in mind, however, the possibility that, despite the circumstantial nature of the account in LP, the author was simply projecting contemporary arrangements back into Innocent’s time. The last significant member, Constantia, posthumous daughter of Constantius and wife of the Emperor Gratian, had died without children in 383: PLRE, I, 221, 1129–30. Humphries, ‘From emperor to pope?’ (above, n. 23), 40–1; McEvoy, this volume, 124–6. Humphries, ‘From emperor to pope?’ (above, n. 23), 55; Life 81, c. 2, LP, I, 354–5 (for the procedures up to the time of Agatho, 678–81, which make it clear that the elect could not be ordained pope until the ‘general decree’ had been brought to the imperial city (urbs regia)). Cf. Life 65, c. 1, LP, I, 309. For the seventh-century procedures and for the decretus generalis addressed to the emperor, see Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, H. Foerster (ed.) (Bern, 1958), 209 (De electione pontificis ad principem). Life 44, cc. 1–4, LP, I, 227–9. But note that Sixtus III at the beginning of his pontificate could still be arraigned before Anicius Auschenius Bassus, consul in 431 and praetorian prefect in Italy by 435: PLRE, II, 220–1; LP, I, cxxvi–cxxviii. Life 46, c. 4, LP, I, 233; Blaauw, CD, 502, quoting Schwarz, Acta Conciliorum, I, 2.107.

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Saint Peter’s as well as making major gifts to both the Lateran and to San Paolo fuori le mura on the Via Ostiense.51 The partnership between the by then adult emperor and the pope continued under Sixtus’s successor, Leo I (440–61). In 445 Valentinian vigorously enforced Leo’s primacy when it was challenged in Gaul by Hilary of Arles, asserting that it was confirmed by the merit of Saint Peter, ‘first of the episopal crown’, by the dignity of the city of Rome, and by the authority of sacred synod.52 The adornment of Saint Peter’s is part of a wider sponsoring of the cult of Saint Peter by the emperor. The imperial family was clearly involved in the re-foundation on the Oppian hill of an intramural basilica apostolorum, honouring Saints Peter and Paul, to which it made donations (regia . . . vota) in the time of Sixtus III. It is also about this time that we begin to hear about what was to become a crucial Petrine relic: the apostolic chains. These are first referred to in a non-Roman context, at a church in Spoleto founded by Honorius’s prot´eg´e, Bishop Achilleus, in the early fifth century; in Rome itself they only emerge in the contemporary textual record in the early sixth, although they feature in inscriptions, which are very probably earlier, at the basilica apostolorum – soon to be known as San Pietro in Vincoli. A later, apparently Carolingian, tradition presents an Empress Eudoxia as bringing the chains to Rome. Licinia Eudoxia, wife of Valentinian III, was certainly responsible for a major intervention at the new basilica apostolorum; indeed, such was her contribution that by Gregory the Great’s time the church was also known as the titulus Eudoxiae.53 Valentinian III’s continuing interest in the Petrine cult is also evident from a letter he wrote to the eastern emperor, Theodosius II, shortly before the latter’s death in 450, in which he speaks of going in procession to the basilica of the apostle and being lobbied on doctrinal matters by Leo and his clergy on a Petrine feast day – probably that which fell on 22 February.54 It seems likely that at least until 455 the imperial family still felt to a degree proprietorial about the Vatican basilica. Imperial concern for the care for public monuments of Rome, evident since the fourth century, became 51 52

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Life 46, cc. 4–5, 7, LP, I, 232–6. Novella Valentini III, titulus 17, T. Mommsen and P. M. Meyer (eds.), Leges Novellae ad Theodosianum Pertinentes (Berlin, 1905), 101–3. A homily, attributed to Paul the Deacon (d. 799?), describes Empress Eudoxia, wife of the eastern emperor Arcadius (395–408), being given the chains while on a visit to Jerusalem and bringing them to Rome. Although clearly fabulous, it evidently preserves a Roman tradition of the imperial origin of the chains: Paul the Deacon, Homeliae in Sanctis, PL, LXXXXV, Hom. XXXVIII, cols. 1485–9; CBCR, III, 180–2; Pietri, Roma Christiana (above, n. 19), I, 477–81; II, 1541–2; Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome (above, n. 26), 189–93. Epist. Leonis, Epist. 55 (Valentinian III to Theodosius), PL, LIV, cols. 857–60.

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especially apparent during the reigns of the last western emperors.55 Majorian’s edict of 458, De Aedificiis Publicis, condemned the destruction of beautiful ancient buildings through the ‘punishable recommendations of the prefect of the city’ (plectanda urbani officii suggestione). Under the pretence that they were required for public works, people were taking materials from public places to build private edifices, with the connivance of the city’s officials (per gratiam iudicum).56 Although this, one assumes, referred primarily to pagan structures, it suggests that the last emperors took their role in the maintenance of the city and its public structures very seriously and expected their prefects of Rome to do likewise.57 From the very beginning of his papacy, Leo I co-operated vigorously in the enhancement of the Petrine cult. In a series of sermons, preached in the 440s on the anniversary of his election, he promoted the apostle in new ways, and especially as patron of Rome, in terms calculated to appeal to the city’s elite.58 Valentinian III’s murder in March 455 seems to have marked a turning-point. Afterwards, Leo negotiated (not particularly successfully) on behalf of the city with the Vandal king Gaiseric. By then, he was intervening more confidently at Saint Peter’s than any of his predecessors. After the Vandal sack, for example, Leo melted down two great silver water-jars presented by Constantine, to provide new liturgical vessels for the tituli.59 According to the Liber Pontificalis, he ‘renewed’ (renovavit) the basilica, an activity that included the installation at his request (precibus pape Leonis) of a mosaic on the basilica’s eastern fac¸ade. This was funded by Fl. Avitus Marinianus and his wife Anastasia, very much members of the Roman elite:60 in the 420s Marinianus was consul and praetorian prefect in Italy, 55

56 57

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B. Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Urban Public Building in Northern and Central Italy, AD 300–850 (Oxford, 1984), 39–40, 45–6; Ammianus Marcellinus, XXVII, 3.7; XXVII, 9.9–10. Novella Majoriani, titulus 4, Mommsen and Meyer (eds.), Leges Novella, 161. For a plausible suggestion that the emperor, either Valentinian III or Majorian (457–61), played an important role in planning and funding the great church of Santo Stefano Rotondo on the Celian, see Brandenburg, Ancient Churches of Rome (above, n. 26), 200–13, at pp. 200, 204; H. Brandenburg, ‘Santo Stefano Rotondo: l’ultimo edificio monumentale di Roma fra antichit`a e medioevo’, in L. Paroli and L. Venditelli (eds.), Roma dall’antichit`a al medioevo, II. Contesti tardoantichi e altomedievale (Milan, 2004), 480–505. See especially sermons II–V, LXXXII–LXXXIII: Leo I, Tractatus, A. Chavasse (ed.), 2 vols., CCSL 138–138A, 2 vols. (Turnhout, 1958), I, 7–25; II, 506–22; M. R. Salzman, ‘Leo in Rome: the evolution of episcopal authority in the fifth century’, in G. Bonamente and R. Lizzi Testa (eds.), Istituzioni, carismi ed esercizio del potere, IV–VI secolo d.c. (Bari, 2010), 343–56, at pp. 352–5. I am most grateful to Professor Yitzhak Hen for drawing my attention to Professor Salzman’s work, and to Professor Salzman herself for sending me a copy of her paper, then only just published. 60 ICUR-NS, II, no. 4102; CBCR, V, 173, 222. Life 47, c. 6, LP, I, 238–41.

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and he seems also to have been involved in the proceedings against Pope Sixtus in the 430s.61 Clearly, Leo was seeking to associate himself with the Roman aristocracy’s traditional involvement in the fabric of Saint Peter’s. Significantly it is during the same pontificate that we first encounter an unambiguous claim that the pope had intervened in the staffing of the basilica: the Liber Pontificalis tells us that Leo established guardians (custodes) at the tombs of the apostles, drawn from the Roman clergy and called cubicularii.62 If, as I have suggested, the fourth-century custodes were laymen appointed by the imperial administration, these new guardians of the shrine may have been the first clerics permanently based in the basilica itself. They were still functioning in the sixth century, when inscriptions record cubicularii at Saint Peter’s and at San Paolo fuori le mura.63 Duchesne suggested that they should be compared to the chamberlains at the imperial court, the unpopular eunuchs who as cubicularii of the sacred bedchamber controlled access to the imperial presence, managed the bedchamber’s finances, and provided the emperor with a bodyguard.64 Clearly the treasures that adorned the confessio and the ex-votos offered there required constant vigilance. This administrative change may have been related to Leo’s distinctive approach to ritual almsgiving, in particular the prominence that he accorded to the collectae, which took place in Rome on 6–12 July and were designed to supersede the games for Apollo held at that time.65 The faithful were urged to make gifts of food or money on these days, to be collected and distributed in the regions of Rome by officials termed praesidentes.66 Salzman suggests, very plausibly, that this system of charitable works may have been focused especially upon Saint Peter’s, building upon its role as the theatre of elite almsgiving to the Roman poor. It may well be, then, that the cubicularii were officials concerned with the management of these activities at the basilica. Alongside the cubicularii, Leo also established another new ecclesiastical institution at Saint Peter’s. According to the Liber Pontificalis, he founded a monastery there, one of the first basilical monasteries in Rome, allegedly dedicated to the Roman saints John and Paul.67 It is quite possible that the 61 62

63

64

65 66 67

PLRE, II, 723–4; LP, I, cxxvi–cxxvii. ‘Hic constituit super sepulcra apostolorum custodes qui dicitur cubicularii ex clero Romano’: Life 47, c. 8, LP, I, 239. ICUR, I, no. 1087; G. B. de Rossi, La Roma sotterranea cristiana, 3 vols. (Rome, 1864–77), III, 531. LP, I, 241 n. 14; Jones, Later Roman Empire (above, n. 10), I, 566–70. De Rossi suggested that they could be identified as the mansionarii, mentioned in later records as having care of the cemeteries: Roma sotterranea (above, n. 63), III, 531; see also below. What follows depends upon Salzman, ‘Leo in Rome’ (above, n. 58), esp. pp. 348–52, 355. Sermon XI: Leo I, Tractatus, I, 46. The dedication appears in only one class of manuscripts of the Leonine vita: Life 47, c. 7, LP, I, 239, 241.

Popes, emperors and clergy at Old Saint Peter’s

cubicularii or indeed any other officials concerned with the collectae were based in this community. As de Blaauw has pointed out, however, there is no indication that its inmates performed liturgical duties. The earliest reference to such responsibilities dates only from the time of Gregory the Great.68 The dedication to Saints John and Paul is also highly suggestive; it is only in the earlier sixth century that this intramural cult rises to prominence;69 that might indicate (as would not be surprising) that Leo’s arrangements had been subject to revision, most probably in the time of Pope Symmachus, when he was forced to occupy the Vatican because a rival was in residence at the Lateran.70 Pope Simplicius (468–83) followed up Leo’s innovations by assigning priests drawn from the urban tituli to the three great extramural basilicas – Saint Peter’s at the Vatican, San Paolo on the Via Ostiense, and San Lorenzo on the Verano. Those for Saint Peter’s were drawn from regiones six and seven. Their duties are alluded to in the Liber Pontificalis: they were to hear the confessions of penitents and to administer baptism. Clearly by then they had to some degree a pastoral role. Nothing, however, is said about the celebration of mass; it may be that even at this late date, the pope alone had the privilege of saying mass at these exceptionally holy sites.71 The disappearance of the western emperor in 476 did not of itself affect the position of the pope or indeed of the favoured imperial church and its cult; King Odoacer sought to work with the Roman senatorial aristocracy.72 The fact that in 483, as Pope Simplicius lay dying, his chief minister, the patrician Caecina Basilius, convened a meeting between senators and Roman clergy in the imperial mausoleum, apud beatum Petrum apostolum, suggests that even then the Vatican complex and the cult that it housed were still regarded as having strong imperial as well as papal associations.73 At Saint Peter’s, change was rather the product of internal divisions among the clergy and senatorial aristocracy in Rome itself, reflecting differing attitudes to the resolution of the schism with the eastern church, in existence since 484. 68 69

70 71

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73

Blaauw, CD, 502; see also below. A. Thacker, ‘Martyr cult within the walls; saints and relics in the Roman tituli of the fourth to seventh century’, in A. Minnis and J. Roberts (eds.), Text, Image, and Interpretation: Studies in ´ O ´ Carrag´ain (Turnhout, 2007), Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of E. 31–70, at pp. 54–8 and references there cited. Fragment Laurentien and Life 53; LP, I, 44–6, 260–8. Life 49, c. 2, LP, I, 249–50; A. Chavasse, Le sacramentaire g´elasien (Vaticanus Reginiensis 316) (Tournai, 1958), 85–6. But cf. Blaauw, CD, 501. C. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy (London, 1981), 15–17, 20–1; P. MacGeorge, Late Roman Warlords (Oxford, 2002), 284–93. R. Gem, ‘The Vatican Rotunda: a Severan monument and its early history, c. 200 to 500’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 158 (2005), 1–45, at p. 37; Acta Synhodorum Habitarum Romae, T. Mommsen (ed.), MGH, AA, 12, appendix 1, 445; PLRE, II, 217–18.

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In 498 this resulted in a disputed papal election. Symmachus, the candidate eventually favoured by King Theoderic, seems from the first to have been closely associated with Saint Peter’s, where he held a synod on his return from Ravenna. When his rival’s powerful supporters among the senatorial aristocracy in Rome made fresh accusations against him, he took refuge in the Vatican in 502, leaving Laurence to occupy the Lateran as pope for four years. It was probably during this period, when Symmachus was confined there, that important changes were initiated at Saint Peter’s to enable it to operate as a substitute for the papal base at the Lateran. They included the remodelling of the Vatican baptistery with oratories clearly imitating those at the Lateran and the conversion of the Severan mausoleum into the basilica of Saint Andrew. Most significantly, perhaps, from the point of view of this chapter, they included the provision of episcopia, to the right and left of the entrance to the atrium of Saint Peter’s, presumably residences for the clergy of Symmachus’s household.74 All these changes indicate the establishment of permanent clerical officials at Saint Peter’s, arrangements that may not have been entirely reversed after 506 when Symmachus finally evicted his rival from the Lateran. At the very least we may say that they established once and for all a very strong papal identification with the Vatican as a major theatre for papal activity. At much the same time, Saint Peter’s was among those cemeterial churches subject to another new administrative development: the imposition of resident administrators or praepositi. These officials, who were appointed for life, are also mentioned in connection with the basilicas of San Paolo, San Lorenzo and San Pancrazio.75 According to a formula recorded in the Liber Diurnus, the praepositi had daily care of their basilicas. Their duties included care of the lights before the martyrial shrine, repairs to the fabric, and the granting and sale of burial places within the cemetery.76 Although in some places, such as San Pancrazio, they were subject to the priest of the local titulus, at Saint Peter’s such officials answered directly to the pope.77 It is not clear whether they are to be identified with Leo the Great’s clerical cubicularii or whether the administrative arrangements established by Leo and Simplicius were remodelled by Symmachus. The pastoral arrangements 74

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Life 53, LP, I, 260–8; C. Goodson, ‘Building for bodies: the architecture of saint veneration in ´ Carrag´ain and C. Neuman de Vegvar (eds.), Roma Felix: Formation and ´ O Rome’, in E. Reflections of Medieval Rome (Aldershot, 2007), 51–79, at pp. 59–62. De Rossi, Roma sotterranea (above, n. 63), III, 526. De Rossi, Roma sotterranea (above, n. 63), III, 520–4; Liber Diurnus, 125–6 (Preceptum de prepositatu); ICUR, I, no. 1005. De Rossi, Roma sotterranea (above, n. 63), III, 520–4; Gregory the Great, Registrum, IV, 18, D. Norberg (ed.), 2 vols., CCSL 140–140A (Turnhout, 1982), I, 236–7; see also below.

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are equally uncertain, although we may perhaps assume that under Symmachus, if not before, there was provision for the regular saying of mass at the basilica. Whether liturgical and pastoral activities were still in the hands of the priests of the tituli of regiones six and seven, or whether they had passed to the abbot and monks of the basilical monastery of Saints John and Paul is unknowable. By the sixth century, there seems to have been a chapel with an altar at the monastery, so it seems likely that some at least of its inmates were ordained and could have been drafted in to celebrate regular masses.78 It seems highly likely that there were further changes at Saint Peter’s in the late sixth century under Pelagius II and Gregory the Great. Pelagius provided a new ambo, the inscription on which refers to both chanting and reading – evidence presumably of regular formal services.79 Gregory’s reorganization of the sanctuary so that the basilican altar stood over the tomb suggests that by then Saint Peter’s had regular Sunday masses (see below, Fig. 11.2).80 Under Gregory, it seems probable that liturgical activity was conducted by the monks of the basilical monastery. That certainly is how he arranged things at San Pancrazio, where in the 590s he complained that the clergy of San Crisogono had been neglecting their liturgical duties, and replaced them with the monks of a new monastery who were to recite the office daily ad sacratissimum corpus. Their abbot was also charged with providing a presbyter peregrinus who resided with him and undertook to celebrate the holy mysteries at San Pancrazio.81 In the seventh century there were at least three monasteries attached to Saint Peter’s. The Roman ordines mention three abbots, functioning immediately after the death of Martin I in 655 and operating at the tomb of Saint Peter.82 They were evidently heads of the monastery of Saints John and Paul, and of two other institutions we first hear of in the seventh century, the monasteries of Saint Stephen and Saint Martin (see below, Fig. 14.1). That these men and their successors were heavily involved in the liturgical developments which were taking place in the later part of the century is apparent from the fact that in the 670s the abbot of Saint Martin’s was, as Bede famously tells us, the archcantor (archicantator) of Saint Peter’s and evidently a liturgical expert who could teach the monks of Wearmouth the full liturgical and ceremonial use of the basilica.83 78 79 80 81 82 83

Blaauw, CD, 502; ICUR-NS, II, no. 4146. Blaauw, CD, 484–5, 502; ICUR-NS, II, no. 4118. CBCR, V, 259–61; Life 66, c. 4, LP, I, 312. Gregory the Great, Registrum, IV, 18 (I, 236–7). Blaauw, CD, 517–20; Ordo XIX, 36–7 in Andrieu, OR, III, 223–4. Bede, Historia Abbatum, cap. 6; Anon., Vita Ceolfridi, cap. 10, both in C. Plummer (ed.), Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896), I, 369, 391; Blaauw, CD, 518–19.

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Confirmation of the role of the basilical monasteries is to be found in the inscriptions installed by Gregory III in the oratory of the Saviour, the Virgin and All Saints which he built in 732. In these panels, he names the monasteries dedicated to Saints John and Paul, Saint Stephen, and Saint Martin as ‘constituted’ with the basilica of Saint Peter and as responsible for performing the daily offices at the apostolic confessio. There is also reference to a hebdomadal priest (presbyter qui in hebdoma fuerit) who was to say mass first at the apostolic tomb (in sacro corpore) and then in the new oratory.84 It has been assumed that this relates to weekly turns taken by the priests of the tituli,85 but it is perhaps more likely that at this date – and perhaps since the time of Gregory the Great – these hebdomadaries were in fact drawn from the basilical monasteries.86 Gregory also made provision for mansionarii who were to maintain the confessio and its lights, again on a weekly basis. By the eighth century, other mansionarii were apparently provided to care for the lights and ornaments of the basilica and its oratories as a whole. These officials were clearly of relatively humble status and seem likely to have been lay. They may represent a new stage in the subordination of lay officials to papal and clerical control at Saint Peter’s.87

Conclusions The question of the staffing of the great papal basilicas is an important one, but the state of the evidence is such that the issue can probably never be resolved. Saint Peter’s is especially problematic, because of its dual role as a great public monument, founded and endowed by an emperor, and as a major theatre for papal ceremonial. The basilica’s imperial origins affected its earlier history for considerably longer than is sometimes thought. In the fourth century, in the absence of the emperor himself, the Vatican complex became the site at which the funerals of some of his most senior representatives were enacted and their funerary monuments were displayed. In the fifth century, the emperors’ personal involvement increased as their 84 85 86

87

Life 92, c. 6, LP, I, 422; III, 101; ICUR, II.1, 412–14. Cf. Ordo XIX, 32, Andrieu, OR, III, 222. De Rossi, Roma sotterranea (above, n. 63), III, 528. But cf. de Blaauw, who thinks that they were members of the ‘clero proprio’ of the basilica: CD, 517. ICUR, II.1, 414, 416; de Rossi, Roma sotterranea (above, n. 63), III, 524–6, 530–1; Ordo XIX, 32 in Andrieu, OR, III, 222; Blaauw, CD, 517.

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own field of operations diminished. At Saint Peter’s, then, the popes had initially to operate in an environment that essentially they did not control. It seems likely that for a while they preferred to stay within their own comfort zone around the Via Appia; that must surely be the reason for the fact that the double apostolic feast, the chief saints’ day of the Roman year, was still being celebrated ad catacumbas in 354. Papal interventions appear to have been easier at some of the other great cemeterial basilicas – at Sant’Agnese, where Liberius decorated the martyrial tomb with marble tablets, and at San Lorenzo, where the martyr’s cult was taken up by Pope Damasus and where three popes were buried in the fifth century.88 But Saint Peter’s with its imperially sponsored apostolic cult and its senatorial banquets was a special case; Constantine and his immediate successors were clearly interested primarily in apostles rather than martyrs.89 At first then, it seems that the Petrine basilica was staffed by imperial officals and was the stamping ground of the senatorial aristocracy. The popes were very much on the sidelines, struggling to make their mark. Paradoxically, they got their chance when the emperors returned to Rome, adopted the Petrine cult, and worked with the popes to manage and promote it. A major turning-point was the pontificate of Leo the Great, especially after the death of Valentinian III. He made the papacy central to almsgiving at the basilica, hitherto dominated by the senatorial elite, and took control of its fabric and ornaments. He introduced new officials and monks, probably in connection with these activities. By 461, he was sufficiently associated with the basilica to be buried there (albeit in a modest location). Another crucial moment was around 500. From 496 almost every pope was buried at Saint Peter’s; by 506, after a period of residence there, Symmachus had remodelled the Vatican to accommodate his household.90 The popes, left by default as the principal imperial officials in Rome, had clearly taken full control of Saint Peter’s. By the 590s Gregory the Great was remodelling the most sacred element of the imperial fabric, the memoria itself. A final phase was the strengthening of the role of the basilical monasteries in the daily office and (perhaps) the eucharist. Almost certainly that was 88

89 90

Thacker, ‘Rome of the martyrs’ (above, n. 8), 30, 32–3; Life 37, Life 43, c. 2, Life 46, c. 9, Life 48, c. 13, LP, I, 207–8, 225, 235, 245. The popes buried there were Zosimus (417–18), Sixtus III (432–40) and Hilary (461–8): Borgolte, Petrusnachfolge (above, n. 33), 46–7. Thacker, ‘Rome of the martyrs’ (above, n. 8), 24. Borgolte, Petrusnachfolge (above, n. 33), esp. pp. 61–8.

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promoted by Gregory the Great, just as it was confirmed by his namesake (and surely disciple) Gregory III. By then, Saint Peter’s was regarded as the model for such arrangements91 and the focusing of the papal liturgy on Saint Peter’s was more or less complete.92 91 92

For example, Life 92, c. 9, LP, I, 418–19. Cf. Blaauw, CD, 516: ‘dai tempi di Gregori Magno la basilica Vaticana era la prima delle chiese di Roma: in essa si concretizzava il carattere eccezionale della carica vescovile romana’.

8

The early liturgy of Saint Peter’s and the Roman liturgical year peter jeffery

Fig. 8.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 8.

The basilicas and their monasteries The medieval phase of the Western Christian liturgy began in 754, when Pope Stephen II travelled north of the Alps – the first pope ever to do so – to anoint Pippin III as king of the Franks and appoint him patrician of the Romans. Pippin, to emphasize his special relationship to the papacy, decided that the liturgy of his own private chapel should conform to Roman practice, and that this in turn would set the standard for the rest of the

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kingdom.1 Liturgical texts from Rome had been drifting across the Alps for some time, many of them on their way to Anglo-Saxon England. But with Pippin, Romanization became official policy. The traffic in Roman liturgical books, Roman singers and Benedictine monastic texts greatly increased.2 But adoption became adaptation: over the next three centuries, practices from Rome interacted with the local Gallican customs to produce the hybrid that came to be known as the ‘Roman’ rite. These facts are well known. What is understood less well is what happened prior to the events of 754. Several bodies of evidence suggest that, within Rome itself, the process of Romanizing the liturgy in northern Europe coincided with a shift of liturgical leadership, from the monasteries serving Saint Peter’s to the pope himself, headquartered at the Lateran. Before the shift there was much decentralization: each of the Constantinian basilicas and other major churches was served by one or more monastic communities that took responsibility for providing the liturgical services, particularly the daily round we now call the Divine Office, from the personal obligation (officium) that obliged every medieval clergyman to participate in it. These basilican communities were not yet Benedictine, though one or more of them provided the matrix from which the Benedictine Rule emerged.3 Liturgical practices were not strictly uniform from one community to another, but there was a tendency to view Saint Peter’s as the model, and it was at Saint Peter’s that some important features of the familiar Roman liturgy took shape. The origins of this arrangement are not easy to trace, but it came to an abrupt end towards the middle of the ninth century, as we shall see. The sixth-century Liber Pontificalis tells us that Pope Leo the Great (440–61) founded a monastery apud beatum Petrum apostolum.4 Some late manuscripts identify this monastery as that of Saints John and Paul,5 1

2

3

4 5

Y. Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul to the Death of Charles the Bald (877) (Henry Bradshaw Society: Subsidia 3) (Woodbridge, 2001). On the political background, see P. Rich´e, The Carolingians: a Family who Forged Europe, trans. M. I. Allen (Philadelphia, 1993), 65–77; T. F. X. Noble, The Republic of Saint Peter: the Birth of the Papal State, 680–825 (Philadelphia, 1984), 65–94. For a detailed account of the liturgical developments, see C. Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: an Introduction to the Sources, rev. and trans. W. G. Storey and N. Rasmussen (Washington, DC, 1986), 61–106, 135–247, and P. Jeffery, ‘Rome and Jerusalem: from oral tradition to written repertory in two ancient liturgical centres’, in G. M. Boone (ed.), Essays on Medieval Music in Honor of David G. Hughes (Isham Library Papers 4) (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 207–47. P. Jeffery, ‘Monastic reading and the emerging Roman chant repertory’, in S. Gallagher, J. Haar, J. N´adas and T. Striplin (eds.), Western Plainchant in the First Millennium: Studies of the Medieval Liturgy and its Music in Memory of James W. McKinnon (Aldershot, 2003), 45–104. Life 47, c. 7, LP, I, 239, 241 n. 11. Demolished during the reign of Pope Paul V (1605–21) to make way for the north apse of the present basilica. L. H. Cottineau and G. Poras, R´epertoire topo-bibliographique des abbayes et prieur´es, 3 vols. (1930, 1970; repr. Turnhout, 1995), II, 2514.

The early liturgy of Saint Peter’s and the Roman liturgical year

one of the three (later four) communities that provided personnel to carry out the services in the Vatican basilica (see Fig. 14.1). But the earliest clear evidence we have is from the Venerable Bede, who says that, when Benedict Biscop sought to Romanize the worship of the Anglo-Saxons, Pope Agatho (678–81) permitted ‘John the Archcantor (archicantator) of the church of Saint Peter, and abbot of the monastery of blessed Martin’, to accompany Benedict Biscop to Wearmouth, where he would teach the yearly course of singing, as it was done in Saint Peter’s at Rome, . . . both teaching orally (viva voce) . . . the order and rite of singing and reading, and also mandating in writing (litteris mandando) those things which the cycle of the whole year called for in the celebration of feast days. These things have been observed in the same monastery up to now, and have now been transcribed by many [people] all over . . . 6

The title of ‘archcantor’ suggests that John was the liturgical leader in the basilica, or at least the leader of the singers. But he was also the abbot of Saint Martin’s, another one of the four monasteries serving Saint Peter’s.7 Since John taught both orally and by writing down texts, it would seem that liturgical books of some sort already existed in Rome, though we do not have them, any more than we have whatever John himself ‘mandated in writing’ while in England. Because we have neither the Roman nor the English written sources, there is little we can say about the liturgy John himself used and taught. For example, the medieval Western Church knew two different but related ways of structuring the Divine Office, based principally on how the 150 psalms were distributed across the hours and days of the week: (1) the ‘monastic cursus’ outlined in the sixth-century Benedictine Rule but probably not strictly followed before the ninth century,8 and (2) the ‘Roman cursus’, first spelled 6

7

8

Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum 4.18; B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (eds.), Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford, 1969), 388 (trans. Jeffery) (the whole text is given here for convenience): ‘cursum canendi annuum, sicut ad sanctum Petrum Romae agebatur, edoceret; egitque abba Iohannes ut iussionem acceperat pontificis, et ordinem uidelicet ritumque canendi ac legendi uiua uoce praefati monasterii cantores edocendo, et ea quae totius anni circulus in celebratione dierum festorum poscebat etiam litteris mandando, quae hactenus in eodem monasterio servata et a multis iam sunt circumquaque transcripta’. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People: a Historical Commentary (Oxford, 1988), 158–9; J. R. Wright, A Companion to Bede: a Reader’s Commentary on ‘The Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ (Grand Rapids, MI, 2008), 101–2. See also Thacker ´ Carrag´ain, this volume, 153 and 183. and O Demolished under Pope Nicholas V (1447–55) during the building of the present basilica: Cottineau and Poras, R´epertoire (above, n. 5), II, 2520. C. Peifer, ‘The Rule in history’, in T. Fry (ed.), RB 1980: the Rule of Saint Benedict in Latin and English with Notes (Collegeville, MN, 1981), 113–51, esp. pp. 113–25.

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out by the ninth-century liturgical commentator Amalarius of Metz,9 and generally used by all non-Benedictine clergy. Both were descended from the usages of the great Roman basilicas, but by processes that can no longer be fully traced.10 The most we can say is that the cursus used in Saint Peter’s by the monks of Saint Martin, and brought by John to Wearmouth, probably had relationships to both. In any case, references to the monastic communities serving the Roman basilicas become much more common in writings of the eighth century, when this arrangement probably reached its peak. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope Gregory II (715–31) ‘restored monasteries near the basilica of San Paolo which had been reduced to solitude, and, founding a congregation after a long time, having established/ordained (ordinatis) monks as servants of God, so that three times per day and at night they would say Matins’. This description seems to have something missing: since Matins was the Roman term for the night hours (not the morning hours), the text may once have said something like ‘so that three times per day and at night they would say Matins [and the other hours]’. Whoever wrote the second recension of Gregory’s vita must have seen the problem, for he eliminated it by simplifying the description: Gregory established or ordained monks at San Paolo ‘so that there they would render praises to God day and night’.11 The next pope, Gregory III (731–41), was particularly active; among other things he constructed the monastery of the holy martyrs Stephen, Lawrence and Chrysogonus next to the titular church of San Crisogono, founding there an abbot and a congregation of monks for carrying out praises to God in the same titular church, ordered by daily and nightly hours according to the standard (instar) of the offices of the church of blessed Peter the apostle, and thus exempt from the authority of the titular priest [of San Crisogono].12 9

10

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Liber de Ordine Antiphonarii I.I–VII, J. M. Hanssens (ed.), Amalarii Episcopi Opera Liturgica Omnia 3 (Studi e testi 140) (Vatican City, 1950), 19–37. Compare, in the same volume, Pseudo-Amalarius (Adh´emar of Chabannes?), De Regula Sancti Benedicti Praecipui Abbatis, 272–95. J. Dyer, ‘Observations on the Divine Office in the Rule of the Master’, in M. E. Fassler and R. A. Baltzer (eds.), The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography: Written in Honor of Professor Ruth Steiner (Oxford, 2000), 74–98, esp. pp. 79–81. A. de Vog¨ue´ (ed.), La R`egle de Saint Benoit V (Paris, 1971), 487–91, 495–7, 504, 545–54. Life 91, c. 3, LP, I, 397 (trans. Jeffery): ‘[Ipseque sanctissimus papa] monasteria que secus basilicam sancti Pauli apostoli erant ad solitudinem deducta innovavit, atque ordinatis servis Dei monachis congregationem post longum tempus constituens, ut tribus per diem vicibus et noctu matutinos dicerent’. Life 92, c. 9, LP, I, 418 (trans. Jeffery): ‘Construxitque monasterium erga eundem titulum, sanctorum martyrum Stephani, Laurenti atque Chrysogoni, constituens ibidem abbatem et

The early liturgy of Saint Peter’s and the Roman liturgical year

The future Pope Stephen III (768–72) was a founding member of this community.13 Gregory III seems to have regarded Saint Peter’s as setting the standard for all of Rome, even the Lateran, for the Liber Pontificalis states that he renovated the monastery dedicated to Saints John the Baptist, John the Evangelist and Pancras,14 anciently founded near the church of the Saviour, which was found to have been abandoned by every monastic order due to extreme neglect . . . There he also founded a congregation of monks and an abbot for carrying out daily the sacred offices of divine praise in the basilica of the Saviour our lord Jesus Christ, which is also called the Constantinian [basilica], near the Lateran [complex], ordered by daily and nightly hours according to the standard of the offices of the church of blessed Peter the apostle.15

Some information about this Petrine standard is preserved in a conciliar decree that was inscribed on stone plaques in an oratory that Gregory III built in 732, on the men’s (left) side of the nave, near the principal arch of Saint Peter’s (Fig. 8.1). Gregory III was eventually buried in this chapel, filled with relics of saints and later known as Santa Maria in Cancellis.16 Fragments of the plaques still survive; one of them, now in the chapel known as Madonna della Bocciata in the Vatican grottoes, comes from near the end of the inscription (Fig. 8.2). The name ‘Gregorius’ can be seen three times, as well as the anathema sit (fifth line from bottom): that the feasts of saints be celebrated in the oratory that was constructed by me in honour of the Saviour, of the holy mother of God and ever-virgin Mary our Lady, and of the holy apostles, and also of the martyrs and confessors of Christ, [and] of the perfect just ones, within the church of Saint Peter prince of apostles, and so that those three monasteries which have been founded near the basilica of the apostle – Saints John and Paul, Saint Stephen and Saint Martin – should sing three psalms and the morning gospels to God, that is, jointly (eorum congregatio), on all

13 15

16

monachorum congregationem, ad persolvendas Deo laudes in eundem titulum, diurnis atque nocturnis temporibus ordinatam, secundum instar officiorum ecclesie beati Petri apostoli, segregatum videlicet a iure potestatis presbiteri praedicti tituli’. Cottineau and Poras, R´epertoire (above, n. 5), II, 2508. 14 Cottineau and Poras, R´ Life 96, c. 1, LP, I, 468. epertoire (above, n. 5), II, 2514. Life 92, c. 10, LP, I, 419 (trans. Jeffery): ‘Simili etiam modo renovavit monasterium sanctorum Iohannis Evangelistae, Iohannis Baptiste et Sancti Pancratii secus ecclesiam Salvatoris antiquitus institutum, quod ab omni ordine monachico extiterat nimia incuria distitutum . . . Ubi et congregationem monachorum et abbatem constituit ad persolvenda cotidie sacra officia laudis divine in basilica Salvatoris domini nostri Iesu Christi quae Constantiniana nuncupatur, iuxta Lateranis, diurnis nocturnisque temporibus ordinata, iuxta instar officiorum ecclesie beati Petri apostoli.’ Blaauw, CD, 665–6 and 754.

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Fig. 8.2. Part of the synodal decree of Gregory III (732).

days when they have completed Vespers before the confessio, prostrating themselves (declinantes) there.17

17

¨ H. Mordek, ‘Rom, Byzanz und die Franken im 8. Jahrhundert: zur Uberlieferung und kirchenpolitischen Bedeutung der Synodus Romana Papst Gregors III. vom Jahre 732 (mit Edition)’, in G. Althoff, D. Geuenich, O. G. Oexle and J. Wollasch (eds.), Person und Gemeinschaft im Mittelalter: Karl Schmid zum F¨unfundsechzigsten Geburtstag (Sigmaringen, 1988), 123–56, at p. 149. See also LP, I, 422, and cf. Life 92, c. 6, 17, LP, I, 417, 421. P. F. Kehr (ed.), Italia Pontificia sive Repertorium Privilegiorum et Literarum a Romanis Pontificibus ante Annum MCLXXXXVIII Italiae Ecclesiis, Monasteriis Civitatibus Singulisque Personis

The early liturgy of Saint Peter’s and the Roman liturgical year

Evidently the monks of the three monasteries would, on certain evenings, combine forces to sing Vespers, with prostrations, before the confessio, the underground space before the main altar that led to Saint Peter’s tomb. Whenever they did this, it seems, they were expected to continue into the office of the next morning. The arrangement of ‘three psalms and the morning gospels’ sounds like something that could have developed into the third nocturn of Matins, in both the monastic and the Roman cursus. We have already encountered two of the monasteries at Saint Peter’s, namely of Saints John and Paul and of Saint Martin. The third one, first mentioned in the inscription of Gregory III, was known as Saint Stephen Major or cata Barbara Patricia (see Fig. 14.1). The only one of the four Vatican monasteries that is still standing, it was given to a community of Ethiopians by Pope Eugene IV (1431–47), and is now the church of Santo Stefano degli Abissini inside the Vatican City, the location of the Collegio Etiopico and the centre of Ethiopic Rite Catholicism.18 The fourth Vatican monastery, Saint Stephen Minor,19 was added by Pope Stephen II (752–7), who: made the offices, which for a long time had been celebrated laxly at night, to be completed during the night hours, and similarly he restored the daily office as it had been from antiquity. And adjoining a fourth [monastery] to the three monasteries that from early times had carried out the same office in the church of blessed Peter the apostle, he founded [a community] in that place with monks who still join in the same office, and placed an abbot over them. And he lavished many gifts there, both the things which are necessary for monks in every monastery, as well as fixed places outside. He constituted [them] in the psalmody of the blessed prince of apostles Peter, with the three aforesaid monasteries, even up to today.20

18

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20

Concessorum 1: Roma, 2: Latium (Regesta Pontificum Romanorum) (Berlin, 1906, 1907; repr. 1961), 137. Cottineau and Poras, R´epertoire (above, n. 5), II, 2511. K. K. Shelemay and P. Jeffery, Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant: an Anthology III. History of Ethiopian Chant (Recent Researches in the Oral Traditions of Music 3) (Madison, WI, 1997), 131. Demolished under Pope Pius VI (1775–99) to make way for the sacristy of the present basilica. Cottineau and Poras, R´epertoire (above, n. 5), II, 2511. Life 94, c. 40, LP, I, 451 (s.VIII interpolation from B, D manuscripts) (trans. Jeffery): ‘officia quod per multo tempore relaxati fuerant nocturno tempore nocturnis horis explere fecit et diuturno officio similiter restauravit ut ab antiquitus fuerat. Et a tribus monasteriis qui a prisco tempore in ecclesia beati Petri apostolic eundem officium persolvuntur adiungens quartum, ibidem monachis qui adhuc in ipso coniungerentur officio instituit, atque abbatem super eos ordinavit. Et multa dona ibi largitus est, tam universo quae in monasterio necessaria sunt monachis, quamque foris inmobilia loca qui in psallentio beati apostolorum principis Petri cum supradictis tribus monasteriis usque in hodiernum diem constituit.’ Compare the

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Not much later, the older monastery of Stephen Major seems to have been in need of reform. According to the Liber Pontificalis Pope Hadrian I (772–95): founded in the monastery of Saint Stephen cata Barbara Patricia, situated at blessed Peter the apostle, a congregation of monks, and established a suitable person as abbot there. He decreed that they carry out sedulous praises in the church of blessed Peter, just as the other three monasteries do, so that two monasteries [positioned] at the [two] sides of this church sing praises to our God [in alternation], since this same monastery was placed in great idleness and was neglected by lack of care, and no office of divine worship was practised there.21

The practice of singing psalms in alternation, or antiphonally, was not universally known in the old local liturgies of the West, but seems to have been regarded as a distinctively Roman and Benedictine feature. Thus the life of Saint Wilfrid of York, probably written soon after his death about 709, shows him fulminating against the Celtic monasticism in which he had been raised: Did I not teach the manner of singing according to the practice of the primitive Church, with two choirs singing in harmony and alternating the responsories and antiphons? Did I not establish monastic life according to the Rule of Our Holy Father Benedict, which no one had introduced there before?22

Decades later, Hadrian I seems to have had a similar programme: when he refounded the monastery of Saints Andrew and Bartholomew at the Lateran, originally founded by Pope Honorius I (625–38),23 he placed it under an unspecified monastic rule, mandated an office that resembles the medieval monastic cursus, and directed that the monks alternate the psalms with the monks of the Lateran monastery of Saint Pancras which had been restored by Gregory III. Hadrian, that is, had

21

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text of the bull in G. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, 54 vols. in 58 (Florence and Venice, 1759–98; repr. Paris, 1901–27), XII, 552 (top). Life 97, c. 53, LP, I, 501 (trans. Jeffery): ‘constituit in monasterio sancti Stephani cata Barbara patricia, situm ad beatum Petrum apostolum, congregationem monachorum, ubi et abbatem idoneam personam ordinans, statuit ut sedulas laudes in ecclesia beati Petri persolvant, sicut et cetera tria monasteria; ut duo monasteria per latera ipsius ecclesiae Deo nostro canant laudes; quoniam ipsum monasterium in magna desidia et neglectus incuria positus erat, et nullum officium divino cultu ididem exhibebatur.’ Vita Wilfridi, c. 47, in B. Colgrave (ed.), The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus (Cambridge, 1927; repr. 1985), 98 (trans. Jeffery): ‘Aut quomodo iuxta ritum primitivae ecclesiae assono vocis modulamine, binis adstantibus choris, persultare responsoriis antiphonisque reciprocis instruerem? Vel quomodo vitam monachorum secundum regulam sancti Benedicti patris, quam nullus prior ibi invexit, constitueram?’ Cottineau and Poras, R´epertoire (above, n. 5), II, 2504.

The early liturgy of Saint Peter’s and the Roman liturgical year

discovered that a certain monastery of Pope Honorius had come into extreme desolation through a certain amount of negligence. Moved by divine inspiration, he built it anew and enriched it, and established an abbot with other monks there, to carry on with life under a rule (regulariter ibidem vita degentes). And he established them in the basilica of the Saviour, which is also the Constantinian [basilica] located near the Lateran patriarchium, to celebrate the office, that is the morning [hour], the first and third hour, the sixth and ninth hour, and also the evening [hour] – by one choir, which previously sang psalms alone on both sides (singulariter in utrosque psallebant), the monks of the monastery of Saint Pancras being positioned there, and by the other choir, the monks of the aforesaid monastery of Saint Andrew and Bartholomew, which is called [the monastery] of Pope Honorius – since, singing (psallentes) with pious praises and diligently, they would resound with joyful songs and hymn-bearing choruses of God, rendering to the Lord glorious melodies time and again for the name of the remembered, venerable pontiff, evidently declaring in poems his memorial forever.24

The enumeration of hours in Hadrian’s reform, from morning to evening, is consistent with both the Roman and monastic cursus of medieval times. But if the mention of ‘hymn-bearing choruses’ and ‘poems’ is to be taken literally, that could imply that these monks were following the monastic cursus of the Benedictine Rule, which had an explicit place for ‘Ambrosian’ hymns during the office.25 Unfortunately, the Liber Pontificalis is much less explicit about the monastery Hadrian refounded at Santa Maria Maggiore. There he: newly dedicated and founded the monastery of Saints Hadrian and Lawrence which, decaying in ruins from early times, was inhabited by worldly people [who were living] as if in a crypt. But the excellent bishop himself, newly restoring it, built it in the name of the aforementioned saints, namely Hadrian and Lawrence. He also gave it many gifts . . . and he founded it to carry on the customary praises in the

24

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Life 97, c. 68, LP, I, 506 (trans. Jeffery): ‘repperuisset monasterium quondam Honorii papae in nimia desolatione per quandam neglegentiam evenire, divina inspiratione motus, a noviter eum aedificavit atque ditavit; et abbatem cum ceteros monachos regulariter ibidem vita degentes ordinavit. Et constituit eos in basilica Salvatoris quae et Constantiniana iuxta Lateranense patriarchio posita officio celebrari, hoc est matutino, ora prima et tertia, sexta seu nona, etiam et vespertina ab uno choro, qui dudum singulariter in utrosque psallebant, monachi monasterii sancti Pancratii ibidem posito, et ab altero choro monachi iamfati monasterii sancti Andreae et Bartholomei qui appellatur Honorii papae, quatenus piis laudibus naviterque psallentes, hymniferis choris Deique letis resonent cantibus, reddentes Domino glorificos melos pro sepius memorati venerandi pontificis nomen, scilicet in saecula memorialem eius pangentes carminibus.’ Vog¨ue´ (ed.), La R`egle 5 (above, n. 10), 535–8.

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basilica of the holy mother of God and ever-virgin Mary ad Praesepem, among the other monasteries founded there, singing to God day and night.26

Hadrian’s successor, Pope Leo III (795–816), rebuilt Saint Martin and Saint Stephen Major,27 and appointed the future Paschal I (817–24) to rule (ad regendum) the latter monastery.28 After Paschal succeeded Leo as pope, he: discovered that the monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, located behind the structure of the aqueduct of the Lateran patriarchium, was bereft of everything, so that the congregation of handmaidens of the Lord that was in there were able to chant (decantare) no praises to the almighty Lord and his saints, because of the destitution and poverty. Moved to pity by this inquiry, the venerable pastor made sure that the servants of God were able to exist well and religiously, and gathering together he established a community of monks in it. He amply and sufficiently increased it, enriching the same monastery with many endowments in households, farmsteads, vineyards, houses, urban and rural properties. At which point he decreed that the same resident congregation, having postponed every necessity, should chant (decantent) praises and hymns melodiously, night and day, to the only God and his saints in the venerable church of the Saviour our lord Jesus Christ situated near the Lateran [complex].29

By then the entire system may have been heading into a state of decline, for Paschal’s successor, Gregory IV (827–44), ‘decreed that monks who were established (constituti) to carry out the office in the church of blessed Peter the apostle should not leave off singing (canere non desistant) the praises to 26

27 29

Life 97, c. 86, LP I, 511 (trans. Jeffery): ‘noviter dedicavit atque constituit monasterium sanctorum Adriani atque Laurentii, quod in ruinis marcescens a priscis temporibus tamquam in cripta a secularibus habitabatur; ipse vero egregius antistes noviter eum restaurans, in praedictorum sanctorum, videlicet Adriani et Laurentii, nomen aedificavit, in quo et multa bona donavit . . . et constituit in basilica sanctae Dei genetricis semperque virginis Mariae ad Praesepem in cateris monasteriis ibidem constitutis Deo die noctuque canentes solite gerere laudes’; Cottineau and Poras, R´epertoire (above, n. 5), II, 2501. 28 Life 100, c. 2, LP, II, 52. Life 98, c. 90, LP, II, 28. Life 100, c. 22, LP II, 58 (trans. Jeffery): ‘repperit monasterium sancti Sergii et Bachii post formam aquaeductus patriarchii Lateranensis positum, rebus omnibus desolatum, ita ut ancillarum Domini congregatio quae ibidem inerat paupertatis inopia nullas omnipotenti Domino sanctisque illius laudes decantare valerent. Qua venerabilis pastor inquisitione ad pietatem commotus, famulas dei qualiter bene religioseque esse possint perfecit, et in eo monachorum adgregans statuit conventionem; multis idem monasterium ditans facultatibus in familiis, mansis, vineis, domibus, urbanis atque rusticis locis, amplianter sufficianterque multiplicavit; quatinus ipsa congregatio residens, omni necessitate postposita, soli Deo sanctisque illius laudes et hymnos nocte dieque modulanter in venerabili ecclesia Salvatoris domini nostri Iesu Christi sita iuxta Lateranis decantent instituit’; Cottineau and Poras, R´epertoire (above, n. 5), II, 2525.

The early liturgy of Saint Peter’s and the Roman liturgical year

almighty God on all days there’.30 The next pope, Sergius II (844–7), brought it all to an end, handing over the four Vatican monasteries to the canons of Saint Peter’s,31 which has been a collegiate church ever since, with its liturgy the responsibility of the chapter. In time, Santa Maria Maggiore also became a collegiate church, while San Paolo fuori le mura became a Cluniac Benedictine monastery,32 and the Lateran a chapter of Canons Regular with a rule and a rite derived from Lucca.33

The monastic-basilican office at Saint Peter’s For the eighth-century office celebrated by the monasteries serving Saint Peter’s, the evidence we have is focused largely on the cycles of readings during the night office of Matins. In fact the medieval Roman liturgy had four different books of collected and assigned readings. Three seem to have developed primarily at Saint Peter’s: the homiliary, containing patristic commentaries on the gospels,34 the passionary or legendary containing hagiographical readings about the saints,35 and the lectionary, containing all the biblical readings that were not gospels. Only the evangeliary containing the cycle of gospel readings seems to have a different origin, rooted in the calendar of stational masses that the pope celebrated as he moved around the city each year.36 The legendary may have begun to take shape during the reign of Hadrian I (772–95), if we can believe the report that he was the first to command the passions and gesta of the saints to be read at Saint Peter’s: The passions of the saints or their deeds up to Hadrian’s times were read only there where the church of the same saint or the titular church was. But [Hadrian] himself in his own time commanded [this custom] to be recognized (renovere), and 30

31

32 33 34

35 36

Life 103, c. 7, LP, II, 74: ‘decrevit ut monachi, qui ad officium persolvendum in ecclesia beati Petri apostoli sunt constituti, omnibus diebus ibidem laudes omnipotenti Domino canere non desistant’. The text of this decree is not extant, but it was confirmed by Popes Leo IX (1053), Hadrian IV (1158) and Urban III (1186); see Kehr (ed.), Italia Pontificia (above, n. 17), 138–44. Cottineau and Poras, R´epertoire (above, n. 5), II, 2521. P.-M. Gy, La liturgie dans l’histoire (Paris, 1990), 127–39. R. Gr´egoire, Hom´eliaires liturgiques m´edi´evaux: analyse de manuscrits (Biblioteca degli ‘Studi Medievali’12) (Spoleto, 1980), 127–244. See Vircillo Franklin, this volume, 287–306. ¨ T. Klauser, Das R¨omische Capitulare Evangeliorum: Texte und Untersuchungen zu seiner Altesten Geschichte I: Typen (Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen und Forschungen 28) (M¨unster, 1935; second edition 1972).

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instituted that there be hagiographical readings (legendas esse) in the church of Saint Peter.37

Much earlier in the eighth century, Pope Zacharias (741–52) may also have had a role in the formation of the legendary, since ‘in the church of the aforesaid prince of the apostles, [he] arranged in a library, with effort (armarium opere ordinavit), his own codices from his house, which are read in the cycle of the year at Matins’.38 If armarium opere ordinavit means that he arranged it ‘with effort’, then I suspect non-biblical readings were involved, since the questions of what to include and in what order would have been much more complicated than for the canon of scripture alone. Nevertheless it is the biblical, non-gospel, lectionary that is the subject of this chapter. The extant texts, though varied, can be grouped into two basic recensions: the earlier one, which Michel Andrieu designated Ordo Romanus XIV, and the later one, which he designated Ordo Romanus XIII (see Table 8.1).39 The counterintuitive numbering was intended to keep each text closer to the other tractates with which it is transmitted in the manuscript tradition. The earliest manuscript of OR XIV, of eighth-century date, bears a title that clearly states, ‘All the scripture of the holy canon, from the beginning to the end of the year, is read in this order in the church of Saint Peter’. Four manuscripts change the verbs from ‘read’ to ‘sing’, and the youngest manuscript combines the two. As OR XIV circulated outside Rome, it was incorporated into Ordo Romanus XVI, which comes from some southern French or north Italian monastery of double rule – that is, one that attempted to combine Irish traditions associated with Saint Columbanus with Roman traditions associated with Saint Benedict.40 However, another text, which I have identified in an insular manuscript that was at Murbach about the year 800, no longer mentions Rome or Saint Peter’s. I call it Ordo Romanus XIV B∗ .41 37

38

39 40

41

Ordo Romanus 12.25, Andrieu, OR, II, 466 (trans. Jeffery): ‘Passiones sanctorum vel gesta ipsorum usque Adriani tempora tantummodo ibi legebantur ubi ecclesia ipsius sancti vel titulus erat. Ipse vero tempore suo renovere iussit et in ecclesia sancti Petri legendas esse instituit’. Life 93, c. 19, LP, I, 432: ‘Hic in ecclesia praedicti principis apostolorum omnes codices domui suae proprios qui in circulo anni leguntur ad matutinos armarium opere ordinavit’. Andrieu, OR, III, 37–41 and II, 479–526. Andrieu, OR, III, 147–48. On the continental Irish background of this text, see P. Jeffery, ‘Eastern and western elements in the Irish monastic Prayer of the Hours’, in Fassler and Baltzer (eds.), The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages (above, n. 10), 99–143, esp. pp. 128–30. Saint Paul in K¨arnten 2.1, front pastedown. See E. A. Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores, X (Oxford, 1963), no. 1451, p. 5. I discussed this text in P. Jeffery, ‘A window on the formation of the medieval chant repertories: the Greek palimpsest fragments in Princeton University MS Garrett 24’, in L. Dobszay (ed.), The Past in the Present: Papers Read at the IMS

The early liturgy of Saint Peter’s and the Roman liturgical year

Table 8.1. The biblical lectionary of Saint Peter’s A. The earlier recension (oldest MS from the early eighth century) Ordo Romanus XIV. MS V. ‘Legitur autem omnis scriptura sancti canonis ab initio anni usque ad finem in ecclesia sancti Petri hoc ordine.’ MSS GHPR. ‘Cantatur autem omnis scriptura sancti canonis ab initio anni usque ad finem et sic ordo est canonis decantandi in ecclesia sancti Petri.’ MS M. ‘Cantatur autem vel legitur omnis scriptura sancti canonis ab initio anni usque ad finem in aecclesia sancti Petri.’ Andrieu, OR, III, 37–41. Ordo Romanus XVI.1–9. ‘ . . . incipit instruccio ecclesiastici ordinis, qualiter in coenubiis fideliter domino servientes tam iuxta auctoritatem catholice atque apostolice romane ecclesie quam iuxta dispositione et regulam sancti Benedicti . . . officiis divinis anni circoli die noctuque, . . . debeant celebrare, sicut in sancta ac romana ecclesia a sapientibus ac venerabilibus patribus nobis traditum.’ Andrieu, OR, III, 147–8. Ordo Romanus XIV B∗ . ‘De auctoritate sacrae scripturae quae legitur in aecclesia in circulo anni.’ Editio princeps by Peter Jeffery, in prep. B. The later recension (oldest MS from the end of the eighth century) Ordo Romanus XIII A ‘ . . . incipit ordo librorum catholicorum qui ponuntur in anno circulo in ecclesia romana’, published in Andrieu, OR, II, 479–88. Ordo Romanus XIII B ‘ . . . incipit ordo librorum catholicorum qui in ecclesia romana ponuntur ad legendum’, an augmented and Gallicanized text incorporated into medieval pontificals. Andrieu, OR, II, 497–506. Ordo Romanus XIII E∗ ‘ . . . incipit ordo librorum quomodo ponunt codices in ecclesia romana per totum annum circulum’, preserved in the ninth-century homiliary Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II, MS V. E. 1190, fols. 293r–v (ninth-century lectionary), olim Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS 2. E. G. Millar (ed.), The Library of A. Chester Beatty: a Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts I. Manuscripts 1 to 43, part 1: Texts (Privately printed by John Johnson at Oxford University Press, 1927), Appendix 1, p. 146. Cf. Andrieu, OR, II, 469 n. 2; Gr´egoire, Hom´eliaires, 321–42. Ordo Romanus XIII C ‘Quando et quo tempore libri veteris et novi testamenti legendi sunt’, preserved in the eleventh-century canon law collection of Burchard of Worms, Andrieu, OR, II, 511–14. Ordo Romanus XIII D ‘ . . . incipit ordinatim breviatum qualiter libri cum responsoriis sibi convenientibus per anni circulum ad legendum ponuntur’, in which the incipits of many responsory chant texts have been inserted. Andrieu, OR, II, 521–6.

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A similar pattern of decreasing specificity can be seen in the second recension, Ordo Romanus XIII. The earlier forms of the text, XIII A, XIII B and XIII E∗ , present it as ‘the order of Catholic books which are placed in the cycle of the year in the Roman Church’, without specifying Saint Peter’s, while the later forms XIII C and XIII D have more general titles that do not mention Rome at all.42 Thus Ordo Romanus XIV appears to represent a time when Saint Peter’s was the model for other churches, even in Rome. The somewhat later Ordo Romanus XIII seems to present a unified Roman system to serve as a model for churches throughout the world. That, in turn, suggests that Ordo Romanus XIII may have been intended for use outside Rome, for example in the mission of Saint Boniface or as part of Pippin III’s programme of Romanization.43 One is therefore particularly curious to see how the liturgical prescriptions of Ordo XIV differ from those of Ordo XIII. As shown in Table 8.2, OR XIV is arranged by liturgical season, but underlying the liturgical periods are the four seasons of the year. It begins with the first books of the Old Testament in spring, it says, or more exactly seven days before the beginning of Lent – what would later be called Quinquagesima. Seven days before Easter it switches to prophecies of Jesus’s sufferings, the period that would later be called Passiontide. The Easter-Pentecost season favours New Testament writings by and about the apostles. After Pentecost comes the second season of the year, summer, when the Old Testament histories are read. This continues into the third season, ‘the middle of autumn’, 16 November, which is the date for beginning the Wisdom books, the books with female protagonists, and Maccabees and Tobit. From 1 December to 1 February, there is another season of reading prophecies, doubtless emphasizing those that foretell the Incarnation and Nativity of the Saviour, since this period includes Christmas and Epiphany/Theophany. This would correspond to the winter season, though it is not explicitly named. Only when the text is taken up in OR XVI is the pre-Christmas period called ‘Advent’. The earlier manuscripts of OR XIV mention ‘Jerome, Ambrose and other fathers’, but only in the later manuscripts do we have ‘passions of the saints’ and ‘lives of the Catholic fathers’. OR XIV B∗ , which I have not yet published,

42

43

Intercongressional Symposium and the 10th Meeting of the CANTUS PLANUS, Budapest & Visegr´ad, 2000, II (Budapest, 2003), 1–21. Asterisks indicate numbers I have assigned to texts that should be added to those numbered by Andrieu. Andrieu originally assigned two numbers (Ordo Romanus XIII A and Ordo Romanus XIII B) to the two recensions that were eventually published as Ordo Romanus XIII A. The texts that were originally numbered XIII C, D and E, therefore, ultimately were published as XIII B, C and D. See Andrieu, OR, I, 9–10; II, 469. Hence the text published by E. G. Millar can now be known as Ordo Romanus XIII E∗ . Andrieu knew that the manuscript of XIII E∗ existed, but he was unable to locate it and did not know the text had been published. Cf. Andrieu, OR, II, 469 n. 2. Jeffery, ‘Rome and Jerusalem’ (above, n. 2), esp. pp. 235–41.

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Table 8.2. Calendars of the earlier recension compared Ordo Romanus XIV begins in spring

Ordo Romanus XVI begins in Advent

Ordo Romanus XIV B∗ begins at Easter

Spring (tempore veris): Seven days before beginning of Lent to the eighth day before Easter: five books of Moses, Joshua, Judges

Sexagesima to Great [= Holy] Week: Heptateuch (= Moses, Joshua, Judges)

Seven days before Easter: Isaiah passages on the Lord’s passion, Lamentations, Jeremiah (MS M and OR XVI mention only Lamentations)

Great Week to Easter: Jeremiah

Easter to Pentecost: epistles of apostles, Acts, Apocalypse

Easter to Pentecost: canonical epistles, Acts, Apocalypse

Summer (tempore aestatis) to middle of autumn, i.e. 16 November: Kings, Paralipomena (= Chronicles)

Summer four books of Kings, Paralipomena

16 November to 1 December: Solomon (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Sirach, Wisdom) women (Ruth, Esther, Judith) Maccabees, Tobit

then: five books of Solomon then: Job, Tobias, Judith, Esther two books of Esdras two books of Maccabees

before Christmas: up to Epiphany: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel

Advent, from 1 December to Christmas: Isaiah (based on OR XV)

then: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel minor prophets

up to octave of Christmas: Jeremiah, Daniel

fifteen days before Christmas, up to Theophany [=Epiphany]: Isaiah

after Epiphany (6 January) to 1 February: Ezechiel, minor prophets, Job

at all times: psalms, gospel and apostle (=epistles of Paul)

after Theophany, to Sexagesima: continue prophets from wherever left off

at all times: epistles of Paul as last three Matins readings, Sunday at vigils, and at Mass

OR XIV, MSS RV, and OR XVI: Jerome, Ambrose and other fathers as the ordo requires OR XIV, MSS GHPM: tractates of the fathers, passions of the martyrs, lives of the Catholic fathers.

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can be seen as a new text, not a variant of OR XIV, but an independent writing down of more or less the same practice. Hence its liturgical year is slightly different, and it does not attribute this order to Saint Peter’s or even to Rome. It begins two weeks before Lent, on Sexagesima. It does not specify a particular date for starting the books of Solomon, and it begins the pre-Christmas season (not called Advent) only fifteen days before. After Theophany or Epiphany, one picks up the prophets from wherever one had left off. Table 8.3 shows that the prescriptions of OR XIII are much more advanced. The Old Testament now begins at Septuagesima, three weeks before Lent, the classic medieval date. As in standard medieval practice, Passiontide begins fifteen days before Easter rather than only seven, and Pentecost has an octave. After the Pentecost octave, however, the rest of the Bible is assigned by month; there are no references to the four seasons. For a number of feast days around Easter and Christmas-Epiphany, specific biblical and homiletic passages are assigned for reading, and this is taken even further in OR XIII B. In fact OR XIII, with its greater development and specificity, is the basis of all known medieval antiphoners and breviaries, including the twelfth-century liturgical sources from Saint Peter’s.44 Thus the OR XIII complex represents some sort of reform that replaced the arrangement prescribed in the OR XIV complex. Based on the dates of the earliest extant manuscripts, OR XIII would have begun to replace OR XIV at some time during the eighth century. Hence the compilation of OR XIII may have been connected with the activities of Pope Zacharias.

Two ways of organizing the liturgical year As we have seen, the liturgical year in OR XIV is structured by the four seasons. But it is not the only source that associates such an arrangement with Saint Peter’s basilica, for the same is true of the Ember Weeks, celebrated four times per year, one of the most distinctive features of the Roman liturgical calendar. According to sermons of Pope Leo the Great (440–61), the Ember Weeks were already being celebrated in the mid-fifth century, each time with fasting on Wednesday and Friday, then a Saturday vigil at Saint Peter’s: The usefulness of this observance, beloved, is founded especially in the fasts of the Church, which, following the Holy Spirit’s teaching, are so distributed over the cycle 44

Benedictus Beati Petri Canonicus et Romanae Ecclesiae Cantor, ‘Liber Politicus’, P. Fabre (ed.), Le Liber Censuum de l’´eglise romaine, 3 vols. (Paris, 1905), II, 141–70. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivio S. Pietro B 79: Antifonario della Basilica di S. Pietro: sec. XII, B. G. Baroffio, Soo Jung Kim and L. E. Boyle (eds.), 2 vols. (Rome, 1995).

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Table 8.3. Calendars of the later recension compared Septuagesima to fifteen days before Easter: Heptateuch (Genesis–Joshua) fifteenth day before Easter to Easter

fifteenth day before Easter to Lord’s Supper (Holy Thursday)

XIII A, E∗ : Jeremiah

XIII B, C: Jeremiah

XIII D: Jeremiah and Lamentations Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday XIII A recension β inserts detailed lists of readings and psalms from OR XXX. XIII B: Lamentations and unspecified homilies XIII C: Lamentations, Paul and Augustine Easter Day XIII B: three homilies of the holy fathers XIII C, D: homilies Easter Week XIII C: homilies XIII D: responsories and lections of the feast Easter to Pentecost Octave XIII A, E∗ : Acts

Easter Monday to Pentecost Octave XIII B: Acts

Easter Octave to Pentecost Octave XIII C: Acts

Easter Octave to Ascension XIII D: Apocalypse + responsories

then seven canonical epistles

seven canonical epistles

canonical epistles

then seven canonical epistles + responsories

then Apocalypse

Apocalypse

Apocalypse

Acts Pentecost homilies and sermons of the feast Pentecost Octave responsories + readings of the feast

Pentecost Octave to 1 August: Kings, Paralipomena [= Chronicles]; XIII D adds responsories each month August: Solomon September: XIII A, B, D, E∗ : Job, Tobias, Judith, Esther, Esdras; XIII B: no Judith; XIII D: no Esdras October: Maccabees November: Ezekiel, Daniel, twelve minor prophets; XIII E∗ no Daniel First Sunday in Advent to Christmas: Isaiah Christmas Eve: three Isaiah readings, homilies of Catholic fathers: Augustine, Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose etc.

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Table 8.3 (cont.) Stephen: Acts, orthodox fathers; XIII B more specific John: Apocalypse, sermons; XIII B more specific Innocents: Apocalypse, sermons about the Nativity; XIII B more specific, sermons about Innocents Christmas Octave: same psalms and readings as Christmas; XIII E∗ : also same antiphons and responsories Theophany [i.e. Epiphany]: three Isaiah readings, sermons of Augustine, Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose, etc. Theophany Octave: same psalms and readings as Theophany; XIII E∗ : also same antiphons and resonsories rest of the year up to Septuagesima: Apostle [= Paul], ‘decadas psalmorum sancti Augustini’; XIII B Paul only Peter: three readings from Acts Paul: sermons of Saint Augustine OR XIII B also includes these feasts: Purification of Mary: Song of Songs and/or homilies pertaining to the day Chair of Peter: same readings as the feast of all apostles [sic] and/or homilies pertaining to the day Annunciation: three Isaiah readings Discovery of the Holy Cross: same readings as for feasts of several martyrs [sic] Ascension: three readings from Acts and homilies pertaining to the day Pentecost: three readings from Acts Saint John Baptist: recension α: homilies pertaining to the day; recension β: three readings from Wisdom

of the whole year that the law of abstinence is appointed at all times. Accordingly we celebrate the spring fast in Lent, the summer [fast] at Pentecost, the autumn [fast] in the seventh month [i.e. September], and the winter [fast] in this which is the tenth month [i.e. December], knowing that there is nothing void in the Divine precepts, and that all the elements serve the word of God to our instruction, so that from the hinges on which the world itself [turns], as if from the four gospels, we learn from the ceaseless trumpet what we should preach and do. For when the prophet is saying, ‘The heavens are telling the glory of God . . . [Psalm 18.2–3]’ . . . Hence we warn you, beloved, with the affection of fatherly charity, to make this fast of the tenth month fruitful to yourselves by generous alms, rejoicing that through you the Lord feeds and clothes his poor, to whom assuredly he could have given the possessions which he has bestowed on you, had he not in his unspeakable mercy wished to justify them from patient labour, and [justify] you from the work of charity. Let us therefore fast on Wednesday and Friday, and on Saturday celebrate vigils in the presence of (apud) the most blessed apostle Peter, and he will deign to assist with his own prayers our supplications and fastings and alms which our Lord

The early liturgy of Saint Peter’s and the Roman liturgical year Jesus Christ presents [to the Father], [he] who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.45

From the end of the same century, an epistle of Pope Gelasius (492–6) says that ordinations may take place only during these Ember Weeks and on mid-Lent, another day which in his time had a vigil: Also, they should not dare to carry out ordinations of priests and deacons except in certain seasons and days, that is: let them know that [ordinations] are to be celebrated on the fast of the fourth month, [on the fasts] of the seventh and tenth [months], but also [on the fast] of the beginning of Lent, and on the day of mid-Lent, on the fast of Saturday around [the time of] Vespers.46

By ‘the day of mid-Lent’, Gelasius may have been referring to Dominica Mediana, which in later sources became the fifth or Passion Sunday, with the stational Mass at Saint Peter’s.47 That Ember Saturdays were in fact the traditional Roman times for ordinations is confirmed from other sources.48 Though the Liber Pontificalis credits most early popes with ordinations in 45

46

47

48

Leo the Great, Tractatus 19.2, 19.3, dated 14 December 452, in A. Chavasse (ed.), Sancti Leonis Magni Romani Pontificis Tractatus Septem et Nonaginta (CCSL 138) (Turnhout, 1973), 77, 80: ‘Huius obseruantiae utilitas, dilectissimi, in ecclesiasticis praecipue est constituta ieiuniis, quae ex doctrina sancti Spiritus ita per totius anni circulum distributa sunt, ut lex abstinentiae omnibus sit adscripta temporibus. Siquidem ieiunium uernum in Quadragesima, aestiuum in Pentecosten, autumnale in mense septimo, hiemale autem in hoc qui est decimus celebramus, intellegentes diuinis nihil uacuum esse praeceptis, et uerbo dei ad eruditionem nostram omnia elementa seruire, dum per ipsius mundi cardines, quasi per quattuor euangelia, incessabili tuba discimus quod et praedicemus et agamus. Dicente enim propheta: Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei, . . . [Psalms 18.2–3] . . . Vnde paternae caritatis affectu dilectionem uestram monemus, ut ieiunium decimi mensis fructuosum uobis elemosinarum largitate faciatis, gaudentes quod per uos Dominus pauperes suos pascit et uestit, quibus utique posset eas quas uobis contulit tribuere facultates, nisi pro ineffabili misericordia sua et illos iustificaret de patientia laboris et uos de opere caritatis. Quarta igitur et sexta sabbati ieiunemus, sabbato autem apud beatissimum Petrum apostolum uigilias celebremus, qui et orationes et ieiunia et elemosinas nostras precibus suis dignabatur adiuuare, praestante Domino nostro Iesu Christo, qui cum Patre et Spiritu sancto uiuit et regnat per omnia saecula saeculorum, Amen.’ Gelasius, Epistula 14.11, dated 11 March 494, in A. Thiel (ed.), Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum Genuinae et Quae ad eos Scriptae sunt a S. Hilaro usque ad Pelagium II (Braunsberg, 1867; repr. Hildesheim, 2004), 368–9: ‘Ordinationes etiam presbyterorum et diaconorum nisi certis temporibus et diebus exercere non audeant, id est, quarti mensis ieiunio, septimi et decimi, sed etiam quadragesimalis initii, ac medianae Quadragesimae die, sabbati ieiunio circa vesperam noverint celebrandas.’ Though the historical origins of Lent and the Ember Weeks at Rome are not fully known, the conventional views are summarized in Vogel, Medieval Liturgy (above, n. 2), 309–14, 404–6. L. C. Mohlberg, P. Siffrin and L. Eisenh¨ofer (eds.), Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Aeclesiae Ordinis Anni Circuli (Cod. Vat Reg. lat. 316/Paris Bib. Nat. 7193, 41/56) (Sacramentarium Gelasiarum) third edition (Rome, 1981), 24–8; Andrieu, OR, IV, 213–31.

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December, from the eighth century all the way back to Saint Peter himself, there are a few who are said to have ordained at the other seasons.49 This early, fourfold liturgical year, centred on Saint Peter’s, seems to underlie the arrangement of readings in OR XIV, OR XVI and OR XIVB∗ , representing the period when the great Roman basilicas were staffed by monastic communities, and when Saint Peter’s seems to have been something of a model for the other churches of the city. Hence it was the usage of Saint Peter that John the Archcantor brought to Wearmouth, and that Gregory III imposed on San Crisogono and the monastery he renovated near the Lateran. But the four-seasoned year of Saint Peter’s began to be obscured with the compilation of OR XIII, organized around the twelve months. Indeed the very title of OR XIII, which claims to report the practice of the Roman Church rather than Saint Peter’s, implies that a much wider readership was foreseen, since churches all over Europe were now seeking to imitate the usage of Rome. At the same time, liturgical leadership seems to have been shifting away from the Vatican basilica, toward the person of the pope himself, whose cathedra or chair was at the Lateran. This was not a mere substitution of one building for another, for the pope’s most prominent role was as the leader of the stational liturgies, for which he travelled to churches all over the city in his role as bishop of Rome. Thus two of the most important books on which the Carolingian reform was based, namely the Gregorian sacramentary and the Roman Graduale, seem to follow the pope’s own calendar of stational masses rather than the calendar of any specific basilica. Thus OR XIII takes a step toward the creation of a unified Roman rite, a process that was not completed until the thirteenth century.50 With the adoption and spread of OR XIII we see the beginning of the end of the idea that the practice of Saint Peter’s, with its four-seasoned calendar, should serve as the model for all other churches in Rome and elsewhere. 49

50

Gelasius I (492–6) and Symmachus (498–514) are said to have ordained in December and February, Felix IV (526–30) in February and March, Gregory I (590–604) in Lent and September, Leo II (682–3) in June, Sergius I (687–701) in March. There are also many popes to whom ordinations are attributed but no date is given. P. Jounel, Le culte des saints dans les basiliques du Latran et du Vatican au douzi`eme si`ecle ´ (Collection de l’Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome 26) (Rome, 1977); S. J. P. Van Dijk, Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy: the Liturgy of the Papal Court and the Franciscan Order in the Thirteenth Century (Westminster, MD, 1960).

9

Interactions between liturgy and politics in Old Saint Peter’s, 670–741 John the Archcantor, Sergius I and Gregory III ´ ´ eamonn o´ carragain

Fig. 9.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 9.

Liturgical innovations associated with Old Saint Peter’s show that, in the late seventh and early eighth century, the clerics of the basilica had a remarkable openness to what was going on elsewhere: in Gaul, in Constantinople and, as I shall argue, also in Naples. Indeed, we shall see that Gregory III, by means of the chapel of All Saints that he had built within the basilica, wished to make Saint Peter’s a microcosm of the Christian Church, in all its diversity, in heaven and throughout the world. (Fig. 9.1.) As a first example of the breadth of liturgical interest, we shall look at the way the new feast of the Annunciation, on 25 March, was introduced at Saint Peter’s, probably in the 660s or 670s. In the great majority of years, 177

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25 March falls during Lent, when the Church was preparing to commemorate the Passion and Resurrection of Christ: indeed, the feast quite often falls within Holy Week itself. The new feast of the Annunciation had originated about 600 in the East, particularly at Constantinople. It was a joyful feast, celebrating the anniversary of Christ’s Incarnation, which had been announced by the archangel Gabriel.1 Before this new feast was instituted, the Incarnation was primarily celebrated in the last weeks before Christmas, when Saint Luke’s account of the Annunciation was always read (and would continue to be read: the ancient pre-Christmas celebration of the Incarnation would, of course, continue).2 There was therefore always something of Christmas about the Annunciation; and Saint Peter’s on the Vatican always had a special interest in Christmas. 25 December, the eighth kalends of January, was the winter solstice in the Julian Calendar. In late imperial times, non-Christians celebrated the winter solstice as the Feast of the Unconquered Sun: the darkest day of the year when the sun, refusing to die, began once more to conquer the winter darkness.3 It would be possible to argue that the clergy at Saint Peter’s invented Christmas, at least in the sense that they helped ensure that Christmas would be celebrated as a major liturgical event in the Christian year. Already for some three centuries (that is, since the middle of the fourth century: probably, ever since the Constantinian basilica was completed), the day Mass on Christmas Day was celebrated at Saint Peter’s. That was the principal papal Mass, as it were the ‘high Mass’, for Christmas Day.4 A century later, in the mid-fifth century, the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore had been built on the Esquiline hill. By the 640s, Santa Maria on the Esquiline was believed to possess the relics of the crib of Bethlehem, and that basilica would henceforth be called ‘Sancta Maria ad Praesepe’.5 Since the time that basilica was built, the pope had celebrated the midnight Mass of Christmas there, ad praesepe, at the crib. Then the papal court made their way through the winter night to celebrate a dawn Mass in the shadow of the Palatine hill, at the 1

2

3

4

5

For a good survey of the origins and development of the feast, see C. Maggioni, Annunziazione: storia, eucologia, teologia liturgica (Bibliotheca Ephemerides Liturgicae, Subsidia 56) (Rome, 1991). See A. Chavasse, Les lectionnaires romains de la messe au VII et au VIIIe si`ecle: sources et d´eriv´es (Spicilegii Friburgensis, Subsidia 22), 2 vols. (Fribourg-en-Suisse, 1993), I, 63; II, 38. See S. K. Roll, Toward the Origins of Christmas (Liturgia Condenda 5) (Kampen, 1995), 107–64; M. R. Salzman, On Christian Time: the Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, CA, 1990), 149–53. Roll, Toward the Origins (above, n. 3), 152–7, 203–11; J. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: the Origins, Development and Meaning of Stational Liturgy (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 228) (Rome, 1987), 110, 157–8; Blaauw, CD, 504. Blaauw, CD, 400–3.

Interactions between liturgy and politics

basilica of Sant’Anastasia whose feast also fell on 25 December. At the Old Saint Peter’s conference, Judson Emerick vividly analysed and described the basilica of Sant’Anastasia: his analysis has implications for the present discussion. Sant’Anastasia seems to have been designed as a smaller version of Saint Peter’s. When the dawn Mass of Christmas was celebrated there the ceremony may have been understood, in architectural as well as in liturgical terms, as a prelude to the arrival of the papal procession at Saint Peter’s, the setting for the most ancient Mass of Christmas, the ‘day Mass’ (which probably began at about 10 a.m.).6 The Eucharistic celebration of the feast of Christmas culminated with that papal ‘day Mass’. Its Introit, sung as the pope went in procession up the aisle towards the altar, celebrated the birth of a Mighty Prince, ‘and the government shall be upon his shoulder’.7 When Pope Leo III consecrated Charlemagne emperor at the ‘day Mass’ in Saint Peter’s on Christmas Day 800, he and his advisers chose the perfect time and place to celebrate the birth of what later was perceived as a new age.8 Saint Peter’s, and the cult of its great martyr, would always be intimately associated with the sun’s course. The basilica was carefully oriented on the Vatican hill, with its entrance to the east and its apse to the west; throughout the Middle Ages, the Vatican solar obelisk stood on its south side.9 Saint Peter’s official biography, in the Liber Pontificalis, stated that the apostle had been buried in templum Apollinis: if so, the martyrium of Saint Peter’s was thought to mark the site of what was once a temple of Apollo.10 With 25 December the date of the winter solstice in the Julian Calendar, 25 March marked the spring equinox. The new feast of the Annunciation, celebrating Christ’s Incarnation on 25 March, thus complemented the much earlier feast of the Nativity on 25 December. From the late seventh century, Christ’s Incarnation and birth would both be celebrated on the ‘growing days’, the 6

7

8

9

10

J. J. Emerick, ‘Did the Early Christian Sant’Anastasia copy Old Saint Peter’s?’, paper presented at the conference on Old Saint Peter’s, Rome, March 2010; Baldovin, Urban Character (above, n. 4), 157–8. R.-J. Hesbert (ed.), Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex (Brussels, 1935; repr. Rome, 1985), Introit Puer natus est nobis, p. 14, par. 11a, which contains the phrase ‘cujus imperium super humerum ejus’: cf. Isaiah 9.6. On the coronation of Charlemagne, see E. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae: a Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler-Worship (University of California Publications in History 33) (Berkeley, CA, 1946), 75–6, 83–4, 103–4. On the obelisk, see G. Alf¨oldy, Der Obelisk auf dem Petersplatz in Rom. Ein Historisches Monument der Antike (Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Jahrgang 1990, Bericht 2) (Heidelberg, 1990) and J. Osborne, this volume, 279. Biography of Peter, Life 1, c. 6, LP, I, 118, with notes at I, 119 and III, 71. See R. Giordano, ‘“In Templum Apollinis”: a proposito di un incerto tempio d’Apollo in Vaticano menzionato nel Liber Pontificalis’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 64 (1988), 161–88.

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spring equinox and winter solstice when the sun began to grow greater than, and defeat, the winter darkness. The new feast was a striking example of the symbolic principle that ‘the Saviour did all things at the appropriate places and times’.11 But the new feast of the Annunciation posed a serious problem. As we have seen, 25 March usually falls within Lent, and often within Holy Week. How could the joy of Christ’s Incarnation be properly celebrated in the season that prepared for his Passion? Indeed, for precisely this difficulty the Spanish bishops decided in 656 not to accept the new feast day, already celebrated at Constantinople: they preferred instead to continue with the Early Christian tradition of celebrating the Incarnation, in terms of Saint Luke’s account (1.26–38) of the Annunciation, in the week before Christmas.12 Though the new Eastern feast of the Annunciation was widely adopted in the Latin West in the course of the late seventh century, only one basilica developed in its liturgy a theological rationale for the new feast. That basilica was Saint Peter’s on the Vatican. At Saint Peter’s, from the 670s, they celebrated 25 March as ADNUNTIATIO DOMINI ET PASSIO EIUSDEM, the ‘Annunciation of the Lord and his Passion’.13 The liturgists of Saint Peter’s found a rationale for the new feast in an ancient Christian scholarly tradition that held that the first Good Friday had fallen on 25 March, the spring equinox.14 Christ had therefore been conceived on the very day on which he would, some thirtyfour years later, die on the Cross. At Saint Peter’s (and in the 670s nowhere else in Christendom as yet), 25 March would be seen explicitly to celebrate at once the Incarnation of Christ and his Passion, and so to celebrate the unity of Christ’s life, from his conception to his heroic death on the Cross. The Saint Peter’s Mass for 25 March is preserved in a single manuscript, Padua Biblioteca capitolare Cod. D. 47, known to liturgical scholars as 11

12

13

14

‘Omnia propriis locis et temporibus gessit salvator’: Pseudo-Augustinus (this author is also called ‘Ambrosiaster’ in modern scholarship), Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti CXXVII, Quaestio lv, ed. A. Souter (CSEL 50) (Vienna, 1908), 100; for discussion see V. Loi, ‘Il 25 marzo data pasquale e la cronologia Giovannea della Passione in et`a patristica’, Ephemerides Liturgicae 85 (1971), 48–69, at p. 53. The tenth council of Toledo: G. D. Mansi (ed.), Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, 54 vols. in 58 (Florence and Venice, 1759–98; repr. Paris, 1901–27), XI, col. 968; see Maggioni, Annunziazione (above, n. 1), 52. For the Mass, see A. Catella, F. Dell’Oro and A. Martini (eds.), Liber Sacramentorum Paduensis (Padova, Biblioteca Capitolare, cod. D. 47) (Bibliotheca Ephemerides Liturgicae, Subsidia: Monumenta Italiae Liturgica 3) (Rome, 2005), 260, Section LXXXV: Adnuntiatio Sanctae Dei Genitricis et Passio Eiusdem Domini. This title is clearly a clumsy elaboration of an earlier title: for example, there is no preceding noun to which Eiusdem can refer. The original title was convincingly reconstructed by A. Chavasse, Le sacramentaire g´elasien (Vaticanus Reginensis 316: sacramentaire presbyteral en usage dans les titres romains au VIIe si`ecle) (Paris and Tournai, 1958), 377. Maggioni, Annunziazione (above, n. 1), 33–5.

Interactions between liturgy and politics

Paduensis. The manuscript is a lavish one, probably copied in Lotharingia about 840–50, for the court of the Emperor Lothar (reigned 817–55).15 Analysis of the liturgical prayers of the manuscript has demonstrated that, together with added material from northern Italy and from northern Carolingian sources, the core of the collection comprises a ‘Gregorian’ sacramentary (that is, Mass-prayers used at the papal liturgy at the Lateran basilica): for example, the core collection lists the stational churches at which the pope celebrated solemn Mass on certain days each year.16 This ‘Gregorian’ material is ancient: it pre-dates the mid-eighth century, and therefore pre-dates the Hadrianum, the copy of the ‘Gregorian’ sacramentary made by Pope Hadrian I for Charlemagne towards the end of the eighth century.17 But by that time the ‘Gregorian’ material had already been adapted for use, not at the Lateran itself, but at a ‘presbyteral’ basilica, that is, a basilica in the care of priests, in Rome itself. The recent editors of the manuscript accept the conclusions of Chavasse and of Deshusses that the ‘presbyteral’ basilica for which the manuscript had been adapted, probably before the end of the seventh century, was Saint Peter’s on the Vatican.18 The Offertory prayer for 25 March stated, in clear and simple terms, the unique Vatican rationale for the feast: to celebrate, on one and the same day, the anniversary of the Incarnation and of the Crucifixion: Super Oblatam. Accepta tibi sit, quaesumus, domine, haec oblatio plebis tuae, quam tibi offerimus hodie ob incarnationem simul et passionem redemptoris nostri Iesu Christi, te supplices deprecantes, ut placatus accipias. Per eundem.19 Over the Offering. May this your people’s offering be acceptable to you, Lord: we offer it to you today [in memory] of the Incarnation and likewise the Passion of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, humbly begging that you will graciously accept it: Through the same [Jesus Christ, our Lord]. 15

16

17 18

19

Catella, Dell’Oro and Martini, Liber Sacramentorum Paduensis (above, n. 13), Introduction, 59. On the added material, see Catella, Dell’Oro and Martini, Liber Sacramentorum Paduensis (above, n. 13), 101–32 and, on the core of Roman ‘Gregorian’ material, pp. 40–52. Catella, Dell’Oro and Martini, Liber Sacramentorum Paduensis (above, n. 13), 40–52. Catella, Dell’Oro and Martini, Liber Sacramentorum Paduensis (above, n. 13), 40–52: see Chavasse, Le sacramentaire g´elasien (above, n. 13), 526–691, supplemented and updated in ´ ´ later articles by Chavasse, in particular by his final synthesis, ‘Evang´ eliaire, Epistolier, Antiphonaire et Sacramentaire. Les livres romains de la messe, au VIIe et VIIIe si`ecle’, Ecclesia Orans 6 (1989), 177–255, repr. in A. Chavasse, La liturgie de la ville de Rome du Ve au VIIIe si`ecle (Studia Anselmiana 112) (Rome, 1993), 153–229; J. Deshusses, Le sacramentaire gr´egorien. Ses principales formes d’apr`es les plus anciens manuscrits, 3 vols. (Spicilegium Friburgense 16, 24, 28), second edition (Fribourg-en-Suisse, 1979–82), especially the discussion in vol. III, pp. 78–83. Catella, Dell’Oro and Martini, Liber Sacramentorum Paduensis (above, n. 13), 260, no. 386.

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The compilers of the manuscript provided for the Mass of 25 March an appropriate setting. The Mass comes just after a large and unified block of Masses for the movable season of Lent and Easter. The Mass that immediately precedes that for 25 March is that for the Pascha annotina, the day that celebrated the anniversary of the Easter of the previous year: this Mass was intended in particular for those who had been baptized on that previous Easter.20 These two Masses thus formed a pair: each celebrated, on a fixed day, an anniversary that recalled the movable feasts of the Passion and Easter. The Collect or opening prayer of the Mass for 25 March was a liturgical masterpiece. Both Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, recognizing its beauty and theological richness, still use it: Gratiam tuam, quaesumus, domine, mentibus nostris infunde, ut qui angelo nuntiante Christi filii tui incarnationem cognovimus, per passionem eius et crucem ad resurrectionis gloriam perducamur. Qui tecum.21 Pour your grace into our minds, O Lord, so that we who have known the Incarnation of Christ your Son through the message of an angel, may by his Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of the Resurrection. Who [lives and reigns] with you . . .

It seems likely that, in composing their unique Mass ‘for the Annunciation of the Lord and his Passion’, the Vatican liturgists were inspired by what was done in Gaul, and in particular by what had for nearly two hundred years been the custom of the city of Tours. We know from the Decem Libri Historiarum of Gregory of Tours that, from the fifth century, Tours had celebrated a special vigil at the basilica of Saint Martin on 27 March, the anniversary of the Resurrection. At the cathedral, within the city walls, they celebrated Easter in the usual manner, as a movable feast. The special vigil for the anniversary of the first Easter, on 27 March, was only celebrated at the basilica of Saint Martin, outside the walls: in other words, a special interest in the anniversary of Easter, and so by implication in the anniversary of Good Friday, was a peculiarity of the cult of the great monastic founder, Saint Martin.22 It is clear that the monks of Saint Martin at Tours arrived 20

21

22

Catella, Dell’Oro and Martini, Liber Sacramentorum Paduensis (above, n. 13), 259, Mass LXXXIIII, nos. 381–4. Catella, Dell’Oro and Martini, Liber Sacramentorum Paduensis (above, n. 13), 260, no. 385. For Anglican use, see The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI (London, 1910), 185, ‘The ´ Carrag´ain, Ritual ´ O Annunciation of the Virgin Mary’. On the later history of this prayer, see E. and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the ‘Dream of the Rood’ Tradition (London, 2005), 355–62. Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, Book X, 31; B. Krusch and W. Levison (eds.), Gregorii Episcopi Turonensis Libri Historiarum X (MGH, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum 1, Part 1), 530; see L. Pietri, La ville de Tours du IV au VI si`ecle: naissance d’une cit´e chr´etienne

Interactions between liturgy and politics

at the idea that 27 March was the anniversary of the Resurrection by their familiarity with the ancient Christian tradition that the spring equinox, 25 March, was the anniversary of Christ’s Passion. But, in the second half of the seventh century, the liturgy of Saint Peter’s on the Vatican was also in the care of monks of Saint Martin. In Alfarano’s plan, the chapel of the monastery is marked: just outside the western end of the basilica, slightly to the south of the apse. Alfarano only marked the chapel of the monastery: the monastery itself, no doubt destroyed by Alfarano’s time, would, even in the seventh century, have been rather more extensive.23 In the years before 679, the person in charge of the liturgy at Saint Peter’s was the abbot of the monastery of Saint Martin’s, a man called John. Abbot John was the archcantor or precentor of Saint Peter’s. Naturally, John and his community were interested in their patron saint, Martin of Tours, and in the traditions of Saint Martin’s monastery at Tours. Indeed, when in AD 679 Abbot John agreed to accompany the English monks Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrid to Northumbria, the travellers visited Tours on their way to England, precisely because of the devotion that Abbot John had for Saint Martin.24 At Wearmouth in the winter of 679–80, John the Archcantor taught the yearly cycle of the liturgy, as celebrated at Saint Peter’s, viva voce to the cantors of the monastery that Benedict Biscop had recently founded there.25 This was appropriate, because Benedict had dedicated his monastery to Saint Peter. On his way back to Rome in 680, John the Archcantor was taken ill in France, and died. His body was taken back to Tours, for burial near the body of Saint Martin, for whom John had such devotion.26 To sum up: in the 670s, Saint Peter’s was the only basilica in Christendom to develop an explicit and coherent theology stating that the feast of the Annunciation could appropriately be celebrated during Lent, because the day celebrated both the Incarnation and the Passion of Christ. In this matter,

23

24

25 26

´ Carrag´ain, Ritual and ´ (Collection de l’Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome 69) (Rome, 1983), 451–3; O the Rood (above, n. 21), 91. On the monastery of Saint Martin at the Vatican, see G. Ferrari, Early Roman Monasteries: Notes for the History of the Monasteries and Convents at Rome from the V through the X Century (Studi di antichit`a cristiana 23) (Rome, 1957), 230–40; Blaauw, CD, 518–19; P. R´efice, ‘“Habitatio Sancti Petri”: glosse ad alcune fonti su S. Martino in Vaticano’, Arte Medievale, 2nd ser., 4 (1990), part 1, 13–16; see also A. M. Romanini, ‘Nuovi dati sulla statua bronzea di San Pietro in Vaticano’, Arte Medievale, 2nd ser., 4 (1990), part 2, 1–49, at pp. 1–2. I am grateful to Sible de Blaauw for these references. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (eds.), Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford, 1969), 390–1, Book IV, ch. 18(16). Colgrave and Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (above, n. 24), 388–9, Book IV, ch. 18(16). Colgrave and Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (above, n. 24), 390–1 and see Thacker and Jeffery, this volume, 153 and 159.

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it is likely that the monks of Saint Martin on the Vatican looked to Tours, and found a Touraine solution for their Petrine problem. The most appropriate person to have thought of this solution presumably would have been Abbot John, who was not only the head of the Vatican monastery of Saint Martin, but also (as archcantor) in charge of liturgical celebration at Saint Peter’s. It is a reasonable speculation (though only a speculation) that John the Archcantor himself may have composed the Vatican Mass Gratiam tuam. For the second of my three examples of how at Saint Peter’s liturgical images could be used to resolve wider issues, I wish to go forward some fifteen or twenty years, from the time of John the Archcantor to that of Pope Sergius I. The biography of Pope Sergius in the Liber Pontificalis tells the following story of the pope: In the shrine [sacrarium: more probably the reception-hall, outside the main entrance on the eastern fac¸ade] of Saint Peter the apostle this blessed man discovered, by God’s revelation, a silver casket lying in a very dark corner; because of tarnishing during the years that had gone by, it was not even clear whether it was silver. So after praying he removed the seal impressed on it. He opened the reliquary and inside he found placed on top a feather cushion made all of silk, which is called stauracis. He took this away and lower down he saw a cross, very ornate with various precious stones. From it he removed the four plates in which the jewels were imbedded, and he found placed inside a wonderfully large and indescribable portion of the saving wood of the Lord’s Cross. From that day, for the salvation of the human race, this is kissed and worshipped by all Christian people on the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the basilica of the Saviour called Constantinian.27 27

Biography of Sergius, Life 86, c. 10, LP, I, 374: ‘Hic beatissimus vir in sacrario beati Petri apostoli capsam argenteam in angulo obscurissimo iacentem et ex nigridine transacte annositatis nec si esset argentea apparente, Dei ei revelante, repperit. Oratione itaque facta, sigillum expressum abstulit; lucellum aperuit, in quo interius plumacium ex holosirico superpositum, quod stauracin dicitur, invenit; eoque ablato, inferius crucem diversis ac praetiosis lapidibus perornatam inspexit. De qua tractis IIII petalis in quibus gemmae clausae erant, mire magnitudinis et ineffabilem portionem salutaris ligni dominicae crucis interius repositam invenit. Qui etiam ex die illo pro salute humani generis ab omni populo christiano, die Exultationis sanctae Crucis, in basilicam Salvatoris quae appellatur Constantiniana osculatur ac adoratur’; Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 83. The broad range of meanings that the word ‘sacrarium’ could bear is set forth by J. E. Niermeyer, C. Van de Kieft and J. W. J. Burgers (eds.), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, 2 vols. (Leiden and Boston, 2002), II, 1210–11, s.v. In his translation, Davis follows that dictionary in assigning it to ‘2. The sanctuary of a church’. In the light of the discussion of buildings adjoined to the churches of this period in T. Sternberg, Orientalium More Secutus. R¨aume und Institutionen der Caritas des 5. bis 7. Jahrhunderts in Gallien (Jahrbuch f¨ur Antike und Christentum, Erg¨anzungsband 16) (M¨unster, 1991), 55–7, I prefer to understand sacrarium in this passage as ‘3. Sacristy, wardrobe of a church’ or ‘4. Treasure-room of a church’. On the reception hall, secretarium or sacrarium of Old Saint Peter’s, see Blaauw, CD, 469–70 and R. McKitterick, this volume, Fig. 5.1.

Interactions between liturgy and politics

The context is the institution, in the papal liturgy at the Lateran, of the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. But, though the papal liturgy of the feast would be celebrated at the Lateran, the story ties the origin of the feast firmly to the sacrarium or reception-hall in Saint Peter’s. Why did Pope Sergius publicize this story, rather than simply decreeing that, henceforth, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross should be celebrated at the Lateran? The new feast had originated in Constantinople, where it was a highly political annual event. In 614, the Persians had sacked Jerusalem and captured the reliquary of the Holy Cross. The Emperor Heraclius defeated the Persians, recovered the Cross, and returned it in triumph to Jerusalem in March 631. To save it from the invading Arabs, Heraclius brought the relic to Constantinople itself in 635. At Constantinople, the feast of the Exaltation had much of the triumphal atmosphere of an imperial adventus, the solemn entry of an emperor into his city: the reliquary of the Cross was raised aloft to the four points of the compass, while at each of the four elevations the choir chanted Kyrie eleison a hundred times.28 The earliest evidence of the Exaltation of the Cross at Rome seems to originate in Saint Peter’s; it probably dates from the 620s and has a rather different atmosphere: not one of the public adventus into an imperial city of its protecting relic, but one of private devotion to the life-giving Cross. On 14 September, after the Mass of the Day (the Mass of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian), a reliquary of the Cross was raised aloft, and the officiating priest prayed AD CRUCEM SALUTANDUM IN SANCTO PETRO Deus qui unigeniti tui domini nostri iesu Christi praetioso sanguine humanum genus redemere dignatus es: concede propitius, ut qui ad adorandam vivificam crucem adveniunt, a peccatorum suorum nexibus liberentur. Per dominum.29 FOR VENERATING THE CROSS IN SAINT PETER’S God, who has deigned to allow the human race to be redeemed by the precious blood of your only-begotten son our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech you that those who come to adore the life-giving Cross may be freed from the bonds of their sins. Through our Lord.

There is, therefore, evidence of a devotional cult of the Holy Cross at Saint Peter’s, perhaps two generations before Sergius became pope. 28

29

S. Janeras, Le Vendredi-Saint dans la tradition liturgique byzantine (Studia Anselmiana 99) (Rome, 1988), 299–300. Catella, Dell’Oro and Martini, Liber Sacramentorum Paduensis (above, n. 13), 328, no. 665.

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In the story of how Sergius found the Cross relic at Saint Peter’s, there is great emphasis on the age of the reliquary. We are told that it was so tarnished that it was not even clear whether it was of silver, and that the reliquary had been put into storage so long ago that now, by the time of Sergius, the clerics of Saint Peter’s had forgotten that it contained a relic of the True Cross. By publicizing his find Sergius reminded the people of Rome and, through this paragraph in his official biography, the peoples of Europe, that at Saint Peter’s the Cross had been venerated from the earliest times, presumably from the time of Constantine and Helena. Far from being a new import from the imperial city of Constantinople, in Rome the cult of the Cross, already linked to Saint Peter’s basilica, was in fact so ancient that it had fallen into desuetude. It now needed to be revived by Sergius, in his cathedral at the Lateran and in a new public form, but nevertheless the ancient link with the devotional traditions of Saint Peter’s needed to be preserved, and publicized anew. Sergius may possibly have considered that Providence had given him a role akin to that of the High Priest (Vulgate, ‘pontifex’) Hilkiah, who had found the lost ‘Book of the Law’ in the Temple.30 However that may be, Sergius certainly ensured that the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on 14 September, a recent import from the East, would be understood in Rome, and throughout the Latin West, as an ancient and Petrine cult, going back to the traditions of Saint Peter’s, so ancient as to be half forgotten, and now providentially renewed by papal edict, at the Lateran, the pope’s cathedral. To understand the Liber Pontificalis story, it is important to see that it tells of an Inventio, a providential finding. Whether or not it was intended to recall the way in which the ‘pontifex’ Hilkiah found the Book of the Law in the Temple, it certainly recalls the legend of Saint Helena’s finding of the True Cross in Jerusalem. The standard account of Helena’s find, the Acta Cyriaci, had been translated into Latin in the late sixth century at Naples, and from the early seventh century the feast of the Finding of the Cross was celebrated at Naples at the beginning of May.31 A full Mass for the Finding of the Cross appears in the Old Gelasian sacramentary, under 3 May.32 This Mass may have been composed at Naples, or at Rome, or at some point between the two. The Gelasian Mass contains reminiscences of the Acta Cyriaci.33 Canon Antoine Chavasse provided evidence that, in 30 32

33

31 Chavasse, Le sacramentaire g´ 2 Kings 22.8–13. elasien (above, n. 13), 351–7. L. C. Mohlberg, P. Siffrin and L. Eisenh¨ofer (eds.), Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Aeclesiae Ordinis Anni Circuli (Cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 316/Paris Bib. Nat. 7193, 41/56) (Sacramentarium Gelasianum), third edition (Rome, 1981), 138, Book II, sec. xviii. Chavasse, Le sacramentaire g´elasien (above, n. 13), 354–7.

Interactions between liturgy and politics

the course of the seventh century, this non-papal Gelasian Mass for 3 May was celebrated at some Roman basilicas; and it is reasonable to suppose that Sergius and his advisers are likely to have known of this development within the city.34 By publishing the narrative of how he himself instituted the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and by emphasizing that he was responding to a providential inventio, Sergius ensured that at Rome the feast of the Exaltation (14 September) henceforth would be associated with the other feast of the Cross recently brought to Rome, the Finding (3 May). It was all the more natural for Sergius to associate his new papal feast of the Exaltation with the existing presbyteral feast of the Finding, because in the seventh century the gospel for the feast of the Finding told of a treasure discovered: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field. Which a man having found, hid it; and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field.’35 In the seventh century, this short lection seems to have been used for the feast of the Finding (3 May), for which it is clearly appropriate; and there is evidence that, on occasion, it was also used for the new feast of the Exaltation (14 September).36 By associating the two feasts of the Cross, Sergius established a truly Roman rationale for the Exaltation. This rationale was quite different from that of the Exaltation at Constantinople: Sergius referred, not to imperial victories, but rather to local Roman devotion exemplified by the prayer Ad crucem salutandum in Sancto Petro. Once more, the traditions of Saint Peter’s looked out beyond Rome, to Naples, indeed to Jerusalem (where the legend of the finding of the Cross by Helena had begun), to give a Petrine rationale for a new Roman feast. At the risk of anachronism, one might sum up Sergius’s procedure by suggesting that he found an ‘Old Gelasian’ solution for his ‘Gregorian’ problem, because the Mass for 3 May celebrated in some presbyteral basilicas is now found in the Old Gelasian sacramentary, while the papal liturgy, centred on the Lateran and on papal visits throughout the year to stational churches, is reflected in Gregorian sacramentaries.37 Sergius’s (narrative and visual) theology was effective: from the year 700, the

34 36

37

35 Matthew 13.44. Chavasse, Le sacramentaire g´elasien (above, n. 13), 353–4. T. Klauser (ed.), Das R¨omische Capitulare Evangeliorum: Texte und Untersuchungen zu seiner ¨ Altesten Geschichte 1: Typen (M¨unster, 1935; second edition 1972), 38, footnote to par. 198; see the discussion of this passage in Chavasse, Le sacramentaire g´elasien (above, n. 13), 359. It must be emphasized, however, that the Old Gelasian sacramentary as we have it is a later compilation, of the mid-eighth century (with many Frankish additions). For a good recent account of the manuscript, its contents, and the issues it raises, see M. Smyth, La liturgie oubli´ee: la pri`ere eucharistique en Gaule antique et dans l’occident non romain (Paris, 2003), 125–45.

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feast of the Exaltation is recorded in all Western Mass-lists.38 Sergius found a way for the Western Latin Church to adopt the Exaltation of the Cross without reference to the Constantinopolitan feast of the same day. Rome did not need to imitate Constantinople: it simply had to discover, and recover, the devotional treasures of its own ancient Christian traditions. The Liber Pontificalis’s narrative of Sergius’s discovery should be seen as one more example of the ways in which, at the end of the seventh century, papal Rome was asserting its intellectual and political independence from imperial Constantinople.39 My third and final example of how the liturgy at Saint Peter’s looked out to a wider world beyond Rome is the celebration of All Saints in the chapel in front of the martyrium of Saint Peter, to the south side of the nave, in parte virorum. At the conference, members were fortunate to be able to examine one of the texts inscribed in stone for that chapel at the time of Gregory III (now displayed in the crypt of Saint Peter’s, above and to the left of the tomb of Emperor Otto II).40 Charles McClendon has written in detail on ‘Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy’,41 so I wish to conclude this chapter by making a single point about Gregory’s project for the chapel in Saint Peter’s. Gregory III planned that, to honour the Saviour and his holy mother, relics of the holy apostles and ‘all the holy martyrs and confessors, perfect and righteous’, resting in peace throughout the world, should be brought together in safety within his new chapel. These saints should be commemorated in a special vigil and Mass each day, not only for the saints of the day who appeared in the local calendar of feast days, but also for all saints throughout the world, including (by implication) those who were known only to God.42 This provision was remarkable. Saint Peter was chief of the apostles, who had been told by Christ to ‘go therefore, teach ye all nations’.43 Now, Pope Gregory III planned that all nations should send back relics of their saints, 38

39

40

41 42

43

Klauser, Das R¨omische Capitulare Evangeliorum (above, n. 36), Type Delta (Roman, c. 740), 84, par. 223; Type Sigma (Roman, c. 755), 123, no. 225; and all later lists of gospel lections. See T. F. X. Noble, The Republic of Saint Peter: the Birth of the Papal State 620–825 (Philadelphia, 1984). For a photograph, see V. Lanzani, Le grotte vaticane: memorie storiche, devozioni, tombe dei papi (Rome, 2010), 242. See McClendon, this volume, 214–28. Biography of Gregory III, Life 92, c. 6, LP, I, 417; H. Mordek, ‘Rom, Byzanz und die Franken ¨ im 8. Jahrhundert. Zur Uberlieferung und kirchenpolitischen Bedeutung der Synodus Romana Papst Gregor III. vom Jahre 732 (mit Edition)’, in G. Althoff, D. Geuenich, O. G. Oexle and J. Wollasch (eds.), Person und Gemeinschaft im Mittelalter. Karl Schmid zum F¨unfundsechzigsten Geburtstag (Sigmaringen, 1988), 123–56. Matthew 28.19.

Interactions between liturgy and politics

to lie near Peter’s body. Gregory was perhaps inspired by Pope John IV who had died in 642, and who had, like himself, opposed an emperor (Constans II Pogonatos) when that emperor had fallen into heresy (Monotheletism). When the Avars captured Dalmatia, John IV, himself a Dalmatian, had sent envoys to gather the relics of Dalmatian saints, had these relics brought to Rome, and placed then in the newly rebuilt chapel of Saint Venantius at the Lateran baptistery, where the pope’s own father, also called Venantius, was buried.44 Now in 732, through his chapel at Saint Peter’s, Gregory III would do something consistent with what Pope John IV had done some eighty years before. But Gregory planned something much more ambitious and universal, and planned that this should be done in a much more public place, at the martyrium of the basilica dedicated to Rome’s greatest martyr and first bishop. At the height of the first imperial campaign against images, Gregory III planned that Saint Peter’s should become, through its treasures, its relics and the new daily Mass and office performed in its new chapel of All Saints, a visual and liturgical image, as it were a microcosm, of the communion of saints. Gregory planned that this chapel would develop in richness and spiritual power, as more of the relics of the saints throughout the world were added to it. In the chapel each day, liturgical action and chant proclaimed the relevance of, and gave eloquent life to, the growing collection of relics and sacred images it would contain. Relics, sacred images and liturgy would daily provide an eloquent multi-media image of what the communion of saints involved: and, not incidentally, an unforgettable daily refutation of imperial iconoclasm. 44

G. Mackie, Early Christian Chapels in the West: Decoration, Function and Patronage (Toronto, 2003), 212–30.

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A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII (705–7) antonella ballardini and paola pogliani

Fig. 10.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 10.

This chapter will propose a reconstruction of one of the medieval chapels in Old Saint Peter’s, the oratory of Pope John VII (705–7) (Fig. 10.1), which is arguably the part of the basilica’s interior for which the most evidence still survives, including both mosaics and sculptural decoration in addition to written records. The results presented here represent a summary of our collaborative research. The methodological stimulus for this project originated with La pittura medievale a Roma, 312–1431. Atlante, percorsi visivi, which was conceived and co-ordinated by Maria Andaloro. The Atlante proposes a method of interpreting pictorial decoration in medieval Roman churches by putting

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The authors are grateful to Iris Jones and John Osborne for the translation of the original Italian text.

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both extant and lost paintings in their context, using a series of plans, 3-D models and images.1 We examined the surviving fragments of the oratory and the additional extant documentation related to it, and this has enabled us to propose a new understanding of how the original space must have looked, including the decoration on the walls and, to some extent, the furnishings. In addition, we have been able to create a reconstruction of the lost chapel that places the fragments into a virtual space based on the measurements taken from the original documentary sources. This information was used in the reconstruction and 3-D model undertaken by Marco Carpiceci (Universit`a ‘Sapienza’, Faculty of Engineering, Department RADAAr) and the graphical presentation of the 3-D model created by Giovanni DiBenedetto.

The oratory of John VII in Old Saint Peter’s: architectural decoration and furnishings antonella ballardini On 21 March 706, Pope John VII, natione graecus, consecrated an oratory dedicated to the Holy Mother of God in the first section of the outer north aisle of Saint Peter’s, intending that he would be buried there (Figs. 10.1 and 10.2).2 Over the long course of its existence this chapel would be modified a number of times, most particularly when the Volto Santo (the Veil of Veronica) was deposited there. At the end of the twelfth century, a monumental ciborium was constructed to house this precious relic.3 The oratory was partly dismantled when the Holy Door of the Jubilee was installed; and finally, in September 1609, it was completely demolished, along with the last remaining vestiges of the Constantinian basilica. Before the chapel disappeared, however, Pope Paul V Borghese ordered that it should be fully documented by drawings and a written description. This task was assigned to Giacomo Grimaldi, a cleric, archivist and notary in 1

2

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M. Andaloro (ed.), La pittura medievale a Roma, 312–1431. Atlante, percorsi visivi, I, Suburbio, Vaticano, Rione Monti (Milan, 2006). For the complete text presented at the 2010 British School conference, see A. Ballardini, ‘Un oratorio per la Theotokos: Giovanni VII committente in San Pietro’, in Medioevo: i committenti. Atti del XIII convegno internazionale di Parma, Parma 21–26 settembre 2010 (Milan, 2011), 94–116. P. C. Claussen, ‘Il tipo romano del ciborio con reliquie: questioni aperte sulla genesi e la funzione’, in Arredi di culto e disposizioni liturgiche a Roma da Costantino a Sisto IV. Atti del colloquio internazionale, Istituto Olandese a Roma, 3–4 dicembre 1999 (Mededelingen 59) (Assen, 2001), 229–49, esp. p. 233.

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Fig. 10.2. BAV, Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 94v–95r.

the service of the Vatican. Grimaldi not only had to prepare a detailed report on the deconsecration of the chapel’s ancient altars and the relocation of its relics, but he also had to make sure that the visual documentation kept up with the pace of the demolition, which moved forward rapidly. This part of the project had initially been entrusted to Domenico Tasselli, whose drawings survive along with those of other artists in Album A.64 ter of the Archivio del Capitolo di San Pietro (BAV, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro A.64 ter, fols. 12, 18, 30, 31, 32). In order to form an idea of what the oratory must have looked like, leading to the hypothetical reconstruction here proposed, various sources were examined. Apart from Album A.64 ter, which includes a miscellany of drawings made before the oratory and its mosaics were dismantled, four other Grimaldi manuscripts were also consulted. The first of these was MS H.3 of the Chapter archives (BAV, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro H.3, fols. 21r–34r, 65v, 113r–125r, 149v–150r and 209r), the Opusculum de Sacrosancto Veronicae Sudario. This dates to about a year earlier than a second manuscript, the

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

well-known Instrumenta Autentica (BAV, Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 71v–75r, 88v– 95r, 112v, 120v, 219v–222v), of which the parts that are of relevance here were compiled in 1619 (see Fig. 10.2). Also examined were the meticulous 1620 copy of the Opusculum, now preserved in Florence (BNCF, II-III-173, fols. 15v–19r, 99r–110r), and the one sent in 1621 to Federico Borromeo (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, cod. A 168 inf., fols. 16r–21v, 23v–27r, 92r– 127r, 183). Nevertheless, it is the surviving stones and fragments of mosaic from the ancient oratory that constitute the real starting-point for this study. Five stone slabs engraved with an inhabited vine scroll motif, dating from the Severan period, are preserved today in the Vatican grottoes (Fig. 10.3).4 Three of these, almost intact, are about 2.94 m high, but the other two are missing their lower portion. The width of the slabs varies: the widest one measures 0.50 m. It is decorated with a mythological subject: an image of Tellus, nursing a karpos, and surrounded by the seasons. We know that these reliefs come from the oratory of John VII because Grimaldi mentions these very elegant and ancient friezes, which were carved docta manu. After the friezes were dismantled, they were placed in the Vatican grottoes, where some were reused as door frames in the Clementine ambulatory. The seventeenth-century drawings demonstrate that, in their medieval arrangement, the reused antique friezes were placed such that their carved decorations would still be iconographically legible (Figs. 10.4–10.5). This may have been due to John VII’s classical education, which may have prompted a possible Christian interpretation of Tellus and the seasons, and the underlying myth of the regeneration of a female deity, a goddess of fertility and the underworld. This would have been completely in character with the theme of the oratory, a funeral chapel dedicated to the Theotokos, and is a plausible hypothesis given that John was a vir eruditissimus et facundus eloquentia, a son of the last known curator of the imperial palace, a man who chose the Palatine hill as the site of his episcopal residence following his election as pope.5 In 1969, Nordhagen suggested that a sixth frieze, now in the grottoes, inside the chapel of Saint Leo, should also be linked to the Severan series (Fig. 10.6).6 Previously assigned by Toynbee and Ward-Perkins to 4

5 6

J. M. C. Toynbee and J. B. Ward-Perkins, ‘Peopled scrolls: a Hellenistic motif in imperial art’, PBSR 18 (1950), 1–43, esp. pp. 20–1 and plates XVIII–XIX; B. Nobiloni, ‘I pilastri marmorei dell’oratorio di Giovanni VII nella vecchia basilica di San Pietro’, Xenia Antiqua 8 (1999), 69–128. LP, I, 385. P. J. Nordhagen, ‘A carved pilaster in the Vatican grottoes: some remarks on the sculptural techniques of early Middle Ages’, Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia 4 (1969), 113–19.

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Fig. 10.3. Vatican grottoes, five pilasters of the Severan period.

the final, degenerate stage of Hellenistic inhabited vine scroll decoration, Nordhagen attributed the work to the early Middle Ages and suggested that it deliberately copied the classical reliefs. This eighth-century frieze is somewhat different from its classical predecessors: the forms are simplified, and the base has a socle. The only part of

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

Fig. 10.4. Prospect of John VII’s oratory, a copy of MS H.3, BAV, Vat. lat. 8404, fols. 113v–14r.

the frieze decorated with the vine pattern, however, is the same height as the antique models. In all the Grimaldi drawings, the carved slabs, alternating with marble plaques, are depicted as being placed above a continuous base or plinth. Looking more carefully, we observe that in the north wall view found in Barb. lat. 2733 (Fig. 10.2) only the westernmost of the friezes is decorated all the way down to the base, and in my opinion corresponds to the sixth frieze identified by Nordhagen. Thus, according to Grimaldi’s documentation, two of the oratory friezes are certainly recognizable: the Tellus relief and the Nordhagen relief. To these we can add a cut pilaster under the window and another whole one. This means that we can locate only four of the six surviving fragments within the chapel. If we were to make an estimate of the actual size of the oratory and the placement of the windows, we would have to assume either that it extended beyond Nordhagen’s relief, or else that the north wall had five pilasters, not four. Even if we accepted this hypothesis, however, it would still leave out one of the slabs, which could certainly not have been placed on the eastern wall of the chapel, beside the twisted columns that flanked the altar. Grimaldi does indicate that the eastern wall had friezes that resembled those on the northern wall, but with a distinct decorative feature: they were crowned by

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Fig. 10.5. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory, north wall.

carved vases overflowing with grapes and supported by panthers (see BAV, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro H.3, fol. 123r, letter C). So the decorations had to be far more numerous than those now known to us, and it seems highly probable that, on the colonnade side, the chapel was separated from the nave by a wall, which would have been at least as high as the north wall revetment, and decorated in the same way. A document from 1499 records how, a few days before the beginning of the Jubilee, Pope Alexander VI ordered the enlargement of the Porta Aurea, which necessitated the dismantling of ‘muros ante et a latere predictam capellam claudentes . . . ut popolus liberius posset pertransire’.7 Alfarano, in the first edition of the plan of Saint Peter’s (1571), still shows a wall on the west side, with an entrance into the oratory. In my opinion the chapel 7

E. Celani (ed.), Johannis Burckardi, Liber Notarum, ab Anno MCCCCLXXXIII usque ad Annum MDVI, II (Citt`a di Castello, 1943), 179, cited in D. Kinney, ‘Spolia’, in W. Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Cambridge, 2005), 30 and 44 (n. 95).

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

Fig. 10.6. Vatican grottoes, eighth-century pilaster.

Fig. 10.7. Milan, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, cod. A 168 inf., fol. 97r.

was planned architecturally as a separate space, protected by walls that were at least 3.20 m high, and possibly even more.8 The measurements of Old Saint Peter’s, calculated by Krautheimer and Frazer, enable us to make an estimate of the chapel’s dimensions. The long 8

Blaauw, CD, 573.

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side included three columns of the north aisle, and measured approximately 12.20 m. The width, corresponding to that of the aisle, was about 8.70 m. As to the elevation, the roof trusses reached about 13.83 m, and the east wall would have been decorated to almost that height, covered in marble plaques, friezes, columns and mosaics.9 If we collate the information from Grimaldi’s drawings with the measurements of the twisted columns and the Theotokos image (both of which still exist), and also take into account the size of the Holy Door, we obtain a set of dimensional relationships that gives us a better idea of the visual impact of the chapel’s decorations. We can establish that the impost of the altar archivolt was at least 4.70 m above the floor, that the arch span was around 3.70 m, and that the apex of the arch surpassed 7 m. Veined marble sheathed the walls above the archivolt in Grimaldi’s time, running all the way up to the mosaics, which started more than 8 m above the ground. The great height of the mosaics was necessary because the archivolt protruded over the altar. In order to ensure that the mosaics were fully visible, particularly the Theotokos, they would have to be placed quite high up. And if, as I believe, the intended vantage point coincided with John VII’s tomb, which was located in the floor at some distance from the altar and marked by an epitaph, this supposition would make sense. Domenico Tasselli’s drawing seems to confirm this, and it was certainly drawn while the mosaics were still in place (see BAV, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro A.64 ter, fol. 31). Another detail also deserves some attention. Grimaldi notes that the Theotokos was flanked by two columns. These towered more than 3 m high, and were made of black marble valde extimato, suggesting a specific function (Fig. 10.5). Grimaldi in fact mentions that the image of the Virgin, who was garbed like an empress and portrayed in the act of praying, was at one time hidden by a veil. This slid along a rod attached to the tips protruding from the capitals of the columns, and it is worth recalling that in Constantinople one of the Theotokos images venerated at Blachernae was ritually unveiled.10 The altar in our oratory had a similar device, given that the capitals of the twisted columns supported an iron rod, which in Grimaldi’s day still retained its curtain rings. But on what did the precious black columns on either side of the Virgin rest? This part of the wall and its decoration seems to have posed 9 10

CBCR, V, 245–85. This testimony about the synethes thauma dates from the middle of the eleventh century; see B. V. Pentcheva, Icone e potere. La Madre di Dio a Bisanzio (Milan, 2010), 204–11. However, the miraculous weekly ceremony would have had a long tradition by then; see M. Bacci, Il pennello dell’evangelista. Storia delle immagini sacre attribuite a San Luca (Pisa, 1998), 140–1.

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

problems, and in almost every manuscript one can see how the artists struggled to render the two-dimensional mosaics along with the threedimensional columns, since the columns inevitably had to protrude beyond the plane of the image. For both static and formal reasons, I would suggest that the black columns must have been placed in a niche cut into the east wall, which would have been shallow in order to accommodate the mosaic icon of the Theotokos. The different planes seen in the drawings between the columns and the Theotokos suggest that a niche did exist. The arrangement that I propose is quite similar to that of the Ariadne ivory in the collection of the Bargello Museum in Florence (with its curtains pulled back!) or the many stone icons of the Blachernitissa in Constantinople. As for the twisted columns, I think that they must have always been in the oratory.11 Filarete in his time admired them in the chapel ‘of Veronica’; and Nicolaus Muffel, who visited the basilica in 1452, specifically mentions fourteen columns ‘from the temple of Solomon’, two of which were placed ‘in front of the altar of Veronica . . . and the other twelve . . . in the choir’.12 John VII was therefore a quarter of a century ahead of Gregory III, who subsequently doubled the number of twisted columns at the altar of the apostle, initially brought de Grecia by Constantine and later realigned by Gregory I. Another feature that distinguishes John VII’s oratory is the frequent display of writing, clearly influenced by the ancient concept of a funerary monument. I am referring not only to John’s epitaph, known from its inclusion in the Cambridge anthology,13 but more particularly to the tabula ansata (measuring 0.54 × 9.2 × 0.075 m) discovered by Grimaldi in 1606, already broken in two, inside the Veronica ciborium.14 This inscription, written on the reverse of a decorated marble slab, is composed with letters carved in relief against the background (Fig. 10.8). The use of the genitive case – Iohannis s[e]rvi s(an)c(t)ae Mariae – parallels ancient tituli placed over the entrance of a property to identify the owner. Therefore I imagine that John’s titulus must have been set over the door of the oratory. Moreover, 11

12

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14

A. Ballardini, ‘Scultura a Roma: standards qualitativi e committenza (VIII secolo)’, in V. Pace (ed.), L’VIII secolo: un secolo inquieto (Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Cividale del Friuli, 4–7 dicembre 2008) (Cividale del Friuli, 2010), 141–8, esp. p. 143. Kinney, ‘Spolia’ (above, n. 7), 30; B. Nobiloni, ‘Le colonne vitinee della basilica di San Pietro a Roma’, Xenia Antiqua 6 (1997), 81–142, esp. p. 85; N. Muffel, Descrizione della citt`a di Roma nel 1452. Delle indulgenze e dei luoghi sacri di Roma (Der ablas und die heiligen stet zu Rom) ed. G. Wiedmann (Bologna, 1999), 50–1. ¨ W. Levison, ‘Aus Englischen Bibliotheken II’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft f¨ur Altere Deutsche Geschichtskunde 35 (1910), 363–4, and A. Silvagni, ‘La silloge epigrafica di Cambridge’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 20 (1943), 49–112, esp. pp. 111–12. N. Gray, ‘The paleography of Latin inscriptions in the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries in Italy’, PBSR 16 (1948), 38–162, esp. p. 49.

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Fig. 10.8. Vatican grottoes, titulus of John VII’s oratory.

the tabula ansata is broken in the middle, a form of damage that typically occurs to door lintels.15 Grimaldi also describes another important discovery. Under the floor of the chapel, in the space between the altar and the porphyry oval, not far from the tomb thought to be that of John, a fragment of a Greek inscription was found, magno caractere exaratum. Grimaldi copied it carefully, but it was later lost (see BAV, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro H.3, fols. 124v–125r). The expression τῆς Θεοτόκου, the large lettering, and the similar tabula ansata form suggest that the Greek inscription was related to the Latin one. In John VII’s other well-known project, Santa Maria Antiqua, the Latin and Greek sphragis of the pope are on the ambo together, the expressions τῆς Θεοτόκου and ‘Sanctae Mariae’ are again used alternately, and we find the same decorative motifs and careful workmanship, suggesting that the inscriptions are both from the same workshop.16 Therefore I venture to suggest that when the lintel was assembled over the entrance, the lost Greek inscription was likely to have been placed back-to-back with the Latin one. The doorway was thus inscribed on both front and back. The upper edge of the architrave must have coincided also with the highest part of the entrance wall, because that part of the tabula ansata has been carefully rounded and smoothed. Another inscription in the oratory, dating from the time of Hadrian I (772–95), also deserves careful consideration (Fig. 10.9).17 In Grimaldi’s 15

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A. Ballardini, ‘Scultura per l’arredo liturgico nella Roma di Pasquale I: tra modelli paleocristiani e Flechtwerk’, in A. C. Quintavalle (ed.), Medioevo: arte e storia. Atti del convegno internazionale di Parma, 18–22 settembre 2007 (Parma and Milan, 2008), 225–46, esp. pp. 230–1. Gray, ‘Paleography of Latin inscriptions’ (above, n. 14), 48–9. Gray, ‘Paleography of Latin inscriptions’ (above, n. 14), 53–4.

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Fig. 10.9. Vatican grottoes, an altar inscription by Hadrian I from John VII’s oratory (783).

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day it was set into the north wall beside Nordhagen’s frieze (Fig. 10.2), and although he deplored the crudeness of the inscription, it was not at all a mediocre piece. Despite the trembling ductus of the stone-cutter, the letters are well balanced, and the fact that it is inscribed on a finely cut slab of pavonazzetto marble is also significant. A document in the basilica’s archives confirms that this inscription belonged to the chapel, and mentions the consecration of the altars in the oratory.18 In the text a relic speaks in the first person: ✙ temporibu(s) / d(omi)n(i) hadriani / papae hic recun /dita sum reliqu(i) / a s(ancti) sanctorum in / mense nobebri / d(ie) xxii ind(ictione) septima bin/a clusura in (i) / ntegro q(uae) p(onitur) in / septiniana. Since the Veil of Veronica is not documented in Saint Peter’s any earlier than the tenth century, one can only wonder what relic would have been described in Hadrian I’s time as the ‘Holy of Holies’.19 This term harks back to the Old Testament, and refers to the most sacred space in the Temple at Jerusalem. Pope Hadrian I mentions it in his Synodica addressed to the Emperors Constantine and Irene in 785, describing the propitiatorium and the curtain of the Holy of Holies ‘which God himself chose in a fabric of various colours’.20 However, from a New Testament perspective, the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant are used as epithets to describe the Theotokos in the most famous eastern hymn to Mary, the Akathistos, now firmly assigned to the end of the fifth century or to the first decades of the sixth.21 The hymn has a sophisticated theological structure, and in stanza XXIII the Theotokos is presented as a ‘temple of the Word of God’. This passage suggests that the hymn might have been written to celebrate the dedication of the Blachernae Sanctuary or of the chapel added by Emperor Leo I to contain the relic of Mary’s maphorion.22 Solomon’s temple was sanctified by the descent of the Glory of God, and likewise Mary was sanctified by the descent of the Holy Spirit at the Incarnation, when she became the place of the living Word, which through her took on a human nature. Giacomo Grimaldi used a specific term to identify the Virgin in the oratory mosaic: Deipara, which is not only the correct translation for Theotokos, but also seems to evoke a particular state 18

19 20

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P. Egidi, Necrologi e libri affini della provincia romana, 2 vols. (Rome, 1908–14), I, 272; compare Grimaldi’s comments in BAV, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro H.3, fols. 29r–v. See van Dijk, this volume, 246–7 and 254–6. E. Russo (ed.), Vedere l’invisibile. Nicea e lo statuto dell’immagine (Palermo, 1997), 15–27, esp. p. 19. P. de Meester, ‘L’inno Acatisto (Ακάθιστος ῞Υμνος)’, Bessarione 8/6 (1904), 9–16, 159–65, 252–7; and Bessarione 9/7 (1904), 36–40, 134–42, 213–24; E. Toniolo, Akathistos. Saggi di critica e di teologia (Rome, 2000), 249–60. Toniolo suggests that the hymn was written by Basilius of Seleucia (after 468). Toniolo, Akathistos (above, n. 21), 222, 246.

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

of Mary, who is portrayed in the mosaic with the full, rounded shape of a pregnant woman.23 Echoes of the Akathistos can also be found in John’s epitaph, when he entrusts his soul sanctae sub tegmine matris / Innuba que peperit virgo parensque deum (to ‘the protection of the Holy Mother who gave birth as an unmarried virgin, creating God’).24 This invocation of the virgo innuba recalls that of the χαῖρε, Νύμφη ἀγύμφευτε in the Akathistos, which is repeated twelve times, becoming a sort of refrain. The reference in John’s epitaph to this Greek hymn acquires a special meaning when we recall that in the Akathistos epilogue anyone who makes an offering to the Virgin can ask in return for her protection from all disasters, and freedom from future punishment. The expression sub tegmine matris, evocative of Virgil, might also refer to a relic of the Virgin preserved inside the oratory altar, the place where John himself was to be buried. This relic could have been some piece of the crib or even the highly revered maphorion. Its presence would have justified also the inscription over the archway of the altar: Domus Sanctae Dei Genitricis Mariae. Carlo Bertelli already pointed out the connection between the inscription and the οἶκος (σορός) built by the Byzantine Emperor Leo I at the Blachernae to preserve Mary’s veil.25 To return to Hadrian I’s inscription, it seems likely that this elegant piece of pavonazzetto comes from the oratory altar. In 783, during an inspection or re-dedication, the inscription was apparently executed directly on a vertical plane of John VII’s altar, on the frame around the fenestella confessionis, given that the relic of the Holy of Holies claims to have been placed in the altar bina clusura. Phrygian marble had, after all, always been used for Saint Peter’s altar. It was a tradition that dated back to the original Constantinian structure, and was then retained when the altars of Gregory I, Callixtus II (1123) and even Clement VIII were built. As de Blaauw reminds us, they were ‘unum et idem’.26 23

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P. J. Nordhagen, ‘The mosaics of John VII (705–707 AD)’, Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia 2 (1965), 121–66, esp. pp. 125–8, and P. Pogliani, ‘Le campiture cromatiche. Un caso esemplare: i frammenti musivi dell’oratorio di Giovanni VII (705–707) dall’antica basilica di San Pietro’, in G. Biscontin and G. Driussi (eds.), I mosaici. Cultura, tecnologia, conservazione (Atti del convegno di studi, Bressanone 2–5 luglio 2002) (Scienza e beni culturali 18) (Venice 2002), 59–68. Ann van Dijk has already noted a connection between the Akathistos, the Annunciation iconography and the Theotokos’s role as mediator in the oratory mosaics; see A. van Dijk, ‘The angelic salutation in early Byzantine and medieval Annunciation imagery’, The Art Bulletin 71 (1999), 420–36, esp. pp. 423–9. C. Bertelli, La Madonna di Santa Maria in Trastevere. Storia, iconografia, stile di un dipinto romano dell’ottavo secolo (Rome, 1961), 121 (n. 116). S. de Blaauw, ‘Unum et idem: der Hochaltar von Sankt Peter im 16. Jahrhundert’, in G. Sartzinger and S. Sch¨utze (eds.), Santkt Peter in Rom 1506–2006. Akten Internationalen Tagung vom 22.–25. 2.2006 in Bonn (Munich, 2008), 227–41.

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To conclude, I shall translate John VII’s epitaph, which explains the meaning of the chapel better than any ekphrasis: a place where the mystery of Mary’s motherhood transforms humankind’s ancient aspiration to be remembered forever in the certainty of eternal life. Here bishop John determined to be buried and ordered that he should be placed under the feet of the domina entrusting his soul to the protection of the Holy Mother, the unmarried Virgin who gave birth to God. Here, the place delivered from its ancient squalor, brought together every decoration in order to astonish squanderer (= prodiga) posterity, not for the vainglory which shall be extinguished under the sky but for a devout passion for the one who bore God O Holy Mother, everything that was precious I offered you without sparing. I gave to the poor all that remained, as demonstrated by the stranger who, exhausted from the ocean, reaches the city finding the nourishment that the vase of life dispenses;27 Therefore, before the Most High, hope is placed in you, O alma Mother.

The oratory of John VII in Old Saint Peter’s: the mosaics paola pogliani The Virgin Mary, depicted in royal robes as the Queen of Heaven, was the focal point of John VII’s funerary chapel in Old Saint Peter’s. Not only does she represent the pope’s devotion to Mary, since he appears beside her, alive and in the act of offering the Virgin a model of the oratory, but she is also the pivotal figure for the Christological cycle originally depicted on the east wall of the chapel.28 27

28

I am grateful to Richard M. Pollard for having suggested a better translation of this verse. The vase of life, meaning the Theotokos, acquires a strong ecclesiological meaning and makes the reference to the Urbs in the previous verse unmistakable. My interest in the mosaics of John VII’s oratory dates back to my Master’s thesis at the University of Tuscia (Viterbo), Faculty of Conservation of Cultural Heritage, with Maria Andaloro and Michele Cordaro (1996–7). This chapter does not include the section of my original thesis on how the mosaics were executed, and contains only the essential references. I intend in future to publish elsewhere the complete version of my text and notes. The present contribution is dedicated to Michele Cordaro for having led me on a journey that demonstrates that analysis of a work of art goes beyond the image to address both processes of production and any changes that it has subsequently experienced over time.

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

Along with the paintings of Santa Maria Antiqua, the mosaics of John VII’s oratory provide extraordinary visual evidence for the degree of artistic excellence achieved in Rome during his brief pontificate.29 According to the Liber Pontificalis,30 the pope was a vir eruditissimus, and he supported the development of a pictorial language which, as recent studies have highlighted, could be used to communicate intricate messages concerning liturgical, theological and possibly even political topics.31 Although the oratory no longer exists, it has been possible to obtain an idea of what it looked like from the surviving fragments of mosaic decoration and sculpture, based on Giacomo Grimaldi’s accurate, illustrated descriptions, and the painter Domenico Tasselli’s visual documentation. This documentation is a starting-point for understanding the oratory’s iconographic programme, and how this was displayed on the walls of the chapel shortly before it was destroyed in 1609 to make way for the new basilica. Giacomo Grimaldi dedicated a large section of the Instrumenta Autentica,32 which was written from 1612 onwards, to the oratory of John VII, and to the process of detaching its mosaics (BAV, Barb. lat. 2732; Barb. lat. 2733; Vat. lat. 11988; G 13). Grimaldi also referred to the chapel on numerous occasions in his volume on the Veil of Veronica, the earliest version of which is dated to the year 1618 (BAV, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro H.3). Grimaldi’s images of the oratory mainly show one prospect, namely depictions of the east and north walls, with close-up views of the mosaics. On the east wall, the mosaics portrayed the Virgin, with the donor, and a Christological cycle. On the north wall, the mosaics depicted an abbreviated 29

30 31

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Nordhagen, ‘The mosaics of John VII’ (above, n. 23); P. J. Nordhagen, ‘The frescoes of John VII (AD 705–707) in Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome’, Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia 3 (1968); M. Andaloro, ‘I mosaici dell’oratorio di Giovanni VII’, in Fragmenta Picta. Affreschi e mosaici staccati del medioevo romano (exhibition catalogue, Rome, Castel Sant’Angelo, 15 December 1989–18 February 1990) (Rome, 1989), 167–9; M. Andaloro, ‘Pittura romana e pittura a Roma da Leone Magno a Giovanni VII’, in Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nell’alto medioevo occidentale (Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 39) (Spoleto, 1992), 569–616; A. van Dijk, ‘Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople: the Peter Cycle in the oratory of Pope John VII (705–707)’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001), 303–28; Pogliani, ‘Le campiture cromatiche’ (above, n. 23); A. van Dijk, ‘Type and antitype in Santa Maria Antiqua: the Old Testament scenes on the transennae’, in J. Osborne, J. R. Brandt and G. Morganti (eds.), Santa Maria Antiqua al Foro Romano: cento anni dopo (Rome, 2004), 113–27. Life 88, c. 1, LP, I, 385. Van Dijk, ‘Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople’ (above, n. 29); A. van Dijk, ‘“Domus Sanctae Dei Genetricis Mariae”: art and liturgy in the oratory of Pope John VII’, in S. Kaspersen and E. Thunø (eds.), Decorating the Lord’s Table: On the Dynamics between Image and Altar in the Middle Ages (Copenhagen, 2006), 13–42, and R. Deshman, ‘Servants of the Mother of God in Byzantine and medieval art’, Word and Image 5 (1989), 33–70. Grimaldi, 105–30.

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cycle of the life of Saint Peter. These manuscripts and their illustrations also allow us to see how the oratory and its furnishings changed over the centuries. In particular, the space was reorganized to accommodate the ciborium containing the relic of the ‘Veronica’ during the pontificate of Celestine III (1191–8), and again when the Jubilee Door was opened in 1499. On that latter occasion, the wall separating the oratory from the adjacent aisle was destroyed. Apart from the exceptional rescue of the chapel’s icon of Mary, it is difficult to estimate solely on the basis of the seventeenth-century drawings the extent to which the mosaics had been re-worked and restored before that time. The surviving fragments of the eastern wall mosaics are heavily restored, and those on the northern wall have been almost completely lost. Moreover, the way that the mosaics were drawn at the beginning of the seventeenth century has encouraged the belief that the original decoration belonged entirely to the era of John VII, and this notion still has some credibility.33 Giacomo Grimaldi probably also fostered this idea, since he thought that the whole oratory, including the ciborium, dated from John VII’s time. However, when William Tronzo analysed the seventeenth-century drawings, certain discrepancies led him to suggest that the Peter cycle had been added at a later moment in the Middle Ages. He proposed to date the north wall mosaics to the late twelfth century, linking them to the ciborium built by Celestine III.34 It seems useful for the purpose of our reconstruction to examine the structure of the north wall, taking into account the information provided by the layout of the lower part of the mosaic, and the characteristics described in Grimaldi’s drawings. There are some discrepancies between the H.3 manuscript, published in 1618 (see Fig. 10.4), and the Instrumenta Autentica (Fig. 10.2), begun in 1619. The differences regard both the marble friezes and casing, and the views of the oratory. It is important to remember that these drawings were not copied from Domenico Tasselli’s illustrations. As far as we know, Grimaldi’s drawing of the north wall is based exclusively on his visual memory. And at that time, according to Grimaldi, the mosaic cycle had been permanently damaged by humidity. If we examine the two manuscripts closely, however, it becomes clear that they are complementary. Manuscript H.3 describes the mosaics, while the Barberini manuscript describes the 33

34

Nordhagen, ‘The mosaics of John VII’ (above, n. 23); and van Dijk, ‘Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople’ (above, n. 29). W. Tronzo, ‘Setting and structure in two Roman wall decorations of the early Middle Ages’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987), 477–92.

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

friezes and marble sheathing, and how they relate to the window. Both manuscripts show, however, that the Peter cycle mosaics reached all the way up to the roof trusses. Since we know the height of the entire wall and of the marble sheathing, we can estimate that the mosaics must have reached about 10 m in height. The width of the mosaics is harder to calculate. The drawing in the Barberini manuscript doesn’t show any frames on the left side of the panels, suggesting that the mosaics may have continued towards the west. However, the drawing in manuscript H.3 is very detailed, and shows the mosaics framed to the left and to the right by colourful foliage. This suggests that the mosaics did not extend any farther than shown by the drawings. One piece of information that emerges clearly from a comparison between the north wall and east wall is that the mosaic cycle dedicated to Saint Peter was much wider than the cycle dedicated to Christ and its scenes must have been constructed on a considerably larger scale. Each individual panel measured more than 3 m in height, and the figure of Peter in the act of preaching must have measured more than 2.5 m. If we trust the proportions given in the H.3 drawing, the cycle would have been about 7 m long. This observation supports Tronzo’s reflection that Peter and Paul on the north wall were far larger than the figures in the panels of the east wall. In fact, Grimaldi’s drawings show that the two apostles were proportioned on the same scale as the Theotokos in the niche. The scenery in the panels on the two walls is also conceived differently: the Peter cycle included quite a few buildings intended to give a geographic context to the events. Finally, the inscriptions in the Peter cycle are framed, while those in the Christological cycle are not (Figs. 10.2 and 10.4). The biggest difficulty encountered in trying to establish a chronology for the mosaics on the north wall is that the only surviving fragment, depicting Peter preaching to the Romans, has been completely reconstructed. Quite a few intact sections of the technically sophisticated eighth-century mosaics still do exist, but the Peter cycle fragment cannot be compared with them, since it is not original. However, since this cycle is so oversized compared with the Christ cycle on the east wall, its proportions alone seem to support Tronzo’s theory. In a decorative cycle, the proportions of individual parts always reflect a strict hierarchical order, and the centre of the oratory’s decorative scheme had to be the east wall, with the icon of the Virgin, the figure of the papal donor, and the Christ cycle (Figs. 10.10–10.12, Plate 5). I have tried to identify a historical period that would be most favourable to creating the Peter cycle, which effectively broke the axial setting of the oratory scaena. The age of Innocent III (1198–1216) seems the most likely

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Fig. 10.10. Wall of John VII’s oratory. The surviving mosaic fragments have been superimposed on the drawing in Barb. lat. 2733, and the areas that were detached and subsequently lost are outlined.

time,35 since this pope renewed the oratory’s liturgical function in 1208, when he introduced a procession to be held on the Sunday following the octave of Epiphany. In this procession, which took place outside the church, the canons of Saint Peter’s carried the Veil of Veronica to the hospital of Santo Spirito. There, a stage was set up, and the pope would exhibit the relic to the faithful. The stories of Peter in the oratory seem to fall in line with Innocent’s strong ecclesiological bent. The three scenes of Peter preaching are unique in the traditional iconography of the apostle, a clear reference to Peter’s primacy over the three other patriarchal sees and, therefore, an explicit affirmation of the Roman pontiff. Having excluded the Peter cycle from the chapel’s eighth-century decorative programme, we can turn our attention to the mosaics of the east wall (Fig. 10.10). The proportions suggested by the seventeenth-century 35

P. Pogliani, ‘Le storie di Pietro nell’oratorio di Giovanni VII nella basilica di San Pietro’, in L. Lazzari and A. M. Valente Bacci (eds.), La figura di San Pietro nelle fonti del Medioevo (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2001), 505–23.

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

Fig. 10.11. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory in the north aisle of Saint Peter’s basilica.

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Fig. 10.12. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory in the north aisle of Saint Peter’s basilica.

drawings, and the size of the columns and the archivolt, make it possible for us to estimate that the mosaics began at a height of about 8 m on the east wall. Grimaldi’s measurements and some mosaic fragments make it possible to calculate approximately how much space was covered by the mosaic and how it was partitioned. The Virgin was represented with outstretched hands according to Greek tradition, and with Pope John by her side. She

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

was impressively large, measuring 15 palmi (3.35 m) according to Grimaldi (see Fig. 12.4). This measurement corresponds exactly to the dimensions of the image salvaged by request of Antonio Ricci and removed for safekeeping to the church of San Marco in Florence. This detail, combined with the fact that the image of the Virgin was set in a shallow niche, makes it possible for us to estimate the icon’s dimensions: 3.60 m high and 2.50 m wide. (Fig. 10.13.) According to the drawings, the niche was twice as high as the side panels and above them stretched a third register; thus the panels containing the Christological cycle must have measured about 1.5–2.5 m, excluding the frames. Therefore, the mosaic decoration of the east wall, which extended about 5.30 m in height and covered almost all of the wall of the northern aisle, covered a total area of about 45 square metres. Unlike the Peter cycle, the mosaic decorations of the east wall can be almost entirely reconstructed, thanks to Grimaldi’s drawings and precious annotations that describe the iconography in detail. A number of fragments of the mosaics have also survived. The oldest drawings related to these mosaics are in Album A.64 ter. This includes some watercolour drawings made by Tasselli from 1606 onwards, and a second series of plates showing individual Christological scenes. The latter were probably prepared a few days after the wall in front of the basilica was destroyed, in September 1609, possibly using the framework set up to detach the mosaics. The Instrumenta Autentica, even though based on documents from the Album, sometimes reveals new details of the individual panels. The Christological cycle included thirteen scenes from Jesus’s childhood, miracles and the Passion. The scenes were grouped into seven panels, arranged in three registers, which flanked the image of Mary and Pope John on either side. Eight fragments of this cycle have survived, and here have been put back into their context, using Grimaldi’s drawings (Fig. 10.10). The image of Mary and a bust of the papal benefactor were not the only fragments salvaged from the destruction of the oratory. Images of Saint Joseph, the Virgin, the Washing of the Child from the scene of the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, Christ entering Jerusalem, and the Virgin and Longinus from the Crucifixion were also rescued from destruction. Four other fragments were lost, according to the sources: Salome at the manger from the Nativity scene, the Resurrection of Lazarus, the Last Supper from the entrance to Jerusalem, and Christ on the Cross. On the east wall, Grimaldi noted, there was also a mosaic inscription below the niche containing the image of Mary, and another one on the front part of the archivolt above the altar (Fig. 10.10). In addition to this, in the

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Fig. 10.13. 3-D reconstruction of John VII’s oratory, east wall.

A reconstruction of the oratory of John VII

early seventeenth century a mosaic of the Virgin and Child with Saints Peter and Paul existed in the archivolt intrados. We have no visual documentation of this image, but Grimaldi did provide very precise indications about its location. In contrast, we have absolutely no useful indication of where some images of the Church Fathers may have been. The Liber Pontificalis mentions them as part of the chapel’s iconographic scheme, suggesting that they were positioned on the right and left, but it is hard to interpret what that might mean. The papal biographer uses the phrase ‘vultus erexit’, possibly to indicate that the images were set high up in the chapel.36 Grimaldi wrote that in his day the faces of the Fathers were no longer visible. He did not question the accuracy of the Liber Pontificalis reference, however, and tried to find an explanation for their complete disappearance, concluding that it must have been due to the Gothic windows that had been opened in the north wall. Unfortunately, the sources prior to Grimaldi do not mention the images’ actual location, but simply quote the Liber Pontificalis. As Joseph Wilpert already noted, the oratory’s axial structure and ornamentation suggest that left and right actually would refer to the walls below the roof trusses.37 Wilpert proposed a comparison with the decorative structure on the walls of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, where images of the patriarchs were placed within clipei and decorative bands, high up on the walls of the nave. I do not think that this kind of decorative scheme would be suitable for the oratory, where the mosaicists had a whole wall measuring 10 m at their disposal along the north side of the chapel and a similar surface on the south side. These portraits could, however, have been located just above the marble sheathing, as they were in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua, also from John VII’s time. There, a New Testament cycle decorated the chancel walls, painted along the plinth. This decorative style, as Giulia Bordi has noted, became popular and spread throughout Rome during the first half of the eighth century.38 Although there is no tangible evidence to link this style to the oratory’s decoration, in my opinion it would have been consistent with John’s decoration. However, the question of what happened to the images of the Fathers still remains unexplained, and one can only wonder how those images would have related to the precious marbles covering the oratory walls. 36 37

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Life 88, c. 1, LP I, 385. See also Van Dijk, this volume, 244–7. J. Wilpert, Die R¨omischen Mosaiken und Malereien der Kirchlichen Bauten vom IV. bis XIII. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1916), I, part 1, 400–1. G. Bordi, Gli affreschi di San Saba sul piccolo Aventino (Milan, 2008); and Van Dijk, this volume, 244–7.

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Fig. 11.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 11.

Old Saint Peter’s served as a prime setting for the celebration and promotion of papal authority. This was certainly true during the Iconoclastic Controversy from the early eighth to the mid-ninth century. Indeed, iconoclasm was first declared a heresy at a synod assembled by Pope Gregory III in the Vatican basilica. Soon after his election in 731, Gregory III summoned a synod to gather on 1 November in the basilica of Saint Peter’s in order to respond to the policy of iconoclasm that he believed was being promoted by the Byzantine Emperor Leo III.1 Pope Gregory III and his predecessor, 1

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Life 92, c. 3, LP, I, 416; for an English translation see Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 20. The precise date of the synod is provided by the preserved invitation to Antoninus, archbishop of Grado: LP, I, 421 n. 6; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 20 n. 7, and W. Hartmann, Die Synoden der Karolingerzeit im Frankenreich und in Italien (Paderborn, 1989), 41. Two recent books, T. F. X. Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians (Philadelphia, 2009), 46–110, and L. Brubaker and J. Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680–850: a History (Cambridge, 2011), 9–247, stress that clear evidence of a strong and consistent imperial policy of iconoclasm in the eastern Mediterranean during the eighth century is in reality scarce, which suggests a discrepancy

Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy

Gregory II, reportedly had sent various missives already to Constantinople condemning the ban and destruction of religious images to no avail. Now at the Vatican, according to the Liber Pontificalis, bishops, clergy, deacons and nobles assembled before the confessio of the Prince of the Apostles to declare that ‘if anyone . . . should remove, destroy, profane or blaspheme against the veneration of sacred images . . . let him be driven from . . . the unity and membership of the entire Church’.2 The choice of the location for this pronouncement of anathema was not accidental. Not only was it a structure that housed the tomb of Peter and that was believed to have been built by the Emperor Constantine, as an inscription over the arch leading into the transept proclaimed,3 but it was also filled with images, which included a mosaic in the western apse depicting Christ flanked by the apostles Peter and Paul, more mosaics on the inner transept walls presenting scenes from the Life of Saint Peter, wall paintings in the nave above the colonnades with scenes from the Old and New Testaments, the depictions of Mary in the chapel of Pope John VII, and even a mosaic on the exterior of the fac¸ade representing the Adoration of the Twenty-Four Elders from the Book of Revelation, to cite but the most prominent examples.4 As a result of all of these aspects – the apostolic tomb, Constantinian foundation, and a myriad images, not to mention papal tombs as well – Old Saint Peter’s was a ‘symbol of orthodoxy.’5 (Fig. 11.1.)

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between papal perception and Byzantine reality. For a succinct and judicious overview of current scholarly interpretations of Byzantine iconoclasm, see the new foreword by Judith Herrin to the reprint of J. Pelikan, Imago Dei: the Byzantine Apologia for Icons (Princeton, 2011), vii–xviii, as well as J. Elsner, ‘Iconoclasm as discourse: from antiquity to Byzantium’, The Art Bulletin 44 (2012), 368–94. Life 92, c. 3, LP, I, 416; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 20. Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium (above, n. 1), 84–7, downplay the actions of Pope Gregory III in relation to iconoclasm and question the accuracy of the account in the LP. This view is countered by the detailed analysis in Noble, Images (above, n. 1), 116–23, which this chapter follows. Quod duce te mundus surrexit in astra triumphans/hanc Constantinus Victor tibi condidit aulam (Because under your leadership the world in triumph has risen to the stars/Constantine Victor has founded this hall for you). Recorded in the early ninth-century Einsiedeln sylloge: ICUR-NS, II, no. 4092. For the most recent discussion of the inscription and its likely fourth-century date, see P. Liverani, ‘Saint Peter’s, Leo the Great and the leprosy of Constantine’, PBSR 76 (2008), 155–8. M. Andaloro (ed.), La pittura medievale a Roma, Corpus I, L’orizzonte tardoantico e le nuove immagini, 312–468 (Rome, 2006), I, 87–91, 411–18; M. Andaloro (ed.), La pittura medievale a Roma. Atlante, percorsi visivi, I, Suburbio, Vaticano, Rione Monti, 3 vols. (Milan, 2006), I, 20–44. See also H. L. Kessler, Old Saint Peter’s and Church Decoration in Medieval Italy (Spoleto, 2002). A phrase used by Rosamond McKitterick in her abstract for the conference on which this volume is based.

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But Gregory III did not stop here, as Thomas Noble has reminded us in his recent book, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians.6 Six months later, in April of the following year, 732, the pope assembled another synod in the basilica to consecrate a new oratory dedicated to the Saviour, the Virgin Mary, and all the saints. Located at the base of the left side of the arch leading from the nave to the transept, the oratory is described by the Liber Pontificalis as having received relics of ‘the holy apostles, and all the holy martyrs and confessors’ and to have been decorated sumptuously with various gilded ornaments along with an image of God’s Mother (Fig. 11.1).7 Sible de Blaauw, in his study of Old Saint Peter’s, suggests that this Marian image was an already extant icon because the text stresses the pope’s addition of a gold jewelled diadem and necklace.8 If so, the reuse of an old image in this new setting would have stressed the long tradition of honouring sacred images in Rome in general and Saint Peter’s in particular. ´ Carrag´ain in this volume, the ensemble ´ And, as discussed by Eamonn O included ‘inscribed stone panels’, portions of which are still preserved in the grottoes of the present church, prominently displaying instructions for continuous liturgical commemorations of the saints.9 This oratory must have been quite a multimedia showpiece, bringing together images, relics, gold, jewels and the written word, making it, in many ways, a microcosm of Old Saint Peter’s itself. In an exceptionally vivid way, therefore, Gregory III expressed his condemnation of iconoclasm and, to quote Thomas Noble, ‘proclaimed, publicly and visibly, that the emperor’s authority was no longer valid in Rome’.10 In an apparent response to the pope’s actions, the Emperor Leo III seized and transferred valuable Church properties in southern Italy, Sicily and Dalmatia from papal control to the patriarch of Constantinople and sent a 6 7 9

10

Noble, Images (above, n. 1). 8 Blaauw, CD, 597. Life 92, cc. 6–7, LP, I, 417; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 22–3. Life 92, c. 6, LP, I, 417; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 23; and Noble, Images (above, n. 1), 125. For a detailed analysis of the political significance of the oratory, see H. Mordek, ‘Rom, Byzanz ¨ und die Franken in 8. Jahrhundert: zur Uberlieferung und kirchenpolitischen Bedeutung der Synodus Romana Papst Gregor III. vom Jahre 732 (mit Edition)’, in G. Althoff, D. Geuenich, O. G. Oexle and J. Wollasch (eds.), Person und Gemeinschaft im Mittelalter (Sigmaringen, 1988), 123–56, including reproductions of the two preserved inscription fragments on p. 155, figs. 1a and 1b. For the text of these inscriptions, see also L. Eizenh¨ofer, ‘Die Marmormessen Gregors III’, Ephemerides Liturgicae 67 (1953), 112–28. See also F. A. Bauer, Das Bild der Stadt Rom im Fr¨uhmittelalter (Wiesbaden, 2004), 53–8. For the likely connection of the 1 November Feast of All Saints to the actions of Pope Gregory III at Old Saint Peter’s in association with iconoclasm in 731/2, see R. Gem, Architecture, Liturgy and Romanitas at All Saints’ Church Brixworth (27th Brixworth Lecture, 2009) (Brixworth, 2011), 33–43. Noble, Images (above, n. 1), 125.

Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy

naval force to attack Ravenna, the capital of Byzantine rule in Italy, and the Adriatic coast, but the fleet was shipwrecked in bad weather.11 It was presumably within the context of these tumultuous events that Pope Gregory III received a remarkable gift. According to the Liber Pontificalis, the exarch of Ravenna, Eutychius, gave six twisted columns to the pope.12 Five of these marble columns are preserved today, including the so-called Colonna Santa, which is now in the Treasury Museum of Saint Peter’s, and the pair in the balcony of the crossing pier above Bernini’s famous statue of Longinus.13 We do not know the reason for the gift, nor do we know the precise date when it was made, but it was no doubt a political gesture on the part of exarch. It may have had some connection also to the fact that the archbishop of Ravenna attended the aforementioned synod of 1 November 731 when iconoclasm was ceremoniously condemned.14 Whatever the circumstances, the Liber Pontificalis describes how Gregory III took full advantage of this gift: ‘He brought these [columns] into Saint Peter’s and set them . . . in front of the confessio, three on the right and three on the left, close to the other six . . . uniform in design.’15 In other words, the six columns from Ravenna were set in a line in front of those rearranged by Gregory the Great around the year 600 when the semicircular crypt was inserted in the apse and under the main altar (Fig. 11.2). The first set of six twisted columns had, according to the Liber Pontificalis, been a gift from the Emperor Constantine and are specified as having been ‘brought from Greece’.16 Thus, now the original six columns from Greece were joined by another six, remarkably similar though not identical, from Ravenna. The original source of the Ravenna columns is not known, but, like the spiral columns of Constantine, their vine scroll decoration indicates that they most likely came from the eastern Mediterranean.17 It is intriguing to note that Theodoric, who ruled Italy from 493 to 526, is known to have collected 11

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14 15 16 17

Noble, Images (above, n. 1), 125–6; Mordek, ‘Rom, Byzanz und die Franken’ (above, n. 9), 125–6; and T. F. X. Noble, The Republic of Saint Peter: the Birth of the Papal State, 680–825 (Philadelphia, 1984), 39–40. Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium (above, n. 1), 86, disagree. Life 92, c. 5, LP, I, 417; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 22. The Liber Pontificalis refers to the columns as ‘onyx’, although they are clearly of marble as made clear in the detailed studies cited in n. 13. J. B. Ward-Perkins, ‘The shrine of Saint Peter and its twelve spiral columns’, Journal of Roman Studies 42 (1952), 21–33; and B. Nobiloni, ‘Le colonne vitinee della basilica di San Pietro a Roma’, Xenia Antiqua 6 (1997), 81–142. Life 92, c. 3, LP, I, 416; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 20. Life 92, c. 5, LP, I, 417; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 22. Life 34, c. 16, LP, I, 176; Davis, Book of Pontiffs, 19. Ward-Perkins, ‘The shrine’ (above, n. 13), 27–30; and Nobiloni, ‘Le colonne’ (above, n. 13), 103–16.

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Fig. 11.2. Saint Peter’s, reconstruction of the high altar and annular crypt arrangement under Pope Gregory I around AD 600, with the placement of additional spiral columns under Pope Gregory III in the 730s.

Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy

spolia marble columns from Rome and elsewhere in Italy for his palace in Ravenna, which was the same structure that later served as the residence for the Byzantine exarch, Eutychius.18 We also know that capitals and other materials were imported from Constantinople during Theodoric’s reign for the palace church, now known as Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, and other related structures in Ravenna. Indeed, a recent study of the Vatican spiral columns has suggested that all twelve columns may well have ultimately come to Italy by way of Constantinople.19 In any event, the documented Greek association of the Constantinian columns and also of the second set, coming as they did from the Byzantine representative in Ravenna, regardless of their ultimate origin, was no doubt significant to Gregory III, and this helps to explain why he placed the gift in Old Saint Peter’s, even though a columnar screen had already existed in front of the main altar since the days of Gregory I. The Liber Pontificalis goes on to say that ‘on top of the columns (Gregory III) placed beams and coated them with fine silver on which were depicted in relief, on one side, the Saviour and apostles and, on the other, God’s mother and holy virgins’.20 These images were clearly added to underscore the pope’s defiance of iconoclasm. Moreover, Sible de Blaauw points out the striking similarity between the columnar screen at Saint Peter’s and a similar arrangement, or templon, at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople as set up by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century.21 Both are described by contemporary sources as having twelve columns carrying beams sheathed in silver with sacred images in relief, specified as in the shape of medallions at Hagia Sophia, including a portrait of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the apostles. The rows of columns may even have been doubled at Hagia Sophia in a manner similar to that at Saint Peter’s.22 Thus the pope seems to have consciously evoked a prominent 18

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Cassiodorus, Variae III, 9–10; Nobiloni, ‘Le colonne’ (above, n. 13), 116; and B. Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1984), 217–18. For an analysis of what is known about the exarch’s palace with additional bibliography, see G. Susini (ed.), Storia di Ravenna, 5 vols. (Venice, 1990–6), I, pt. 1, 269–83. Nobiloni, ‘Le colonne’ (above, n. 13), 115–16. Ward-Perkins, ‘The shrine’ (above, n. 13), 29, also stresses the importance of Constantinople for persistent evidence of the figured vine scroll in architectural sculpture. For the capitals of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, see F. W. Deichmann, Ravenna: Hauptstadt der Sp¨atantiken Abendlandes, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1969–89), I, 64–5, and II, pt. I, 125–36. 21 Blaauw, CD, 554–5. Life 92, c. 5, LP, I, 417; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 22. S. G. Xydis, ‘The chancel, barrier, solea, and ambo of Hagia Sophia’, The Art Bulletin 29 (1947), 1–24, esp. pp. 1–7, analyses and reconstructs the arrangement described by the sixth-century poet Paul the Silentiary. An English translation with commentary of the crucial passage in the poem is also found in C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1972), 87. For the origin and definition of the term templon, see M. Chatzidakis, ‘Ikonostas’, in K. Wessel and M. Restle (eds.), Reallexikon zur

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feature of the great church of Constantinople from the age of Justinian to condemn the new Byzantine policy. In fact, although the twelve silvercoated columns seem to have remained at Hagia Sophia until the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, we may suppose, given the precepts of iconoclasm, that the figural imagery on the architrave of the templon had been defaced by the time of the pope’s actions.23 If so, Gregory III may have been reacting also to what he would have considered to be an instance of sacrilegious vandalism in Constantinople itself. Thus, in several ways Gregory III saw to it that the area about the tomb and altar of Old Saint Peter’s unequivocally reflected his anti-iconoclastic stance. Not surprisingly, he also chose to be buried in the oratory of the Saviour, the Virgin Mary and all the Saints upon his death in 741.24 None the less, the Byzantine policy continued and was reaffirmed more strenuously at the Council of Heiria in 754, overseen by the new Emperor Constantine V. In fact, according to most accounts, Constantine V was even more ferocious in his support of iconoclasm and promoted not only the destruction of images but the destruction of relics as well, including tossing the sarcophagus of Saint Euphemia into the sea.25 Although some of his actions may have been exaggerated, because they come primarily from iconophile sources, nevertheless, in Rome, since the start of iconoclasm and the protests of Pope Gregory III, religious imagery and the setting for the veneration of relics had been closely linked, and this relationship would continue to play a role in papal attitudes toward iconoclasm. This is certainly true of Pope Paul I, who reigned from 757 to 767. The Liber Pontificalis leaves no doubt about Paul I’s attitude towards iconoclasm: He strenuously defended the orthodox faith, which is why he frequently sent his envoys with apostolic letters to entreat and warn the emperors Constantine and Leo to restore and establish in their erstwhile status of veneration, the sacred images of

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Byzantinischen Kunst (Stuttgart, 1973), III, cols. 326–54. For an interpretation of Paul the Silentiary’s description of the columns as ‘six times two in number’ as referring to doubled columns, see K. Kreidl-Papadopoulos, ‘Bermerkungen zum justinianischen Templon der ¨ Sophienkirche in Konstantinopel’, Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft 17 (1968), 279–89. For the report of the despoliation of the templon columns in Hagia Sophia in 1204, see: R. Michell and N. Forbes (trans.), The Chronicle of Novgorod 1016–1471 (Hattiesburg, 1970), 47. Bauer, Das Bild (above, n. 9), 58. S. Gero, Byzantine Iconoclasm during the Reign of Constantine V (CSCO 384, Subsidia 52) (Louvain, 1977), esp. pp. 152–65. On the other hand, J. Wortley, ‘Iconoclasm and leipsanoclasm: Leo III, Constantine V and the relics’, Byzantinische Forschungen 8 (1982), 253–79, reprinted in his Studies on the Cult of Relics in Byzantium up to 1204 (Farnham, 2009), chapter VII with the same pagination as the 1982 publication, and Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium (above, n. 1) 138, detect little evidence for an anti-relic policy under Constantine V.

Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy

our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, his holy mother, the blessed apostles, and all the saints, prophets, martyrs and confessors.26

Immediately following this section in the Liber Pontificalis describing the pope’s battle against iconoclasm, the biographical text provides a rather detailed account of his translation of the bodies of saints. This blessed pontiff unceasingly applied all his spiritual endeavours . . . to the cemeteries of the saints. He observed that very many locations in these cemeteries of the saints had been largely demolished through neglect . . . and were now nearly reduced to ruin, so he forthwith removed the saints’ bodies from these destroyed cemeteries. With hymns and spiritual chants he brought them inside this city of Rome and he took care to have some of them buried with fitting honour around the tituli, deaconries, monasteries and other churches.27

The text may well exaggerate the ruinous condition of the cemeteries, as John Osborne has suggested, but it none the less documents a dramatic shift in papal policy, which took place for a variety of reasons as Julia Smith, among others, has shown.28 Before this, strictures against disturbing the bodies of the dead had remained strong and popes had strenuously denied requests for any form of corporal relic. Now, bodies of Roman martyrs were being exhumed and transferred from their original graves in suburban catacombs and cemeteries to Saint Peter’s and churches inside the city’s walls.29 The most famous example of this policy was the transferral of the body of Saint Petronilla, the purported daughter of Saint Peter, from outside the walls in the catacomb of Domitilla to the rotunda that adjoined the south transept arm of the apostolic basilica in fulfilment of a promise to Pippin, king of the Franks. The Liber Pontificalis further mentions that the pope restored the ancient structure and ‘embellished it with beautiful pictures’.30 It also states that near the entrance to the newly decorated chapel of Saint Petronilla, that is in the south transept arm of Old Saint Peter’s, he set up a chapel in honour of God’s Holy Mother, adorning it with mosaic and an image of the Virgin Mary standing upright. The Liber Pontificalis also refers to the prominent tower gateway at the entrance of the atrium at the front of the basilica, which 26 27 28

29

30

Life 95, c. 3, LP, I, 464; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 82. Life 95, c. 4, LP, I, 464; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 82. J. Osborne, ‘The Roman catacombs in the Middle Ages’, PBSR 53 (1985), 279–328, and J. M. H. Smith, ‘Old saints, new cults: Roman relics in Carolingian Francia’, in J. M. H. Smith (ed.), Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough (Leiden, 2000), 317–29. Bauer, Das Bild (above, n. 9), 121–47; C. B. McClendon, The Origins of Medieval Architecture (New Haven and London, 2005), 21–34 with additional bibliography. See also C. J. Goodson, The Rome of Pope Paschal I: Papal Power, Urban Renovation, Church Rebuilding and Relic Translation, 817–824 (Cambridge, 2010), 198–218. Life 94, c. 52, and 95, c. 3, LP, I, 455 and 464; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 76 and 81.

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the pope is said to have ‘decorated magnificently’.31 It does not elaborate. Even so, this presumably refers to an exterior mosaic, seen in a fragmentary state in early sixteenth-century drawings and labelled with an inscription still visible in the early seventeenth century as ‘opus musium pauli primi’.32 Paul I therefore also seems to have used Old Saint Peter’s to proclaim his steadfast opposition to iconoclasm as well as to promote the cult of relics. In 787, the Byzantine policy of iconoclasm was rescinded at the Second Council of Nicaea, to which, according to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope Hadrian I sent a letter urging them ‘to set up sacred images, as they are in an orthodox manner venerated in the holy, catholic and apostolic Roman Church by the warrant of the scriptures and the tradition of the approved fathers from olden times to the present’.33 Similarly in his defence of the actions of the Nicaean Council in the face of Frankish criticism, Hadrian, as again Thomas Noble has explained, stressed papal authority and its custody of the Church’s traditions.34 In the meantime, the pope promoted a wealth of church building and decoration throughout Rome.35 At Saint Peter’s his attention focused on the area about the confessio, which he covered entirely with gold panels bearing, according to the Liber Pontificalis, various representations, including figures of Christ, Mary, and the apostles Peter, Paul and Andrew. He also set up wooden beams sheathed in silver with images of the Saviour flanked by the archangels Michael and Gabriel, and on another images of the Virgin Mary flanked by the apostles Andrew and John, in front of the presbyterium, that is the general area around the high altar.36 Although the precise nature of this arrangement is unclear, it seems very much to have resembled the beams atop the second set of spiral columns by Gregory III, and may have formed part of the inner row of columns or some kind of railings or barriers nearby. Hadrian’s successor, Leo III, continued the process with further lavish figural adornments in and around the altar area as listed extensively in the Liber Pontificalis.37 Given the central role of Saint Peter’s in promoting papal authority and the use of religious images, it is not surprising that it should become of particular 31 32

33 34 35

36 37

Life 95, c. 6, LP, I, 465; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 84. H. Belting, ‘Das Fassadenmosaik des Atriums von Alt-St. Peter in Rom’, Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 23 (1961), 37–54; and Bauer, Das Bild (above, n. 9), 163–70. Life 97, c. 88, LP, I, 512; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 168; Noble, Images (above, n. 1), 152. Noble, Images (above, n. 1), 153–4. Noble, Images (above, n. 1), 155; T. F. X. Noble, ‘Paradoxes and possibilities in the sources for Roman society in the early Middle Ages’, in J. M. H. Smith (ed.), Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough (Leiden, 2000), 55–83. Life 97, c. 57, LP, I, 503; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 151–2. Life 98, c. 3, 7, 53–4, 57, 86–7, 110, LP, II, 1, 2, 14–15, 27, 33; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 180, 203–4, 220–1, 229.

Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy

Fig. 11.3. Santa Prassede, Rome. Rebuilding sponsored by Pope Paschal I (817–24).

relevance again when iconoclasm was reinstituted in the Byzantine empire in 815. Pope Paschal I, who reigned from 817 to 824, was a vehement opponent of the revival of iconoclasm in the Greek East. During the first year of his pontificate, he turned away legates who had been sent by the patriarch in Constantinople to convey the proclamations of the latest iconoclastic synod, and the pope’s subsequent messages of protest to two successive iconoclastic emperors, first Leo V and then Michael II, were dismissed. All the while Paschal was encouraged to promote the use of sacred art in letters from the renowned Greek iconophile Theodore of Studios. This is seen most vividly in the church of Santa Prassede, which was built to serve a Greek monastic community. And yet the design and decoration are very Roman.38 The design of a basilica with an atrium, transept and annular crypt ultimately derives from the Vatican basilica of Saint Peter’s (Fig. 11.3). At 38

McClendon, Origins (above, n. 29), 142–5.

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Santa Prassede the apse mosaic resembles closely in composition that of the sixth-century church of Santi Cosma and Damiano. Both represent the Second Coming of Christ: the Saviour standing among a colourful array of clouds, flanked by Peter and Paul, who introduce the titular saints (in the early case the brothers Cosmas and Damian, and in the Carolingian example Praxedes and her sister Pudentiana). I suspect that the Early Christian model was chosen in part because it provided a pairing of sibling titular saints. Many other elements are similar as well, which in turn stressed the long tradition of religious imagery in Rome. A primary function of the church was to serve as the repository for cartloads of the remains of saints from the catacombs and other cemeteries outside Rome, which were deposited in the crypt. The transept could be said to serve as a great transverse hall celebrating the holy martyrs, covered as it was originally by wall paintings in several registers with scene after scene of torture, execution and burial. The archway leading into the transept moreover depicts a scene without precedent: a retinue of the blessed being led by the sister saints along with Peter and Paul into the glistening city of the heavenly Jerusalem. As Joseph Dyer has suggested, this unique composition is a visual expression of the antiphons that were sung during the procession of relics at the dedication of the church. The text of one such antiphon reads: ‘March forth saints of God / Enter the city of the Lord / This new church was built for you’ (Fig. 11.4, Plate 6).39 Here then, as I have argued elsewhere, both the architectural design of the church and its wealth of figural decoration celebrate simultaneously both the cult of relics and the importance of religious imagery.40 In the past, I have tended to see the architectural reference to Old Saint Peter’s and the wealth of figural imagery as two separate, albeit interrelated, elements; however, now I am inclined to emphasize how closely connected they are, or were, in the minds of the pope and his associates, given the role of Saint Peter’s in the battle against iconoclasm. This also helps to explain why such a blatantly Roman structure was deemed appropriate for a group of Greek monks, many of whom were presumably refugees from iconoclastic persecution and all of whom were supporters of religious images.41 It may seem strange to us but from the papal point of view the fit could not have been more appropriate, because the use 39

40 41

J. Dyer, ‘Prolegomena to a history of music and liturgy at Rome in the Middle Ages’, in G. M. Boone (ed.), Essays on Medieval Music in Honor of David G. Hughes (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 94–9; McClendon, Origins (above, n. 29), 145 and 229 n. 67; and Goodson, Paschal I (above, n. 29), 157–8. McClendon, Origins (above, n. 29), 145–6. McClendon, Origins (above, n. 29), 146 and 230 n. 72.

Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy

Fig. 11.4. Santa Prassede, Rome. View of the mosaic decoration on the triumphal arch and main apse, looking northwest.

of Saint Peter’s as a model, not unlike the reference to the composition of the apse mosaic of Santi Cosma and Damiano, was completely in keeping with the emphasis on papal authority and tradition, as cited in Hadrian’s various statements, to combat iconoclasm. Thus I would suggest that what Richard Krautheimer and others, myself included, have termed a revival of Early Christian architecture is in large part a manifestation of the relevance of long-standing traditions, which form the bedrock of papal authority, in addressing immediate concerns like iconoclasm, among other pressing matters.42 It is also worth noting, as Sible de Blaauw has done in two recent studies, that the ninth-century churches from Santa Prassede on, including all those that house annular crypts in the manner of Old Saint Peter’s, tend to be aligned with their apse at the west or 42

R. Krautheimer, ‘The Carolingian revival of Early Christian architecture’, The Art Bulletin 24 (1942), 1–38; reprinted with a postscript in his Studies in Early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance Art (New York, 1969), 203–56; and R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980), 80. For a somewhat different critique of Krautheimer’s thesis, see Goodson, Paschal I (above, n. 29), 83–90.

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Fig. 11.5. San Marco, Rome. Plan as rebuilt by Pope Gregory IV (827–44).

northwest end, again emulating the Vatican basilica, as opposed to churches from the late fourth to the eighth century with a variety of orientations.43 That direction did indeed matter can be seen in the refurbishment of the church of San Marco under Pope Gregory IV around 830. This rebuilding campaign involved a dramatic reorientation of the church with its new apse placed at the end opposite from that of the original, fourth-century apse to the southeast. Moreover, the construction of this new western apse included an annular crypt in imitation of the arrangement at Saint Peter’s (Fig. 11.5).44 The Liber Pontificalis stresses that Gregory IV ‘decorated this basilica’s apse with gold colours in mosaic’ which can still be seen splendidly today.45 A few years ago, Claudia Bolgia published an article in Speculum suggesting that the mosaic ensemble in the church of San Marco was a 43

44

45

S. de Blaauw, ‘Konstantin als Kirchenstifter’, in A. Demandt and J. Engemann (eds.), Konstantin der Grosse: Geschichte, Arch¨aologie, Rezeption. Internationales Kolloquium von 10.–15. Oktober 2005 an der Universit¨at Trier (Trier, 2006), 167; and S. de Blaauw, Met het oog op het licht: een vergeten principe in de ori¨entatie van het vroegchristelijk kerkgebouw (Nijmegen, 2000), 17–25. CBCR, II, 217–47, provides a detailed discussion of the building, but Krautheimer’s contention, following earlier studies, that the apse of Gregory IV marked a return to the original fourth-century orientation has been disproved by more recent excavations: see M. Cecchelli, ‘La basilica di S. Marco a Piazza Venezia (Roma), nuove scoperte e indagini’, in Akten des XII. Internationalen Kongresses f¨ur Christliche Arch¨aologie (Jahrbuch f¨ur Antike und Christentum Erg¨anzungsband 20), 2 vols. (M¨unster, 1995), II, 640–4; and M. Cecchelli, ‘S. Marco a Piazza Venezia: una basilica romana del periodo costantiniano’, in G. Bonamente and F. Fusco (eds.), Costantino il Grande, 2 vols. (Macerata, 1992), I, 299–306. Life 103, c. 8; LP, II: 74; Davis, Ninth-Century Lives, 52–3.

Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy

Fig. 11.6. San Marco, Rome. View of the mosaic decoration of the apse and surrounding arch.

rebuke to the Byzantine policy of iconoclasm (Fig. 11.6, Plate 7).46 I cannot do justice to her nuanced arguments here; I can only cite a few of her points. She notes, for example, the significance of the medallion or clipeus bust of Christ directly above the apex of the apse as a reference to icons as seen in a later ninth-century Byzantine manuscript (the so-called Kludov Psalter), where the defacement of an icon is equated with the Crucifixion of Christ. We might recall that the image of Christ on the columnar screen set up by Gregory III at Saint Peter’s a hundred years before was likely in a similar medallion form. The notion of papal authority, moreover, is emphasized by the standing figures of Saint Paul to the lower left and Saint Peter to the lower right of the same arch, who point upward to the medallion image of Christ. This arrangement in turn has a venerable tradition harking back to the late fourth-century mosaic decoration on the arch leading into the transept of San Paolo fuori le mura. In the apse itself, a central standing figure of Christ is flanked by saints, while to the far left stands the donor, Pope Gregory IV himself, much like Paschal I in the apse of Santa Prassede. 46

C. Bolgia, ‘The mosaics of Gregory IV at S. Marco, Rome: papal response to Venice, Byzantium, and the Carolingians’, Speculum 81 (2006), 1–34.

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But as Bolgia has shown, the saints depicted in the apse mosaic do not all correspond to the relics housed in the crypt. The body of Saint Mark the Evangelist, for example, who puts his arm about Pope Gregory IV, had recently been stolen from Alexandria and taken to Venice. The body of Saint Agnes resided in her own church outside Rome and the remains of Saints Felicissimus and Agapetus had already been translated north of the Alps. Bolgia argues that their holy likenesses served to take the place of their relics and thereby symbolized the saints’ affirmation of papal authority and the use of religious images. Without doubt there is here a very sophisticated use of religious imagery in combination with an architectural feature, that is a western apse and annular crypt, that references the design of Old Saint Peter’s. Thus, beginning with Gregory III’s synod of 1 November 731, first condemning iconoclasm, to the rebuilding and decoration of San Marco by Gregory IV a hundred years later, Old Saint Peter’s served as a symbol of papal orthodoxy. This position would ultimately triumph and further add to the significance of Old Saint Peter’s for the history of religious art and architecture.

12

The Veronica, the Vultus Christi and the veneration of icons in medieval Rome ann van dijk

Fig. 12.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 12.

In its account of the violent politics that preceded the election of Pope Stephen III in 768, the Liber Pontificalis records the involvement of a Lombard priest named Waldipert. Deeply implicated in a failed plot to install a Lombard pope, he is discovered by his enemies inside the Pantheon, by then a church, clinging to an icon of Mary in a vain appeal for her

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protection.1 Waldipert did not survive, but the icon did (Fig. 12.2). The Pantheon Madonna is one of six panel paintings preserved in Rome that furnish precious positive evidence for the incorporation of icons into the religious life and practice of an early medieval urban centre. Most cannot be dated with precision, although scholarly consensus places the majority in the sixth to eighth centuries. Five represent Mary, usually holding the Christ Child, and come from some of Rome’s most important Marian churches.2 One only represents Christ alone (Fig. 12.3).3 Almost completely effaced by centuries of active veneration, what remains of the image is now hidden behind the protective silver cover provided by Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), the face peering out painted on a veil overlying the painted panel. When both are removed, the fragmentary outline of an enthroned full-length figure of Christ can be discerned, recognizable from the later and betterpreserved derivative images found throughout Lazio.4 Long kept at the Lateran, this icon is first attested in the Liber Pontificalis’s Life of Stephen II (752–5), where it is referred to as an acheiropoieta, an image not made by human hands, and plays a starring role in a procession the pope organized to protect the city from Lombard aggression: On a certain day with great humility he held a procession and litany in the usual way with the holy image of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ called the acheiropoieta . . . With the rest of the sacerdotes the holy pope bore that holy image I would like to thank the British School at Rome, as well as the organizers and other participants of the Old Saint Peter’s conference for providing such a stimulating and convivial forum for studying this endlessly fascinating monument. In particular I am grateful to Richard Gem for his thought-provoking comments after my paper; I hope that I have adequately responded to them here. I also thank the editors of this volume for the care and attention they have put into their task. Finally, for providing the financial support to publish the illustrations to this chapter, I am extremely grateful to Dean Richard Holly and the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Northern Illinois University. 1 2

3

4

Life 96, c. 15, LP, I, 472–3. The Marian icons are: the Madonna of the Pantheon, the Madonna of Santa Maria Antiqua, the Madonna of Santa Maria in Trastevere, the Madonna in Monasterium Tempuli, the Madonna of Santa Maria Maggiore. For a good introduction, see G. Wolf, ‘Icons and sites: cult images of the Virgin in medieval Rome’, in M. Vassilaki (ed.), Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2005), 23–49, with further bibliography. N. Zchomelidse, ‘The aura of the numinous and its reproduction: medieval paintings of the Savior in Rome and Latium’, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 55 (2010), 221–62; S. Romano, ‘L’icˆone acheiropoiete du Latran: fonction d’une image absente’, in N. Bock, ˆ P. Kurmann, S. Romano and J.-M. Spieser (eds.), Art, c´er´emonial et liturgie au Moyen Age (Rome, 2002), 301–19; G. Morello and G. Wolf (eds.), Il volto di Cristo (Milan, 2000), 37–63. Zchomelidse, ‘The aura’ (above, n. 3); W. Angelelli, ‘La diffusione dell’immagine lateranense: le repliche del Salvatore nel Lazio’, in Morello and Wolf (eds.), Volto di Cristo (above, n. 3), 46–9 and cat. II.1–II.3, pp. 60–1.

The Veronica, the Vultus Christi and icons

Fig. 12.2. Madonna of the Pantheon, painted icon, Santa Maria ad Martyres, Rome.

on his own shoulder, and both he and the entire people processed barefoot into God’s holy mother’s church called ad praesepe [Santa Maria Maggiore]. Ash was placed on the heads of all the people, and they made their way with great wailing and besought the most merciful Lord our God.5 5

Life 94, c. 11, LP, I, 443; English translation from Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 57.

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Fig. 12.3. Lateran acheiropoieta, painted icon with a silver cover, Chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum, Rome.

The Veronica, the Vultus Christi and icons

Although this particular procession occurred in response to the Lombard threat, the fact that it is described as taking place ‘in the usual way’ (solite) suggests that this was not the only occasion on which the icon was paraded through the streets of eighth-century Rome. Certainly by the mid-ninth century, when we next hear of the procession in the vita of Leo IV (847–55), it had become a standard feature in the annual celebration of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption on 15 August.6 Increasingly elaborate, this nocturnal procession, which wound its way through the lighted streets of Rome and across the Roman Forum, crowds chanting and torches flaming, came to involve additional icons. By the year 1000, we hear of a meeting between the Lateran acheiropoieta and the Madonna of Santa Maria Antiqua on the steps of the latter icon’s new home, Santa Maria Nova (now called Santa Francesca Romana). Eventually the sources name the icon of Santa Maria Maggiore coming out to meet her son upon his arrival at his final destination, although exactly when the Salus Populi Romani came to be involved in the procession, or indeed how early it dates, is still an open question. Thus, although somewhat sparse, the surviving paintings and the texts associated with them demonstrate that icons had a significant role to play in early medieval Rome. While they represent only one dimension of the city’s extraordinarily rich fabric of religious life, they animated the sacred topography and bound it together by the movement of one particularly revered image of Christ between a number of the churches in which they resided. However, the topography these icons enlivened was exclusively intramural; it did not include any of the suburban martyrs’ basilicas, and thus it did not include Saint Peter’s. Saint Peter’s was full of imagery to be sure. Long narrative cycles spanned the length of its nave walls, textiles with pictorial decoration hung between the columns and adorned the altars, and the Liber Pontificalis is full of references to papal gifts that include many imagines and effigies of Christ, the Virgin Mary and saints, notably Saint Peter. The same text also records such cult practices as burning incense in front of images and adorning them with gifts.7 Such evidence notwithstanding, the impression one receives of the images in Saint Peter’s, up through the ninth century at least, is that they were distant and immobile. Many were attached to the 6

7

Life 105, c. 19, LP, II, 110. On the history of the Assumption Day procession, see G. Wolf, Salus Populi Romani. Die Geschichte R¨omischer Kultbilder im Mittelalter (Weinheim, 1990), 31–78; E. Parlato, ‘Le icone in processione’, in M. Andaloro and S. Romano (eds.), Arte e iconografia a Roma da Costantino a Cola di Rienzo (Milan, 2000), 69–92; E. Parlato, ‘La processione di Ferragosto e l’acheropita del Sancta Sanctorum’, in Morello and Wolf (eds.), Volto di Cristo (above, n. 3), 51–2; Romano, ‘L’icˆone acheiropoiete’ (above, n. 3), 311–13. Life 86, c. 11, LP, I, 374–5; Life 92, c. 7, LP, I, 418.

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wall at some remove from viewers, like the majestic Maria Regina from the oratory of Pope John VII (705–7), one of the few early medieval survivals from the basilica (Figs. 12.1 and 12.4). Superhuman in scale at almost 3 m tall, this mosaic originally towered over the head of any viewer, some 8 m off the ground.8 Other images were positioned high above doorways. Hadrian I (772–95), for example, erected a gilded silver image of Christ over the main doors of the church, and Leo III (795–816) placed a gold image of Christ over the entrance to the vestibule.9 Moreover, unlike the surviving painted icons, the vast majority of those mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis are described as being made of silver or gold. It is certainly possible that the treasury records used by the authors as source material resulted in an over-representation of these particularly luxurious objects in the text, or that the precious metals and jewels mentioned in connection with these images refer only to the cover for a painted icon.10 However, both the wording and the not inconsiderable weight of metal recorded for some of the images – Hadrian’s and Leo’s mentioned above weighed 50 and 75 pounds respectively – suggest that in many cases the entire image may well have been metal.11 If so, one wonders if the effect was not something like that produced by the surviving gold relief icon of Saint Michael, a tenth-century Byzantine work now in the treasury of San Marco in Venice. Its glittering impassivity and sightless, fixed stare could not provide a greater contrast to the surviving Roman icons just discussed (Fig. 12.5; compare with Fig. 12.2).12

8

9 10

11

12

P. J. Nordhagen, ‘The mosaics of John VII (705–707 AD)’, Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia 2 (1965), 124. For the height of this mosaic on the wall, see Ballardini and Pogliani, this volume, 208–11. Life 97, c. 61, LP, I, 504; Life 98, c. 57, LP, II, 15. M. Andaloro, ‘Il Liber Pontificalis e la questione delle immagini da Sergio I a Adriano I’, in Roma e l’et`a carolingia (Rome, 1976), 69–77, esp. p. 73. S. Moretti, ‘Appunti di lettura dal Liber Pontificalis: valenza dei termini imago, effigies, figura, icona ed entit`a di doni dall’impero bizantino’, Arte Medievale 11 (1997), 61–73, esp. p. 62 and the tables on pp. 63, 65. Indirect evidence for a Roman tradition of relief icons may be preserved in a ninth-century English sculpted icon of Mary: see R. Gem and E. Howe, ‘The ninth-century polychrome decoration at Saint Mary’s church, Deerhurst’, Antiquaries Journal 88 (2008), 109–64, esp. pp. 139–42, 150–3. I am grateful to Richard Gem for bringing this article to my attention. B. D. Boehm, ‘Panel with half-figure of Saint Michael’, in D. Buckton, C. Entwistle and R. Prior (eds.), The Treasury of San Marco, Venice (Milan, 1984), cat. 12, pp. 141–7. Bissera Pentcheva’s recent work on the Saint Michael icon challenges this characterization and argues that the changing light conditions in which viewers originally saw the icon animated and enlivened it: see B. Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park, PA, 2010), 123–39. Regardless, the fundamental contrast with the painted panels still stands.

The Veronica, the Vultus Christi and icons

Fig. 12.4. Maria Regina, mosaic from the Oratory of John VII in Saint Peter’s, now in the church of San Marco, Florence.

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Fig. 12.5. Icon of the Archangel Michael, gold and enamel, treasury of the basilica of San Marco, Venice.

The Veronica, the Vultus Christi and icons

Finally, there are no records of any of the icons in Saint Peter’s being carried in procession like the Lateran acheiropoieta. We have no evidence that anyone ever handled these images, at least nothing like the account of Waldipert and the Pantheon Madonna with which this chapter began. The single closest comparison is Anastasius Bibliothecarius’s recorded action of hurling an icon of Christ and the Virgin Mary to the ground with a hatchet, but his fury was surely inspired by the accompanying inscriptions recording decisions made against him during the pontificate of Leo IV (847–55), not by the image itself.13 Fixed and remote, the images in early medieval Saint Peter’s do not otherwise appear to have moved at all. If we now fast forward to the thirteenth century, we find quite a different situation. Saint Peter’s had acquired its own acheiropoieta, a piece of cloth with an image of Christ produced miraculously when he wiped the sweat from his face on the way to the Crucifixion. It has various names in the sources – Sudarium, Vultus Christi, Veronica – the last of these in reference to the woman who offered the cloth to Christ, cherished the image produced on it, and accompanied it to Rome during the reign of Tiberius, whereupon the sight of it miraculously cured the diseased emperor. At least that is how the story goes by the late twelfth century.14 Earlier versions do not associate the image with Christ’s Passion or indeed insist on its miraculous production. The character of Veronica, however, is part of the story continuously from the beginning, and she is identified with the woman recorded in the gospels whom Christ cured of an issue of blood.15 By the late twelfth century, the Veronica image was housed inside an elaborate ciborium that Pope Celestine III (1191–8) erected inside the early eighth-century oratory of Pope John VII, the decoration of which was dominated by the Maria Regina mosaic mentioned above (Figs. 12.1 and 12.6). Usually kept inside a locked compartment in the ciborium’s upper storey, the Veronica was, if anything, less accessible than the icons in the church considered so far. However, as Claudia Bolgia discussed recently, the ciborium’s construction seems to have been motivated in equal part by the need to keep the Veronica secure from a devout public hungry for visual and physical access to material manifestations of the holy, and by the desire to feed that hunger by displaying the Veronica to the faithful in a regulated and

13 14

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Life 106, c. 12, LP, II, 142. N. Bryant (ed. and trans.), Merlin and the Grailo Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin, Percival: the Trilogy of Prose Romances Attributed to Robert de Boron (Cambridge, 2005), 27–9. Matthew 9.20–2; Mark 5.25–34; Luke 8.43–8.

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Fig. 12.6. Ciborium in the Oratory of John VII in Saint Peter’s, drawing in Grimaldi, Instrumenta Autentica, 1620, Vatican, BAV, Barb. lat. 2733, fol. 92r.

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appropriate manner.16 Celestine III’s ciborium allowed for the fulfilment of both goals; its locked upper compartment kept the Veronica safe, and an adjoining platform permitted it to be shown securely to the public. Indeed, the first recorded ostension of the Veronica, to King Philip II of France, took place in 1191, during Celestine’s pontificate.17 And in 1208, Celestine’s successor, Innocent III, instituted a yearly procession on the first Sunday after Epiphany, the Feast of the Miracle at Cana, during which the Veronica was carried to Innocent’s hospital of Santo Spirito and the adjoining church of Santa Maria in Sassia.18 According to the Gesta Innocentii, ‘the Christian people flocked there to see and venerate the sudarium of the Savior that they carry in procession with hymns and canticles, palms and torches, from the basilica of Saint Peter to that place’.19 There an allegorical re-enactment of the Marriage of Cana took place involving both the Veronica and an icon of Mary belonging to the church of Santa Maria in Sassia.20 Patterned after the much older procession of the Lateran acheiropoieta, the Veronica procession to Santo Spirito was one of the means by which Innocent sought to harmonize the cults of the two holy images along with the status of their respective basilicas.21 But the Veronica would soon eclipse the Lateran image, whose fame never really extended beyond Lazio. Writing at mid-century, the English monk and chronicler Matthew Paris informs us of a miracle that took place in 1216, when at the conclusion of the procession to Santo Spirito, the image rotated 180 degrees so that its beard was facing up.22 Taking this to be a bad omen, Innocent is reported to have composed 16

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C. Bolgia, ‘Celestine III’s relic policy and artistic patronage in Rome’, in J. Doran and D. J. Smith (eds.), Pope Celestine III (1191–1198): Diplomat and Pastor (Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington, VT, 2008), 237–70, esp. p. 242. W. Stubbs (ed.), Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis, 2 vols. (Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores 49) (London, 1867), II, 228–9. ‘Innocentii III Romani Pontificis epistolarum sive regestorum liber’, X, 179, PL, CCXV, cols. 1270A–1271B, esp. 1270C. Gesta Innocentii III, 144, PL, CCXIV, cols. 200B–203A, esp. 202A–203A, trans. J. Powell in The Deeds of Pope Innocent III by an Anonymous Author (Washington, DC, 2004), 259. C. Egger, ‘Papst Innocenz III. und die Veronica. Geschichte, Theologie, Liturgie und Seelsorge’, in H. Kessler and G. Wolf (eds.), The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation (Bologna, 1998), 181–203, esp. pp. 187–9. Wolf, Salus Populi Romani (above, n. 6), 84–7; G. Wolf, ‘La Veronica e la tradizione romana di icone’, in A. Gentili, P. Morel and C. Cieri Via (eds.), Il ritratto e la memoria: materiali, 3 vols. (Rome, 1989–93), II, 9–35, esp. pp. 19–29; G. Wolf, ‘Christ in his beauty and pain: concepts of body and image in an age of transition (late Middle Ages and Renaissance)’, in S. C. Scott (ed.), The Art of Interpreting (University Park, PA, 1995), 164–97, esp. pp. 168–70; B. Bolton, ‘Advertise the message: images in Rome at the turn of the twelfth century’, Studies in Church History 28 (1992), 117–30. Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, H. R. Luard (ed.), 7 vols. (Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores 57) (London, 1872–83), III, 7–8, under the year 1216.

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Fig. 12.7. The Veronica, drawing in Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora II, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 16 II, fol. 53v.

a small office for the veneration of the image, to which he attached an indulgence of ten days. Matthew accompanied his account with the text of the office and an image of the Veronica, one of the earliest we possess, included, Matthew says, to increase devotion (Fig. 12.7).23 The devotion increased. More representations and copies soon followed, and the veneration of this image was attached to ever greater numbers of indulgences, attracting ever 23

Morello and Wolf (eds.), Volto di Cristo (above, n. 3), cat. IV.2, pp. 116, 169–71.

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greater numbers of pilgrims from across Europe and beyond, eager to journey to Rome and Saint Peter’s and see the holy face of Christ with their own eyes. While the sources suggest that the cult of the Veronica only began to gather steam in the twelfth century, the image itself was older, its origins falling somewhere between the early and high medieval periods that this chapter has focused on so far. Source material for these intervening centuries is meagre, making it impossible to establish with certainty when, how and for what reason the Veronica came into being. However, a close examination of these same sources does provide insight into the possible historical circumstances surrounding and motivating the creation of this image, which would come to assume such a prominent role in the devotional life of medieval Christians. In recent literature, the assertion that the Veronica was not always an image has become something of a commonplace. According to this theory, it only became one in the twelfth century; before that it was a sudarium only, an aniconic relic whose sanctity derived from the belief that it had physically touched the body of Christ and absorbed some of his sweat.24 This idea is a revival of one originally proposed by Josef Wilpert, who was allowed to examine the Veronica in the early years of the twentieth century. What he saw then was ‘a quadrangular piece of fabric of a light colour, somewhat yellowed through age, with two faint and dissimilar large rust-brown stains, that were connected to each other’.25 In other words: no image. To account for this apparent lack, Wilpert proposed that the association between the cloth relic in Saint Peter’s and the story of Saint Veronica’s image of Christ occurred only in the twelfth century. However, the relic lacked an image, so one was provided; Wilpert speculated that it was painted on a veil and laid over the relic, like the face that now appears on the Lateran acheiropoieta (Fig. 12.3), which he attributed to the mid-twelfth-century pope Alexander III (1159–81). Still according to Wilpert, it was this image that was lost in 1527, when we have reports of the Veronica’s theft and sale in the public houses of Rome, leaving only the original relic, the stained, yellowed cloth that the German scholar was allowed to examine. 24

25

H. Belting, Bild und Kult – eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (Munich, 1990), published in English as Likeness and Presence: a History of the Image before the Era of Art, E. Jephcott (trans.) (Chicago, 1994), 209; Wolf, Salus Populi Romani (above, n. 6), 80–4; Egger, ‘Innocenz III. und die Veronica’ (above, n. 20), 194. J. Wilpert, Die R¨omischen Mosaiken und Malereien der Kirchlichen Bauten vom IV. bis XIII. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Freiburg, 1916), II, part 2, 1123–5, esp. p. 1123; Zchomelidse, ‘The aura’ (above, n. 3), 237.

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It is an appealing hypothesis, but closer inspection reveals its weakness. The sources that Wilpert invoked in its support are exclusively twelfthcentury in date, and in them the object in John VII’s oratory is referred to repeatedly as the ‘sudarium Christi quod vocatur Veronica’ (‘the sudarium of Christ which is called the Veronica’). The phrase occurs in Benedictus Canonicus’s Ordo of 1143 among the instructions for a procession through Saint Peter’s during the stational mass celebrated there on the third Sunday of Advent: ‘postea vadit ad sudarium Christi quod vocatur Veronica, et incensat . . . ’26 It appears again in Petrus Mallius’s Descriptio Basilicae Vaticanae, dedicated to Alexander III (1159–81) and modified by Romanus after 1192. Enumerating the papal burials at Saint Peter’s, the author provided a brief description of John VII’s oratory, which he ended with the words: ‘ante quod oratorium est etiam sudarium Christi quod vocatur Veronica’.27 Following these textual leads, Wilpert privileged the term sudarium over ‘Veronica’, the former corresponding better to the yellowed, aniconic relic he had seen. What Wilpert failed to recognize, because he was not aware of all the sources, is that use of the term sudarium in reference to the object was a novelty of the twelfth century; in the earlier sources, discussed below, only some version of ‘Veronica’ appears. A second passage in the Descriptio Basilicae Vaticanae suggests a possible reason behind the innovation. Here the author described the object in John VII’s oratory as ‘the sudarium of Christ, in which he wiped his most holy face before the Passion . . . when his sweat became as drops of blood trickling down upon the ground’.28 Invoking Christ’s agony in the garden just before his arrest, the last phrase reproduces word for word the biblical account in Luke 22.44.29 This appears to have been the first time that the Veronica was associated with Christ’s Passion, and only late in the twelfth century did Robert de Boron’s prose romance, Joseph d’Arimathie, first describe Saint Veronica as the woman standing by the side of the road who encountered Christ being led to the cross and wiped the sweat from his face with a cloth she was holding, resulting in the miraculously produced image.30 Why the Veronica began to 26 28

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27 DBV, 410–11. Valentini–Zucchetti, III, 210. Valentini–Zucchetti, III, 420: ‘Ab alia parte basilicae Beati Petri est, ut supra diximus, oratorium sanctae Dei genitricis virginis Mariae, quod vocatur Veronica; ubi sine dubio est sudarium Christi, in quo ante passionem suam sanctissimam faciem, ut a nostris maioribus accepimus, extersit, quando sudor eius factus est sicut guttae sanginis decurrentis in terram’. The story is recounted in Luke 22.39–46. Luke 22.44 in the Vulgate reads: ‘Et factus est sudor ejus sicut guttae sanguinis decurrentis in terram’. Robert de Boron, Joseph d’Arimathie, R. O’Gorman (ed.) (Studies and Texts 120) (Toronto, 1995), 164–80, esp. pp. 174–5; see also n. 14 above.

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be associated with Christ’s Passion in the twelfth century is an interesting question that deserves further research, but it is not one that I can address here. If we look at the earlier sources, both for the object and for the legend, we find no mention of a sudarium and no reference to the Passion. The earliest documents attesting to the object in John VII’s chapel both date around the turn of the millennium. The first is the Chronicle written by the monk Benedict of Sant’Andrea in Monte Soratte who recorded that Pope John VII constructed ‘an oratory dedicated to the holy mother of God . . . inside the church of blessed Peter the apostle’, to which he added the words ‘ubi dicitur a Veronice’.31 The second is a contract for the rental of a vineyard, dated 1018 and witnessed by a man named John, who is described as ‘clerico et mansionario Sanctae Marie in Beronica’.32 This is not much to go on, but the occurrence of the term Veronica/Beronica in both texts is significant in that it evokes the woman whom Christ cured of an issue of blood. She bears this name already in the apocryphal Acts of Pilate, and the legend that grew up around her involved images of Christ.33 In his Historia ecclesiastica, Eusebius recorded seeing a memorial commemorating the miracle by which the woman was healed at her house in Paneas.34 The memorial took the form of a bronze sculptural group showing the woman stretching out her arms to the hem of Christ’s garment. Eusebius further recorded that the face of Christ was considered a true likeness, and that a plant growing at the feet of the figure and up on to his cloak was renowned for its healing properties. Thus the earliest version of what would become the Veronica legend – Eusebius does not use the name – associates the woman with the issue of blood with a true image of Christ that possessed healing properties. Although much else changes, these three elements remain constant in later versions of the story, the Cura Sanitatis Tiberii and the Vindicta Salvatoris, whose manuscript traditions go back to the eighth and ninth centuries, 31

32

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Benedetto di Sant’Andrea in Monte Soratte, Chronicon, G. Zucchetti (ed.) (Fonti per la storia d’Italia 55) (Rome, 1920), 41. Arch. Cap. S. Pietro, caps. 61, fasc. 223: see L. Schiaparelli, ‘Le carte antiche dell’Archivio Capitolare di S. Pietro in Vaticano’, Archivio della Reale Societ`a Romana di Storia Patria 24 (1901), 393–496, esp. p. 453. The name already appears in the fragmentary fifth-century Latin version of the text preserved ¨ ´ in Vienna, ONB, MS 563: G. Philippart, ‘Les fragments palimpsestes de l’Evangile de Nicod`eme dans le Vindobonensis 563 (Ve s. ?)’, Analecta Bollandiana 107 (1989), 171–88, esp. p. 182 for the fragment naming Veronica (E7–E8). See also Z. Izydorczyk (ed.), The Medieval Gospel of Nicodemus: Texts, Intertexts, and Contexts in Western Europe (Tempe, AZ, 1997). Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, VII, 18, R. J. Deferrari (trans.) (The Fathers of the Church 29) (Washington, DC, 1955), 119–20.

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respectively.35 In the Cura Sanitatis Tiberii we are told that after she was cured, Veronica, out of love for Christ, had his image painted while he was still alive and with his knowledge. Both Veronica and her image were taken to Rome, and the image was shown to the Emperor Tiberius, who was gravely ill. At the sight of the image, Tiberius was overcome with tears, prostrated himself on the ground, adored the image and was instantly healed. Clearly this narrative is strongly indebted to the legend of the Mandylion, the image of Christ sent to King Abgar of Edessa. The Cura Sanitatis Tiberii shares many elements with two early versions of the legend found in the fifthcentury Syriac Doctrina Addai and the sixth- or seventh-century Greek Acts of Thaddeus, although it agrees perfectly with neither.36 The somewhat later Vindicta Salvatoris tells essentially the same story, but differs in how it describes the image. Whereas the Cura Sanitatis Tiberii provides details explaining how the image was created, it is vague about what it looked like, consistently referring to it only as the ‘imago Jhesu Christi’. Was it a full-length image, a bust portrait? The text does not specify. The Vindicta Salvatoris, by contrast, tells us nothing specific about the circumstances under which the image was created, but uses a different term for the image, which it repeatedly calls the ‘vultus domini’. Vultus has a range of meanings. Its primary definition is facial expression or countenance, but it can also be used to indicate facial appearance or features and, by extension, a painted facial portrait.37 Thus the choice of this term in the Vindicta Salvatoris evokes the idea of an image specifically of Christ’s face. This too parallels developments in the Mandylion legend. 35

36

37

For a helpful introduction to both texts, see T. N. Hall, ‘The Evangelium Nichodemi and Vindicta Salvatoris in Anglo-Saxon England’, in J. E. Cross (ed.), Two Old English Apocrypha and their Manuscript Source: the ‘Gospel of Nichodemus’ and ‘The Avenging of the Saviour’ (Cambridge, 1996), 36–81, esp. pp. 58–81. The earliest known manuscript of the Cura Sanitatis Tiberii is Lucca, Bibl. Cap., MS 490; E. von Dobsch¨utz published an edition in Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur 18) (Leipzig, 1899), 157∗∗ –203∗∗ , esp. 163∗∗ –181∗∗ . The oldest known manuscript of the Vindicta Salvatoris is Saint-Omer, Biblioth`eque municipale, MS 202, fols. 20v–25v. For a transcription of this text, accompanied by an English translation, see Cross (ed.), Two Old English Apocrypha (above), 248–93. As in the Doctrina Addai, the image of Christ is painted by human hands, and as in the Acts of Thaddeus, it is the sight of the image that cures the ill king. For a good introduction to the Abgar image, see H. L. Kessler, ‘Il mandylion’, in Morello and Wolf (eds.), Volto di Cristo (above, n. 3), 67–76, with further bibliography. As defined in the Oxford Latin Dictionary, P. G. W. Glare (ed.) (Oxford, 1982) and E. A. Andrews, A Latin Dictionary, revised and enlarged by C. T. Lewis and C. Short (Oxford, 1962). The much more general translation of ‘vultus’ as image or statue in J. F. Niermeyer and C. van de Kieft, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, rev. ed. by J. W. J. Burgers, 2 vols. (Leiden and Boston, 2002), II, 1455 is based entirely on usage in the Liber Pontificalis, to be discussed below.

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An additional text forming part of the backdrop to the first references to the Veronica inside John VII’s oratory is a list of nine miraculous images found in a Greek manuscript of c. 900 in Venice, Bibl. Marciana, MS gr. 573.38 One of three Roman icons included, the Veronica is listed second, after the Mandylion, and is described as the one prepared from the bloody garment of Veronica, which image the Lord . . . was glad to inscribe without [it] being wrought by hands (acheirokmitos). And it is in Rome, according to an inscription from the days of Tiberius. It was discovered through much searching . . . that is to say, after one or two periods of time from the Ascension of the Master Christ. And it healed the ailing emperor.39

As Gerhard Wolf pointed out, this text contains the first reference to the image’s miraculous production.40 Hitherto unnoticed is the fact that by associating the image with ‘the bloody garment of Veronica’, it is also the first to describe the Veronica as a cloth image. However, the way in which the passage is written suggests that the author was familiar with legendary accounts of the Veronica only, rather than with a material object. All three texts – the Cura Sanitatis Tiberii, the Vindicta Salvatoris and the list of acheiropoietai – speak of the Veronica as something that existed and came to Rome in the past, but make no mention of its present location in the city or even its current existence. Yet these same texts define what the idea of the Veronica comprised at the time when we first encounter the term in connection with John VII’s oratory around the year 1000: it was an image of Christ, possibly on cloth and showing his face alone, possibly produced miraculously. The evidence does not support any other possibilities. When did the idea of the Veronica become a physical reality? The late tenth- to early eleventh-century dates of the two texts associating the image with John VII’s oratory are significant, following closely as they do the translation of the Mandylion from Edessa to Constantinople in 944, an event accompanied by much fanfare and recorded in a narrative account attributed to Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus himself.41 The chronological coincidence invites speculation that the Veronica may have 38

39

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A. Alexakis, Codex Parisinus Graecus 1115 and its Archetype (Washington, DC, 1996), 343–50, esp. pp. 348–50. Alexakis, Parisinus Graecus 1115 (above, n. 38), 349, ll. 8–12. I am grateful to Daniel Larison for helping me with the translation of this text. G. Wolf, ‘Alexifarmaka. Aspetti del culto e della teoria delle immagini a Roma tra Bisanzio e Terra Santa nell’Alto Medioevo’, in Roma fra Oriente e Occidente, 2 vols. (Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 49) (Spoleto, 2002), II, 755–96, esp. pp. 775–6. E. Patlagean, ‘L’entr´ee de la Sainte Face d’Edesse a` Constantinople en 944’, in A. Vauchez (ed.), La religion civique a` l’´epoque m´edi´evale et moderne (Chr´etient´e et Islam) (Rome, 1995), 21–35.

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made the transition from literary concept to physical object in the intervening decades, providing yet another point of intersection in the histories of these two closely related images.42 It is certainly plausible that the arrival of the famous Byzantine acheiropoieta in the imperial capital could have stimulated the papacy to ‘discover’ the existence of a comparable image in its own possession in Rome. Yet while the second half of the tenth century was likely a defining moment in the Veronica’s materialization, I would also suggest that it was but the culmination of a complex and protracted genesis whose roots can be traced back to the eighth and ninth centuries, and whose origins may ultimately lie in the papal position on images formulated in response to Byzantine iconoclasm. Both the Liber Pontificalis and surviving works of art document the popularity of facial and bust-length images of Christ in Rome, both at Saint Peter’s and elsewhere, starting in the second half of the eighth century. Coinciding with the frequent occurrence of this iconography is a preoccupation with the vultus of Christ in the image theory of Pope Hadrian I (772–95). While a direct link between this eighth- to ninthcentury tradition of facial images of Christ and the first reference to the Veronica in John VII’s oratory in the tenth century is elusive, the coincidence is highly suggestive. At the very least, it opens the possibility that it was one of the earlier images that was ‘recognized’ as the Veronica following the translation of the Mandylion from Edessa in 944. In the Liber Pontificalis, the term vultus first occurs in connection with images at the beginning of the eighth century; however, only later in the century does it start to appear with frequency and in connection with images of Christ.43 At Saint Peter’s the term is used to indicate an image of Christ for the first time in the vita of Hadrian I (772–95): a silver image ‘habentem depictum vultum Salvatoris’ that was prominently displayed ‘super rugas’ at the entrance to the presbyterium.44 This image was one of six enumerated there, in two groups of three, one group presumably set atop each row of twisted columns standing in front of the apse. The vultus of Christ was flanked by effigies of the angels Michael and Gabriel. The second set showed the vultus of Mary flanked by the vultus of Saint 42

43 44

Wolf has examined the relationship between the Veronica and the Mandylion in a number of articles, especially: ‘From Mandylion to Veronica: picturing the “disembodied” face and disseminating the true image of Christ in the Latin west’, in Kessler and Wolf (eds.), The Holy Face (above, n. 20), 153–79; ‘La vedova di Re Abgar. Uno sguardo comparistico al Mandilion e alla Veronica’, Bulletin de l’Institut Historique Belge de Rome 69 (1999), 215–43. The first instance is in the vita of John VII: Life 88, LP, I, 385. Life 97, c. 58, LP, I, 503.

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Andrew and that of Saint John the Evangelist. At San Paolo fuori le mura, Hadrian provided a similar but less lavish adornment in the same place consisting of three images only, a vultus Salvatoris flanked by two effigies of angels.45 After Hadrian, the term appears consistently in accounts of papal donations up through the vita of Leo IV (847–55). At Saint Peter’s the text records three more images of Christ’s vultus. Of particular interest is the appearance of the term in connection with a textile, an elaborate jewelled altar cloth donated by Hadrian’s successor, Leo III (795–816), ‘habentem in medio vultum Salvatoris’ along with Mary and the twelve apostles.46 Leo III also renewed the gold image ‘habentem vultum Salvatoris domini nostri Iesu Christi’ at Saint Peter’s confessio.47 Later in the ninth century, Gregory IV (828–44) gave three gilded silver images for the chapel he constructed for Gregory I, one of which represented the ‘vultum Domini’.48 However, the term continues to be used in connection with images of Mary and various saints, both at Saint Peter’s and in other churches as well. The fact that the authors of the Liber Pontificalis described as a vultus images not only of Christ but also of Mary and saints, cautions us against reading too much into their choice of vocabulary. Already in 1894, Anton de Waal pointed out that vultus appears in the Liber Pontificalis in contexts that seem to preclude its identification with a purely facial image of Christ, let alone the Veronica, and concluded that the term’s meaning in the Liber Pontificalis was essentially generic, indicating only a figure or image.49 Recently Maria Andaloro came to a slightly different conclusion. In a study of textile donations recorded in the Liber Pontificalis’s lives of Hadrian I, Leo III and Paschal I, she noted the consistency with which the term vultus was used in reference to textiles with images of Christ, Mary and/or saints, while some version of storia regularly accompanied the more numerous references to textiles adorned with narrative scenes.50 From this she concluded that for the authors of the Liber Pontificalis, the term vultus specified an iconic image. The inference is that the term could refer to any iconic image, full-length as well as bust-length or facial. 45 47 49

50

46 Life 98, c. 33, LP, II, 10. Life 97, c. 60, LP, I, 504. 48 Life 103, c. 7, LP, II, 74. Life 98, c. 110, LP, II, 33. A. de Waal, ‘Gli antichi tesori sacri della Basilica Vaticana’, Dissertazione della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, 2nd ser., 5 (Rome, 1894), 147–83, esp. pp. 175–6. M. Andaloro, ‘Immagine e immagini nel Liber Pontificalis da Adriano I a Pasquale I’, in H. Geertman (ed.), Il ‘Liber Pontificalis’ e la storia materiale. Atti del colloquio internazionale, Roma, 21–22 febbraio 2002 (Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 60–1) (Rome, 2003), 45–103, esp. p. 47.

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Andaloro’s conclusion appears to find support in one of the more unusual appearances of the term in the vita of Stephen II (752–7) that is also the earliest to use vultus in connection with an image of Christ. The passage describes the pope’s donation to Santa Maria Maggiore of ‘an imaginem of purest gold of the . . . holy mother of God sitting in a throne, holding on her knees the vultum of the Saviour, our lord Jesus Christ’.51 Richard Gem has pointed out that the phrasing in this passage ‘seems to make a distinction between the imago [of Mary enthroned] and the vultus within it, and perhaps the item may be interpreted as depicting the Virgin holding an image of Christ’.52 He further suggested that the way the image may have visualized this was by representing Christ as a full-length figure on an oval panel that Mary grasped, as though it were a shield portrait. This iconography was known in mid-eighth-century Rome; among the frescoes attributed to Paul I (757–67) in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua is an image of the Three Holy Mothers in a niche in the right aisle (Fig. 12.8, Plate 8). Enthroned in the centre, Mary clearly holds a blue oval containing a standing figure of Christ on her lap.53 The mid-eighth-century date of both the fresco in Santa Maria Antiqua and the recorded image given by Stephen II to Santa Maria Maggiore coincides closely with the iconoclast council held by the Emperor Constantine V in 754, and the iconography may well have been chosen to represent Rome’s response to this council. As Gem argued,

51

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Life 94, c. 45, LP, I, 453: ‘imaginem ex auro purissimo, eidem Dei genetricis in throno sedentem, gestantem super genibus vultum Salvatoris domini nostri Iesu Christi, quem et multis lapidibus pretiosis adornavit . . . ’. I am grateful to Richard Gem for first drawing my attention to this passage. Gem and Howe, ‘Ninth-century polychrome’ (above, n. 11), 153. Gem and Howe, ‘Ninth-century polychrome’ (above, n. 11), 150. A second example in Rome, very recently uncovered on the fac¸ade of Santa Sabina, seems to date to the eighth century as well: see C. Tempesta, L’icona murale di Santa Sabina all’Aventino (Rome, 2010). I am grateful to John Osborne for bringing both the painting and the publication to my attention. On this iconography see also Belting, Likeness and Presence (above, n. 24), 102–14, esp. p. 114. It is tempting to invoke another fresco from Santa Maria Antiqua here, the bust-length Madonna in a niche located in the northwest pier. In this fresco, attributed to John VII (705–7), Mary’s fingers appear to grasp what could be read as a small medallion portrait of the Christ Child; however, the image is ambiguous: see P. J. Nordhagen, ‘The frescoes of John VII (AD 705–707) in Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome’, Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia 3 (1968), 75–6; Belting, Likeness and Presence (above, n. 24), 116–20. Moreover, the other fresco has iconography that is more broadly attested and coincides better with the description in the Liber Pontificalis. On this iconography in general, see also C. Baltoyanni, ‘The Mother of God in portable icons’, in M. Vassilaki (ed.), Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art (Athens and Milan, 2000), 139–53, esp. pp. 139–41.

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Fig. 12.8. The Three Holy Mothers, fresco in Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome.

the image of the virgin with the oval panel may have been read as presenting to the worshipper the painted image of Christ, just as she presented to the world through her motherhood the one who is the true image of the Father and thereby made legitimate for Christians the creation of images of God.54

If Gem is correct – and his argument is compelling – it suggests that the author of Stephen II’s vita employed the term vultus in his description of the donation to Santa Maria Maggiore in response to a particular iconographic feature visible in the image, an oval frame enclosing the figure of Christ and designating that figure an icon. However, if the eighth- and ninth-century authors of the Liber Pontificalis adopted the term vultus to designate an icon, a number of questions still remain unresolved. Why, for example, did the author of Hadrian I’s vita consistently describe the silver images of Christ, Mary and saints that the pope placed in front of the apse at Saint Peter’s and San Paolo fuori le mura using the formula ‘imago . . . habentem . . . vultum Salvatoris’ (or ‘sanctae 54

Gem and Howe, ‘Ninth-century polychrome’ (above, n. 11), 152.

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Dei genetricis’ etc.), but replace vultus with effigies for the angels? What motivated the selection of vultus to indicate iconic images in the first place, when the term implies a facial image, and in the passage from Stephen II’s vita just discussed it evidently refers to a full-length figure? Could the image described in this passage, in fact, be the exception that proves a rule? In the surviving and documented art of Rome through the ninth century, oval-framed iconic images are rare. Round ones, by contrast, are relatively common, and what the medallion usually encloses is a facial or bust-length portrait, that is, an image for which the term vultus is indeed appropriate. Inherited from the ancient Roman tradition of clipeate images, the iconography had entered the Christian art of Rome by the fourth century when artists decorating the catacombs began to incorporate individual clipeate images of Christ.55 It was also used for the papal portrait series in both Saint Peter’s and San Paolo fuori le mura, probably inaugurated in the fifth century.56 Although few examples of this portrait type survive from the intervening centuries, the clipeus appears to have enjoyed something of a revival at the beginning of the eighth century, coinciding with the first references to vultus imagery in the Liber Pontificalis’s biography of John VII (705–7). The roundels with apostle busts in the sanctuary of Santa Maria Antiqua as well as those with saints on the fac¸ade of the oratory of the Forty Martyrs are attributed to this pope’s patronage.57 A few decades later Gregory III (731–41) was responsible for a series of medallion portraits in the church of San Crisogono.58 The portrait type retained its popularity in the ninth century, and the surviving examples include a number of images of Christ. Paschal I (817– 24) decorated the fac¸ade of the San Zeno chapel in Santa Prassede with twenty-six roundels enclosing images of Mary, apostles, virgin martyrs and prophets, all centred around a larger medallion framing a bust-length Christ (Fig. 12.9, Plate 9).59 Inside the chapel, a second image of Christ dominates 55 56

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R. Warland, Das Brustbild Christi (Freiburg, 1986), 225–8. M. Andaloro, ‘Dal ritratto al icona’, in Andaloro and Romano (eds.), Arte e iconografia a Roma (above, n. 6), 31–59, esp. pp. 38–48. Nordhagen, ‘Frescoes of John VII’ (above, n. 53), 17–21, 85–6. M. Andaloro, ‘Aggiornamento scientifico e bibliografia’, in G. Matthiae, Pittura romana del medioevo, 2 vols. (Rome, 1987–8), I, 271–2; A. Melograni, ‘Le pitture del VI e VIII secolo nella basilica inferiore di S. Crisogono in Trastevere’, Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale d’Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte, 3rd ser., 13 (1990), 139–78. Warland, Brustbild Christi (above, n. 55), 246, cat. D5; R. Wisskirchen, Die Mosaiken der Kirche Santa Prassede in Rom (Mainz, 1992), 54–65, esp. p. 55. A similar arrangement of roundels around the apse of Santa Sabina may have dated to the pontificate of Eugenius II (824–7): Warland, Brustbild Christi (above, n. 55), 246, cat. D4; G. Ciampini, Vetera Monimenta, 2 vols. (Rome, 1690–9), I, 188, pl. 47; Life 101, c. 3, LP, II, 69.

The Veronica, the Vultus Christi and icons

Fig. 12.9. San Zeno chapel fac¸ade mosaic, Santa Prassede, Rome.

the vault decoration from within a laurel wreath frame.60 When Gregory IV (827–44) provided the church of San Marco with mosaics, he placed a bust-length portrait of Christ in a medallion at the centre of the apsidal arch.61 Likely also dating to the ninth century is the clipeate Christ in the soffit of the niche in the right aisle of the lower church of San Clemente.62 Thus the evidence of surviving works of art attests to the popularity of a 60

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Warland, Brustbild Christi (above, n. 55), 243, cat. C21; Wisskirchen, Santa Prassede (above, n. 59), 55. Warland, Brustbild Christi (above, n. 55), 244, cat. C22; C. Bolgia, ‘The mosaics of Gregory IV at S. Marco, Rome: papal response to Venice, Byzantium, and the Carolingians’, Speculum 81 (2006), 1–34, esp. pp. 31–2. Warland, Brustbild Christi (above, n. 55), 244, cat. C23; J. Osborne, ‘Early medieval painting in San Clemente, Rome: the Madonna and Child in the niche’, Gesta 20 (1981), 299–310; H. L. Kessler, ‘Real absence: early medieval art and the metamorphosis of vision’, in Morfologie sociali e culturali in Europa fra tarda antichit`a e alto medioevo, 2 vols. (Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 45) (Spoleto, 1998), II, 1157–211; reprinted in Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia, 2000), 104–48, esp.

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particular type of iconic image in eighth- and ninth-century Rome, that is, a framed image showing a facial portrait or bust-length figure enclosed within a medallion. This in turn supports the idea that the contemporary authors of the Liber Pontificalis adopted and employed the term vultus in reference to this very type of image. One may surmise that, only when faced with the unusual appearance of a full-length figure enclosed within an oval frame, as in the case of the image donated by Stephen II to Santa Maria Maggiore, did one of the authors, possibly at a loss for words, apply the term more loosely.63 Among the surviving ninth-century vultus images, those showing Christ are given a striking prominence, a prominence that can be traced back to Hadrian I (772–95), who first placed such an image in front of the apse at both Saint Peter’s and San Paolo fuori le mura. The significance Hadrian attached to this imagery seems to find an explanation in his writing on images, especially his letter of 785 to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VI and his mother, Irene, replying to an imperial invitation to attend the Second Council of Nicaea, at which Byzantine iconoclasm would be repealed, albeit only temporarily.64 The letter is divided into two sections, the first comprising general reflections on images and the second an iconophile florilegium. The first section ends with an extended passage treating the theme of the vultus domini in which the term appears five times in the space of six lines of text.65 Here Hadrian employs vultus, not in reference to holy images, but to their prototype, the divine countenance, and it becomes the linchpin

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p. 132; subsequent references to this work are to the reprint. If Pompeo Ugonio’s sketch is to be trusted, Leo III may have used the iconography as well in his decoration of the Sala del Concilio at the Lateran; however, the drawing is extremely crude: see Kessler, ‘Real absence’ (above), 128–9. The only other vultus in the Liber Pontificalis that evidently refers to a full-length figure occurs in the description of an altar cloth ‘cum vultu dominicae Resurrectionis domini nostri Iesu Christi’ donated by Paschal I (Life 100, c. 23, LP, II, 58). In this case vultus appears to be a simple error as a result of carelessness as the same vita contains five other references to textiles decorated with a scene of the Resurrection that consistently employ some variation of ‘habentem storiam dominicae Resurrectionis domini nostri Iesu Christi’: see Andaloro, ‘Immagine e immagini’ (above, n. 50), 58, 90–6. Or one could speculate that in this particular case the author misinterpreted a mandorla around the figure of Christ, such as appears in the Anastasis image decorating Paschal’s San Zeno chapel in Santa Prassede, and equated it with the type of oval frame visible in the Holy Mothers fresco at Santa Maria Antiqua and, presumably, in the image Stephen II donated to Santa Maria Maggiore: see Wisskirchen, Santa Prassede (above, n. 59), 65, fig. 64. The letter is preserved in the Acts: see E. Lamberz (ed.), Concilium Universale Nicaenum Secundum, Concilii Actiones I–III (Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, 2nd ser., III, part 1) (Berlin, 2008), 118–73. A summary of its contents, with analysis, appears in T. F. X. Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians (Philadelphia, 2009), 150–5. Lamberz (ed.), Concilium Universale (above, n. 64), 135, ll. 3–9.

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around which one of his arguments revolves. He writes that the ‘distinguished prophet David . . . announcing the coming of our redeemer and the incarnation of the same son of God . . . earnestly forewarned that vultum eius should be adored according to the dispensation of his humanity’.66 He then follows this with three quotations from the Psalms: ‘vultum tuum, O Lord, will I still seek’ (Psalms 26.8); ‘all the rich among the people, shall entreat vultum tuum’ (Psalms 44.13); and ‘the light of vultus tui, O Lord, is signed upon us’ (Psalms 4.7).67 He concludes with a passage that he attributes to Augustine: ‘what is the image of God except the vultus dei in which the people of God is signed?’.68 Man was created in the image of God, and God had become man through the incarnation of Christ. The people had long yearned to see God’s countenance. Through the incarnation they could now see it in the human face of Christ. The implications for manmade images Hadrian articulates in a slightly earlier passage: Quia in universo mundo, ubi christianitas est, ipse sacre imagines permanentes, ab omnibus fidelibus honorantur, ut per visibilem vultum ad invisibilem divinitatis maiestatem mens nostra rapiatur spiritali affectu per contemplationem figurate imaginis secundum carnem, quam filius Dei pro nostra salute suscipere dignatus est.69

In his perceptive analysis of Hadrian’s image theory, Herbert Kessler translated this passage: Because wherever there is Christianity in the entire world, those sacred and enduring images are honored by all the faithful so that, through the visible appearance, our mind might be carried off to the invisible majesty of the divinity by means of the spiritual love engendered by the contemplation of the figured images according to the flesh which the Son of God considered worthy to take up for our salvation.70 66

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‘ . . . eximius prophetarum beatus David . . . adventum redemptoris nostri atque incarnationem ipsius filii dei annuntians magnopere vultum eius secundum humanitatis ipsius dispensationem adorari praemonuit inquiens . . . ’ ‘ . . . vultum tuum, domine, requiram. Et post: vultum tuum deprecabuntur omnes divites plebis. Et rursus: signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, domine.’ Hadrian is here quoting the Roman version of the Psalms; the Gallican version, which appears in the Vulgate, differs slightly, substituting facies in some places for vultus. The translations are based on the Douay-Rheims Bible. ‘ . . . quid est imago dei nisi vultus dei, in quo signatus est populus dei?’ Lamberz (ed.), Concilium Universale (above, n. 64), 129, ll. 4–8 (emphasis added). Hadrian evidently felt this passage summed up his position, because he later quoted it in the conclusion to his famous letter to Charlemagne, discussed below, 254. Kessler, ‘Real absence’ (above, n. 62), 122–4, esp. pp. 123–4 (emphasis added).

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As Kessler elucidated, the value of images for Hadrian was their affective power; contemplating an image of the incarnate Christ elicited feelings of spiritual love in viewers by which their minds could be carried up towards the spiritual, and therefore invisible, divine majesty of God. Of course, this was true of holy images in general, not just those displaying a particular iconography. However, Hadrian seems to make a subtle distinction between, on the one hand, the ‘sacred and enduring images’ and ‘the figured images according to the flesh’ that are honoured and inspire spiritual love, and, on the other, the ‘visibilem vultum’ through which that spiritual love conducts the mind to the ‘invisible majesty of the divinity’. Kessler translated ‘visibilem vultum’ as ‘visible appearance’. I would propose ‘visible countenance’ instead. The prominence that Hadrian accorded to what I propose were facial images of Christ in Saint Peter’s and San Paolo suggests that the pope considered Christ’s visible face to be the portal through which the mind might approach his divine majesty. It would be tempting to speculate that the Veronica came into being during the pontificate of Hadrian I or one of his immediate successors. Hadrian was certainly aware of the Mandylion and its implications for holy images in general. A few years after his letter to Constantine VI and Irene, Hadrian received from Charlemagne a list of chapter headings for a proposed treatise condemning the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea, which the Carolingians knew only through a faulty Latin translation. In the letter he wrote in reply, Hadrian painstakingly responded to all eighty-five chapter headings.71 In response to chapter eighteen, which points out that nowhere do the gospels record anything about an image sent by Christ to Abgar, Hadrian cites a letter from three eastern patriarchs to Pope Paul I (757– 67), which was presented as testimony at the Roman Synod of 769. Noting that according to John 20.30, Jesus did many things that were not written down, the patriarchs’ letter presents Christ’s reply to Abgar’s request for his image with the words: ‘[Since] you long to see faciam meam corporeally, behold, I direct the image of vultus mei transformed into a linen cloth for you . . . ’.72 Linking the image of Christ’s countenance to the corporeal sight of his face, this text may well have influenced Hadrian’s own thoughts on the relationship between the two and certainly could have provided an impetus for ‘discovering’ Rome’s own version of the Mandylion in the form of the Veronica. However, another passage in Hadrian’s letter to Charlemagne makes clear that the Veronica did not yet exist in Rome during Hadrian’s 71 72

E. D¨ummler (ed.), Epistolae Hadriani I Papae (MGH, Epistolae 5) (Berlin, 1899), 5–57. ‘Quod si faciem meam corporaliter cernere cupis, en tibi vultus mei speciem transformatam in linteo dirigo . . . ’: D¨ummler (ed.), Epistolae Hadriani (above, n. 71), 23.

The Veronica, the Vultus Christi and icons

Fig. 12.10. Christological cycle in the oratory of John VII in Saint Peter’s, drawing in Grimaldi, Instrumenta Autentica, 1612, Vatican, BAV, Barb. lat. 2732, fols. 76v–77r. The healing of the woman with the issue of blood is found, along with the healing of the man born blind, at letter P.

pontificate. The heading for chapter eleven takes aim at images for which miracles are claimed, naming that of the woman with the issue of blood as one example.73 Hadrian’s reply invokes various patristic authorities, but makes no mention of the presence of the image in Rome at Saint Peter’s, something he presumably would have done, had it been there. But perhaps the Veronica is indirectly associated with Hadrian after all, and the tradition of vultus Christi images he appears to have inaugurated. The sack of Saint Peter’s by the Saracens in 846 was by all accounts devastating, and the church was surely stripped of all its valuable treasures. But after the horror had passed, one wonders what might have happened if someone involved in putting the church to rights again came across one of 73

D¨ummler (ed.), Epistolae Hadriani (above, n. 71), 18–19.

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the images of Christ’s face that had earlier existed in the church. Not one of those made of gold or silver, adorned with gems – surely those had all been melted down and carried off – but perhaps a more modest version of the altar cloth Leo III had donated for the main altar, representing ‘in the centre the Saviour’s face’.74 Seeing the face of Christ peering up from the rubble, this imagined person may well have counted its survival a small miracle and taken care to preserve the cloth, perhaps in the oratory of John VII. With its decoration dominated by an image of Mary surrounded by scenes narrating events from the life of her son it would indeed have been an appropriate home for an image of the incarnate God (Fig. 12.10). After a time one imagines further that an old image of Christ’s face on cloth that carried miraculous associations on account of its survival plausibly might begin to be associated with the story of Veronica and her cloth image, especially given the appearance of the miracle of the woman with the issue of blood among the stories represented on the chapel’s walls. And so we arrive at a possible scenario for how the Veronica might conceivably have come into being, born of luck, coincidence and the enduring desire to perceive the invisible divine countenance in the human face of Christ. Whether in fact it happened that way, of course, we will never know. 74

See above, n. 46.

13

The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter the Shepherd joanna story

Fig. 13.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 13.

The relationship that developed between the Carolingian dynasty and the papacy during the later eighth and the ninth century was of crucial importance for both institutions. In Rome and in Aachen, this ‘spiritual alliance’ was nurtured carefully through the frequent exchange of envoys, letters and

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gifts.1 On rare occasions a Carolingian king came to Rome, more rarely still did a pope venture across the Alps into Francia. But, in absentia, the Carolingians sent many gifts to Rome that were – simultaneously – devotional and political, to ensure that the dynasty was cherished especially at the tomb of the apostle. Often these gifts had a liturgical function: for example, Pippin III (751–68) sent a precious table to Stephen II that Paul I (757–67) later set up in front of the confessio.2 Pippin’s son, Charlemagne, presented another silver table on the occasion of his imperial coronation in 800, along with golden vessels to be used at the ceremony, a gold crown encrusted with large jewels to hang over the altar, three golden chalices, and a jewelled paten weighing 30 lb that bore a prominent inscription of his name, karolus.3 Gifts such as these ensured that the Carolingians were able to maintain a ceremonial presence within the basilica even though they were rarely there in person.4 This was achieved through the donation of symbolic objects for use and display at specific oratories, not just at the high altar. The location of the oratories, and their relationship to the tomb of the apostle, demonstrates that the Carolingians understood how the basilica functioned as a place of pilgrimage and a theatre of worship in the late eighth century (Fig. 13.1). The symbolism and potency of the gifts was enhanced by the liturgical function of the objects and by the devotional role and architectural setting of the oratories at which they were used; the graphic display of inscriptions reinforced the message. The overt display of the royal name was especially important. The paten that bore Charlemagne’s name ensured that the king was party to the sacrificial offering at the altar each time it was used. It has been argued that gifts such as these required a celebrant to ‘activate’ the gift and the memory of the donor that was encapsulated by it.5 But other evidence suggests that the 1

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A. Angenendt, ‘Das geistliche B¨undnis der P¨apste mit den Karolingern (754–96)’, Historisches Jahrbuch der G¨orresgesellschaft 100 (1980), 1–94. Codex Carolinus no. 21; W. Gundlach (ed.), Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini Ævi I, MGH, Epistolae, II (Berlin, 1892), 524; A. Angenendt, ‘Mensa Pippini Regis. Zur liturgischen Pr¨asenz der Karolinger in Sankt Peter’, in E. Gatz (ed.), Hundert Jahre Deutsches Priesterkolleg beim Campo Santo Teutonico 1876–1976. Beitr¨age zu seiner Geschichte (Rome, 1977), 52–68; M. Borgolte, Petrusnachfolge und Kaiserimitation. Die Grablegen der P¨apste, ihre Genese und Traditionsbildung (G¨ottingen, 1995), 107–9; R. Schieffer, ‘Charlemagne and Rome’, in J. M. H. Smith (ed.), Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough (Leiden, 2000), 279–96, at p. 288. Life 98, c. 24, LP, II, 8; trans. Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 191–2. F. A. Bauer, Das Bild der Stadt Rom im Fr¨umittelalter: Papststiftungen im Spiegel des Liber Pontificalis von Gregor dem Dritten bis zu Leo dem Dritten (Wiesbaden, 2004), 103–4. S. Scholz, ‘Karl der Grosse und das Epitaphium Hadriani. Ein Beitrag zum Gebetsgedenken der Karolinger’, in R. Berndt (ed.), Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794, 2 vols. (Mainz, 1997) I, 373–94, at pp. 385–6; Angenendt, ‘Mensa Pippini Regis’ (above, n. 2), 66–8.

The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter

display of the king’s name alone, especially in monogram form, invoked the actual presence of the king, whereby the king’s name was a proxy for the man himself.6 Two examples bear this out: Charlemagne’s biographer, Einhard, described a series of events that happened in 813 and 814 that were interpreted as warnings that the king’s death was imminent.7 Chief among these portents was the fading of the word princeps from the painted inscription that was written around the inside of the chapel at Aachen. The fading of the king’s titulus implied that the king’s life too was waning. Back in Rome, Charlemagne’s name was displayed in several places within Old Saint Peter’s – most prominently on the epitaph for Pope Hadrian I (772–95) that Charlemagne had made in Francia shortly after Hadrian’s death; it survives today in the portico of the basilica but was set originally in Hadrian’s tomb-chapel in the southern arm of the transept (Figs. 13.1–2).8 The verses were certainly composed by Alcuin, but the poet’s voice is Charlemagne’s. He speaks to the reader in the first person: Post patrem lacrimans Karolvs haec carmina scribsi, ‘Weeping after the father, I Charles have written these verses’ (line 17).9 Charlemagne’s centrality to the inscription is reinforced by the epigraphic layout of the poem. A longstanding tradition in Insular poetry used the golden section ratio to refer to the author: here the golden section divides the poem at the words Karolvs rex ego (line 23).10 The inscribed form of the name Karolvs in line 17 reinforces this sense of ego and the immediacy of Charlemagne’s physical presence. The king’s name is centrally placed using a linear form of his monogram to ‘sign’ the name of the king.11 The monogram thus used was more than just epigraphic convenience; it signified publicly the authority of the king. The king’s monogram was literally the 6

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I. H. Garipzanov, The Symbolic Language of Authority in the Carolingian World (c. 751–877) (Leiden and Boston, 2008), 199–200. For the authority of the king’s monogram on his coins, see Synodus Franconofurtensis, c. 5; A. Boretius (ed.), MGH, Capitularia Regum Francorum I, 73–8, at p. 74, no. 28.5. Einhard, Vita Karoli, c. 32; O. Holder-Egger (ed.), MGH, Scriptores Rerum Germanicorum (Hanover and Leipzig, 1911), 37; D. Ganz (trans.), Einhard and Notker the Stammerer: Two Lives of Charlemagne (London, 2008), 41. J. Story, J. Bunbury, A. C. Felici, G. Fronterotta, M. Piacentini, C. Nicolais, D. Scacciatelli, S. Sciuti and M. Vendittelli, ‘Charlemagne’s black marble: the origins of the epitaph of Pope Hadrian I’, PBSR 73 (2005), 157–90; BSPV, no. 262, Schede 494–6, Atlante 286. For a new edition and English translation D. Howlett, ‘Two Latin epitaphs’, Archivvm Latinitatis Medii Aevi (ALMA) 67 (2009), 235–47. Howlett, ‘Two Latin epitaphs’ (above, n. 9), 247. For the use of this form of Charlemagne’s monogram on a pre-reform denier (772–793/4) see Garipzanov, Symbolic Language (above, n. 6), 128–9, fig. 6.

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Fig. 13.2. Charlemagne’s epitaph for Hadrian I.

stamp of royal authority, and its centrality to the verse and to the whole inscription was self-conscious and deliberate. The potency of this visual and textual statement was considerably enhanced by the precise location of the inscription within the basilica. Hadrian’s epitaph was placed near the pope’s tomb, which lay against the western wall of the southern arm of the transept, next to the exedra screen and adjacent to the oratory of Leo the Great (Fig. 13.1). This prominent location and the devotional function of the oratory combined to draw the attention of pilgrims to the name of Charlemagne, the donor of the verses. The epitaph not only made Charlemagne a central actor in the memoria for Hadrian, it also made him an explicit beneficiary of those acts, whose

The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter

memory and presence were invoked whenever prayers were generated by the act of reading the verses.

A pilgrimage for Saint Peter and the Oratorium Pastoris A well-known pilgrim’s itinerary of the basilica that dates to the later eighth century (around 760–80) enhances our understanding of the liturgical topography of Saint Peter’s during the age of Charlemagne; it draws our attention to an oratory dedicated to Saint Peter the Shepherd that, on the basis of other contemporary evidence, seems to have been a focus for Carolingian patronage.12 The itinerary mentions numerous oratories within the basilica, concentrating on those that were in the transept and in the two imperial mausolea on its southern flank, dedicated by then to Saint Andrew and Saint Petronilla. It refers to two oratories that had been dedicated by Paul I (757–67); the first to Saint Petronilla, in the old Honorian mausoleum, and the other to Mary, Genetrix Dei, which was in the southwest corner of the southern exedra and subsequently housed his tomb.13 However, the itinerary does not refer to Hadrian’s tomb-chapel that was nearby in the junction of the west wall of the southern arm of the transept and the western pier of the southern exedra, and so the itinerary probably pre-dates its construction during the latter part of the pontificate of Hadrian. The palaeography of the unique manuscript copy confirms a pre-800 date for the itinerary.14 The book was almost certainly made for Archbishop Arn of Salzburg, shortly after he had visited Rome in 798. It includes a number of Rome-related texts, including this one, which may have been collected by Arn or by a member of his entourage during their recent visit. The itinerary is written in the present tense, and conveys a vivid sense of the contemporary experience of a pilgrim at the cult site of the apostle. It is 12

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The itinerary is an appendix to the text known as the Notitia Ecclesiarum Urbis Romae; ICUR, II.1, 224–8; Valentini–Zucchetti, II, 95–9, reprinted by P. Geyer and O. Cuntz (eds.), Itineraria et alia Geographica (CCSL 65–6) (Turnhout, 1965), 305–11; Bauer, Das Bild der Stadt Rom (above, n. 4), 15–16 and fig. 4, 157–9 (including a German translation), and fig. 73, which shows an interpretation of the route of the itinerary. See also R. Gem, Deerhurst and Rome: Æthelric’s Pilgrimage c. 804 and the Oratory of Saint Mary Mediana, Deerhurst Lecture 2007 (Deerhurst, 2007), 7–9. Life 95, c. 2, 6, LP, I, 463, 465. Paul I completed the work on the oratory of Saint Petronilla that had been started by his predecessor, Stephen III, Life 94, c. 52, LP, I, 455; see McEvoy, this volume, 120. ¨ Vienna, ONB Cod. 795, fol. 187r (line 2)–187v (line 16); M. Diesenberger and H. Wolfram, ‘Arn und Alkuin 790 bis 804: zwei Freund und ihre Schriften’, in M. Niederkorn-Bruck and A. Scharer (eds.), Erzbischof Arn von Salzburg (Munich, 2004), 81–106; R. McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Notre Dame, IN, 2006), 44–6.

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difficult to be certain of the exact route and precise location of each of the oratories mentioned here, since the text does not easily map on to the much later accounts and plans of the liturgical features of the basilica. But most can be identified, and the broad trajectory of the route is clear: the pilgrim enters the basilical complex from the south, via the two imperial mausolea, and travels thence into the southern arm of the transept, to the zone around the tomb of the apostle, and on to the northern part of the transept. After this the exact route becomes less certain. ‘Entering at the portico of Saint Andrew’, the pilgrim visits the altars arrayed around the easternmost of the two rotundas. This implies the existence of an external entrance at Saint Andrew’s by this date, a view corroborated by earlier evidence from the time of Pope Symmachus (498– 514), whose transformation of the eastern rotunda involved the creation of ‘steps for climbing to Saint Andrew’s’ and the construction of a fountain for thirsty pilgrims.15 In the early Middle Ages the precise articulation of these structures – rotundas, nartheces and steps – is not known for certain but it seems likely that the steps formalized a new approach to the southern side of the Vatican complex and to Saint Peter’s beyond.16 On leaving Saint Andrew’s our eighth-century pilgrim is received at the altar of Saint Martin that stood in the narthex between the two rotundas, and is led thence into the western rotunda where he visits several more altars as well as that dedicated to Saint Petronilla. From there, the pilgrim passes through the narthex that joined Petronilla’s rotunda to the basilica proper, past the oratory in the southern exedra dedicated to Mary, Genetrix Dei, by Paul I, and another nearby dedicated to the twelve Apostles. Then the pilgrim goes (via two further oratories to Peter and to Mary of uncertain location, the former perhaps in the area later occupied by Pope Hadrian’s tomb-chapel) to the oratory of Leo papa that had been moved into the southern part of the transept by Pope Sergius in 688.17 The pilgrim goes next to Gregory III’s tomb-chapel that was dedicated to the Virgin, Christ, 15

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Life 53, c. 7, LP, I, 262. The porticus at Saint Andrew’s was repaired by Leo IV: Life 105, c. 85, LP, II, 127–8. On Symmachus’s work at Saint Andrew’s, see especially J. D. Alchermes, ‘Petrine politics: Pope Symmachus and the rotunda of St Andrew at Old Saint Peter’s’, Catholic Historical Review 81 (1995), 1–40. Blaauw, CD, 467–8. A late sixteenth-century drawing (Florence, Uffizi Arch. 4336, see above Fig. 6.2) based on observations of the two rotundas before demolition work began in 1514 shows the narthex that joined the rotundas together, and the narthex that joined the westernmost rotunda to the main basilica. The plan shows no external entrance into the complex by this date, although, given the slope of the hill, it is possible that an entrance was at a higher level; R. Gem, ‘The Vatican Rotunda: a Severan monument and its early history, c. 200 to 500’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 85 (2005), 1–45, at p. 13, fig. 3 and n. 137. Life 86, c. 12, LP, I, 375.

The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter

Apostles, all Martyrs and Confessors that stood at the foot of the southern pier of the triumphal arch that terminates the nave.18 From here, the pilgrim descends into the annular crypt via its southern passage to the tomb of the apostle. On leaving the crypt by its northern doorway the pilgrim proceeds to the confessio and to the high altar, and, ‘after shedding tears of contrition’, the author says (excitedly), ‘you go to the place where that same most blessed apostle appeared [in a vision] to a certain sacristan’. Then the pilgrim is taken to another Petrine oratory, ‘the altar of the Holy Apostle which is called by the name of Shepherd’ – the Oratorium Pastoris – where, ‘they say, a sacristan (mansionarius) who fell was saved from ruin by the blessed apostle Peter’.19 The pilgrim moves thence to the oratory of the Holy ‘lifegiving’ Cross in the northern arm of the transept and then to the oratories in the northern exedra where the baptistery complex was to be found.20 The itinerary continues into the northern aisle, narthex and atrium, but it is this first part, describing the route from the porticus of the southern rotundas to the baptistery zone, that concerns us here. A great deal has been said about this itinerary and the evidence that it provides for the oratories that were in use at the basilica at the date of its composition. But we focus here on three observations that concern the sequence of oratories described and the liturgical topography of the building in the later eighth century. First is the dedication and position of the Oratorium Pastoris. The itinerary makes it clear that in the eighth century this was a Petrine altar, dedicated to ‘the holy apostle’ in his role as the shepherd of Christ’s flock (see below), rather than to the Good Shepherd or to a putative martyr by the name of Saint Pastor.21 It also suggests that the oratory was close to the area of the confessio and high altar; Alfarano later placed it at the foot of the northern pier of the triumphal arch (Fig. 13.1) and says that it was antiquissimus.22 The position of the Oratorium Pastoris at the foot of the triumphal arch means that it was paired liturgically and architecturally with Gregory III’s tomb-chapel dedicated to the Virgin, Christ, Apostles, all Martyrs and Confessors on the opposite side 18 19

20 21

22

Life 92, cc. 6–7, LP, I, 417; Blaauw, CD, 571–2. The story of the sacristan is also described in the Dialogues of Gregory the Great; Gregory, Dialogues III. 24–5; A de Vog¨ue´ (ed.), Gr´egoire le Grand. Dialogues (Livres I–III) (Sources Chr´etiennes 260) (Paris, 1979), 362–7. For arguments revising the date of the Dialogues to the later seventh century, see F. Clark, The ‘Gregorian’ Dialogues and the Origins of Benedictine Monasticism (Leiden, 2003). For the debate over the location of the baptistery, see Brandt, this volume, 81–94. The mid-ninth-century author of the life of Leo IV (847–54) refers to an oratory at Saint Peter’s dedicated to beati Pastori martyris; Life 105, c. 43, LP, II, 116, 136; Davis, Ninth-Century Popes, 129; Blaauw, CD, 571. Alfarano, DBVS, 60 (no. 40).

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of the nave. Both these oratories deferred visually to the famous dedicatory inscription on the arch above that recorded the foundation of the basilica by Constantine, uictor, and to the mosaic above it that showed Constantine offering a model of the basilica to Christ with Saint Peter in support.23 The second important observation is that the pilgrim’s route begins with oratories that lay externally, on the southern side of the basilica. The itinerary is one of a number of pieces of evidence that shows that this zone – both inside and outside the building – was especially favoured during the late seventh and eighth centuries. This pattern of patronage began with the translation of the body of Leo I into the southern arm of the transept in 688, and was continued by Gregory III, Stephen II, Paul and Hadrian I, as the Liber Pontificalis records.24 Thirdly, we notice that our eighth-century pilgrim follows a very particular route through the basilica that can be interpreted as a via sacra for the cult of Saint Peter; the sequence of oratories visited by the pilgrim re-enacts the story of the genesis of Saint Peter’s cult and celebrates his pastoral duty of care over the temporal Church.25 The itinerary begins at the place of the saint’s martyrdom and follows a route to his tomb or domus. It begins outside the basilica close to the locus of Peter’s death: the rotunda of Saint Andrew abuts the obelisk where Peter was believed to have been martyred. The pilgrim enters the basilica in porticum Sancti Andreae, into conjoined structures dedicated to Peter’s immediate family: to Andrew, his brother, and Petronilla, his daughter.26 Moving down the southern part of the transept, past oratories dedicated to the companions of Christ, the pilgrim arrives at the crypt and the tomb of the apostle. But, since the day of a saint’s death is also his dies natalis when he is ‘born’ into eternal life with Christ, by tracing the procession of Peter’s earthly remains, the pilgrim also follows the route of Peter’s ‘resurrection’ from death to eternal life. This message is reinforced by the pilgrim’s next appointment at the place where Peter appeared in a vision to the sacristan. 23

24

25 26

Blaauw, CD, 577. ICUR, II.1, 20; ICUR-NS, II, no. 4092; D. Schaller and E. K¨onsgen (eds.), Initia Carminum Latinorum Saeculo Undecimo Antiquiorium (G¨ottingen, 1977), no. 13892. For discussion on the date of the mosaic, which is known only from antiquarian sources, see P. Liverani, ‘Costantino offre il modello della basilica sull’arco trionfale’, in M. Andaloro (ed.), La pittura medievale a Roma, 312–1431 Corpus I, L’orizzonte tardoantico e le nuove immagini, 312–468 (Milan, 2006), 90–1, and P. Liverani, ‘Saint Peter’s, Leo the Great and the leprosy of Constantine’, PBSR 76 (2008), 155–72, at pp. 155–8. See Thacker, this volume, 153 and Jeffery, this volume, 158–60 on the basilical monasteries on the south side. See Osborne, this volume, 274–86, for the pilgrims’ route from the Tiber to the obelisk. Blaauw, CD, 577.

The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter

It is important also to notice that the pilgrimage route does not stop at Peter’s tomb. The tomb, high altar and confessio are emotional highlights of the visit but it does not culminate there. The route continues beyond the Apostle’s tomb, charting Peter’s central role in the genesis and governance of the Christian Church in a manner that is very specific to the basilica where his relics lay. Peter was considered – of course – to be the ‘rock’ on which Christ’s Church was built and, from at least the time of Leo I, this statement was interpreted literally at the site of his burial on the Vatican hill and was used to support the theory of apostolic succession and of the primacy of Saint Peter’s basilica within and beyond Rome. Peter’s foundational role was reinforced by Christ’s second command to Peter that he ‘feed my sheep’, pasce oves meas (John 21.15–17). In the verse that follows his pastoral commission, Christ foretold the manner of Peter’s martyrdom on the cross. So, the iconography of Saint Peter the Shepherd, guardian of the flock of the faithful, was especially and specifically appropriate for the basilica of Saint Peter’s in Rome where – it is believed – Peter was eventually crucified and buried. This message was reinforced by an inscription and accompanying mosaic dating from the pontificate of Leo I on the fac¸ade of the basilica itself that urged Christ, with Peter’s prayers, agnos pascere tuos, and to ‘preserve these halls (atria) for ever’.27 Our eighth-century pilgrim, thus, moves from the tomb that is the literal and metaphorical foundation of the Christian Church to the oratory that celebrates Peter’s pastoral commission to preach the Gospel and to guard the faithful – the Oratorium Pastoris. The next stage of the itinerary is a natural progression of this theme; the pilgrim moves via the oratory of the Holy ‘life-giving’ Cross into the zone of the baptistery where the faithful are received into the body of the Church. This Petrine via sacra thus celebrates the special role chosen for Peter by Christ, his journey from death to eternal life, and his perpetual guardianship of the faithful. Its emphasis on Peter’s Christ-given duty as Pastor/Shepherd of the Christian flock would have had additional resonance for a Roman audience, reflecting the longstanding rivalry between the Lateran that was the cathedral of Rome and the Vatican that kept Peter’s relics. But it had a wider significance too, reinforcing the centrality of Peter, and by inference the centrality of Peter’s cult site, in the governance and authority of the whole Christian Church within and beyond Rome (urbis et orbis). It was 27

ICUR, II.1, 57, no. 20; ICUR-NS, II, no. 4124; Schaller and K¨onsgen (eds.), Initia Carminum (above, n. 23), no. 13246; Liverani, ‘Saint Peter’s, Leo the Great’ (above, n. 23), 164–5.

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this role, Peter’s guardianship of all Christendom, which was remembered and celebrated at the Oratorium Pastoris. The outward-looking, external trajectory of the Oratorium Pastoris is balanced by the inward pull of the oratory that stood at the foot of the arch on the opposite side of the nave. Here, Gregory III intended relics of ‘All Saints’ to be brought from throughout Christendom.28 Through the Oratorium Pastoris, therefore, Peter sent Christ’s message out to the world, which returned to the basilica in the form of relics of Christ’s favoured servants.

Carolingian gifts to Saint Peter the Shepherd This interpretation of the pilgrim’s route and the doctrinal function of the Oratorium Pastoris adds considerable significance to two gifts to the basilica that may be assigned to this oratory: one was given by Pope Hadrian to honour Charlemagne, and another by Charlemagne’s third queen, Hildegard. Here too, the symbolism of the objects and the meaning of the texts that record the donations are reinforced by the location and liturgical function of the oratory where they were displayed. Neither gift is extant, but the verse tituli that were written on them survive in the first of the so-called ‘Lorsch sylloges’, preserved in a Vatican manuscript that was copied in a scriptorium in northeastern Francia sometime between 821 and c. 835.29 This sylloge comprises thirty-five inscriptions that could be seen in a series of Roman churches. The first group is for Saint Peter’s, and each epigram is assigned a rubric to indicate where the verse was displayed. The rubrics follow a logical sequence from the atrium to the high altar to the baptistery and thus, in its own way, the sylloge acts as a mini epigraphic itinerary of the basilica.

A votive crown The first of these gifts was a votive crown, a regnum, to hang above an altar.30 The twelve-line epigram recording its donation says that the crown was given 28 29

30

´ Carrag´ain, this volume, 188–9. O BAV Pal. lat. 833, fols. 27r–35v; B. Bischoff, Die Abtei Lorsch im Spiegel ihrer Handschriften (Lorsch, 1989), 51, 126–7; C. Vircillo Franklin, ‘The epigraphic syllogae of BAV Palatinus latinus 833’, in J. Hamesse (ed.), Roma, magistra mundi: itineraria culturae medievalis. M´elange offerts au P`ere L. E. Boyle a` l’occasion de son 75e anniversaire, 3 vols. (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1998), II, 975–90. ICUR, II.1, 146, no. XIII 8; Schaller and K¨onsgen (eds.), Initia Carminum (above, n. 23), no. 1805.

The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter

by Pope Hadrian I to honour Charlemagne’s life and triumphs, Carolus praecellentissimus rex.31 De Rossi dated the gift to 774, when Charlemagne and Hadrian met for the first time, in Rome.32 The rubric to the epigram is not especially helpful, saying only that the inscription (and presumably the object too) was to be found ‘in the same place’ as the preceding epigram in the sylloge, said to have been placed in altare.33 The sequence of inscriptions recorded in the sylloge suggests that this altar was in the heart of the basilica, between the throne (at the apse) and the baptistery. Close reading of the verses for Hadrian’s gift suggests that the Oratorium Pastoris may have been the altar in question not least because, in line 5, it names Peter as the Shepherd to whom Christ gives the sheep for ruling. The first half of the inscription mirrors the doctrinal role of the Oratorium Pastoris and is concerned with the pastoral role of the temporal Church and the apostolic succession. Christ cares for priests and kings in the world by giving to Peter – and thence to his successor, Pope Hadrian – guardianship of the flock ‘for ruling in Faith’. In parallel, Christ grants a symbol of authority ‘to Charles, most excellent king’, who will receive it in Rome from Peter’s right hand. The wording of this couplet in the sole manuscript copy is unfortunately corrupt, and some scholars have chosen to interpolate the noun vexillum, ‘banner’ (in place of the word pontificatum in line 8), which agrees – rather too conveniently perhaps – with the later, famous mosaic image of Charlemagne and Pope Leo III from the Lateran triclinium but which is, alas, a syllable short for the scansion of the line.34 Notwithstanding the problems of the precise reading of this line, the poem clearly envisages a division of earthly power between priest and king, 31

32 33

34

This is the text of the epigram as transmitted by the unique manuscript copy, BAV, Pal. lat. 833, fol. 29r–v: ‘Caelorum d[omi]n[u]s qui cum patre condidit orbem / Disponit terras virgine natus homo // Utquae sacer[dotum] regumq[ue] est stirpe creatus / Prouidus huic mundo curat utrumq[ue] geri / Tradit oues fidei petro pastore regendas / Quas uice hadriano crederet ille sua / Quin et romanum largitur in urbe fideli / Pontificatum famuli qui placuere sibi / Quod carolus mira praecellentissimus rex / Suscipiet dextra glorificante petri / Pro cuius uita triumphiq[ue] hac munera regno / Obtulit antistes congrua rite sibi.’ For various modifications to this text, especially to line 8, see Bauer, Das Bild der Stadt Rom (above, n. 4), 104, n. 637. ICUR, II.1, 146, no. XIII 8; Blaauw, CD, 547, n. 193. Vox arcana patris caeli quibus aequa potestas; ICUR, II.1, 145–6, no. XIII 7; ICUR-NS, no. 4117; Schaller and K¨onsgen (eds.), Initia Carminum (above, n. 23), no. 17526. See LP, I, 309–10 for the argument that the inscription belongs to the pontificate of Pelagius II, rather than his namesake, Pelagius I (556–61), as de Rossi had supposed. M. Luchterhandt, ‘Famulus Petri’, in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), 799. Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Große und Papst Leo III. in Paderborn, 3 vols. (Mainz, 1999), III, 55–70, at pp. 64–7. An English translation of the verses using this revision is in C. J. Goodson and J. L. Nelson, ‘Review article: the Roman contexts of the “Donation of Constantine”’, Early Medieval Europe 18 (2010), 446–67, at p. 457, n. 33.

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Hadrian and Charlemagne, claiming that these powers derive from Christ and are channelled via Peter his deputy. The description of Peter as pastor of Christ’s flock makes it likely that the votive crown that bore these verses was made to hang in the oratory of that name that celebrated Peter’s pastoral care of the Church in the basilica where his body lay. What is more, the location of this oratory at the foot of the triumphal arch begs the reader of the epigram and the viewer of the oratory with all its riches to make a connection with the iconography of the mosaic image above. There, we are told, Constantine uictor gives this very basilica to Christ and Peter; by inference (and gesture too, perhaps) Christ gives the Church to Peter who stands in support.35 The devolution of authority over the Church universal from Christ to Peter is pursued in the inscription on the regnum, which describes its descent from Peter to Hadrian, his heir. Charlemagne, too, receives a potent gift from Peter, the exact nature of which is obscured by the contested verse in the Lorsch sylloge. Intriguingly, these verses by Hadrian echo the structure and wording of the previous epigram that could be read ‘at the same altar’.36 In that earlier epigram the donor is named as Pelagius praesul, and the verses are attributed to Pope Pelagius II (579–90). The parallel diction of this inscription with that on Hadrian’s regnum, as well as the location of both epigrams in altare, led de Rossi to infer that the earlier, Pelagian inscription had also adorned a votive crown. The Pelagian poem does not honour an individual by name, but refers to ‘princes’ who, Duchesne argued, must have been the Emperor Maurice and his sons, rather than (as de Rossi and Baronius had thought) the Emperor Justinian who had been sole ruler during the pontificate of Pelagius I (556–61). If the imperial context of Pelagius’s epigram was understood when Hadrian commissioned his verses, the parallel reference to Charlemagne in Hadrian’s epigram is extraordinarily prescient.

An altar cloth The identification of the Oratorium Pastoris as the possible location of Hadrian’s votive crown is supported by the second of our Carolingian-era inscriptions, which follows immediately in the Lorsch sylloge and which also describes Peter as pastor. The rubric of this second poem, in pallio altaris, indicates that it was to be found woven into or embroidered on to an altar cloth.37 This poem is six lines long, and each couplet contains a personal name: the first couplet refers to Peter the Shepherd who was the recipient of 35 37

36 See above, n. 31. See above, n. 23. ICUR, II.1, 147, no. XIII 9; Schaller and K¨onsgen (eds.), Initia Carminum (above, n. 23), no. 11715; Blaauw, CD, 546. BAV, Pal. lat. 833, fol. 29v: ‘Pastor ouile d[e]i seruans sine crimine

The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter

the gift; the second names Charles (Charlemagne) who had given many gifts to Peter; and the third identifies Hildegard as the donor of this particular offering. The names are carefully placed. A hypothetical reconstruction of the altar cloth based on contemporary archaeological examples suggests that the inscription could have been woven or embroidered as narrow bands across the width of a rectangular cloth made long enough to cover two sides and the top of the altar.38 When spread out across the altar, the name of Peter thus would have been displayed on the one side of the cloth, the couplet naming Hildegard on the other, with the couplet naming Charles between these two, perhaps even on the flat upper surface of the altar. In the context of the location of the Oratorium Pastoris, the name of Peter thus would have faced outwards into the nave and that of Hildegard would have hung modestly to face the northern aisle, which, in liturgical terms, was the women’s side of the basilica. The name of Charles, however, may have lain on the upper surface of the altar, in active contact with the liturgical vessels during holy office. The gift of a textile vestment was an appropriate gift for a woman, and can be paralleled at Saint Peter’s by another, earlier Carolingian gift. In 758 Charlemagne’s father, Pippin, sent his baby daughter’s baptismal gown to Pope Paul I asking him to act as her compater. Paul replied saying that he had taken baby Gisela’s gown into Saint Petronilla’s oratory; a daughter’s gown for a daughter’s oratory.39 This gift began the patronage of the tomb of Petronilla by Frankish kings that continued throughout the Middle Ages; right from the outset, gifts to Petronilla bound the family of the Carolingians to the family of Saint Peter in a physical setting that was historically imperial.

Carolingian visitors The occasion of the donation of Hildegard’s altar cloth was probably also that of a royal baptism in Rome. We know that Hildegard came to Rome at Easter 781 with Charlemagne to have her third son baptized, anointed and crowned as king by Hadrian, alongside his elder brother, Louis. The boy took the baptismal name of Pippin, after his grandfather, and received

38

39

petre / Qui praebes [Christi] pabula s[an]c[t]a gregi / Tu caroli clemens deuoti munera regis / Suscipe quae cupiens obtulit ipse tibi / Hildegarda pio cum quo regina fidelis / Actibus insignis mentis amore dedit.’ See, for example, the late eighth-/early ninth-century cloth bearing a woven inscription from Ravenna, M. Mazzotti, ‘Antiche stoffe liturgiche ravennati’, Felix Ravenna, 3rd ser. fasc. II, vol. 53 (1950), 40–5 and M. Mazzotti, La basilica di Sant’Apollinare in Classe (Vatican City, 1954), fig. 76. Codex Carolinus no. 21; Gundlach (ed.), MGH, Epistolae (above, n. 2), III, 511–12.

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the kingdom of Italy; his name and kingdom must have been meant as an explicit act of reassurance to Hadrian of Charlemagne’s commitment to honour the promises that Pippin III had made to Pope Stephen in 754 and that Charlemagne had restated in front of the confessio in 774.40 It is assumed that the baptism took place at the Lateran, and a sumptuous Carolingian court school manuscript, known as Godescalc’s Evangelistary, made at just this time (781 × 783), is often thought to preserve a stylized representation of the Lateran baptistery as the Fountain of Life. But this image may also stand for the fountain in the atrium of Saint Peter’s called Paradisio (a term that first appears in the Lorsch sylloge and the late eighth-century pilgrim’s itinerary). The fountain in the image is topped with peacocks just like those that were taken for the fountain probably during the Carolingian era from the tomb of the Emperor Hadrian that stood a short distance from Saint Peter’s on the banks of the Tiber.41 Hildegard had been to Italy at least once before. The Liber Pontificalis says that she had been summoned to Italy during the siege of Pavia in the winter of 773 with her baby son Charles, who had been born in 772/3. The war zone was fraught with danger for the young queen, not least because she was heavily pregnant with her second child. But her presence was needed to neutralize the twin threats posed by the Lombard princess who had been Charlemagne’s second wife and repudiated by him in favour of Hildegard, and perhaps also by the wife and sons of Charlemagne’s brother Carloman, who had fled to the Lombards for protection after Carloman’s death in 771. The Lombard King Desiderius had tried to persuade Pope Hadrian to anoint Carloman’s boys, since unction would have acted as protection against their uncle and would have given Desiderius political leverage and a measure of revenge for the insult done to his rejected daughter.42 The manoeuvre failed, 40

41

42

Life 97, cc. 41–3, LP, 498; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 141–2; T. F. X. Noble, The Republic of Saint Peter: the Birth of the Papal State, 680–825 (Philadelphia, 1984), 139–48. The Godescalc Evangelistary: Paris, BNF Nouv. Acq. lat. 1203, fol. 3v; F. M¨utherich and J. E. Gaehde, Carolingian Painting (New York, 1976), 34, 36, pl. 2; J. C. Picard, ‘Les origines du mot ´ Paradisus-Parvis’, M´elanges de l’Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome 83 (1971–2), 159–86. For the peacocks and the fountain, see M. Finch, ‘The cantharus and pigna at Old Saint Peter’s’, Gesta 30 (1991), 16–26; T. Opper, Hadrian: Empire and Conflict (London, 2008), 210–11. Life 97, c. 23, LP, I, 493; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 133. Charlemagne’s marriage to Desiderius’s daughter is disputed and discussed by (among others) J. L. Nelson, ‘Making a difference in eighth-century politics: the daughters of Desiderius’, in A. C. Murray (ed.), After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Essays Presented to Walter Goffart (Toronto, 1998), 171–90; W. Pohl, ‘Alienigena uxor: Bestrebungen zu einem Verbot ausw¨artiger Heiraten in der Karolingerzeit’, in A. Peˇcar and K. Trampedach (eds.), Die Bibel als politisches Argument (Munich, 2007), 159–88; C. Hammer, From Ducatus to Regnum: Ruling Bavaria under the Merovingians and Early Carolingians (Turnhout, 2007), 297–304; R. McKitterick, Charlemagne: the Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008), 84–8.

The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter

and instead precipitated Charlemagne’s invasion of the Lombard kingdom in order to eliminate the dual threat caused by Desiderius to the pope and by the continued existence of his nephews to Charles’s own dynastic intentions. The siege of Pavia had lasted all through the winter of 773 and spring the following year. Before it was complete, Charles came south and arrived at the gates of Saint Peter’s on Holy Saturday (coincidentally, it was his birthday, 2 April). It is not known whether Hildegard came to Rome as well, nor whether the baptismal mass that was always celebrated on Holy Saturday at Saint Peter’s involved a Carolingian child (though it could have done if the younger Charles or the new baby had been in the royal cort`ege), but it does seem that Hildegard stayed with Charlemagne for the duration of his assault on Pavia. We know nothing about the place or date of the baptism of Charles the Younger nor of his infant sister, Adelheid, who was born ‘near the high walls of Pavia’.43 Her epitaph says that she died in Francia ‘far from her mother’ before the conquest of the Lombard kingdom was complete, implying that Hildegard had remained in Italy with her husband. Charlemagne’s visit to Rome at Easter 774 seems to be the most likely context for the dedication of Hadrian’s votive crown to the Oratorium Pastoris, with its verses reminding the king of the origins of his influence in Rome and of Saint Peter’s expectation of partnership of power with the pope. The symbolism of the hanging crown was overt; the crown of the Lombards was also in the gift of Christ and his apostle. Charlemagne’s 774 visit was more certainly the context for another gift from Hadrian, that of the canon law collection known as the Dionysio Hadriana. This too was prefaced by a dedicatory poem. Scholars are not, on the whole, very complimentary about the quality of these verses but we should note an intriguing papal innovation. The poem contains an acrostic where the first letter of each line spells out a sentence: domino excell[entissimo] filio carulo magno regi hadrianvs papa. This seems to be the very first time that Charles was called magnus (Carolus Magnus > Charlemagne).44 The epithet does not occur in Frankish sources before this date but it is found four times in the description in the Liber Pontificalis of Charlemagne’s visit to Rome in 774, which scholars agree is a closely contemporary source at

43

44

E. D¨ummler (ed.), MGH, Poetae Latini Ævi Carolini, I (Berlin, 1895), 58; P. E. Dutton (trans.), Carolingian Civilization: a Reader (Peterborough, Ont., 1993), 46. D¨ummler (ed.), MGH, Poetae Latini Ævi Carolini, I (above, n. 43), 90–1, esp. line 16, ‘In hanc sanctam sedem magnus rex Carulus splendit’; Life 97, cc. 23, 27, 29, 37, LP, I, 493–5, 497; Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 133, 135, 139.

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Fig. 13.3. Jean Fouquet, ‘The Coronation of the Emperor Charlemagne’, Grandes Chroniques de France (1455–60), Paris, BnF Fr. 6465 fol. 89v.

this point.45 The epithet is self-evidently intended to flatter a king engaged in open warfare with the pope’s Lombard neighbours, and from whom the pope hoped to secure large tracts of land as promised by his father before him. But the use of magnus might also reflect and refer to the recent birth of a son to Charles who shared his name and who was thereafter considered his eldest, legitimate, heir. It reflects the papacy’s ability to innovate at a crucial moment of dynastic transition when the Frankish king’s power was verging 45

Davis, Eighth-Century Popes, 107.

The Carolingians and the oratory of Saint Peter

on Rome itself. Like the verses for the votive crown, the acrostic poem reflects the relationship between pope and king, and the shifting balance of power in Christendom. The basilica of Saint Peter played an important part in this discourse of power; not only did it provide a stage for the set-piece liturgical dramas that were recorded for posterity in contemporary annals, papal biographies and later legends (see, for example, Fig. 13.3 and Plate 10) – such as Charlemagne’s first visit in 774 or his imperial coronation at Christmas 800, for example – but it gave time-depth and historical context to the ongoing conversations between the papacy and the Carolingian dynasty about the theory and practice of rulership. The basilica was papal territory, but Carolingian activity there shows that this Frankish dynasty went to considerable efforts to mark its presence in liturgically significant places that functioned as nodes in the narrative of the cult of Saint Peter. The account of the pilgrim’s visit shows how the topography of the site was articulated by oratories that reflected a narrative justifying the primacy of the basilica in the governance of the temporal Church. Gifts to the oratories on this route, especially to the Oratorium Pastoris, demonstrate that the Carolingians understood this topography of power and that they were able to use it to lasting effect.

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14

Plus Caesare Petrus The Vatican obelisk and the approach to Saint Peter’s john osborne

Fig. 14.1. The medieval ecclesiastical institutions and classical structures in the environs of Saint Peter’s.

An understanding of the political and religious implications of a particular site or location can be defined in terms of the perception of the space occupied physically, socially, intellectually, and spiritually by both place and ideas.1 The city of Rome is a tapestry of memory, a landscape lush with buildings and monuments that bear witness to attempts over the centuries to remember as well as forget.2

When medieval visitors to Rome conjured up an image of Old Saint Peter’s, it was not only the interior of the basilica that they envisaged. The church had an elaborate setting on the right bank of the Tiber, outside the circuit This chapter develops an idea first formulated in J. Osborne, ‘Saint Peter’s Needle and the ashes of Julius Caesar: invoking Rome’s imperial history at the papal court, ca. 1100–1300’, in M. Wyke (ed.), Julius Caesar in Western Culture (Oxford, 2006), 95–109. 1 2

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R. McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Notre Dame, IN, 2006), 59. A. M. Gowing, Empire and Memory: the Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture (Cambridge, 2005), 132.

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of the Aurelian walls, and was surrounded by a host of other buildings and monuments, including additional churches, monasteries, xenodochia and hospitals. Some structures formed part of the legacy of the ancient city, pre-dating the Constantinian construction of the shrine basilica in the early fourth century, although most were built at later moments in the Middle Ages, in order to serve the swelling throngs of pilgrims. And in the mid-ninth century, following the shock of the Saracen sack of Saint Peter’s in 846, the entire zone of the ‘borgo’, as it had come to be known, was enclosed in a fortified wall by Pope Leo IV (847–55), creating the ‘civitas Leoniana’.3 Those wishing to venerate the relics of Peter thus had first to traverse the basilica’s environs (Fig. 14.1) – and this chapter will propose that this approach can be thought of in terms of a ritual imbued with significant meaning. The concept of a space that required ritual traversal is an ancient one, and has its origins in pre-Christian religious traditions and processions. Well before the year 600 we have good evidence of public Christian rituals taking place in the urban landscape of the city of Rome, incorporating both churches and other landmarks – and indeed it was this activity that led to the growth of the stational liturgy, in which the pope daily moved in and through the spaces of the city, spaces increasingly vested with symbolic meaning. One of the first such records is that of the penitential procession led by Pope Gregory I in the year 590, seeking divine intervention to end a devastating plague. The story is well known of Gregory’s vision of the Archangel Michael, standing at the highest point on the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, in the act of sheathing his sword – and the structure subsequently became known as the Castel Sant’Angelo, a name that continues in use to this day.4 It is a good story, but it also carries a deeper significance, sometimes overlooked. The effect of Gregory’s vision was to appropriate a significant monument, previously associated with Rome’s imperial past, by incorporating it into the narrative of the city’s Christian present, while at the same time reinforcing the role of the popes in securing the health and safety of its citizens. Perhaps more obviously deliberate, less than two decades later, was the conversion of another imposing pagan structure – the

3

4

For the ‘borgo’, see R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980), 261–9; for the construction of the ‘civitas Leoniana’, Life 105, cc. 68–73, LP, II, 123–4. See also S. Gibson and B. Ward-Perkins, ‘The surviving remains of the Leonine wall’, PBSR 47 (1979), 30–57. For the naming of the Castel Sant’Angelo: Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, W. G. Ryan (trans.), 2 vols. (Princeton, 1993), I, 174; II, 202–3. For penitential processions through Rome: J. Dyer, ‘Roman processions of the major litany (litaniae maiores) from the sixth to the twelfth ´ Carrag´ain and C. Neuman de Vegvar (eds.), Roma Felix: Formation and ´ O century’, in E. Reflections of Medieval Rome (Aldershot, 2007), 112–37.

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Pantheon – to a church dedicated to Mary and all the martyrs, an act of Pope Boniface IV in the year 609.5 While similar actions took place in many parts of the early medieval world and were not limited to practitioners of Christianity – for example, the ritual movements undertaken by pilgrims visiting the Kaaba in Mecca, itself a relic from an earlier age ‘reinvented’ in a new context – Rome was a particularly potent site of contested geography owing to its vast wealth of standing buildings, statues and other public monuments that endured as mute testimony to the beliefs and achievements of an earlier age. And slowly but surely the ‘messages’ conveyed by these monuments were altered, at least in the popular imagination, turning the Capitoline hill into the site of Augustus’s vision of the Madonna and Child (Ara Coeli); or the equestrian bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius into the first Christian emperor, Constantine. Much of this was deliberate, as revealed by the sermons of Pope Leo I in the mid-fifth century, and intended not merely as simple appropriation, but rather as a conscious construction of Christian Rome as the fulfilment of the city’s manifest destiny.6 Imperial and pagan Rome was seen as foreshadowing Christian Rome in much the same way that the Old Testament was seen as foreshadowing the coming of Christ. The intertwining of secular and imperial history with sacred history – especially linked to specific places or monuments – is a concept that lies at the base of the remarks that follow.7 All visitors coming from the city to the basilica of Old Saint Peter’s were required to cross the Ponte Sant’Angelo, the ancient Pons Aelius,8 as this was the only bridge across the Tiber to survive in the Middle Ages in the stretch between the Ponte Milvio and the Isola Tiberina (Figs. 14.1 and 5 6

7

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Life 69, LP, I, 317. Especially sermon 82, ‘In Natali apostolorum Petri et Pauli’, which suggests that Peter and Paul serve as better patrons than Romulus and Remus for the ‘civitas sacerdotalis et regia’. See PL LIV, 422–8, at p. 423. The construction of a classical–Christian continuum in Rome has been explored by numerous authors, including D. Trout, ‘Damasus and the invention of Early Christian Rome’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (2003), 517–36; McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past (above, n. 1), 35–61; and M. Humphries, ‘From emperor to pope? Ceremonial, space and authority at Rome from Constantine to Gregory the Great’, in K. Cooper and J. Hillner (eds.), Religion, Dynasty and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900 (Cambridge, 2007), 21–58. For the importance of the physical landscape of Rome in creating a ‘topography of the imagination’, see D. Larmour and D. Spencer (eds.), The Sites of Rome: Time, Space, Memory (Oxford, 2007), 1–60. A similar theme is explored in C. Edwards, Writing Rome: Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge, 1996). E. de Caprariis, ‘Pons Aelius’ LTUR, IV, 105–6. The nearby ‘Pons Neronianis’ seems not to have been in use by Late Antiquity, as it is not mentioned in any source and there was no corresponding gate in the Aurelian walls: see P. Liverani, ‘Pons Neronianis’, LTUR IV, 111.

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Fig. 14.2. Detail of the panorama of Rome from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493).

14.2, Plate 11). As a result, the bridge became a significant focal point for movement into and out of the city, and its inability to accommodate the volume of traffic often resulted in considerable congestion, on occasion with tragic results. In the Inferno (XVIII, 28–33), Dante records the decision in the first papal Jubilee year, 1300, to divide those crossing the bridge into two great streams, one moving in each direction – something that Dante would likely have witnessed at first hand, as he was himself a pilgrim to Rome in that year. Another Jubilee visitor in 1300, Guilielmus Ventura from Asti in Piedmont, recorded his fear of being trodden underfoot by the great throngs,9 and in the Jubilee of 1450 some two hundred people and three horses would drown beneath the bridge in a single incident when the crowd panicked.10 But from another perspective, the single crossing served 9

10

G. Ventura, Memoriale de Gestis Civium Astensium (RIS 11) (Milan, 1727), 153–268, at pp. 191–2; English translation in D. Webb, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in the Medieval West (London and New York, 1999), 118. As recorded in the diary of Stefano Infessura; see Webb, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage (above, n. 9), 48.

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to formalize the subsequent approach to the shrine of Saint Peter, making it a common experience shared by all, pope and pilgrim alike, and in the process creating a form of ritual movement quite unknown to the modern visitor. On the right bank of the Tiber, commanding the bridgehead, stood the imposing imperial mausoleum constructed for the Emperor Hadrian (117– 38), the site of Pope Gregory I’s vision of the Archangel Michael and the first of a sequence of tombs to be encountered by those approaching Saint Peter’s from the city. Its strategic location had prompted its early conversion into a fortress, and over the centuries it often played a role in the defence of the city or of the person of the pope, from the Gothic wars of the sixth century to the famous ‘Sack of Rome’ by the troops of Charles V in 1527.11 Despite the changes of name and function, the Castel’s original purpose as an imperial tomb was not forgotten, and this is recorded, for example, in the most influential of the medieval descriptions of the city and its buildings, the twelfth-century Mirabilia Urbis Romae, a text that perhaps more than any other was responsible for the construction of new understandings for Rome’s ancient monuments.12 Turning to the west, the route towards Saint Peter’s was marked by a covered porticus, presumably intended to offer visitors some protection from sun and rain, and paralleling others that led from gates in the Aurelian walls to the suburban shrines of Saints Paul and Lawrence. This portico may have been a project of Pope Simplicius (468–83),13 but it is first documented in Procopius’s eye-witness account of the siege of Rome by the Ostrogoths in 537, when it was used by the attackers to conceal their assault on the adjacent fortress.14 In the second half of the eighth century it would be repaired by Pope Hadrian I.15 Between the Castel Sant’Angelo and Saint Peter’s the medieval visitor encountered two very prominent ancient monuments, both of which were 11

12

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14 15

See C. Cecchelli, ‘Documenti per la storia antica e medievale di Castel S. Angelo’, Archivio della Societ`a Romana di Storia Patria 74 (1951), 27–67; and M. J. Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2009), 30–40. Mirabilia Urbis Romae, ch. 21: Valentini–Zucchetti, III, 46–7. The precise moment of the change in popular name is not known, and it is still referred to as the ‘Adrianium’ in the eighth-century vita of Pope Hadrian I: see Life 97, c. 66, LP, I, 506. For the evidence of an inscription naming Simplicius, now lost but recorded in the seventh ´ century, see J.-C. Picard, ‘Le quadriportique de Saint-Pierre-du-Vatican’, M´elanges de l’Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome. Antiquit´e 86 (1974), 851–90, at p. 857; although Krautheimer believed this referred to a portico situated in the atrium: CBCR, V, 165–279, at pp. 173–4. See also F. A. Bauer, Das Bild der Stadt Rom im Fr¨uhmittelalter (Wiesbaden, 2004), 171–2. Procopius, History of the Wars, V [= Gothic Wars I], xxii, 12–25. Life 97, c. 72, LP, I, 507.

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also considered to be the tombs of famous Romans.16 The first was a large stone pyramid, resembling that of the senator Gaius Cestius Epulo that still survives by the Porta San Paolo on the city’s south side, and like it probably also dating from the Augustan period.17 There can be little doubt that it too was built as a tomb, and while no record now remains of the name of the original occupant, in the Middle Ages the pyramid was widely identified as the tomb of Romulus, one of the legendary twin founders of the city, and as a result came to be known as the ‘Meta Romuli’.18 In a similar way, its surviving twin at the Porta San Paolo was identified as the tomb of Remus. These two structures thus served to reinforce the concept of Christian succession expressed in the fifth-century sermon of Pope Leo I, with the parallel appearing all the more appropriate given the happy coincidence that one marked the road to the shrine of Saint Peter, and the other the road to the shrine of Saint Paul. The ‘Meta Romuli’ was largely demolished by Pope Alexander VI in 1499, in order to widen the approach to Saint Peter’s in anticipation of the large Jubilee crowds expected in the following year, although the Mirabilia passage records that at a much earlier date the marble revetment had been stripped away and used to pave the atrium of Old Saint Peter’s. Its base was rediscovered in excavations undertaken in 1948–9 at the beginning of the modern Via della Conciliazione.19 And there was one final pre-Christian ‘tomb’ to come, arguably the most important in the series. Approaching the culmination of a journey that was considered to be simultaneously physical and spiritual, the pilgrim encountered a large Egyptian obelisk, made of red granite, and the bronze orb at its summit was popularly believed to contain the remains of perhaps the most famous of all ancient Romans.20 In the Middle Ages, this obelisk, generally referred to as the ‘agulia’, stood adjacent to the south flank of the church of Saint Peter’s, but in 1586, Pope Sixtus V determined that it should be moved to its present location in the centre of the piazza, 16

17 18 19

20

A third ancient monument, a circular tomb probably dating from the late Republican era, and known in the Middle Ages as the ‘terebinth’ of the Emperor Nero, seems not to have been understood as a funerary monument: see P. Liverani, ‘Terebinthus’, LTURS, V, 137–9. P. Liverani, ‘Pyramis in Vaticano’, LTURS, IV, 275–6. Mirabilia Urbis Romae, ch. 20; Valentini–Zucchetti, III, 45. G. Gatti, ‘Scavi e scoperte in Via della Conciliazione’, Fasti Archaeologici 4 (1951), 359–60, no. 3771. The site had been determined earlier by C. Huelsen, ‘Il Gaianum e la Naumachia Vaticana’, Dissertazioni della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia (1903), 353–87, at pp. 383–7. G. Alf¨oldy, Der Obelisk auf dem Petersplatz in Rom. Ein historisches Monument der Antike (Heidelberg, 1990); and C. D’Onofrio, Gli obelischi di Roma: storia e urbanistica di una citt`a dall’et`a antica al XX secolo (Rome, 1992), 97–185.

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Fig. 14.3. The Vatican obelisk.

directly in front of the newly rebuilt church (Figs. 14.3 and 14.4). This remarkable feat of engineering was accomplished by Domenico Fontana, his principal architect.21 Of the many Egyptian obelisks that had been brought to Rome in Antiquity, the Vatican obelisk was the only one to have remained standing throughout the course of the Middle Ages. Its original location in Egypt is not recorded, and, unusually, there are no surviving inscriptions in hieroglyphs. However, it is believed that this obelisk was moved to Alexandria sometime shortly after the Roman conquest of Egypt by Augustus, where it was set up in the Forum Julium by the prefect 21

D. Fontana, Del modo tenuto nel trasportare l’obelisco vaticano (Rome, 1590); see also B. Curran, A. Grafton, P. Long and B. Weiss, Obelisk: a History (Cambridge, MA, 2009), 102–38.

The Vatican obelisk and Saint Peter’s

Fig. 14.4. Domenico Fontana, Del modo tenuto nel trasportare l’obelisco vaticano, e delle fabriche fatte da nostro signore Sisto V libro p[rimo] (Naples, 1604), fol. 8r.

Cornelius Gallus.22 A Latin inscription, still preserved and easily visible, was added either during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius or that of his adopted son and successor, Caligula, and refers both to Tiberius and to the 22

The inscription in bronze letters attached to the base, long since lost, has been reconstructed on the basis of the surviving holes: see F. Magi, ‘Le iscrizioni recentemente scoperte sull’obelisco vaticano’, Studi Romani 11 (1963), 50–6.

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deified Augustus.23 In the year 37, the Emperor Caligula had the obelisk transported from Alexandria to Rome, as described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History (16.76.201), and it was subsequently set up on the spina of the Vatican circus, where it would remain until 1586.24 The original site is now marked by a stone set into the pavement of the Piazza dei Protomartiri, where excavations in 1958–9 revealed remnants of the marble foundation.25 Medieval guidebooks to the city of Rome frequently refer to the obelisk as ‘Saint Peter’s Needle’, no doubt based on its close proximity to the basilica, coupled with the belief that Peter had suffered his martyrdom in the Vatican circus, either at or near this spot. But there was also a second popular understanding regarding this object: not simply that it had been erected to honour Julius Caesar, but perhaps more significantly that it functioned as his tomb. The precise origins of this identification are unknown, but it may be found in a variety of medieval texts, beginning with a bull of Pope Leo IX (1049–54).26 In the Mirabilia, the obelisk is referred to as the ‘memoria Caesaris, id est agulia’, and the passage then goes on to report that his cremated remains were contained in the large bronze sphere set at the top: ‘where his ashes rest splendidly in their sarcophagus’.27 The etymology and meaning of ‘agulia’, a term also repeated in other sources, is far from certain, but it is possibly a corruption of ‘acus Iulia’ (in other words, Julius’s Needle). This association with Julius Caesar persisted well into the sixteenth century, and numerous authors, for example Andrea Palladio, in his Antichit`a di Roma (1554), maintain without question that the bronze orb contained Caesar’s ashes.28 Just before the obelisk was moved to its present location in 1586, the palla was taken down and brought to a room in the Belvedere 23

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CIL, VI, 1, no. 882; D’Onofrio, Gli obelischi (above, n. 20), figs. 59–60. The text was recorded by Giovanni Dondi when he visited Rome for Easter 1375: Valentini–Zucchetti, IV, 68. The text of Pliny was well known to late medieval antiquarians, for example Flavio Biondo in the mid-1440s: see F. Biondo, Roma instaurata. Liber I, A. Raffarin-Dupuis (ed.) (Paris, 2005), 68–71 (ch. 61, ‘De obelisco vaticano’). F. Castagnoli, ‘Il Circo di Nerone in Vaticano’, Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia. Rendiconti 32 (1959–60), 97–121; P. Liverani, La topografia antica del Vaticano (Vatican City, 1999), 131. The bull ‘Convenit Apostolico Moderamini’, dated 21 March 1053 and confirming the privileges of the canons of Saint Peter’s, uses the obelisk as an identifying landmark, calling it the ‘agulia quae vocatur Sepulcrum Iulii Cesaris’: L. Schiaparelli, ‘Le carte antiche dell’Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro in Vaticano’, Archivio della Reale Societ`a Romana di Storia Patria 24 (1901), 393–496, at p. 471 (no. XVI). See also CBB, I, 22–7. Mirabilia Urbis Romae, ch. 19: Valentini–Zucchetti, III, 43. For later versions, see also Valentini–Zucchetti, III, 85, 116, 190. V. Hart and P. Hicks, Palladio’s Rome: a Translation of Andrea Palladio’s Two Guidebooks to Rome (New Haven and London, 2006), 51. In describing the removal of the bronze palla prior

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in order that a rudimentary form of forensic examination could be undertaken. The results were published in that same year by Filippo Pigafetta, a Venetian diplomat then resident at the papal court, who reports that the orb had not been found to contain any human remains, but only bits of rust, and some earth that he believed, with good reason, to have remained from the original casting process.29 The orb would later find its way to the Capitoline hill, where today it forms part of the collection of antiquities displayed in the Palazzo dei Conservatori. This association with Caesar appears to have accorded to the obelisk a special significance, and from the time of Nicholas V (1447–55) onwards it figured prominently in schemes to rebuild and reconfigure Saint Peter’s and its surroundings.30 According to Egidius of Viterbo, in 1505 Bramante even suggested to Pope Julius II (whose choice of papal name may indicate a possible predilection for the idea) that the new Saint Peter’s should be rotated through 90 degrees, in order that the tomb of his imperial namesake could stand at the basilica’s entrance.31 In the end it proved easier to move the obelisk than to reorient the church. Although the ‘agulia’ was situated on the south side of Saint Peter’s until 1586, it is worth noting that the path of at least some medieval visitors, as well as that of papal processions, followed precisely this route when approaching the basilica (see above, Fig. 13.1). The eighth-century description of Saint Peter’s appended to the slightly earlier ‘Notitia Ecclesiarum Urbis Romae’ provides a step-by-step account: ‘Intrante in porticum Sancti Andreae . . . ’.32 The church of Saint Andrew was the medieval name given to the first of the two late antique circular mausolea situated adjacent to the church on the south side, and linked to an entrance into the south transept.33 Although this edifice was long thought to date from the early 400s, archaeological excavations have revealed brick stamps mostly dating

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33

to moving the obelisk, Fontana also notes this common belief: Fontana, Del modo tenuto (above, n. 21), 13. F. Pigafetta, Discorso d’intorno all’historia della Aguglia, et alla ragione del muoverla (Rome, 1586). B. Curran and A. Grafton, ‘A fifteenth-century site report on the Vatican obelisk’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 58 (1995), 234–48. Egidius’s text, ‘Historia Viginti Saeculorum’, is preserved in Rome’s Biblioteca Angelica, MS lat. 502: see H. Hubert, ‘Bramantes St. Peter – Entw¨urfe und die Stellung des Apostelgrabes’, Zeitschrift f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 31 (1988), 195–221, at p. 196; D. Kinney, ‘Spolia’, in W. Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Cambridge, 2005), 16–47, at p. 34; and Curran et al., Obelisk: a History (above, n. 21), 90–3. Valentini–Zucchetti, II, 67–99, at p. 95. The text is known from a late eighth-century ¨ manuscript from Salzburg, now in Vienna (ONB, Cod. 795). On this text, see Story, this volume, 261–6 and references therein. CBCR, V, 180–1; Liverani, La topografia antica (above, n. 25), 131–4.

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from the reign of Caracalla as sole emperor (212–17), and this suggests that the Vatican circus had already fallen into disuse by the end of the second century.34 The structure was converted into the church of Saint Andrew by Pope Symmachus (498–514), who also constructed a set of steps to provide access.35 This entrance was located somewhere to the west of the obelisk, which appears to have given its name to the particular site. Thus in the same vicinity, ‘iuxta ecclesiam beati Petri in Acoli’, Pope Leo III (795–816) constructed a triclinium decorated with marble and mosaics, to which Gregory IV (827–44) would add a small hospice ‘iuxta Accolam’ in which the pope could rest after mass.36 If these references do indeed derive from the term ‘agulia’, and if the latter is itself a corruption of ‘acus Iulia’, then the association of the obelisk with Julius Caesar may perhaps be pushed back to at least the eighth century. In what is arguably a clearer reference to the obelisk, Leo III is also recorded to have rebuilt a reception hall and bath, ‘iuxta columnam maiorem’.37 The second mausoleum, more securely imperial in origin and associated with the Theodosian dynasty of the early fifth century, would similarly be converted into the church of Saint Petronilla by Pope Stephen II (752–7).38 Having passed through these two buildings, replete with reliquary altars, the medieval visitor then entered the south transept of the basilica, perhaps significantly a space filled with the tombs of popes who had paid particular attention to Saint Peter’s,39 before descending the staircase leading to Gregory I’s annular crypt. The exit was through the north aisle to the atrium. 34

35 36

37 38

39

Castagnoli, ‘Il Circo di Nerone’ (above, n. 25), 104; and R. Gem, ‘The Vatican Rotunda: a Severan monument and its early history, c. 200 to 500’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 158 (2005), 1–45. Life 53, cc. 6–7, LP, I, 261, 262. Life 98, c. 27 and Life 103, c. 35, LP, II, 8, 81. These may be the earliest known references to the obelisk as the ‘Needle’, and later texts refer to this papal residence as the ‘Domus Aguliae’: see ˆ L. Duchesne, ‘Notes sur la topographie du Rome au Moyen-Age. XII: Vaticana’, MAH 34 (1914), 307–56, at pp. 344–9. But the interpretation is not universally accepted: see A. M. Voci, Nord o sud? Note per la storia del medioevale ‘Palatium Apostolicum apud Sanctum Petrum’ e delle sue cappelle (Vatican City, 1992), 13–16. Life 98, c. 89, LP, II, 27. Life 94, c. 52, LP, I, 455. For this building, see Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (above, n. 11), 167–74; Liverani, La topografia antica (above, n. 25), 136; and McEvoy, this volume, 119–36. The tomb of Maria, wife of the Emperor Honorius, was discovered intact in 1544, and Paul the Deacon records that Honorius himself was also buried here. Curiously, the association with imperial burials seems to have continued well into the Middle Ages, as the rotunda served as the burial site of the Empress Agnes, wife of Henry II, in January 1077. See F. Cancellieri, De Secretariis Basilicae Vaticanae Veteris ac Novae (Rome, 1786), 991–5, 1040–1; and H. Koethe, ‘Zum Mausoleum der westr¨omischen Dynastie bei Alt-Sankt-Peter’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Arch¨aologischen Instituts. R¨omische Abteilung 46 (1931), 9–26. For the view that the papal tombs were part of the process of ‘constructing the popes as rulers of Rome in succession to the emperors’, see McKitterick, this volume, 114–17.

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It is interesting to hypothesize that the pilgrim’s journey past a sequence of prominent tomb monuments, beginning with three that were identified correctly or incorrectly as those of three important ancient Romans, was intended deliberately to set the stage for what was, in medieval eyes, the most important tomb in the sequence: that of Saint Peter himself. Not simply physical remnants of an earlier age, these were sites of memory, places where the significance of the past was remembered in the present. In this way the final stage of the pilgrim’s journey can perhaps be seen as a physical embodiment of the sentiment expressed succinctly in a twelfthcentury poem by the French cleric Hildebert of Lavardin. Hildebert was the author of two poems on the city of Rome, of which the first, ‘Par tibi Roma’, is the better known, constituting a nostalgic lament for the lost glories of the ancient city, now revealed only in a landscape of monumental imposing ruins.40 He writes: ‘Rome, without compare, though all but shattered; / Your very ruins tell of greatness once enjoyed’.41 It was a verse that obviously struck some resonance with many medieval visitors, and it would be quoted a century later by the English traveller Master Gregorius.42 Somewhat less known, but arguably more important, is Hildebert’s second poem, the sequel to the first, in which the personification of Rome responds in the first person to the poet’s lament, refuting the claim that ancient Rome was greater than its contemporary medieval Christian equivalent. The capital of the emperors may have ruled an enormous earthly empire, but the Rome of the popes commands the Kingdom of Heaven. The critical verse is this one: ‘Plus aquilis vexilla crucis, plus Caesare Petrus’. ‘But now, more than the eagles of the legions, / The standard of the cross has gifted me; / More than Caesar, Peter’.43 There may be no more succinct statement of papal ideology concerning their relationship to the ancient glory of the city of Rome, a glory that served in large measure as the justification for papal claims to broader authority, both spiritual and temporal. While not stated explicitly in any surviving text, it may be postulated that this ‘memorial landscape’44 traversed by the medieval pilgrim had its meaning deliberately constructed to embody a similar thought: ‘Plus aquilis vexilla crucis, plus Caesare Petrus’. In the final 40 41

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A. B. Scott (ed.), Hildeberti Cenomannensis Episcopi Carmina Minora (Leipzig, 1969), 22–7. English translation by Christopher Dillon published in Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City (above, n. 3), 200. R. B. C. Huygens (ed.), Magister Gregorius: Narracio de Mirabilibus Urbis Romae (Leiden, 1970), 12, lines 40–1. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City (above, n. 3), 201. For this concept, see A. Boholm, ‘Reinvented histories: medieval Rome as memorial landscape’, Ecumene 4 (1997), 247–72.

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approach to the shrine of Peter, those words were given explicit physical expression. Having passed a line of monuments associated with the memories of the bodies of famous Romans, culminating in that of Julius Caesar himself, the embodiment par excellence of pre-Christian Rome, pilgrims and other visitors completed their own personal mimesis of the city’s divine history by reaching the memoria of Saint Peter, the climax not only of their own spiritual ascent, but perhaps more importantly of the history of the city that boasted the title of caput mundi. Sacred history was thus made manifest in sacred geography.45 And finally, when might this thinking have been developed? It seems likely that the concept would have evolved over time, as pilgrimage to Saint Peter’s evolved and as medieval Romans sought to identify and explain the standing remains of the ancient world, but a critical stage in this process may have been reached by the seventh century. The beginning of that century witnessed the restructuring of the actual shrine by Gregory I (590–604), and the consequent establishment of a definitive path for pilgrims within the church; and at the end of the century Sergius I (687–701) is known to have devoted much of his own energy and resources to restoring and redecorating the basilica. Among the activities of this pontiff noted by his Liber Pontificalis biographer was the re-location of the remains of Pope Leo I to a prominent new tomb in the south transept,46 and this act takes on much greater significance if thought of in terms of the sequence of tombs of important Romans to be encountered by medieval visitors. The choices of both Leo and the south transept were presumably not accidental, and certainly highly appropriate, since of all the early successors to Peter it was probably Leo who had done the most to initiate the process of intertwining the threads of Rome’s ancient and Christian history, in the process rebranding the papacy as the heir to the title of pontifex maximus. 45

46

It is interesting to note that this notion of Rome’s sacred topography itself harks back to the ancient world, and specifically to the Augustan age where it may be found in Livy and others: see McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past (above, n. 1), 56. For the Forum of Augustus as a ‘house of memory’ evoking an earlier age, Gowing, Empire and Memory (above, n. 2), 132–59. Life 86, c. 12, LP, I, 375.

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The Legendary of Saint Peter’s basilica Hagiographic traditions and innovations in the late eleventh century carmela vircillo franklin

Introduction: the Legendary Preserved amongst the manuscripts once housed in the Archivio of the Basilica of Saint Peter and now kept at the Vatican Library is a large hagiographic collection1 that stretches over a period from the eleventh to the fifteenth century.2 Taken as a group and studied in detail, these books reflect the hagiographic library and the practice and evolution of hagiographic reading during the liturgy of the Office in the basilica and its associated communities of canons (see Fig. 15.1). In this chapter, I propose to discuss the three oldest codices in this collection, numbered Archivio di S. Pietro A 2, A 4, and A 5, copied at the end of the eleventh century in Romanesca, a characteristic version of Caroline minuscule, practised in the Roman area from the tenth to the twelfth centuries.3 These three volumes together with a fourth volume that no longer survives constituted what I call the San Pietro Legendary (SPL), and reflect the basilica’s hagiographic traditions as well as its hagiological interests at the peak of the Reform papacy. The SPL is an example of a traditional legendary,4 that is, an ordered collection of complete texts – martyrs’ passions, saints’ lives and other 1

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Most hagiographic texts are identified whenever possible by the number assigned to them in the Bollandists’ Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis (Brussels, 1898–1901); Novum Supplementum (1986) (abbreviated as BHL). The fondo Archivio del Capitolo di San Pietro was established in 1940. It contains books that belonged to the basilica from the tenth century, and even before. See M. Gorman, ‘The oldest book list from Saint Peter’s’, Miscellanea Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae XI (Studi e testi 423) (Vatican City, 2004), 383–98. The hagiographic manuscripts of the Archivio di San Pietro have been catalogued by Albert Poncelet in Catalogus Codicum Hagiographicorum Latinorum Bibliothecarum Romanarum Praeter Quam Vaticanae (Brussels, 1909), 1–48. P. Supino Martini, Roma e l’area grafica romanesca (s. X–XIII) (Alessandria, 1987) is the fundamental survey of all Romanesca manuscripts. See pp. 68–72 for these volumes. The essential guide to the study of legendaries is G. Philippart, Les l´egendiers latins et autres ˆ occidental 24–5) (Turnhout, manuscrits hagiographiques (Typologie des sources du Moyen Age 1977). I follow the terminology outlined in Philippart’s work. A. G. Martimort, Les lectures ˆ occidental 64) (Turnhout, 1992), liturgiques et leurs livres (Typologie des sources du Moyen Age considers legendaries only very briefly on pp. 97–102, with no distinction among hagiographic collections, or consideration of non-liturgical uses.

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Fig. 15.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 15.

hagiographic works such as miracle accounts or translations of relics.5 It is arranged per circulum anni, beginning on 1 January, and not with Advent, the start of the liturgical year.6 Such collections served numerous purposes. They were used for private edification, for communal reading during meals, 5

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The earliest surviving full-scale hagiographic collections are passionaries, containing exclusively martyrial texts, and go back to the very late eighth century. They come from Frankish lands, but draw almost exclusively on Roman sources. The earliest Italian collections date from the late tenth century. After the twelfth century, the number of traditional legendaries declines, and they disappear completely by the end of the fifteenth. The SPL was copied at a time when the production of legendaries peaked. The calendar order is not always strictly followed.

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or as homilies to the faithful in church, as well as to provide hagiographic lections in the liturgical setting of Matins, or night Office, for a saint’s commemoration on his feast day.7 A hagiographic legendary is based largely on already existing sources, but each is a unique compilation,8 and it reflects the historical context in which it was created. Increasingly, however, legendaries were shaped by the liturgical use of their contents.9 The appearance of more clearly specialized hagiographic collections devoted exclusively to liturgical use, and therefore different in both form and function from the traditional legendary, is the strongest evidence of this trend. Among these is the hagiographic lectionary, a book containing only the hagiographic readings necessary for the Office, and arranged into lections by the original scribe. Archivio di San Pietro, Codex A 3, which will also be discussed in this chapter, is a hagiographic lectionary prepared for the basilica in the last decades of the twelfth century.10 Each of the SPL’s three large, nearly half a metre high volumes covers a trimester. The lacuna of the second trimester, April, May and June, would have been covered by the missing volume. The hand of one principal scribe is found in all three books.11 The codices have been laid out similarly: all are written on two columns per page; there are generally thirty-nine lines per column. Through their lay-out, rubrics, incipits and explicits, and homogeneous appearance, these volumes indicate careful planning. Their measurements, leisurely script and lavish decorated initials make these volumes very 7

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ˆ (Paris, 1967). The The classic discussion of the Office is P. Salmon, L’office divin au Moyen Age night Office, consisting of one to three Nocturns, comprised lessons (readings) in addition to antiphons, psalms and other prayers. This reading was biblical, patristic or hagiographic. The number of lessons and the proportion of hagiographic readings could vary, according to whether the church was monastic or secular, according to the time of year and the location, as well as according to the level of the feast. See J. Harper, The Forms and Orders of the Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1991), 86–97. Except for Cistercian collections such as the Liber de Nataliciis or the Magnum Legendarium Austriacum. See Philippart, L´egendiers (above, n. 4), 123. Some scholars maintain that liturgical reading was the driving force behind the manipulations of hagiographic texts as found in traditional legendaries. M. Lapidge, ‘Editing hagiography’, in C. Leonardi (ed.), La critica del testo mediolatino. Atti del convegno (Firenze 6–8 dicembre 1990) (Spoleto, 1994), 241–4, with bibliography. Also different from the traditional legendary is the Office Lectionary, a book containing all the readings necessary for the liturgical Office – biblical, patristic or homiletic, and hagiographic. For a fuller definition of these and related books see Philippart, L´egendiers (above, n. 4), 24–5; and F. Dolbeau, ‘Notes sur l’organisation interne des l´egendiers latins’, in Hagiographie, cultures et soci´et´es, IVe–XIIe si`ecles (Paris, 1981), 1–31. The principal hand wrote fols. 156–259v of A 2, and copied almost all of A 4 (with the exception of fols. 57vb and 180–222v), and A 5 (with the exception of the first five folia). Fols. 1–112v and 113–155 of A 2 were written by two other hands, respectively. Supino Martini describes the principal hand as a ‘very typical Romanesca’, with its characteristic inclination to the right, and the hast of the r generally falling below the line: Roma e l’area grafica (above, n. 3), 68–9 and n. 67.

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impressive.12 Their amplitude, unequalled in other Roman collections13 – 162 texts are included in the three surviving volumes – would be appropriate for an important ecclesiastical community, endowed with the necessary financial resources and perhaps also a scriptorium for undertaking such a monumental work. And indeed there can be little doubt that the SPL originated at Saint Peter’s itself, although it has escaped notice by scholars of the basilica’s cults.14 Marginal notations and corrections going back to the middle of the twelfth century and continuing through the fourteenth record its use in the basilica (Figs. 15.2–15.4).15 The SPL is almost certainly to be identified with the ‘iiii passionaria’ included in the basilica’s booklist from the late twelfth century.16 There are strong similarities in the codicological characteristics of these volumes and others that can be localized at Saint Peter’s. Finally, in the late twelfth century, this legendary served as the principal source for another hagiographic collection of the basilica, Archivio di San Pietro A 3, discussed below. Surviving books and other scattered evidence confirm that Saint Peter’s library holdings were particularly liturgical, or otherwise suited to the work of its clergy. Most intriguing is an entry in the Liber Pontificalis that describes how Pope Zacharias in the middle of the eighth century arranged with great 12

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A 2 (262 fols.) and A 5 (284 fols.) preserve their original dimensions of c. 480 × 350 mm; A 4 has been trimmed to 472 × 340 mm for rebinding. The decorations have not been studied, and have not been included in E. B. Garrison’s survey of many passionaries and legendaries from this period: Studies in the History of Mediaeval Italian Painting, 4 vols. (Florence, 1953–60). No other Roman legendary is in more than two volumes. C. Vircillo Franklin, ‘Roman hagiography and Roman legendaries’, in Roma nell’alto medioevo (Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 48) (Spoleto, 2001), 873 and n. 45. The SPL is not among the sources studied in P. Jounel, Le culte des saints dans les basiliques du ´ Latran et du Vatican au douxi`eme si`ecle (Collection de l’Ecole Franc¸aise de Rome 26) (Rome, 1977). These books have been heavily annotated and corrected. In places even entire sections of text have been scraped off and written over, such as fols. 52v–54 of A 4 in the thirteenth century. Supino Martini, Roma e l’area grafica (above, n. 3), 70–1 discusses some of the additions and marginal notes to point out that they regularly confirm the preservation of the legendary in the basilica by referring to the canons, the chapter, the major sacristy. A particular concern for the prerogatives of Saint Peter’s basilica is also illustrated by a note (A 4, fol. 144va) in the margin of the Passio of Saint Marcellina, right next to the section that reads: ‘Cui [pope Liberius] in ecclesia principis apostolorum petri dominici natalis sollempnitatem celebranti nuntiantur clarissimorum vota parentum’. A twelfth(?)-century hand has written in reference to this passage ‘papam festum nativitatis apud sanctum petrum celebrare deberet’. This note, which stresses that the pope ought to celebrate Christmas at Saint Peter’s, might relate to the twelfth-century controversies over the prerogatives of Saint Peter’s basilica and the Lateran. This controversy is particularly illustrated in the descriptions of the Lateran church and the Vatican basilica penned by John the Deacon (for the Lateran) and Petrus Mallius (for the Vatican). See Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 27–8. Gorman, ‘Oldest book list’ (above, n. 2), 390, items 37–40.

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Fig. 15.2. BAV, Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro A 2, fol. 75v.

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Fig. 15.3. BAV, Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro A 2, fol. 76v.

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Fig. 15.4. BAV, Archivio Capitolare di San Pietro A 2, fol. 77r.

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care in a library cupboard (‘armarium’) the books that had come from his own house, in order that they could be read at Matins in the cycle of the year.17 But the earliest surviving evidence for the activity of book production at the basilica of Saint Peter goes back only to the last decades of the tenth century, when, after the ‘spaventoso vuoto’ in scribal activity in Rome for a large part of the century, surviving manuscripts give evidence of a slow increase in urban book production, alongside the recovery of monastic life as a result of the Cluniac reforms.18 To this period are attributed two codices produced most likely at the basilica itself, one an important homiliary.19 Both books were written on rough parchment, by the same scribe, whose uncertain Romanesca hand reveals a poor knowledge of scribal conventions. The San Pietro Legendary, as well as other near-contemporary books,20 on the other hand, illustrates that by the late eleventh century the basilica had the considerable resources and scribes well trained to produce imposing and professionally executed books.21

The historical and liturgical contexts The SPL is one of the oldest of seventeen sets of large, comprehensive legendaries that survive (whole or in part) from Roman churches from the late eleventh through the twelfth century, and that illustrate the overlapping hagiographical traditions of the city.22 This efflorescence of book production must be understood also within the context of the reform of canonical life and the concomitant reform of the liturgy promoted by the Reform papacy. Both the Council of 1059 and that of 1063 had addressed the reform of canonical life, and both Nicholas II (1058–61) and Alexander II (1061–73) had promoted the regular discipline for the clergy of Rome. Hildebrand, the future Gregory VII, had played an instrumental role at both councils 17 18 19

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Life 93, c. 19, LP, I, 432. Supino Martini, Roma e l’area grafica (above, n. 3), 21–2, with bibliography. Archivio di San Pietro C 105, which reflects the usage of the basilica going back to the sixth century, and still in use in the sixteenth. Supino Martini, Roma e l’area grafica (above, n. 3), 59–62. Attributed to the basilica’s scriptorium and a near contemporary of the SPL is a manuscript of the Prophets, Archivio di San Pietro C 92, copied by a ‘Belizo sacer(dos) indignus’ in 1083 (Supino Martini, Roma e l’area grafica (above, n. 3), 66–8). Several books localized at Saint Peter’s in Supino Martini, Roma e l’area grafica (above, n. 3), 72, were written in a pure Caroline (rather than Romanesca), even while the homogeneity of the non-graphic elements such as parchment, mise-en-page and quire composition testify to the books’ common origin at Saint Peter’s. Supino Martini suggests a less local, more international experience of script training as an explanation, and the absence of a training school at the basilical complex. Franklin, ‘Roman hagiography’ (above, n. 13), 857–95 surveys these collections.

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and had argued for an ideal of canonical life ‘instar primitivae ecclesiae’ against the practices of his time, corrupted by lay intrusion into the affairs of the Church.23 But no legislation addressing specifically the standards of canonical life can be attributed to these popes. Still, several documents that circulated in Italy in the latter decades of the eleventh century provide a homogeneous response to the directives of the Councils of 1059 and 1063, including the Rule for Canons Ordo Qualiter,24 aimed at the elimination of private property, and the promotion of communal life amongst the clergy. Central to this reform was the proper observance of their daily round of communal prayer, the liturgy of the Office. Gregory VII addressed this issue directly in In Die Resurrectionis, a decree concerned exclusively with liturgical reforms, promulgated most likely at the Roman synod of November 1078.25 In this document, the pope legislated in detail the number of psalms and readings to be recited during the night Office, beginning with Easter Sunday, when three each should be included until the Saturday following; on all other festivals during the year nine psalms and nine readings ought to be performed; on Sundays (except Easter and Pentecost), eighteen psalms and nine readings are to be performed; and on other days, twelve psalms and twelve readings must be recited. The purpose of these instructions is to increase the number of readings and psalms recited at the night Office, for the pope notes specifically that those who recited only three readings and chanted only three psalms on ordinary days were acting out of aversion and negligence (‘ex fastidio et neglegentia’), in contradiction to ancient custom. In the pope’s view, this legislation marks a return to ancient Roman custom, which has been corrupted by German power over the Church: ‘Romani autem diverso modo agere ceperunt maxime a tempore quo teutonicis concessum est regimen nostrae ecclesiae. Nos autem et ordinem romanum et antiquum morem investigantes statuimus fieri nostrae ecclesiae sicut superius praenotavimus antiquos imitantes patres.’26 Gregory’s aims in the reform of the liturgy are consonant with his larger programme, to restore 23

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For what follows, see H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085) (Oxford, 1998), 318–20; H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Pope Gregory VII (1073–85) and the liturgy’, Journal of Theological Studies 55 (2004), 55–83. Gregory’s authorship is proposed in G. G. Morin, ‘R´eglements in´edits du Pape Saint Gr´egoire VII pour les chanoines r´eguliers’, RB 18 (1901), 177–83, but questioned by C. Dereine, ‘La pr´etendue r`egle de Gr´egoire VII pour chanoines r´eguliers’, RB 71 (1961), 108–18. Cowdrey finds the surviving evidence too scant for a definitive decision: ‘The liturgy’ (above, n. 23), 71 and n. 60. Morin, ‘R´eglements in´edits’ (above, n. 24), 179 supplies a critical edition of In Die Resurrectionis. Morin, ‘R´eglements in´edits’ (above, n. 24), 179. For a discussion of the controversial comment on ‘German influence’, see Cowdrey, ‘The liturgy’ (above, n. 23), 70–1.

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the custom and discipline of the Church to ancient Roman practice, and to purify it of changes introduced by German influence. The wide diffusion of Gregory’s In Die Resurrectionis in canonical, liturgical and literary collections influenced the redactors of customaries for canons in much of Europe.27 Sources that describe how the Office was practised in the late eleventh and twelfth century at Saint Peter’s, at the Lateran, and in the diocese of Volterra in Tuscany, directly subject to the bishop of Rome, confirm that hagiographic texts would make up varying proportions of the required readings during the night Office.28 Liturgy requires books, and liturgical change requires new books. The SPL, as with the other legendaries produced in Rome from the late eleventh century, provided the texts from which the readings or lections needed for the Office of Matins could be culled.29 Because most hagiographic texts in these legendaries were too long for the number and length of the required lections, only selected passages would be chosen for inclusion in the liturgy. Sets of markings added in the margins of all three volumes of the SPL, by at least three hands and perhaps as many as five, provide precise details about the kinds of texts, the number of readings and the length of readings performed at the liturgy of the night Office at Saint Peter’s during the twelfth century.30 These marks constitute the most extensive sets of lectio notations I have observed in medieval legendaries. The opening passage of the life or passion, which established the basic biographical coordinates of the saint, is generally, but not always used. The prologue of the text, which frequently is a rhetorical construct reflecting authorial intention, is generally avoided. The death of the saint, and particularly the tortures and final execution of the martyr, are always selected. Often, the end of the reading is marked with a cross or a similar sign.31 Clearly, those portions were singled out from the 27 28

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Dereine, ‘La pr´etendue r`egle’ (above, n. 24), 111. For Saint Peter’s, the Micrologus de Ecclesiasticis Observationibus written by the eyewitness Bernold of Constance between 1086 and 1100 refers to feasts of nine lections: PL, CLI, cols. 979–1018, at col. 1009. For the Lateran, the Ordo Officiorum Ecclesiae Lateranensis, probably compiled in the middle of the twelfth century, frequently refers to hagiographic readings, and also to a passionary: L. Fischer (ed.) (Munich and Freising, 1916). For Volterra, the late twelfth-century De Sancti Hugonis Actis Liturgicis, M. Bocci (ed.) (Florence, 1984) presents a month-by-month guide to the celebration of the feasts of the saints, including the number of lections allotted to each. On these documents, see Cowdrey, ‘The liturgy’ (above, n. 23), 62–4. Cowdrey’s view in Gregory VII (above, n. 23), 58–9, that ‘eleventh-century Rome was not well provided with scriptoria that might produce books to implement change’ is tempered in ‘The liturgy’ (above, n. 23), 59. Supino Martini, Roma e l’area grafica (above, n. 3), 70–1, for dating the marginal hands. Tace is sometimes written.

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text that were deemed most fitting for public reading, and would give the most vivid impression of the figure being celebrated. Lectio markings in the majority of cases indicate one set of three or six or nine readings. But several of the composite texts, which treat more than one figure, have been marked for more than one set of readings, sometimes by more than one scribe. For example, BHL 5235, whose rubric reads ‘Mense Augusto Die VIII Nativitas Sanctorum Cyriaci Largi et Zmaragdi’ (A 2, fols. 75–79v; Figs. 15.2–15.4), has four different sets of lectio markings: one set consists of nine readings concerning Pope Marcellus, martyr; another set of three readings for Sisinnius and Saturninus; a third set, also three readings, is ‘in festivitate sanctorum papie et mauri’; and the fourth set, in nine readings, concerns Cyriacus.32 Sometimes, the required number of readings reflects the day’s commemoration of multiple saints, as 22 January: the Passio S. Anastasii provides three readings (VII–IX), while readings I–VI are taken from the Passion of Saint Vincent (A 2, fols. 133–143v). In some cases, there are notes to guide the users to the other, non-hagiographic readings needed for that day. In the margin of the Passion of Saint Agnes, which also recounts the story of the martyr Emerentiana, we read ‘in festo sancte emerentiane lectio prima; cetere de evangelio’ (A 2, fol. 132v). But not all texts have been divided into lectiones. The first text in A 2, the Passio S. Martinae, for example, shows no lectio marks. There are two lives for Antony the Hermit; only one is marked with three lectio marks. The unmarked text is an older translation of Athanasius’s work, surviving uniquely in the SPL.33 The absence of lectio marks in numerous texts intimates that the SPL did not serve exclusively liturgical purposes. This is confirmed by another hagiographic manuscript surviving from the basilica, now Archivio di San Pietro A 3, comparison of which with the SPL helps to elucidate more clearly the nature and functions of the older legendary.

Archivio di San Pietro A 3 San Pietro A 3 is a hagiographic lectionary, a volume that contains not entire hagiographic texts, as is the case for the SPL, but only the hagiographic 32

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The readings for Pope Marcellus were marked first, and when they overlap with those of Sisinnius, another hand avoids confusion by adding, for example on fol. 75vb, ‘l. iii [first hand] de sancto marcello et prima de sisinnio et saturno [second hand]’ (Fig. 15.2). A 2, fols. 57–111v; H. V. Hoppenbrouwers, La plus ancienne version latine de la Vie de S. Antoine par S. Athanase (Nijmegen, 1960).

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readings required for the Office during the course of the year.34 This manuscript includes 133 texts, arranged in strict calendar order beginning with October, roughly the beginning of the liturgical year, and continuing all the way to the end of September.35 It was copied at Saint Peter’s basilica in a pre-Gothic hand, during the last decades of the twelfth century.36 The scribe began each new set of readings with a coloured capital three lines tall; smaller initials within the set highlight the demarcation between one reading and the next.37 The lectio numbers (‘Lec.’ followed by the Roman numeral) were added at the end of the last line of the previous reading by a different, but contemporary, hand, even if that means, on occasion, that the note falls over into the margin (as, for example, on fol. 108vb). These graphic details indicate that the passages were copied expressly for liturgical reading, in contrast to the SPL. A comparison with the SPL shows that A 3 depends in very large part on its three surviving volumes, and, we can infer, on the one that is missing as well. There is an almost perfect correspondence between the texts that were marked for reading in the margin of the SPL and those contained in A 3.38 The texts that were not marked for reading in the SPL, on the other hand, do not appear in A 3. Furthermore, the extracts copied into A 3 are exactly those marked for reading in the SPL.39 Finally, textual errors shared by the passages of the Passio S. Anastasii contained in both collections confirm that the extracts in A 3 were copied directly from A 2.40 There can be no doubt whatsoever that A 2, A 4, A 5 and the missing fourth volume of the SPL were the major source from which A 3 was copied.41 34

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I take this definition from Philippart, Les l´egendiers (above, n. 4), 24. Poncelet, Catalogus . . . Romanarum (above, n. 2), 6, called this book a ‘Lectionarium ad usum divini officii compositum’. For a full description of the contents, see Poncelet, Catalogus . . . Romanarum (above, n. 2), 6–10. Several pages are missing at the beginning and at the end. Supino Martini, Roma e l’area grafica (above, n. 3), 68 n. 66. By contrast, the beginnings of the sections marked for readings in the SPL do not exhibit outstanding capitalization. One exception is the Passio SS Iuliani et Basilissae (BHL 4532, A 2 fols. 26v–40v) which has two lectio markings, but is not included in A 3. This is particularly telling in the case of long texts where only portions are copied into A 3, such as the passion of Pope Marcellus (A 2, fols. 75–79v; A 3, fols. 100–101). C. Vircillo Franklin, The Latin Dossier of Anastasius the Persian: Hagiographic Translations and Transformations (Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts 147) (Toronto, 2004), 333–4 (apparatus criticus). It is important to stress that the marks in SPL’s margins were not inserted as signs for the scribe of A 3, since the hand that copied A 3 is not one of the hands that marked the SPL, and since A 3 includes all the texts marked by various hands in the SPL.

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But it was not the only source, for A 3 includes readings for saints who are not included in the SPL. One such group is the Apostles and the Evangelists, excluded from the SPL but included (with the exception of Peter, whom I will discuss below) in A 3. This can be explained by assuming that the basilica of Saint Peter had a book dedicated exclusively to the Apostles, which would have been used alongside the SPL. Several Apostles’ passionaries have survived from Rome, such as the twelfth-century Vaticanus Latinus 5736, from Santa Cecilia.42 Some of these compilations are best described as Office lectionaries, for they include also the non-hagiographic liturgical readings, and signify the particular prestige that the cult of the Apostles held in the city’s churches. The absence both from the SPL and from A 3 of the feasts of Peter and Paul, including the solemn feast of 29 June (Saints Peter and Paul) and 30 June (‘Commemoratio sancti Pauli’) should be noted. These special feasts, and in particular that of 29 June, entailed extraordinary celebrations encompassing also the night Office with the participation of the pope. If hagiographic lections were read,43 it seems most likely that they would have been included in a special book, perhaps one more lavish than the ordinary, every-day legendaries. At Monte Cassino, for example, deluxe Office lectionaries were produced for the feasts of its patrons, Benedict, Maur and Scholastica.44 The second category of figures absent from the SPL but included in the hagiographic lectionary A 3 encompasses non-Roman saints, or saints who were recent additions to Roman calendars, such as Saint Scholastica. The feast of Scholastica is first found in Rome in the eleventh century, but not in any of the liturgical witnesses from Saint Peter’s used in Jounel’s study.45 By the time A 3 was created, her cult was firmly established in the city 42 43

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Franklin, ‘Roman hagiography’ (above, n. 13), 877–80. On the feast of Saint Peter at the Lateran and at the Vatican, a double night Office was celebrated. See Salmon, L’office (above, n. 7), 98–9. The collection of ordines known as the Liber Politicus of Canon Benedictus of Saint Peter, written before 1143, provides a partial list of the readings for the night Office of Saint Peter’s feast, including the Acts of the Apostles, but no hagiographic readings are specifically mentioned: P. Fabre and L. Duchesne (eds.), Le Liber ´ Censuum de l’Eglise romaine, 3 vols. (Paris, 1889–1952), II, 157–8. The Ordo of the Lateran basilica, Fischer (ed.) (above, n. 28), 143, on the other hand, indicates that the first six lections be taken from Peter’s Passio ascribed to Pope Linus (BHL 6655), and the last three from one of Ambrose’s homilies. For a description of the Office’s rich ceremonials in the Vatican basilica, see Blaauw, CD, 687–92. F. Newton, ‘A third and older Cassinese lectionary for the feasts of Saints Benedict, Maur, and Scholastica’, in Monastica. Scritti raccolti in memoria del XV centenario della nascita di S. Benedetto, 4 vols. (Monte Cassino, 1981–4), III, 45–75. Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 136.

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and penetrated even into the Vatican basilica, and readings for the night Office of her feast were included from Gregory’s Dialogues.46 It is possible that Scholastica’s commemoration was marked at Saint Peter’s long before the copying of A 3, when the SPL still remained the principal source for hagiographical readings. Her case, with that of the Apostles, confirms that from its creation in the late eleventh century until it was replaced by the hagiographic lectionary A 3, the traditional SPL was only one – though the principal one – of a set of books that constituted the hagiographic library of the basilica from which to cull hagiographic readings for the night Office. The hagiographic lectionary A 3, on the other hand, included all hagiographic readings into one volume for the sake of convenience, with exception for the extraordinary feasts of Peter and Paul. As before, other books would have been available from which biblical and patristic readings used in the night Office would be obtained, confirming the common view that the performance of the divine Office required a very large library.47

Sanctoral The comparison with A 3 offers proof also against an exclusive liturgical function for the SPL, and highlights the great amplitude of the sanctoral of the older collection. We can estimate that nearly 250 figures were included in the complete SPL.48 By far, the great majority in the surviving volumes – 132 out of 162 – are pre-Constantinian martyrs, such as Sergius and Bacchus, the Quattuor Coronati, Sebastian, and in particular those widely associated with Rome itself, such as Cecilia, Sabina,49 Felix and Adauctus,50 Romanus51 and Lawrence, Felicissimus and Agapitus,52 and Emerentiana.53 All of the martyrs singled out by Jounel as ‘martyrs of Rome’54 are included in the corresponding legendary volumes, and remain in A 3. The overwhelming emphasis on the martyrs is also illustrated by the inclusion in the SPL 46

47 48 49 50

51 52 53

A 3 contains the vita extracted from the Dialogues (BHL 7514). Cf. the Ordo of the Lateran basilica, Fischer (ed.) (above, n. 28), 130: ‘De sancta Scholastica legitur in dialogo, ubi beatus Gregorius papa describit miraculum simul et obitum eius’. Salmon, L’office (above, n. 7), 30–1. There are 46 texts contained in A 2, 61 in A 4, and 55 in A 5, totalling 162. Founder of the titulus on the Aventine: Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 283. Martyrs of the cemetery of Commodilla on the Via Ostiensis: Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 283. A soldier converted by Saint Lawrence: Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 271. Martyrs of Praeneste: Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 277. 54 Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 162. She was nursed with Saint Agnes.

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of figures who were not widely venerated in Rome and do not appear in Jounel’s sources, or whose texts survive almost exclusively in this legendary. Such, for example, are SS Marcianus and Macharius, martyred near Lake Bracciano under Maximinian and buried in the environs of Rome; and Firmina, martyred in Umbria under Diocletian.55 Both texts were inspired by the classic Roman Gesta Martyrum.56 In this preference for early martyrs and in particular for figures who had lived and died in Rome, the SPL reflects the hagiologic interests that have been attributed to the Reform papacy. Saint Alexius, whose figurative cycles illustrate the widespread popularity of the heroic ideals at the time of the Reform, is included in A 4 (fols. 12v–16v). Saint Cecilia, another figure favoured by the Reformers, is present both through her well-known Passio (BHL 1495; A 5, fols. 123–134v), and also through the Revelatio to Pope Paschal I, an account of the invention of her body compiled from the Liber Pontificalis and surviving only in Roman legendaries (A 5, fols. 134v–136). Its restricted diffusion raises the possibility that this text was created within this ‘renaissance of martyrial devotion’.57 The sanctoral of the SPL moves away from Rome and the tradition of the early martyrs to a very limited degree. Only thirty of the figures represented in the surviving volumes are not pre-Constantinian martyrs. Twenty of these, roughly, are monastic figures, including the early hermits. Others are great leaders of the early Church, Germanus of Capua, Ambrose, Jerome, Basil of Caesarea. Many others are singular texts, such as the account of Aquila and Prisca from the letters of Saint Paul, or the text for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Modern saints, such as the great monastic reformers of the tenth and eleventh centuries, are not found in the SPL. The Vatican legendary also reflects the renewed Gregorian emphasis on the cult of the popes, and especially those who had died a martyr’s death. Gregory VII and also Urban II (1088–99) decreed that the feasts of the Roman popes should be celebrated with three lections at the Office; those who had been martyrs as well as Gregory I and Silvester I should be accorded 55 56

57

Neither feast is in Jounel, nor in the Lateran or Volterra Ordines. ´ BHL 5265b; 3001b; A. Dufourcq, Etude sur les ‘Gesta Martyrum’ romains, 5 vols. (Paris, 1900–88), III, 129–33, 224–9, where both texts are published from S. Pietro A 2. W. Telesko, ‘Ad vitam aeternam pervenire exoptamus – zur “Renaissance” der Martyriumsfr¨ommigkeit in der Kunst der “Gregorianischen Reform”’, Aachener Kunstbl¨atter 60 (1994), 163–72; V. Pace, ‘Riforma della Chiesa e visualizzazione della santit`a nella pittura romana: i casi di Sant’Alessio e di Santa Cecilia’, Wiener Jahrbuch f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 46–7, (Beitr¨age zur Mittelalterlichen Kunst 2) (1993–4), 541–8. For the Revelatio, see BHL Novum Supplementum, p. 172.

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nine lections.58 The SPL features the early martyr popes whose passions were memorialized in a literary account, such as Pope Marcellus. His martyrdom and death, included in a composite account of several Roman martyrs interred in the cemetery of Priscilla (BHL 5235), provided nine lections for his feast.59 Pope Silvester, in accordance with papal decrees, is also accorded nine lections (A 5, fols. 269–283v). He appears again in a long passio of Pope Felix II (355–65), attributed to Pope Boniface, that survives only in the SPL.60 Felix II had long been confused with the martyr Felix venerated on 29 July, an identification that was canonized in the calendars of the eleventh century.61 The text in the SPL is an elaborate expansion, datable perhaps to this period, of earlier materials, in which rhetorical prose alternates with metrical passages adapted from classical and Early Christian poets. Gregory the Great’s feast day, 12 March, falls within the period embraced by the missing legendary volume. But San Pietro A 3’s extracts (fols. 130v–132v) indicate that the vita of the pope written by John the Deacon (BHL 3641) was included and marked in the SPL as well. Several hagiographic texts underscore the papal role in the cult of the martyrs and their relics. The Revelatio to Pope Paschal in Saint Peter’s of the invention of Saint Cecilia’s body (BHL 1499) has already been mentioned. Another is the Revelatio of Stephen II, which serves as the introduction in the SPL of the elaborate dossier on Saint Denis of Paris composed by Abbot Hilduin at the request of Emperor Louis the Pious in about 835.62 In this text, Pope Stephen II recounts his experience of a miraculous vision during his visit to the church of Saint Denis in 753/4, when he was healed by Saint Denis at the urging of Saint Peter and Saint Paul; how he then consecrated Saint Denis’s altar of Peter and Paul; and finally how he took with him a relic of Saint Denis, to place in the church he would build in Rome in honour of the martyr of Paris. Hilduin’s entire well-known (and infamous) dossier follows, but the copy in the SPL contains a note, surviving nowhere else, stating that this ‘libellum’ is being sent to ‘reverentissimo domno Leoni papae’ and the monastery and church dedicated to Saint Denis in Rome by ‘Otfredus peccator presbyter’ of Saint Denis so that it could be recited annually on his feast day of 9 October. The note raises many questions, 58 60

61 62

59 A 2, fols. 75–79v. See above. Cowdrey, ‘The liturgy’ (above, n. 23), 71–2. A 4, fols. 154v–169v; Poncelet, Catalogus . . . Romanarum (above, n. 2), 13–14. This text has never been published. Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 171–2, 264. A 4, fols. 230–238; 1–2v, where one finds BHL 2172, 2173, 2174, 2176. It is very likely that BHL 2175, which is partially found in A 3, fols. 15–18, was once also included in A 4, where there are missing pages at the end, and others bound in the wrong place. See also LP, I, 458, n. 32.

The Legendary of Saint Peter’s basilica

beginning with its authorship and the identification of Pope Leo, which cannot be pursued here. But it seems very possible to conclude for the present purposes that the dossier of Saint Denis in the SPL depends on a special copy, one sent or reputed to have been sent to the pope directly from the martyr’s own resting place. Also worthy of note is the arrangement of the dossier, with Stephen’s Revelatio preceding the dossier proper, to accentuate the pope’s role. The church supposedly built by Pope Stephen for Saint Denis of Paris (today’s San Silvestro in capite) had long been dedicated to the early martyr pope Dionisius (260–7), and it was not until the twelfth century that confusion about the identity of its patron and its early history began, no doubt as a result of the popularity of the Parisian Saint Denis.63 On the other hand, the complete absence in both SPL and A 3 of the more than forty non-martyr popes who appear in the liturgical calendars of Rome for the eleventh century reconstructed by Jounel is striking.64 In comparison with these calendars, and despite papal injunctions, the SPL and A 3 include only a small number of popes, twelve in all.65 Many of these popes are not explicitly mentioned in the Ordo of the Lateran basilica,66 nor do they appear in the Volterra Ordo. One reason for this absence may be found in the scarcity of textual material for many popes, limited to a brief account in the Liber Pontificalis. A short note of the martyrdom of a pope in the papal chronicle could be enlarged by borrowing from the deep trove of stories found in the Gesta of the Roman martyrs. Such was the case for Pope Felix II, mentioned above. The same literary feat could not be accomplished for an ordinary, non-martyr pope. Scholars have noted similar 63

64

65

66

Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 296; R. J. Loenertz, ‘Un pr´etendu sanctuaire roman de S. Denys de Paris’, Analecta Bollandiana 56 (1948), 118–33, unfortunately ignored Otfredus’s note in A 4. Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 169–71; Cowdrey, ‘The liturgy’ (above, n. 23), 71–3, who also notes the difficulty of establishing a proper list. There are twelve popes in A 3, all of them also appearing in the SPL, if the second missing volume is taken into account, with the exception of Pope Damasus, venerated on 11 December, and missing from S. Pietro A 5. The list from S. Pietro A 3 includes Callistus, Martinus, Clemens, Damasus, Silvester, Marcellus, Gregorius I, Alexander, Urbanus, Felix II, Stephanus, Cornelius. The vita of Damasus in A 3 may be a recent addition to the night Office: although Damasus appears in early calendars, his feast is first attested in the eleventh century. Of the popes included by Jounel in the pre-eleventh-century calendar, Fabianus martyr (20 January), Marcus martyr (7 October) and Leo I (11 April) are missing from A 3 and the SPL. Marcus may have been contained in the missing opening pages of A 3, but Fabianus and Leo were clearly not included. Of the twenty-three popes newly added to the traditional dozen in the eleventh-century Aventine mural calendar (for the first half of the year) – as discussed by Jounel, Le culte (above, n. 14), 170–1 – I find only half in the Lateran Ordo (above, n. 28).

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difficulties in the implementations of Pope Gregory’s call that all popes be venerated.67

Conclusion The four grand volumes of the SPL were put together from several, perhaps numerous sources. Among these may have been earlier passionaries or legendaries, individual libelli, such as the one for Saint Denis of Paris, and perhaps other types of written documents. The compiler must have prepared a calendar for the year with a corresponding list of saints and texts to be copied. This would explain, for example, why in A 2 between Saint Maurus of 15 January and Saint Antonius of 17 January, BHL 5235, a composite text, was copied from another passionary or legendary with its old rubric, which reads ‘Mense Augusto Die VIII Nativitas Sanctorum Cyriaci Largi et Zmaragdi’ (A 2, fols. 75–79v). BHL 5235 includes also the account of the martyrdom of Pope Marcellus, and had been placed to be copied at this point in the calendar because the feast of the martyr pope is celebrated on 16 January. Such a mistake suggests that, behind the scribes themselves, there must have been a compiler who had planned the nature of these volumes and organized their contents before the actual writing.68 It seems likely that the volumes were commissioned by the canons of the basilica themselves. We have evidence of their part in the preparation of similar hagiographic compilations in the following centuries, even though we lack it for this period.69 The Life of Pope Martin (BHL 5596; A 5, fols. 107v–123), redacted by Thierry, a monk of Fleury (Saint-Benoˆıt-sur-Loire), between 1002 and 1018, provides direct, though earlier, information on the role of the canons in the development of the hagiographic library of the Vatican basilica.70 In an ornate preface, Thierry recounts how, while on a pilgrimage to Rome, the canons of Saint Peter’s had begged him to revise the only available life of Martin, the rustic style of which ‘offended rather than soothed the ears of the learned’. The canons wanted an account of 67 68

69

70

Cowdrey, ‘The liturgy’ (above, n. 23), 72–3. The principal scribe, or the other minor one, could also have been the compiler. See n. 11 above. A 9 was commissioned by the ‘domini prior et capitulum’ of the basilica in 1339: Poncelet, Catalogus . . . Romanarum (above, n. 2), 29. Only the preface is published in A. Mai, Spicilegium Romanum, 10 vols. (Rome, 1843), IV, 293–5. The text remains unpublished. P. Chiesa, ‘Le biografie greche e latine di papa Martino I’, in Martino I papa (649–653) e il suo tempo. Atti del XXVIII convegno storico internazionale, Todi, 13–16 ottobre 1991 (Spoleto, 1992), 211–41, at pp. 230–1, with earlier bibliography.

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the last martyr pope (d. 655) that would sound more pleasing when read aloud. It was Thierry’s version, a reworking of the earlier text by Anastasius Bibliothecarius, and with additional material from the Liber Pontificalis, that became the vulgate in the Roman area.71 But the SPL was compiled not only to supply the readings for the night Office at the Vatican basilica, but also, as the comparison with A 3 has shown, as a summa of hagiographic texts which embodied the traditions of Saint Peter’s over many centuries as they were shaped particularly by the goals of the Reform papacy. The unique preservation in this legendary of both ancient texts, such as the early version of the life of Anthony, and more recent ones, such as the concoction created to celebrate Pope Felix II and Thierry’s life of Pope Martin, testifies to this goal. Also in this effort, this enormous compendium of hagiographic texts can be seen as part of the broader programme of the Reform papacy, to return to the ancient traditions of the Church of Rome, and to preserve them. Finally, in its selection of texts that testify to the heroic virtues manifested by the martyrs, and especially those of Rome, the SPL provides important evidence of the effects of Pope Gregory’s reform of canonical life in the liturgy of the Vatican basilica itself. 71

The legendary of San Clemente, contemporary to the SPL, provides rare evidence of how such books could come about, and highlights the role of the titular Cardinal Anastasius in the creation of the basilica’s legendary, the writing of new texts, and the proper performance of the Office. See J. Barclay Lloyd, The Medieval Church and Canonry of S. Clemente in Rome (San Clemente Miscellany 3) (Rome, 1989), 60–5; and C. Filippini, ‘La chiesa e il suo santo: gli affreschi dell’undicesimo secolo nella chiesa di S. Clemente a Roma’, in N. Bock, P. Kurmann, ˆ Actes du colloque S. Romano and J.-M. Spieser (eds.), Art, c´er´emonial et liturgie au Moyen Age. de 3e cycle romand de lettres. Lausanne–Fribourg, 24–25 mars, 14–15 avril, 12–13 mai 2000 (Rome, 2002), 107–19 for the broader use of the texts.

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The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered Textual sources and visual evidence for the Renaissance copy of a medieval silver crucifix ¨ katharina christa schuppel

Fig. 16.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 16.

In 1908 Giuseppe Cascioli discovered a long-forgotten crucifix (Figs. 16.1 and 16.2, Plate 12) under the New Sacristy of Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome.1 This fascinating stucco and paper piece has been largely neglected by scholarship – probably owing in part to its ‘poor’ materials – and is held in the For their help with the English version of my text I am indebted to Dorothy F. Glass, Elizabeth C. Parker and the editors of this volume. 1

306

G. Cascioli, Di un crocifisso carolingio nella Basilica Vaticana. Memorie storico-archeologiche (Rome, 1910); G. Cascioli, ‘Il tesoro di S. Pietro in Vaticano. Memorie storico-artistiche’, Bessarione. Pubblicazione Periodica di Studi Orientali 16 (1912), 300–1; G. Cascioli, Guida illustrata al nuovo Museo di San Pietro (Rome, 1925), 24.

The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered

Fabbrica di San Pietro. The cross bears a large representation of the body of Christ crucified: about 160 cm high. The cross itself measures about 290 × 250 cm.2 Its upper end depicts a young bearded man with staff and globe, who has been variously identified as God the Father, Christ and the Archangel Michael. The lower end carries a double effigy of the apostles Peter and Paul; while on the lateral ends the mourning Virgin and Saint John turn towards the crucified Christ. The piece is – according to the sources – the faithful copy of a silver crucifix melted down in 1550 at the behest of Pope Julius III, when new liturgical fittings for the basilica of Saint Peter were needed.3 As a monumental silver crucifix, it stands in the same context as the important donations of this kind to churches throughout Europe documented by written sources from the seventh century on: we know of monumental silver crucifixes formerly in Metz, Narbonne, Chartres, Angers, Strasbourg, the abbeys of Hohenburg and Niederm¨unster, Mainz, Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Ely, Bari and, of course, Rome, to name but a few.4 The copy from Old Saint Peter’s is of particular importance today, because only three monumental silver crucifixes have survived: the silver monumental crucifix from the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria Teodote, in Pavia, today in San Michele in Pavia (Fig. 16.3),5 the crucifix in Sant’ Eusebio, the cathedral of Vercelli,6 and the so-called ‘B¨ocklinkreuz’ in 2

3

4

5

6

C. Gennaccari, ‘Cat. 12., Crocifisso carolingio’, in Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storiche (ed.), Carlo Magno a Roma (Rome, 2001), 124–6. From the silver of the crucifix, an altar cross, two huge candelabra, six small candelabra, two statues of the apostles Peter and Paul, and an unknown number of chalices were made. See A. Rocca, De Particula ex Pretioso et Vivifico Ligno Sacratissime Crucis Salvatoris Iesu Christi Desumpta Sacris. Imaginibus & Elogijs Eodem Ligno Incisis Insignita, et in Apostolico Sacrario Asservata Commentarius (Rome, 1609), 45; Grimaldi, 144–5; G. Grimaldi, Liber de sacrosanto sudario Veronicae . . . , in E. M¨untz (ed.), Recherches sur l’œuvre arch´eologique de Jacques Grimaldi, ancien archiviste de la Basilique du Vatican d’apr`es les manuscrits conserv´es a` Rome, a` ´ Florence, a` Milan, a` Turin et a` Paris (Biblioth`eque des Ecoles Franc¸aises d’Ath`enes et Rome 1) (Paris, 1877), 246. K. Sch¨uppel, Silberne und goldene Monumentalkruzifixe. Ein Beitrag zur mittelalterlichen Liturgie- und Kulturgeschichte (Weimar, 2005), 195–202. A. Peroni, ‘Il crocifisso della badessa Raingarda a Pavia e il problema dell’arte ottoniana in Italia’, in V. Milojˇci´c (ed.), Kolloquium u¨ ber sp¨atantike und fr¨uhmittelalterliche Skulptur, 3 vols. (Mainz, 1969–72), II, 75–109; A. Peroni, ‘L’oreficeria ottoniana in Lombardia e le testimonianze del crocifisso di proporzioni monumentali’, in Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo (ed.), Atti del 10. congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo (Spoleto, 1986), 317–32; Sch¨uppel, Silberne und goldene Monumentalkruzifixe (above, n. 4), 47–73. Peroni, ‘Il crocifisso della badessa Raingarda’ (above, n. 5); A. Peroni, ‘La corona del crocifisso ottoniano della cattedrale di Vercelli’, in L. Tamburini, C. Giudice Servetti, A. Grisers et al. (eds.), Studi e ricerche di storia dell’arte in memoria di Luigi Mall´e (Turin, 1981), 33–47; A. Peroni, ‘Le lamine minori del crocifisso ottoniano di Vercelli’, in Studi in storia dell’arte in memoria di Mario Rotili (Naples, 1984), 127–33; E. Pagella, ‘La croce di Vercelli. Prime

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Fig. 16.2. Crucifix in stucco, Fabbrica di San Pietro, Rome.

osservazioni dal restauro in corso’, in E. De Luca (ed.), Il classicismo. Medioevo, rinascimento, barocco. Atti del colloquio Cesare Gnudi svoltosi nell’aprile 1986 a Bologna (Bologna, 1993), 91–9; P. Astrua, ‘Un inatteso rinvenimento di tessili medievali’, in M. Cuoghi Costantini and J. Silvestri (eds.), Capolavori restaurati di arte tessile (Bologna, 1991), 155–7; C. Piglione, ‘Le grandi oreficerie’, in G. Romano (ed.), Piemonte romanico (Turin, 1994), 422–44; Sch¨uppel, Silberne und goldene Monumentalkruzifixe (above, n. 4), 75–103. Two more monumental metal crucifixes in northern Italy are the cross donated by the Milanese Archbishop Ariberto for the church of San Dionigi in Milan, an early eleventh-century work in copper, originally silvered and gilded, and the silver crucifix in the cathedral of Sant’Evasio in Casale Monferrato (twelfth century): K. Sch¨uppel, ‘Fede e iconografia. Le croci di Ariberto’, in E. Bianchi, M. Basile Weatherhill and M. Beretta (eds.), Ariberto da Intimiano. Fede, potere e cultura a Milano nel secolo XI (Cinisello Balsamo, 2007), 298–307; A. Peroni, ‘Il crocifisso monumentale del Sant’Evasio di Casale. Per una nuova lettura’, in A. Casagrande and B. Perodi Travaglia (eds.), Arte e carte nella diocesi di Casale (Alessandria, 2007), 174–99.

The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered

Fig. 16.3. Crucifix from Santa Maria Teodote, San Michele Maggiore, Pavia.

Freiburg cathedral.7 None of these pieces was made of solid silver. They are exceedingly delicate repouss´e works, consisting of very thin silver sheets over a wooden skeleton and chaser’s pitch.8 The crucifixes in Pavia and Vercelli have been dated respectively to the second half of the tenth century and to the time around the year 1000. Fundamental to these concerns is the research carried out by Adriano Peroni 7

8

I. Krummer-Schroth, Mittelalterliche Goldschmiedekunst am Oberrhein (Freiburg, 1948), 25–6; H. Gombert, Der Freiburger M¨unsterschatz (Freiburg, Basel and Vienna, 1965), 47–50; H.-J. Heuser, Oberrheinische Goldschmiedekunst im Hochmittelalter (Berlin, 1974), 9–12, 113–14; Sch¨uppel, Silberne und goldene Monumentalkruzifixe (above, n. 4), 105–28. Peroni, ‘Il crocifisso della badessa Raingarda’ (above, n. 5), 76–8, 107–9; Astrua, ‘Un inatteso rinvenimento’ (above, n. 6).

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in the 1970s and later.9 The documentation of the restoration of the Vercelli crucifix, damaged during an attempted theft in 1983, unfortunately has been published only in parts.10 The Freiburg crucifix is a work from the second half of the twelfth century. It is, however, very difficult to define its style and its region of origin. In 2005 I proposed that it may have been influenced by silverwork from the Meuse region.11 In 1986, on the initiative of the R¨omisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz, two copies in silver were modelled on the antetype of the copy in stucco and paper of the silver crucifix for Old Saint Peter’s melted down in 1550. One copy was given to Saint Peter’s and set up in the chapel housing Michelangelo’s Piet`a. The other copy remained in Mainz.12 How does the Roman crucifix, surviving in its sixteenth-century copy, fit into the context of the surviving silver monumental crucifixes, whose aesthetic characteristics correspond to the early and high medieval image of Christ and the Cross for which Venantius Fortunatus in his hymn Vexilla Regis found the famous words: ‘Vexilla regis prodeunt / fulget crucis mysterium’ (‘Abroad the regal banners fly / now shines the Cross’s mystery’)?13 The original silver crucifix and the circumstance of its melting down are mentioned in Onofrio Panvinio’s description of the Vatican basilica (1560). The theologian and historian Angelo Rocca was the first to give a detailed description of the copy, accompanied by an engraving (1609). Another reproduction is part of the Instrumenta Autentica by Giacomo Grimaldi (1619), who mentions the crucifix and its copy also in the Liber de Sacrosanto Sudario Veronicae Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi from the year 1621.14 In the descriptions of the Basilica Vaticana two different opinions about the date and the identity of the donor of the crucifix, and several opinions about its original location, stand in opposition to each other. Onofrio Panvinio (1560) and Angelo Rocca (1609) identified the original silver 9 10 11 12

13 14

See above, nn. 5 and 6. Astrua, ‘Un inatteso rinvenimento’ (above, n. 6); Piglione, ‘Le grandi oreficerie’ (above, n. 6). Sch¨uppel, Silberne und goldene Monumentalkruzifixe (above, n. 4), 111–16. Gennaccari, ‘Crocifisso carolingio’ (above, n. 2); K. Weidemann, ‘Das Monumentalkreuz der Peterskirche zu Rom – die Wiederherstellung eines Denkmals der Karolingerzeit’, Jahrbuch des R¨omisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 34 (1987), 743; P. Zander, ‘Cercando Paolo nel perduto San Pietro. Itinerario paolino nella demolita basilica costantiniana e medievale’, in U. Utro (ed.), San Paolo in Vaticano. La figura e la parola dell’Apostolo delle Genti nelle raccolte pontificie (Todi, 2009), 216. Venantius Fortunatus, Opera poetica, F. Leo (ed.), MGH, AA, IV/1 (Berlin, 1881), 34–5. O. Panvinio, De Rebus Antiquis Memorabilibus et Praestoria Basilicae Sancti Petri Apostolorum Principis Libri Septem, Roma 1560 (cod. Vat. lat. 7010); A. Mai (ed.), Spicilegium Romanum, 10 vols. (Rome, 1839–44), IX, 373; Rocca, De Particula (above, n. 3), 44–6; Grimaldi, 144–5; Grimaldi, Liber (above, n. 3), 246. The similarity of the copy is stressed by Rocca, De particula (above, n. 3), 45.

The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered

crucifix as a donation by Charlemagne on the occasion of his coronation by Leo III in Old Saint Peter’s on Christmas Day in the year 800.15 Panvinio and Rocca only mention the late location of the crucifix: the chapel of Saint John Chrysostom in the rotunda of Saint Andrew, where the piece had been taken after the destruction of the western parts of the old basilica in the years 1507 to 1511.16 An earlier location within the basilica is given by Giacomo Grimaldi (1619 and 1621). Grimaldi is of two minds about the identity of the donor and names both Charlemagne and Leo III (795–816) as donors of the crucifix.17 According to him, the crucifix was placed in the southern transept: ‘in pectorale dextro, in capite columnarum n° 38, 52 etc.’. During the imperial coronation ceremony it served as a spatial reference point for the singers of the Laudes.18 In fact, ‘ante crucifixum argenteum’ is a recurring topographic term in the texts of the coronation of the emperor and also in the context of the papal consecration. The position of the choir at the south edge of the high altar during the Laudes that followed the coronation is described in the coronation ordines as ‘inter crucem et altare’ or as ‘ad pectorale dextrum ante crucifixum argenteum’.19 The approach of Filippo Maria Mignanti, author of the Istoria della sacrosanta patriarcale basilica Vaticana (1867), was totally different. Mignanti identified the crucifix melted down in 1550 with a silver cross donated by Leo IV (847–55) for the altar of the apostles Philip and James, on the northern side of the central nave of Saint Peter’s, in the sixth intercolumnium from the entrance of the basilica. Leo IV had given precious liturgical furnishings to the altar, including a silver crucifix. Leo’s crucifix weighed 200 pounds, was 7 palmi high and 2 palmi wide, and the counterpart of another silver crucifix also donated by Leo IV for the opposite altar of Saints Simon and Judas.20 According to Mignanti, the crucifix of the altar of Saints Philip and James finally was brought to the sacristy and set up in the chapel of 15

16

17 18 19

20

On the coronation ceremony, see R. McKitterick, Charlemagne: the Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008), 115. Panvinio, De Rebus (above, n. 14), 373; Rocca, De Particula (above, n. 3), 44–6. For the chronology of the demolition of Old Saint Peter’s, see CBCR, V, 184; A. Arbeiter, Alt-St.-Peter in Geschichte und Wissenschaft: Abfolge der Bauten, Rekonstruktion, Architekturprogramm (Berlin, 1988), 66–9. Grimaldi, 145; Grimaldi, Liber (above, n. 3), 246. Grimaldi, 144; Grimaldi, Liber (above, n. 3), 246. Ordo Cencius II, XIV. 46 in R. Elze (ed.), Ordines Coronationis Imperialis. Die Ordines f¨ur die Weihe und Kr¨onung des Kaisers und der Kaiserin (Hanover, 1960), 45; ‘Ceremonial of Jacopo ˆ a` la Stefaneschi’, 105. 40 in M. Dykmans (ed.), Le c´er´emonial papal de la fin du Moyen Age Renaissance, 4 vols. (Brussels and Rome, 1977–85), II, 444; Blaauw, CD, 731. F. M. Mignanti, Istoria della sacrosanta patriarcale Basilica Vaticana. Dalla sua fondazione fino al presente, 2 vols. (Rome and Turin, 1867), I, 78–9.

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Saint John Chrysostom.21 Mignanti, who does not mention his sources, refers to the description of the Vatican basilica by Petrus Mallius in the late twelfth century, existing also in a second version by a Canon Romanus (after 1192).22 The connection of the crucifix melted down in 1550 with the altar of Saints Philip and James can also be found in the description of the Vatican basilica by Tiberio Alfarano in 1582.23 Both opinions, the idea of a donation by Leo III or Charlemagne, or by Leo IV, have been a major thread throughout the art historical discussion of the copy held by the Fabbrica di San Pietro, beginning with Giuseppe Cascioli in 1908. Cascioli identifies a gilded silver crucifix donated by Leo III ‘iuxta altare maiore’, mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis, as the lost original, while G´eza de Francovich, following Louis Duchesne, the editor of the Liber Pontificalis, opts for a crucifix donated by Leo IV ‘in laeva introitus parte inter columnas magnas’.24 A possible solution emerges if the donation of a crucifix by Innocent II (1130–43) ‘iuxta altare beati Petri manu dextera’ is brought into consideration, a donation that was mentioned by Gaetano Curzi in his essay ‘Tra saraceni e lanzechenecchi’ in 2002.25 A closer look at the location of the original crucifix mentioned by Grimaldi shows that on the southern side of the main altar in the ninth century a golden cross, the crucifix donated by Leo III ‘iuxta altare maggiore’,26 was already there, but from the twelfth century on, according to Romanus, a gilded silver crucifix weighing 100 pounds, donated by Pope Innocent II, is named in its place.27 The apparent contradiction between the description by Romanus and the information given by Grimaldi, who identifies the silver crucifix as one of the donations of the early ninth century, can be solved by dating the crucifix melted down in 1550 to the first half of the twelfth century. The Renaissance copy preserves several stylistic characteristics of this time, to which we shall turn shortly. In the light of this, it is not the indication of the location of 21 23

24

25

26

27

22 DBV–M, 382–442, esp. pp. 391–2, 413, 420. Mignanti, Istoria (above, n. 20), 79–80. Alfarano, DBVS, 140–1. See also the later description by Maffeo Vegio, De Rebus Antiquis Memorabilibus Basilicae S. Petri Romanae, in Valentini–Zucchetti, III, 378–9. Cascioli, Di un crocifisso carolingio (above, n. 1), 3; G. de Francovich, ‘L’origine du crucifix monumental sculpt´e et peint’, Revue de l’Art Ancien et Moderne 67 (1955), 210, with reference to LP, II, 128–9, 138, n. 54. G. Curzi, ‘Tra saraceni e lanzechenecchi. Crocifissi monumentali di et`a carolingia nella basilica di S. Pietro’, Arte Medievale 2 (2003), 16–17. Leo III donated a silver crucifix positioned close by the main altar (‘iuxta altare maiore’) and another one ‘in medio basilicae’. On the crosses donated by Leo III and Leo IV, see Sch¨uppel, Silberne und goldene Monumentalkruzifixe (above, n. 4), 30–3. ‘Innocentius papa II ad ornatum altaris beati Petri feci fieri magnam crucem argenteam pesantem .c. libras, et deauratam posuit iuxta altare beati Petri manu dextera.’ DBV–M, 436.

The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered

the original crucifix by Grimaldi that seems to be erroneous, but only his presumption of its donation during the pontificate of Leo III. The object that has been melted down may have been the silver crucifix donated by Innocent II and described in the late twelfth century as on the southern side of the altar podium. It is moreover possible that the crucifix of Innocent II replaced a golden antecedent stolen in 1130 during the sack of the Vatican basilica by the followers of the antipope Anacletus II (1130–8).28 It is unlikely that this lost cross was the golden gemmed cross, donated to the main altar by Leo IV, mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis and in the Description of the Vatican Basilica by Petrus Mallius,29 because our cross displayed Christ’s body. It is instead possible that we are dealing with the gilded crucifix donated by Leo III ‘iuxta altare maggiore’. That Grimaldi was unaware of the loss of the gilded silver crucifix by Leo III, and of its replacement in the twelfth century by Innocent II, would explain the assumption that recurs again and again in the descriptions of the Vatican basilica in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: namely that the crucifix melted down in 1550 was a donation by Leo III. The possibility of identifying the crucifix as the one donated by Innocent hinges, of course, on the understanding of the location ‘ante crucifixum argenteum’ mentioned by Grimaldi and in the coronation ordines. Giuseppe Cascioli and Cristina Gennaccari, for example, interpret its location not as the southern altar podium, but as being suspended between the capitals of the columns at the end of the inner south aisle, ‘in capite columnarum’.30 The further history of the crucifix can be summarized briefly. In the course of the demolition of the western parts of Old Saint Peter’s between 1507 and 1511, it was brought to the canons’ chapel in the rotunda of Saint Andrew, temporarily used as sacristy: the chapel of Saint Lambert, later known as the chapel of Saint John Chrysostom. The crucifix survived the sack of Rome unscathed – according to an unconfirmed tradition, the canons blackened its surface with the soot of torches, so that its precious material became unrecognizable. The 1550 copy was transferred from Saint Andrew’s to the Sagrestia Comune, the central room of the New Sacristy, built between 1776 and 1784. There, Giuseppe Cascioli discovered it in the early 28

29 30

The continuation of the Liber Pontificalis by Cardinal Boso from the second half of the twelfth century gives an account of the looting; see LP, II, 380. On the historical events preceding the depredation of the Vatican basilica, in the context of the rivalry between the Roman families Pierleone and Frangipane, see L. Gatto, Storia di Roma nel Medioevo. Politica, religione, societ`a, cultura, economia e urbanistica della Citt`a Eterna tra l’avvento di Costantino e il saccheggio di Carlo V (Rome, 1999), 328, 332. LP, II, 119; DBV–M, 391–2. Cascioli, Guida (above, n. 1), 23; Gennaccari, ‘Crocifisso carolingio’ (above, n. 2), 124.

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twentieth century in a niche beside the stairs in the subterranean Cimitero canonicale and arranged its relocation in the Sagrestia dei Benefiziati, also in the New Sacristy. From 1925 to 1966 the crucifix was on display in the newly opened Museo Petriano.31 With due caution – because we are dealing with a copy – stylistic as well as textual evidence is indicative of an origin of the lost silver monumental crucifix in the twelfth century. As a sixteenth-century work, the copy in stucco reflects the type of the ‘sensitive’ crucified, standing, as Margit Lisner has shown, in close relationship to the theoretical work of Girolamo Savonarola.32 For this type, the crucifix for Santo Spirito in Florence (1493/4), attributed to Michelangelo,33 and, about half a century later, Cellini’s Cristo Blanco (1562), given to Spain by the Medici family and today in the Escorial Monastery,34 are paradigmatic. Cascioli indeed described the Roman piece as ‘sereno, dolce e amabile’.35 But when we set apart all the alterations that can be attributed to sixteenth-century sensibilities – the shape and type of the head, the lack of linear elements within the modelling of the upper part of the body, the loincloth resembling wet drapery – the similarity of the lost original to pieces such as the twelfth-century crucifix in San Savino in Piacenza (Fig. 16.4)36 or the crucifix in San Giovanni Maggiore in Naples37 becomes obvious. The stylistic relationship between the two twelfth-century pieces has been noticed already by Armando Ottaviano Quintavalle.38

31

32

33

34

35 36

37

38

Grimaldi, Liber (above, n. 3), 246; Alfarano, DBVS, 141; Mignanti, Istoria (above, n. 20), 79–80; Cascioli, Di un crocifisso carolingio (above, n. 1), 3; Gennaccari, ‘Crocifisso carolingio’ (above, n. 2), 124. On the legend see Cascioli, Di un crocifisso carolingio (above, n. 1), 5–6. M. Lisner, Holzkruzifixe in Florenz und in der Toskana von der Zeit um 1300 bis zum fr¨uhen Cinquecento (Munich, 1970), 115. Cf. in this context Savonarola’s Trattato dell’amore di Ges`u Cristo: M. Ferrara (ed.), Girolamo Savonarola. Operette spirituali I (Rome, 1976), 103–4. Florence, Santo Spirito, sacristy. M. Lisner, ‘Michelangelos Kruzifix aus S. Spirito in Florenz’, M¨unchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 15 (1964), 7–31; Lisner, Holzkruzifixe (above, n. 32), 111–16; V. Forni and R. Fontanelli (eds.), Il crocifisso di Santo Spirito (Florence, 2000). ´ Monasterio de El Escorial, Basilica de S. Lorenzo: J. Lopez Gajate, El Cristo Blanco de Cellini (Madrid, 1995). Cascioli, Di un crocifisso carolingio (above, n. 1), 8. A. Peroni, ‘Il crocifisso di San Savino ritrovato’, in P. Ceschi Lavagetto (ed.), Il crocifisso di San Savino (Parma, 1983), 9–38; L. Cocchetti Pratesi, ‘Cat. 9’, in P. Castiglioni and A. M. Romanini (eds.), Storia di Piacenza, 6 vols. (Piacenza, 1984–2003), II, 660–1; A. C. Quintavalle, ‘Cat. 70’, in A. Calzona and A. C. Quintavalle, Wiligelmo e Matilde. L’officina romanica (Milan, 1991), 500–6; L. Mor, ‘Un maestro d’origine francese-pirenaica per il crocifisso di San Savino in Piacenza’, Bollettino Storico Piacentino 94 (1999), 3–21. A. O. Quintavalle, ‘Due crocifissi campani del secolo XI’, Dedalo 12 (1932), 925–32; F. Bologna and R. Causa (eds.), Sculture lignee in Campania (Naples, 1950), 34–6. Quintavalle, ‘Due crocifissi’ (above, n. 37).

The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered

Fig. 16.4. Crucifix, San Savino, Piacenza.

The posture and the design of the loincloth are remarkably similar. Striking details are the absolutely immobile, frontal position of the body, the nearly vertical line of contours of the upper part of the body and the waistcloth from the ribs to the border, the absence of hips, the navel located very high, and the geometrical pattern of the lateral ends of the loincloth beneath the central knot: in Piacenza five-, in Rome three-lozenged pleats. The characteristic element that relates all three pieces and distinguishes them from other types of crucifixes is that the arms merge directly into the upper part of the body, without any delineation of shoulders and armpits. The same type of waistcloth is worn by the crucified Christ in Naples. The position of arms and legs is also similar. The rigid style of all three crucifixes finds no parallel in Carolingian depictions of Christ on the Cross. The crucified Christs of the ninth century

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are stronger or much more plastically modelled, waisted, and in any case livelier and more individually shaped. Indeed, none of the ninth-century crucifixion scenes in Rome and central Italy – including the wall-paintings in Santi Nereo ed Achilleo39 and San Clemente in Rome,40 in San Vincenzo al Volturno41 and Santi Martiri in Cimitile42 – seem to share the formal characteristics of the Roman crucifix. Moreover comparison with north European works, such as the crucifixion scenes from the SaintAmand Apocalypse (Paris, Biblioth`eque Nationale, nouv. acq. lat. 1132, fol. 15v), the gospel book of Francis II (Paris, Biblioth`eque Nationale, lat. 257, fol. 12v) or the sacramentary fragment from Metz (Paris, Biblioth`eque Nationale, lat. 1141, fol. 6v),43 reveals that differences prevail over partial congruities. 39

40

41

42

43

G. Sacchi, ‘Elementi dell’architettura carolingia ed affreschi medievali rinvenuti nella chiesa dei SS. Nereo ed Achilleo in Roma’, Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, Rendiconti 60 (1987–8), 103–44, esp. pp. 131–2. J. Osborne, Early Medieval Wall-paintings in the Lower Church of San Clemente, Rome (New York and London, 1984), 54–61; C. Bertelli, ‘La pittura medievale a Roma e nel Lazio’, in C. Bertelli (ed.), La pittura in Italia. L’Altomedioevo (Milan, 1994), 219; M. Andaloro (ed.), La pittura medievale a Roma, 312–1431. Atlante, percorsi visivi, I. Suburbio, Vaticano, Rione Monti, 3 vols. (Milan, 2006), 177–90. V. Pace, ‘La pittura medievale nel Molise, in Basilicata e Calabria’, in Bertelli (ed.), La pittura in Italia (above, n. 40), 270–4 (with further literature). V. Pace, ‘La pittura medievale in Campania’, in Bertelli (ed.), La pittura in Italia (above, n. 40), 244–5 (with further literature). On the lost crucifixion scene from the New Testament cycle in the nave of Old Saint Peter’s, see S. Waetzoldt, Die Kopien des 17. Jahrhunderts nach Mosaiken und Wandmalereien in Rom (R¨omische Forschungen der Bibliotheca Hertziana 28) (Vienna and Munich, 1964), 70; W. Tronzo, ‘The prestige of Saint Peter’s: observations on the function of monumental narrative cycles in Italy’, in H. L. Kessler and M. Shreve Simpson (eds.), Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Washington, DC, 1985), 93–112; H. L. Kessler, ‘Caput et speculum omnium ecclesiarum. Old Saint Peter’s and church decoration in medieval Latium’, in W. Tronzo (ed.), Italian Church Decoration of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: Functions, Forms and Regional Traditions (Bologna, 1989), 119–46. M.-C. Sepi`ere, L’image d’un Dieu souffrant (IXe–Xe si`ecle). Aux origines du crucifix (Paris, 1994), 131, 151, 155 (with further literature). Other comparisons have been made by G´eza de Francovich and Christian Beutler: Francovich, ‘L’origine’ (above, n. 24), 211; C. Beutler, ‘Documents sur la sculpture carolingienne’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 104 (1962), 446; C. Beutler, Bildwerke zwischen Antike und Mittelalter. Unbekannte Skulpturen aus der Zeit Karls des Großen (D¨usseldorf, 1964), 35, 37. On the fragmentarily preserved crucifix from the former abbey church of Saint Martin in Autun, which Beutler compared to the Roman crucifix, see C. Beutler, ‘Das Kreuz des heiligen Odo aus Saint Martin vor Autun’, Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 22 (1960), 49–68; Beutler, Bildwerke zwischen Antike und Mittelalter (above), 163–70. With doubts about the authenticity of the fragments and the suggestion of a dating to the twelfth century, respectively: J. Hubert, ‘La tˆete de Christ de Saint-Martin d’Autun’, Bulletin de la Soci´et´e Nationale des Antiquaires de France 1935–6 (1936), 1; R. Plancherault, ‘La tˆete du Christ dit “de Saint Odon”’, Les Monuments Historiques de la France 2 (1937), 200–2. On the theological meaning of the crucifixion in the Carolingian period, see C. Chazelle, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era: Theology and Art of Christ’s Passion (Cambridge, 2001).

The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered

Fig. 16.5. Crucifix in stucco, Fabbrica di San Pietro, Rome. Lower end of the cross with Saints Peter and Paul.

Iconography is also helpful in attempting to contextualize the Saint Peter’s crucifix, particularly with respect to the double effigy of the apostles Peter and Paul at the lower end of the cross. The apostles are turned slightly towards each other. Peter is situated on the left, Paul on the right side of the rectangular panel. They carry their gilded attributes, the key and the sword (Fig. 16.5, Plate 13).44 In the context of monumental crucifixes this is a new element, perhaps motivated by the wish to fix the crucifix into a local, Roman context, and replacing the traditional image of the donor at the foot of the cross. We find such donor images in Pavia and Vercelli: the abbess Raingarda identified by an inscription, and an unidentified bishop, often interpreted, because of temporal coincidence, as the commissioner of the cross, Leo of Vercelli (998–1026).45 44

45

Saint Peter’s key as symbol of the Traditio Clavis, based on Matthew 16.19, is discussed by C. Kinder Carr, Aspects of the Iconography of Saint Peter in Medieval Art of Western Europe to the Early Thirteenth Century (Ann Arbor, MI, and London, 1982), 14–18. Peroni, ‘Il crocifisso della badessa Raingarda’ (above, n. 5), 83–6, 102; Peroni, ‘La corona’ (above, n. 6), 33; Peroni, ‘Le lamine minori’ (above, n. 6), 132; Peroni, ‘L’oreficeria ottoniana’

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For a crucifix, the double effigy of the princes of the apostles is an uncommon choice. In the Roman context, the first association is with the legendary portraits of Peter and Paul from the legend of Saint Silvester. As the legend tells us, the two apostles appear in a dream to the Emperor Constantine, who was suffering from leprosy. The two men, whom Constantine does not know, order him to be baptized by Silvester. When Silvester shows him the portraits of the princes of the apostles, Constantine recognizes them as the unknown men from his dream, and is healed from his disease after baptism in the Lateran baptistery.46 The scene in which Silvester shows the portraits of Peter and Paul to Constantine is, in addition to the baptism and the Donation of Constantine, part of the Silvester cycle in the chapel of Saint Silvester at Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome. The chapel was built by Stefano Conti, cardinal of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and consecrated in 1247. According to the early medieval legendary tradition, the chapel’s decorative programme joins together the legend of Saint Silvester and the life of Constantine. In the scene of their meeting, Silvester, accompanied by two deacons, shows Constantine holding a rectangular panel with the characteristic busts of Peter and Paul with overlapping haloes, Paul on the left and Peter on the right side (Fig. 16.6).47 We also find the scene of the showing of the portraits in medieval cycles of the life of Saint Peter, among the wonders the apostle worked posthumously: for example, in the fresco cycle with the lives of Saints Peter and Paul on the external wall of the portico of Old Saint Peter’s, a work dated to the pontificate of Nicholas III (1277–80).48 Of the original twelve scenes, nine are preserved in the form of drawings in Giacomo Grimaldi’s Instrumenta Autentica, one of which depicts the showing of the portraits.49 In both cases, the panel with the portraits of the princes of the apostles is an allusion to a famous medieval Roman icon. The small diptych (each

46

47

48

49

(above, n. 5), 321, 325; Astrua, ‘Un inatteso rinvenimento’ (above, n. 6), 156; Piglione, ‘Le grandi oreficerie’ (above, n. 6), 427–9. B. Mombritius, Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum, 2 vols. (Paris, 1910), II, 508–31; W. Pohlkamp, ‘Silvester I’, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, VII (Munich and Zurich, 1995), 1905–7; recently T. Canella, Gli Actus Silvestri. Genesi di una leggenda su Costantino imperatore (Spoleto, 2006). J. Mitchell, ‘Saint Silvester and Constantine at the SS. Quattro Coronati’, in A. M. Romanini (ed.), Federico II e l’arte del Duecento italiano. Atti della III settimana di studi di storia dell’arte medievale dell’Universit`a di Roma II (Rome, 1980), 15–32; A. Sohn, ‘Bilder als Zeichen der Herrschaft. Die Silvesterkapelle in SS. Quattro Coronati (Rom)’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 35 (1997), 7–47. Waetzoldt, Die Kopien des 17. Jahrhunderts (above, n. 42), 66–7; Andaloro, Atlante (above, n. 40), 21–7, esp. p. 24; Zander, ‘Cercando Paolo nel perduto San Pietro’ (above, n. 12), 210–11. Grimaldi, 164–78, esp. p. 178.

The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered

Fig. 16.6. Silvester showing the portraits of Peter and Paul to Constantine in the chapel of Saint Silvester, Santi Quattro Coronati, Rome.

panel 8.2 × 5.6 cm) with the effigies of Peter and Paul (Fig. 16.7, Plate 14), today in the Vatican Museums, was conserved during the Middle Ages in the treasury of the chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, its possession was claimed by both the Lateran and the Vatican basilicas. The dating of the diptych has been controversial and ranges between the sixth century and the late eighth century, the time of the donation of the arca cypressina, the altar shrine of Leo III for the relics of the Sancta Sanctorum. The two panels originally were linked to each other and could be snapped shut so that the painted surfaces lay inside. Perhaps

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Fig. 16.7. Diptych with Saints Peter and Paul from the Sancta Sanctorum. Vatican Museums, Rome.

with recourse to older models, the apostles are depicted without haloes. The horizontal stripes on their garments are indicative of the early medieval origin of the diptych. Indirectly, the icon played a role in the discussion about the veneration of images at that time. In his letter to the Byzantine Empress Irene and her son Constantine VI, written in the year 785 and included in the acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), Pope Hadrian I used the example of the icon with the princes of the apostles shown to Constantine by Silvester as an argument in favour of the cult of images.50 In the later Middle Ages, amongst others, the Vatican icon of Saints Peter and Paul, a 50

C. Bertelli, ‘Pittura in Italia durante l’iconoclasmo: le icone’, Arte Cristiana 76 (1988), 51; H. Belting, Bild und Kult. Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (Munich, 1990), 137–41; G. Wolf, Salus Populi Romani. Die Geschichte r¨omischer Kultbilder im Mittelalter (Weinheim, 1990), 9, 172; A. Effenberger, ‘Cat. IX.28’, in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), 799. Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Große und Papst Leo III. in Paderborn, 3 vols. (Mainz, 1999), II, 644–5; R. D’Amico, ‘Per la storia dell’icona serba del Vaticano. Il rapporto con le vicende della basilica di San Pietro e una sua “replica” seicentesca a Fano’, Zograf 28 (2000–1), 89–100, esp. pp. 92–4; Andaloro, Atlante (above, n. 40), 225–30; G. Cornini, ‘Cat. 76’, in Utro (ed.), San Paolo in Vaticano (above, n. 12), 205–6 (with recent bibliography). See also van Dijk, this volume, 252–3.

The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered

donation of the Serbian Queen Helena in the late thirteenth century, was modelled on the venerable prototype: Peter and Paul, in the upper two-thirds of the panel, are acting as intermediary between the blessing Christ above them and the figures of Helena, kneeling in front of Saint Nicholas, and her sons Dragutin and Milutin in the lower third of the painting.51 The choice of this special subject for the lower end of the crucifix at Old Saint Peter’s may have been motivated by the idea of establishing the donation of the crucifix within the tradition of the Roman papacy and to provide it with particular authority – if we can trust the copy – by the citation of a legendary icon. As that icon seems to have been of special interest in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, we may be able to take its inclusion in the stucco crucifix as an element that helps us account for the lost original as a creation of the twelfth century. This special interest stands in the context of the new actuality of the Early Christian iconography of Saints Peter and Paul and the cult of Saint Silvester in the first half of the twelfth century. Both phenomena are related to the postulation of papal primacy in the aftermath of the Gregorian Reform. Paradigmatic in this context is the establishment of a new iconography for papal seals, which stresses the double apostolicity of the Roman Church, between the second half of the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth century. We find the busts of Peter and Paul for the first time on the seal of Gregory VII (1073–85), then on the recto of the seal created for Paschal II (1099–1118).52 The increased interest in the veneration of Peter and Paul was moreover connected with Old Saint Peter’s as a place, when Petrus Mallius in his description of the basilica claimed that the altar of the Vatican confessio preserved not only the body of Saint Peter, but also the relics of Saint Paul.53 With the attempt to stress the primacy of the papal power over the imperium, the return to the figure of Silvester I became an integral part of twelfth-century papal self-representation. The baptism of Constantine by Silvester was considered the precondition for the ‘Donation of Constantine’; probably in the eighth century, in addition to the late antique legend of Saint Silvester, the ‘Constitutum Constantini’ emerged, according 51

52

53

W. Volbach, ‘Die Ikone der Apostelf¨ursten in St. Peter zu Rom’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 7 (1941), 480–96; D’Amico, ‘Per la storia dell’icona serba del Vaticano’ (above, n. 50), 89–100; Zander, ‘Cercando Paolo nel perduto San Pietro’ (above, n. 12), 217–21; R. D’Amico, ‘Cat. 85’, in Utro (ed.), San Paolo in Vaticano (above, n. 12), 224. The author is indebted to John Osborne for this suggestion. On the twelfth-century papal seals, see I. Herklotz, ‘Zur Ikonographie der Papstsiegel im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert’, in H.-R. Meier, C. J¨aggi and P. B¨uttner (eds.), F¨ur irdischen Ruhm und himmlischen Lohn. Stifter und Auftraggeber in der mittelalterlichen Kunst (Berlin, 1995), 116–30; A. Paravicini Bagliani, Le chiavi e la tiara. Immagini e simboli del papato medievale (Rome, 1998), 29–31. Paravicini Bagliani, Le chiavi e la tiara (above, n. 52), 29.

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to which the emperor, grateful for being healed from his disease, had given to Silvester the Lateran palace, the reign over the western Roman Empire and the imperial insignia of mantle, tiara, umbrella and horse. Additionally, Constantine had rendered the pope the officium stratoris. To this document, signed by Constantine I but definitively recognized as a falsification in the fifteenth century, the high and late medieval papacy had appealed as a way to legitimate its desire to control outside secular power.54 The symbolic leading of the pope’s horse by the emperor (officium stratoris) was a sign of respect when spiritual and secular leaders got together, and an integral part of the imperial coronation ceremony. Because of the formal parallel to feudal practices, it could be misunderstood easily as the sign of an unequal relationship between lord and vassal. Lothar III rendered the officium stratoris to Innocent II twice – in 1131, when he met the pope in Li`ege, and a second time when he was crowned emperor in Rome in 1133 – and Innocent had the coronation scene depicted beside the chapel of Saint Nicholas in the Lateran with the following caption: ‘Rex stetit ante fores iurans prius urbis honores / sic homo fit Papae sumit quo dante coronam’ (‘The king comes to the gates, having confirmed the rights of the city of Rome / then he becomes a subject of the pope, [and] takes the crown given by the latter’). In the conflict of Sutri in 1155, Frederick I refused to lead the horse of Pope Hadrian IV.55 A prominent depiction of the Donation of Constantine from the second half of the twelfth century was to be found in the medieval narthex of the Lateran basilica.56 In the story leading to Constantine’s conversion and later to his donation, our icon, as has been shown, plays a decisive role. To conclude: in twelfth-century Rome an ideological and political setting existed that would have favoured the decision to include the image of the 54

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H. Fuhrmann (ed.), Das Constitutum Constantini. Text, MGH, Leges. Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui in usuem scholarum separatim editi, X (Hanover, 1968); H. Fuhrmann, ‘Konstantinische Schenkung’, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, V (Munich and Zurich, 1991), 1385–7. On the bearing of the Donation of Constantine upon the Roman papacy in the twelfth century, see I. Herklotz, ‘Der mittelalterliche Fassadenportikus der Lateranbasilika und seine Mosaiken. Kunst und Propaganda am Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts’, RJBH 25 (1989), 82–3. On the officium stratoris: J. Traeger, Der reitende Papst. Ein Beitrag zur Ikonographie des Papsttums (Munich, 1970). H. Fuhrmann, Einladung ins Mittelalter (Munich, 1987), 126–8; Sohn, ‘Bilder als Zeichen der Herrschaft’ (above, n. 47), 38–9. On the highly controversial paintings in the hall besides the oratory of Saint Nicolas, destroyed in the eighteenth century, see Waetzoldt, Die Kopien des 17. Jahrhunderts (above, n. 42), 39. Waetzoldt, Die Kopien des 17. Jahrhunderts (above, n. 42), 36; Herklotz, ‘Der mittelalterliche Fassadenportikus der Lateranbasilika’ (above, n. 54), 25–95; Andaloro, Atlante (above, n. 40), 195–7; J. Croisier, ‘62. Il perduto fregio a mosaico del portico di San Giovanni in Laterano’, in S. Romano, Riforma e tradizione, 1050–1198 (La pittura medievale a Roma, Corpus 4) (Milan, 2006), 372–4.

The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter’s reconsidered

venerable icon of Peter and Paul from the Sancta Sanctorum, associated both with the legend of Saint Silvester and the Donation of Constantine, at the lower end of the Saint Peter’s crucifix. And, independent of the acceptance of this proposition, the twelfth-century crucifix melted down in 1550 can be identified as an intermediate that replaced an older piece perhaps from the ninth century. With the citation of the portraits of Peter and Paul at the foot of the cross, the donor of the crucifix presents himself as a second Silvester, thus indicating a papal rather than an imperial donation. Viewed in this light, the inclusion of the images of Peter and Paul appears as a disguised image of the donor, postulating papal primacy. Indeed, if we think back to Giacomo Grimaldi’s description of the Vatican basilica, we find that parts of the imperial coronation ceremony took place in front of the crucifix. As part of the setting of Old Saint Peter’s, the crucifix surviving in its sixteenth-century copy is an essential expression of the medieval papal mentality. For research on medieval crucifixes the copy is of special relevance because it gives a visual idea of one of the numerous crosses donated to Saint Peter’s from Late Antiquity onwards, usually known to us only from written sources: gold and silver crosses with and without the crucified Christ, precious gemmed crosses, and, at the very beginning, the long lost golden cross donated by Constantine and Helena that weighed 150 pounds and bore the inscription ‘Constantinus Augustus et Helena Augusta hanc domum regalem simili fulgore coruscans aula circumdat’.57 During the Middle Ages, the crosses of Old Saint Peter’s may have served as exemplars for western European donations of silver and gold monumental crucifixes. Thus Old Saint Peter’s would emerge as another ‘reference point’ besides the tradition-rich Golgotha, whose memorial crosses58 were models for numerous donations of crucifixes during the Middle Ages, including, amongst others, the Georgian silver monumental crosses from the early and high Middle Ages.59 57

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Arbeiter, Alt-St.-Peter in Geschichte und Wissenschaft (above, n. 16), 56–7, 171; R. Krautheimer, ‘The building inscriptions and the dates of construction of Old Saint Peter’s: a reconsideration’, RJBH 25 (1989), 4–5; Blaauw, CD, 470–9. C. Milner, ‘“Lignum Vitae” or “Crux Gemmata”? The cross of Golgotha in the early Byzantine period’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 20 (1996), 77–99. A. Grabar, ‘Quelques notes sur les psautiers illustr´es byzantins du IXe si`ecle’, Cahiers Arch´eologiques 15 (1965), 71–2; R. Mepisaˇsvili and V. Cincadse, Die Kunst des alten Georgien (Leipzig, 1977), 227–9; A. Grabar, ‘Observations sur l’arc de triomphe de la croix dit arc d’Eginhard et sur d’autres bases de la croix’, Cahiers Arch´eologiques 27 (1978), 77.

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Fig. 17.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 17.

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Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century

The story of Old Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century is dominated by the plans that Nicholas V (1447–55) laid for the basilica’s modernization. The pope’s biographer, Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459), described his ambitious scheme to remodel Saint Peter’s and its surroundings as part of a larger campaign to improve both the symbolic and practical effectiveness of Rome’s urban environment. In turn, the new construction commissioned by Julius II (1503–13) has been found rooted in Nicholas V’s vision for Saint Peter’s. Indeed, the clearest evidence for Nicholas V’s basilica is in the form of a plan drawn up by Bramante, Julius II’s architect (see Fig. 20.1).1 But Nicholas V’s coherent project was compromised in the intervening fifty years, the victim of various halted projects that resulted in the failure of ‘the first phase of the new construction of Saint Peter’s’.2 This is the standard narrative concerning the fifteenth-century basilica but it relies on the benefit of hindsight.3 It privileges the basilica as a large architectural structure – a Renaissance monument to a ‘Renaissance pope’. It obscures the remarkable continuity of works undertaken at Saint Peter’s throughout the fifteenth century, before and after Nicholas V’s pontificate. And it overshadows the manifold ceremonial, symbolic and commemorative functions that Saint Peter’s contained and embodied.4 A different story emerges if Nicholas V’s interventions are put into the context of the longer redevelopment of Saint Peter’s in the period (Fig. 17.1). Nicholas V’s pontificate was certainly important for the basilica’s restoration and redevelopment in the fifteenth century, but work on Saint Peter’s was by no means isolated to the years of his papacy. The basilica benefited from the campaigns of Nicholas V’s predecessors and successors. No 1

2 3

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‘It is with Nicholas [V] that the story of the New Saint Peter’s begins’: C. Thoenes, ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’, in W. Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 65–7. The plan is in Florence, Uffizi (Gabinetto dei Disegni) 20A, dated 1505/6. I am using the essay by Thoenes to represent the established architectural history of the basilica. Thoenes, ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’ (above, n. 1), 72. The magisterial work of Christof Thoenes and of Christof L. Frommel assumes a continuity of concept from Nicholas V’s choir project to Julius II/Bramante’s new crossing as the basis for an entirely new basilica. This dominant view has been questioned in recent years by the work of Louise Rice, who finds evidence of the continued coexistence of the old and new basilicas as late as the 1580s, and by Bram Kempers this volume, 386–403. See L. Rice, ‘La coesistenza delle due basiliche’, in G. Spagnesi (ed.), L’architettura della basilica di San Pietro: storia e costruzione (Quaderni dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Architettura, n.s. 25/30, 1995/97) (Rome, 1997), 255–68; B. Kempers, ‘Diverging perspectives – new Saint Peter’s: artistic ambitions, liturgical requirements, financial limitations and historical interpretations’, Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 55 (1996), 213–51. An important exception that focuses on the embellishment of the interior is H. Roser, St. Peter in Rom im 15. Jahrhundert: Studien zu Architektur und Skulpturaler Ausstattung (R¨omische Studien der Bibliotheca Hertziana 19) (Munich, 2005).

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pope could live long enough to make such a project their own and, in any case, this is rarely how patronage worked in Rome. Large-scale public projects were brought to fruition by a sequence of interventions usually involving more than one patron: cardinals took responsibility for providing tomb monuments for their papal sponsors, while popes exploited the efforts of their predecessors, as, for example, when Sixtus IV had the Sistine Chapel, the Capella Magna founded by Nicholas III (1277–80), enlarged and embellished with frescoes.5 This constant cycle of redevelopment in Rome represented the continuity of the Apostolic Succession as one pope (and his representatives) built on the achievement of another. Moreover, unlike new Saint Peter’s, which is almost exclusively the preserve of the popes, reflecting post-Tridentine distillation of multifaceted intent into a unified message, Old Saint Peter’s embodied the hopes and interests of a much broader range of patrons. The fact that the majority of fifteenth-century popes were buried in Saint Peter’s, reasserting a tradition that had weakened between the tenth and fifteenth centuries, indicates the basilica’s renewed importance in the period. It was reclaimed as the papal church, as it continues to be to this day. A new series of papal tombs and their associated altars embellished the structure, chapels and auxiliary structures propped up the sagging southern flank, while existing tombs and monuments were rearranged to leave the nave and aisles uncluttered. However, continuous restoration and general maintenance, along with more radical intervention, was not an end in itself, but consolidated and modernized the basilica’s interior spaces. The pattern of activity peaked between 1440 and 1470, outlasting any single papacy. This period coincides with Pietro Barbo’s tenure as cardinal archpriest and then as Pope Paul II (1464–71). His long relationship with Saint Peter’s tempers the characterization of the Renaissance basilica as Nicholas V’s exclusive endeavour. Papal burials were first made in catacombs on the Via Appia because Saint Peter was thought to have been interred there and his remains subsequently moved to the Vatican, as Rosamond McKitterick discusses in her chapter in this volume.6 By the fourth century the narrative of the apostle’s death in the circus of Nero at the bottom of the Vatican hill was established, 5

6

P. Pagliara, ‘The Sistine Chapel: its medieval precedents and reconstruction’, in J. M. Cardinal Mej`ıa, A. Nesselrath, P. N. Pagliara and M. De Luca (eds.), The Fifteenth Century Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel (Recent Restorations of the Vatican Museums 4) (Vatican City, 2003), 77–86. McKitterick, this volume 108. See also A. Thacker, ‘Rome of the martyrs: saints, cults and relics, ´ Carrag´ain and C. Neuman de Vegvar (eds.), Roma Felix: ´ O fourth to seventh centuries’, in E. Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome (Aldershot, 2007), 25.

Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century

Table 17.1. Papal burials at Saint Peter’s: end of the ninth to the beginning of the sixteenth century Formosus (891–6) Boniface VI (896) Stephen VII (896–7) Romanus (897) Theodore II (897) John IX (898–900) Benedict IV (900–3) Leo V (903–4) Sergius III (904–11) Anastasius III (911–13) Lando (913–14) Leo VI (928) Stephen VIII (928–31) John XI (931–5) Leo VII (936–9) Stephen IX (939–42)

Marinus II (942–6) Leo VIII (963–5) Benedict VI (973–4) John XIV (983–4) John XV (985–96) Gregory V (996–9) Benedict VIII (1012–24) John XIX (1024–32) Gregory VI (1045–6) Leo IX (1049–54) Alexander II (1061–73) Urban II (1088–99) Eugenius III (1145–53) Hadrian IV (1154–9) Gregory IX (1227–41) Celestine IV (1241)

Nicholas III (1277–80) Honorius IV (1285–7) Boniface VIII (1294–1303) Urban VI (1378–89) Boniface IX (1389–1404) Innocent VII (1404–6) Eugenius IV (1431–47) Nicholas V (1447–55) Calixtus III (1455–8) Pius II (1458–64) Paul II (1464–71) Sixtus IV (1471–84) Innocent VIII (1484–92) Alexander VI (1492–1503) Pius III (1503) Julius II (1503–13)

justifying the construction of an imperial basilica in the same area. When Leo I (440–61) planned his burial at the Vatican basilica to link his remains to those of Saint Peter, possibly as a challenge to imperial encroachment, he initiated the long tradition of papal interment there.7 Thereafter, all but three popes were buried at Saint Peter’s before the end of the ninth century.8 But from the tenth until the thirteenth century Saint Peter’s lost some of its early significance and only thirty-eight of the ninety-nine popes were buried there (see Table 17.1). For the twelfth-century popes the Lateran basilica was favoured as the papal mausoleum, the link of the bishop of Rome with his cathedral and the temporal power invested in him by Constantine overriding even the powerful symbolism of burial ad sanctos at the Vatican.9 In the thirteenth century, popes and cardinals were more commonly buried outside Rome in various locations in the Papal State, a practice that reflected the itinerant nature of the papal court. In the fourteenth century, with the 7 8

9

See the contributions by McKitterick and McEvoy, this volume, 116–17 and 130–5. ´ J.-C. Picard, ‘Etude sur l’emplacement des tombes des papes du IIIe au Xe si`ecle’, MAH 81 (1969), 725–82; J. Gardner, The Tomb and the Tiara: Curial Tomb Sculpture in Rome and Avignon in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1992), 58; M. Borgolte, Petrusnachfolge und Kaiserimitation. Die Grablegen der P¨apste, ihre Genese und Traditionsbildung (Verr¨offentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts f¨ur Geschichte 95) (G¨ottingen, 1995), 343–60. Blaauw, CD, 198; I. Herklotz, ‘Sepulcra’ e ‘monumenta’ del Medioevo: studi sull’arte sepolcrale in Italia (Naples, 2001), 127–36 on papal tombs in Saint Peter’s; pp. 136–42 on Lateran tombs before the fourteenth century.

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Fig. 17.2. Tomb of Urban VI, Vatican grottoes (the effigy on top probably belongs to a monument to Nicholas III).

exception of Boniface VIII (1294–1303) who was commemorated in Saint Peter’s at the restored tomb-altar of Saint Boniface IV (608–15), the exile in Avignon meant that popes, who were more often than not French, were buried in France.10 By the 1370s the commemoration of individual popes in Saint Peter’s was a distant memory. The contested election of Urban VI (1378–89) resulted in two popes, one in Rome and a competitor in Avignon. As the pope in Rome, Urban VI exploited the symbolic power of the papal city to justify his sole right to the papal throne. The tradition of papal burials in Saint Peter’s was therefore revived. Urban VI’s own tomb monument declared his unique claim to be Saint Peter’s successor: the apostle is depicted putting the keys directly in Urban VI’s hands (Fig. 17.2). The subsequent burial and commemoration at the Vatican of almost every pope until Julius II (1503–13) is therefore remarkably consistent, considering the longer pattern of papal interment. 10

J. Gardner, ‘Arnolfo di Cambio and Roman tomb design’, Burlington Magazine 115 (1973), 428–31, 437–9; Gardner, Tomb and Tiara (above, n. 8), 164.

Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century

The monuments of the fifteenth-century popes at Saint Peter’s embellished a site that was being upgraded at the same time. Although its maintenance had slackened during the exile of the papacy in Avignon, the basilica was not left entirely destitute and had fared better than San Giovanni in Laterano or San Paolo fuori le mura, which were badly damaged by earthquakes and fires. Local Roman patrons and pilgrims continued to commit resources to the upkeep of the Vatican basilica and, even from a distance, popes paid for vital restorations to the roof and campanile, repairing storm damage as necessary.11 Following Urban VI’s example, the popes of the Roman obedience continued to invest in Saint Peter’s: Boniface IX paid for restorations for the Jubilee of 1400, and was buried there in 1404, as was his successor, Innocent VII, in 1406. Contributions then stalled because of the period of instability, the result of famine, the election of a third competitor pope at the Council of Pisa in 1409 and Ladislaus of Naples’s siege and sack of the Borgo in 1409 and 1413.12 Even before he arrived back in Rome in November 1420, Martin V (1417–31), the single pope elected at the Council of Constance to bring the schism to an end, had established delegations to begin the work of restoring Rome’s venerable churches. His patronage at Saint Peter’s was focused on the roof and on the atrium but, exceptionally, he was buried at the Lateran: Saint Peter’s was a stronghold of the Orsini, arch-rivals of the pope’s family, the Colonna, whereas the Colonna controlled the Lateran basilica.13 Martin V’s successors continued his work to restore the approaches to the basilica, including the atrium. Despite spending almost a decade of his papacy – 1434–43 – in Florence, Eugenius IV (1431–47) commissioned a new set of doors for the central Porta Argentea, prompted by the imperial coronation of Sigismund in 1433, as Robert Glass discusses in this volume. Restoration of the basilica intensified between May 1437 and December 1438, and in 1444 work began on the sacristy attached to the southern flank, a project that was eventually completed in 1462–4.14 In 1445 restoration 11

12

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CBB, II, 1, 4, 16, 20; P. Silvan, ‘S Pietro senza papa: testimonianze del periodo avignonese’, in A. Tomei (ed.), Roma, Napoli, Avignone: arte di curia, arte di corte 1300–1377 (Turin, 1996), 229–30. M. Miglio, ‘Bonifacio VIII e il primo giubileo’, in M. R. Tosti-Croce (ed.), Bonifacio VIII e il suo tempo: anno 1300 il primo giubileo (Milan, 2000), 51–5; C. M. Richardson, Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century (Leiden, 2009), 146–50. J. Poeschke, ‘Still a problem of attribution: the tomb slab of Pope Martin V in San Giovanni in Laterano’, in P. Motture (ed.), Large Bronzes in the Renaissance (Studies in the History of Art 64) (New Haven, 2003), 57–71. The new sacristy was a substantial, two-storey structure, opening opposite the nineteenth intercolumniation. The first floor was taken up by accommodation for clergy and sacristans:

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moved to the subsidiary roofs, and was later extended to the nave roof during the pontificate of Pius II (1458–64).15 Despite these ongoing projects, art historians have, until recently, made the Renaissance basilica Nicholas V’s exclusive project.16 Fragmentary financial records certainly point to a significant role for Nicholas V but are otherwise inconclusive and further research is needed on subsequent papacies. Manetti recorded (and no doubt inflated and systematized) Nicholas V’s ambitious vision for the basilica as part of a lengthy deathbed speech he was alleged to have given to his cardinals.17 But, as Charles Burroughs warns, ‘the process of the origination and translation of ideas was by no means as simple as Manetti suggests (or as described by many modern scholars), nor was the physical and social matrix within which building took place as passive’.18 Nicholas V’s purported plans were focused on the modernization of the basilica’s western end: the apse was to be extended with a larger choir to accommodate the canons and clergy while a domed crossing was to rise over a new high altar and shrine as a celebration of the papacy. Although substantial foundations for the choir were visible in the early sixteenth century, little else is known for sure about the projects: it is possible that Fouquet’s representation of the fifteenth-century basilica included gothic windows inserted in the apse during the period that also boasted new frescoes by Fra Angelico, painted around 1447, though these had probably been commissioned earlier during Eugenius IV’s pontificate (see Fig. 13.3, Plate 10).19 Also included in the Manetti/Nicholas V plan was the addition of colonnades and porticoes to the approaches to the basilica.20 According to Christof Frommel, Nicholas V envisaged this area as a long narrow ‘largo’ with the

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16 17

18

19

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Blaauw, CD, 646 n. 179; F. Biondo, ‘Roma instaurata (1444–6)’, in Valentini–Zucchetti, IV, 274; Alfarano, DBVS, 74. Paolo di Lello Petrone, La mesticanza di Paolo di Lello Petrone, F. Isoldi (ed.) (RIS 24/2) (Citt`a di Castello, 1910), 59; Alfarano, DBVS, 13–14 n. 2. See above, nn. 1 and 3. G. Manetti, De Vita ac Gestis Nicolai Quinti Summi Pontificis, A. Modigliani (ed.) (Rome, 2005), book 2, paragraphs 34, 45–59, 75–7, 88–100, 185, 190–6; T. Magnuson, Studies in Roman Quattrocento Architecture (Stockholm, 1958), 163–214. C. Burroughs, From Signs to Designs: Environmental Process and Reform in Early Renaissance Rome (Cambridge, MA, 1990), 22. Thoenes, ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’ (above, n. 1), 65–71; on the frescoes, see C. Gilbert, ‘Fra Angelico’s fresco cycles in Rome: their number and dates’, Zeitschrift f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 38 (1975), 255–7. Burroughs, Signs to Designs (above, n. 18), 42–3, 44–5; Magnuson, Studies (above, n. 17), 353; C. W. Westfall, In this Most Perfect Paradise: Alberti, Nicholas V, and the Invention of Conscious Urban Planning in Rome 1447–55 (University Park, PA, 1974), 111–16.

Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century

Vatican obelisk moved to its centre.21 Patchy evidence for expenditure on the basilica suggests a flurry of activity in the early 1450s. In a report drawn up after Nicholas V’s death the works undertaken between January 1454 and March 1455 on Vatican projects – including the palace, Borgo walls and basilica – were recorded as having cost around 125,000 ducats: partial accounts suggest that at least 16,000 ducats were spent on the basilica between 1452 and 1454, with 10,500 ducats going to one Beltramo di Martino da Varese for the tribune in 1453.22 This compares with more cosmetic additions during the pontificate of Pius II: around 1,500 ducats spent on behalf of Pius II (1458–64) on the ciborium-altar of Saints Andrew and Gregory and the surrounding chapel area in 1463 and 1464 (work that continued until 1484), and approximately 2,000 ducats expended on the stairs leading to the atrium: their number was increased from twentyeight to thirty-five, statues of Saints Peter and Paul were added on either side and, between 1461 and 1464, the first stage of the benediction loggia was built to cover the right-hand side of the portico that opened into the atrium (Fig. 17.3).23 Torgil Magnuson and others have assumed that Paul II’s contributions to Saint Peter’s were merely a continuation of Nicholas V’s, and ‘carried on according to the original project (at least there is no indication to the contrary)’.24 During Paul II’s pontificate work on the loggia, transept and apse begun by his predecessors seems to have continued. Late in 1451 or early 1452 large column shafts had been moved to Saint Peter’s from the Baths of Agrippa, near Santa Maria sopra Minerva, but they had remained unused. These 13.6 m long, 1.79 m diameter shafts were even larger than those in 21

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C. L. Frommel, ‘Francesco del Borgo: Architekt Pius’ II. und Pauls II.’, R¨omisches Jahrbuch f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 20 (1983), 114, 126; Magnuson, Studies (above, n. 17), 180–200; H. Roser, ‘Pius II and the Loggia delle Benedizioni at Saint Peter’s’, in R. Di Paola, A. Antoniutti and M. Gallo (eds.), Enea Silvio Piccolomini: arte, storia e cultura nell’Europa di Pio II (Rome, 2006), 450–1. J. Allen, ‘Nicholas V’s tribuna for Old Saint Peter’s in Rome and the new apsidal choir of Padua cathedral’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 72/2 (2013); C. L. Frommel, ‘Francesco del Borgo: Architekt Pius’ II. und Pauls II.: Palazzo Venezia, Palazzetto Venezia und San Marco’, R¨omisches Jahrbuch f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 21 (1984), 132; E. M¨untz, Les arts a` la cour des papes pendant le XVe et le XVIe si`ecle, 3 vols. (Paris, 1878–82), I, 122–4. M¨untz, Les arts (above, n. 22), I, 279–89. The figures reproduced by M¨untz are incomplete and only indicative. See also R. O. Rubinstein, ‘Pius II’s Piazza S. Pietro and Saint Andrew’s head’, in D. Fraser (ed.), Essays in the History of Architecture Presented to Rudolf Wittkower (London, 1967), 22–33; A. M. Corbo, ‘Appunti su una fonte per la storia urbanistica ed edilizia di Roma: la serie “Fabbriche” del Camerale I’, Rassegna degli Archivi di Stato 25 (1965), 45–58; I. Ait, ‘S. Pietro: i cantieri della seconda met`a del ’400’, in Spagnesi (ed.), L’architettura della basilica di San Pietro (above, n. 3), 123–8. Magnuson, Studies (above, n. 17), 214. Also G. Urban, ‘Zum Neubau-Projekt von St. Peter unter Papst Nikolaus V’, in Festchrift f¨ur Harald Keller (Darmstadt, 1963), 131–73; Thoenes, ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’ (above, n. 1), 71.

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Fig. 17.3. Maerten van Heemskerck, Saint Peter’s Square, 1532/6, brown pen on paper, 27.5 × 62 cm.

the Pantheon’s atrium or any already standing in Saint Peter’s.25 Their size suggests that they were destined for the triumphal arch between the nave and transept: parallels can be found in similar projects executed at the Lateran basilica and San Paolo fuori le mura later in the fifteenth century.26 Writing at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Francesco Albertini (1469–1510) referred to Paul II’s particular interest in two large columns that, the pope claimed, were more valuable to him than the entire Venetian state.27 In 1467 the new ciborium erected over the high altar was paid for – a project usually associated with Sixtus IV, which, as Sible de Blaauw points out, may in any case have been started during Pius II’s pontificate.28 In 1470 a medal was pressed celebrating the apse, which shows one triumphal arch framing 25

26 27

28

It is not clear whether two or four column shafts were taken to the Vatican: M¨untz, Les arts (above, n. 22), I, 108–9; G. Satzinger, ‘Nikolaus V, Nikolaus Muffel und Bramante: monumentale Triumphbogens¨aulen in Alt-St.-Peter’, RJBH 31 (1996), 93–4; L. Bosman, The Power of Tradition: Spolia in the Architecture of Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Hilversum, 2004), 59. Satzinger, ‘Nikolaus V’ (above, n. 25), 101–4. F. Albertini, Opusculum de Mirabilibus Novae et Veteris Urbis Romae (Rome, 1510), fol. 56v: ‘Omitto praeterea duas ingentes columnas Ecclesiae sancti Petri: quas Paulus II. Venetus aiebat plus valere quam tota Venetiarum civitas’; Bosman, Power of Tradition (above, n. 25), 60. Blaauw, CD, 648, who refers to the account in Arch. Cap. S. Pietro, Censuali 10, fol. 106v (9 September 1467). See also M. Gallo, ‘Note sul cosiddetto ciborio di Sisto IV: documenti e precisazioni’, in F. Benzi (ed.), Sisto IV: le arti a Roma nel primo Rinascimento (Rome, 2000), 342–51, who discusses de Blaauw’s observation in more depth and finds it possible that Sixtus IV was restoring the earlier ciborium. On the other hand, Johannes R¨oll assumes that Sixtus IV’s ciborium merely reflected or contained that initiated by his predecessors: ‘The ciborium of Sixtus IV’, in Benzi (ed.), Sisto IV (above), 384–97.

Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century

Fig. 17.4. Medal of Paul II dated 1470 showing the tribune of Saint Peter’s basilica (reverse), British Museum: 1906,1103.258.

another with the ciborium below, suggesting that at least something had been achieved by that point whatever progress had been made on erecting the columns and installing the ciborium (Fig. 17.4).29 In 1471 around 3,000 ducats was spent on the tribune with at least another 1,800 ducats left owing to one of the workmen.30 The choir of singers established to serve papal masses at Saint Peter’s in this remodelled area also seems to have been Paul II’s innovation.31 He died in 1471, possibly following a heated discussion with the Bolognese architect, Aristotele Fioravante, about the fulfilment of a project that had also been considered for Nicholas V, namely, 29

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M¨untz, Les arts (above, n. 22), II, 16–17, 43–8; Magnuson, Studies (above, n. 17), 80–3, 167–9, 243–59; C. L. Frommel, ‘Saint Peter’s: the early history’, in H. A. Millon and V. M. Lampugnani (eds.), The Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo: the Representation of Architecture (London, 1994), 399–400; F. Cantatore, ‘Tre nuovi documenti sui lavori per San Pietro al tempo di Paolo II’, in Spagnesi (ed.), L’architettura della basilica di San Pietro (above, n. 3), 121. Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale, Camerale I, Giustificazione di tesoreria, busta 1, loose sheet dated 1471, 2r in Allen, ‘Nicholas V’s tribuna’ (above, n. 22). Blaauw, CD, 684.

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the translocation of the Vatican obelisk from the side of the basilica to the square in front of it.32 Burroughs, like Magnuson, detects a direct link between the patronal strategies of Nicholas V and Paul II. Paul II’s expenditure on the Vatican basilica and palace continued throughout his pontificate despite his removal to the palace at San Marco, in part because of his conflict with the Orsini, who had a long history of influence at Saint Peter’s.33 Paul II shared with Nicholas V a ‘concern for public symbolism’, evident in the extravagant form of his coronation and possesso, the transfer of the carnival races to the Via Lata so that they would culminate at the palace at San Marco, and his interest in the details of ceremonial protocol, including cardinals’ dress.34 There are also direct connections between the two popes in the personnel they employed. Nello da Bologna was influential at the Vatican cantiere, overseeing restoration projects and provisions for the 1450 Jubilee. Nello also worked for Pietro Barbo and was replaced by his assistant Francesco del Borgo as architect at San Marco on his death in 1454. Then, from 1464, Francesco del Borgo served as Paul II’s papal architect.35 Another important ‘middleman’ employed by both popes was Antonello di Giovanni (or d’Albano) whom Paul II promoted to the position of supervisor of papal building works.36 A coherent plan is suggested by the number of papal tomb monuments at Saint Peter’s commissioned during the period demarcated by the pontificates of Nicholas V and Paul II. Patronage in fifteenth-century Saint Peter’s was by no means the exclusive preserve of the popes, however.37 The majority of the tomb monuments commissioned for fifteenth-century popes were the responsibility of cardinal nephews because it was thought inappropriate for popes to arrange their own commemoration during their lifetimes.38 While Eugenius IV, Nicholas V and Pius II, for example, commissioned or restored altars in the basilica, it was the relatives they had made cardinals who ensured tomb memorials were provided.39 32

33 34 35 36

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M¨untz, Les arts (above, n. 22), I, 23; II, 24 n. 6; A. M. Corbo, Paolo II Barbo: dalla mercatura al papato (1464–71) (Rome, 2004), 57–8. Burroughs, Signs to Designs (above, n. 18), 83–4. Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 136–7. Burroughs, Signs to Designs (above, n. 18), 22–3, 246–7. G. Zippel (ed.), Le vite di Paolo II di Gaspare da Verona e Michele Canensi (RIS 3/16) (Citt`a di Castello, 1904), 48 n. 2; Burroughs, Signs to Designs (above, n. 18), 121. C. M. Richardson, ‘“Ruined, untended and derelict”: fifteenth-century papal tombs in Saint Peter’s’, in J. Burke and K. M. Bury (eds.), Art and Identity in Early Modern Rome (Aldershot, 2008), 191–207; Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 320, 346, 358. Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 367–8. Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 346–7, 357, 374–5, 397.

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The exception to this rule was the floor tomb for Innocent VII, who had not been given any monument after his death in 1406. Around 1450 Nicholas V had one provided in the oratory of Saint Thomas off the southern flank. More typical was the group of tombs and altars commissioned by cardinal nephews for the outer aisle of the basilica’s south side (Fig. 17.1). In 1451 Pietro Barbo had the altar of the Virgin and Saints Peter and Paul at the western end, closest to the transept, embellished with a relief by Isaia da Pisa featuring his own donor portrait and that of his uncle, Eugenius IV (Fig. 17.5).40 Next to it was the tomb of Eugenius IV for which, in 1455, Barbo established an annual income of 600 gold ducats to ensure that masses were said for the repose of the pope’s soul. As pope, Paul II added a crucifixion to the altar of Saint Mark, which had been commissioned either by Barbo himself or by Cardinal Francesco Condulmer, another of Eugenius IV’s cardinal nephews.41 Paul II’s tomb was added to the other side of this altar, closing the range of altars and tombs against the south wall between the entrance into the transept and the door into the sacristy. On the left-hand side of the door was the tomb-altar of Nicholas V, erected in the decade after 1455 under the auspices of Filippo Calandrini, that pope’s cardinal nephew. (Urban VI’s monument was close to that of Nicholas V.) At the opposite end of the southernmost aisle was the remodelled altar-ciborium of Saints Andrew and Gregory, a project started in the 1460s by Pius II and completed in the 1480s by his cardinal nephew, Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini. Cardinal Piccolomini also ensured that Pius II’s monument was added next to the altar on the inner face of the basilica’s fac¸ade. Replacing the existing monument of Gregory the Great, Pius II’s seemingly surprising choice of position for his monument should be interpreted in the context of his devotion to his great predecessor: the two shared the same coronation day of 3 September.42 The tomb monuments of Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII were later added in the same area – in Sixtus IV’s choir chapel that opened off the southern flank, and Innocent VIII’s chapel of the Lance of Longinus 40

41 42

A. Chacon, Vitae et Res Gestae Pontificum Romanorum et S.R.E. Cardinalium . . . (Rome, 1677), II, col. 1095. The altar bore an inscription which, Chacon records, was incomplete: sacrvm hoc altare petro pavloq. apostolorvm . . . avito petrvs barbvs archipresbyter sacrosanctae basilicae hvivs titvli s. marci presbyter card. et pontifex vicentinvs . . . ibi ex testamen. celebrandvm statvit in . . . te pontificis maximi presb . . . avvncvli svi pientiss. Alfarano, DBVS, 74, 155. Blaauw, CD, 597–80; on Pius II’s devotion to Gregory the Great, see C. M. Richardson, ‘Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini (1439–1503), Sant’Eustachio and the Consorteria Piccolomini’, in M. Hollingsworth and C. M. Richardson (eds.), The Possessions of a Cardinal: Art, Piety and Politics 1450–1700 (University Park, PA, 2009), 55.

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Fig. 17.5. Isaia da Pisa, Altar of the Virgin and Child, and Saints Peter and Paul (1450s), Vatican grottoes.

that stood until 1507 at the foot of the south side of the triumphal arch between the nave and transept.43 The plan to have all of these monuments in one area – in, or near, the outer aisle on the south side of the basilica – accompanied the consolidation of the 43

H. Roser, ‘“In Innocentia/Mea Ingressus Sum . . . ”: das Grabmal Innozenz VIII in St. Peter, Enstehungsgeschichte und Rekonstruktion’, in A. Karsten and P. Zitzlsperger (eds.), Tod und Verkl¨arung: Grabmalskultur in der Fr¨uhen Neuzeit (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2004), 219–38; A. Wright, The Pollaiuolo Brothers: the Arts of Florence and Rome (New Haven and London, 2005), 388–408.

Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century

basilica’s liturgies in the fifteenth century. According to Grimaldi, this area was known as the ‘gallery of popes’ because it was the traditional site of papal burials.44 It was incorporated into the papal coronation ceremonies, during which the papal retinue stopped before the papal tombs as it processed between the old papal sacristy and chapel of Saints Andrew and Gregory to the high altar. Presented with the spectacle of the tombs, the new pope was reminded of his mortality by the words ‘sic transit gloria mundi’ in the ceremony of the burning flax (caeremonia combustionis stipulae). These words were repeated at the papal funeral when he would be buried near Saint Peter. The Vatican basilica therefore embodied the Apostolic Succession through the papal monuments it contained and their incorporation into the ceremonies that marked the beginning and end of a pope’s reign.45 The ceremony of the burning flax had evolved as part of the coronation of Byzantine emperors and by the twelfth century was included in imperial coronations in the west. It may have been incorporated into papal coronations in the thirteenth century, taking place on the steps in front of the Vatican basilica. It is not, however, mentioned in the ceremonial book of Gregory X (1271–6), in which the papal coronation features for the first time as a more significant part of the creation of a new pope. Included in the coronations at Avignon, the ceremony of the burning flax then appears in those of popes of the Roman obedience at Saint Peter’s – Innocent VII in 1404 and Gregory XII in 1406.46 It was probably not until later in the fifteenth century that the pope was invited to consider the tombs of his predecessors, an innovation that may have prompted the rearrangement of monuments in the basilica, proposed by Nicholas V and enacted for Pius II.47 This focus on the left-hand side of a church (liturgical north) was not 44

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Grimaldi, 160: ‘Haec navis dicebatur Porticus Pontificum, quia ibi erant sepulturae pontificum, ut notat Petrus Mallius; et in coronatione summi pontificis papa discedens in pompa processionis a secretario, quod erat sacellum sancti Gregorii, per dictam incedebat ad altare Maius navem pontificum, ut videndo sepulcra illorum consideraret gloriam mundi esse stipulam ardentem et illico evanescentem; ibique fiebat caeremonia combustionis stipulae ante pontificem illis verbis: Pater sancte sic transit gloria mundi.’ M. Dykmans, L’oeuvre de Patrizi Piccolomini ou le c´er´emonial papal de la premi`ere renaissance (Studi e testi 293–4) (Vatican City, 1980), 231: ‘Cogitet summus pontifex, et si omnium sit maximus, se tamen esse mortalem, et eulogium illud quod inter solemnia sue coronationis decantari solet, sedulo memoria repetat: Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi: Omnis caro fenum et omnis gloria eius tanquam flos agri.’ The biblical quote is from Isaiah 40.6. A. Paravicini Bagliani, The Pope’s Body, D. S. Peterson (trans.) (Chicago and London, 2000), 30–9. See also B. Schimmelpfennig, ‘Papal coronations in Avignon’, in J. M. Bak (ed.), Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual (Berkeley, 1990), 179–96. Dykmans, L’oeuvre (above, n. 45), 70; Paravicini Bagliani, The Pope’s Body (above, n. 46), 38; B. Schimmelpfennig, ‘Die Kr¨onung des Papstes im Mittelalter dargestellt am Beispiel der Kr¨onung Pius II (3.9.1458)’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 54

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unusual, as it was where the Easter Sepulchre was usually located and was, as a result, particularly associated with death and resurrection.48 At Saint Peter’s the pope’s mortal remains were brought into the basilica through the Porta Iudicii, the door of judgement, which was reserved for those whose funerals were to take place inside the basilica, at the eastern end of the inner aisle on the south side.49 A further sequence of work was carried out in the area in the same period, this time along the exterior face of the southernmost aisle, when structures were added along the south flank, possibly to help buttress the wall. This was the side described by Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72), the Florentine humanist, as leaning out over the bottom of the slope of the Vatican hill by about 1.75 m.50 First came the new sacristy, possibly on the site of the sacristia minor, which was begun in 1444 and completed in the early 1460s. Next to the sacristy, on the east side, was a chapel commissioned by Antonio Cerdano, a cardinal created by Nicholas V in 1448, and where he was buried on his death in 1459. Next to that stood the chapel of Giovanni Battista Zen, one of Paul II’s cardinal nephews, completed by 1480 when Elisabeth, Paul II’s sister and Giovanni Battista Zen’s mother, was buried there. Sixtus IV had the continuous line of structures, from the transept in the west to the perhaps sixth-century Symmachian oratory of Saint Thomas in the east, closed by adding his Cappella del Coro between Cardinal Zen’s chapel and the oratory, and the basilica’s library (1482–3) between the sacristy and transept (Fig. 17.1 reflecting the ambiguity of the date of these structures).51 These restorations and enhancements to the fabric of the basilica and its immediate environs demonstrate the importance of Saint Peter’s for the fifteenth-century popes. The modern sequence of papal tombs and their incorporation into the papal coronation is its most forceful manifestation. The primacy of Peter had become more urgent as a result of the Avignon exile and the conciliar crisis that had only abated in 1449 with the closure

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(1974), 192–270. On the rearrangement of tomb monuments during the pontificates of Nicholas V and Pius II, see Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 395, 397. Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 388–91. The site and its geographical relationship with Rome means that Saint Peter’s was built the opposite way round to most churches, with the fac¸ade in the east and the apse in the west. This means that the liturgical north aisle is actually on the south side. Alfarano, DBVS, 117; Blaauw, CD, 678–9. Richardson, ‘“Ruined, untended and derelict”’ (above, n. 37). Blaauw, CD, 646. Platina describes Sixtus IV’s chapel as being designed to support the wall of the basilica: Platina (Bartolomeo Sacchi), Platynae Historici. Liber de Vita Christi ac Omnium Pontificum (AA. 1–1474), G. Gaida (ed.) (RIS 3/1) (Citt`a di Castello, 1913–32), 418; M. J. Gill, ‘The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’, in M. B. Hall (ed.), Artistic Centers of the Renaissance: Rome (Cambridge and New York, 2005), 90.

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of the Council of Basel, an event celebrated at the 1450 Jubilee.52 The separation of the pope from Rome at Avignon had exposed papal supremacy to unprecedented challenge that took the form of the conciliar crisis. Until that point it could be taken for granted that the pope epitomized the ‘one holy, catholic and apostolic church’.53 But this assertion came from the fact that Peter, as Christ’s delegated vicar, had chosen Rome.54 As a result, Rome was first in the pentarchy of apostolic sees (with Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem) and therefore the unity of the western Church depended on Peter’s successors being in Rome. Fifteenth-century popes needed the symbolism of Peter in Rome and Saint Peter’s basilica epitomized the continuity, and therefore irrefutability, of the Apostolic Succession. In the city’s hierarchy of papal basilicas, the Lateran, as seat of the bishop of Rome, traditionally came first. Eugenius IV proclaimed the Lateran a ‘spiritual power-house’, albeit in order to reinforce his ambitions to reform its chapter of secular canons and to replace local Roman incumbents with reforming northerners.55 But, in a letter explaining the order of precedence for processions that included the canons of both the Lateran and Vatican, Nicholas V reversed the accustomed line-up to put those of Saint Peter’s first. He preferred the Vatican basilica because it was the church of Peter, the ‘holder of the keys to the kingdom of heaven’, and therefore ‘excels in the privilege of special dignity among all the churches of the city and of the world’ as ‘the chief and mother church and seat of our apostolic dignity’.56 The Vatican received special attention in the fifteenth century because, in Burroughs’s words, it is ‘the representative focus of papal authority and sacrality on a continental scale’, while the Lateran was conceived of as ‘a primary local centre, where papal policies toward the city could be manifested’.57 Nevertheless, Nicholas V’s reference to Saint Peter’s ‘special’ 52 53

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Burroughs, Signs to Designs (above, n. 18), 22–3. This formula was used in the 1302 bull of Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, and deliberately corrupted by John Hus in 1413: J. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: a History of the Development of Doctrine, IV. Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300–1700) (Chicago and London, 1984), 117. This point is spelled out in Pius II’s bull, In Minoribus, translated in T. M. Izbicki, G. Christianson and P. Krey (eds.), Reject Aeneas, Accept Pius: Selected Letters of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II) (Washington, DC, 2006), 404. See also Pelikan, The Christian Tradition (above, n. 53), 111, 117; Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 58–9. I. Robertson, ‘Musical stalls in the choir: the attempted reform of Rome’s Lateran Chapter in the fifteenth century’, in M. Baker (ed.), History on the Edge: Essays in Memory of John Foster (1944–1994) (The Melbourne University History Monograph 22) (Melbourne, 1997), 93–5 (who suggests that all of Martin V’s successors confirmed the cathedral’s pre-eminence: p. 89); CBB, II, 115–23, 125–9, 141–6. Westfall, Perfect Paradise (above, n. 20), 19–20, 173–4. Burroughs, Signs to Designs (above, n. 18), 27.

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and ‘apostolic dignity’ is important. While Saint Peter’s enjoyed supremacy over all other churches because of the dignity it derived from its association with Saint Peter and the pope, the apostle’s tomb and the fact that the popes are crowned there, the Lateran also claimed pre-eminence in terms of rank as Rome’s cathedral.58 Nicholas V made this particularly clear by adopting the stemma of Saint Peter – the crossed keys. Subsequent popes similarly allowed the Lateran to take formal precedence as the cathedral and focus of urban devotion, but they resided at the Vatican. It is clear then that the sustained attention Saint Peter’s received during the fifteenth century transcends any single papacy, but can there be any other explanation for the changes made to the basilica’s interior that suggest a coherent plan? The answer may be the formal relationship of Cardinal Pietro Barbo with the basilica from the mid-1440s until the early 1470s. Barbo was made cardinal archpriest of the Vatican basilica in 1445, two years before the death of his uncle, Eugenius IV. He went on to hold the position for almost twenty years, throughout the papacies of Nicholas V and Pius II, until he became pope in 1464.59 Pietro Barbo’s influence over the basilica from 1445 until 1471 as cardinal and then as Pope Paul II – twenty-six years in total – was unusually long. It is comparable only with the twenty-six years Sixtus IV’s nephew, Giuliano della Rovere, enjoyed as archpriest of the Lateran from 1477 to 1503 (when he became Julius II), or Guillaume d’Estouteville’s forty-year relationship with Santa Maria Maggiore, which lasted from 1443 until 1483. These were important positions that went to the most influential cardinals, often cardinal nephews. The cardinal archpriest was the pre-eminent member of the basilica’s chapter and was numbered among the canons.60 The chapter of Saint Peter’s, many of whose members were representatives of Rome’s urban elite, was divided into three ranks: thirty canons, thirty-three lesser beneficiati 58 59

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Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 106–7. Chacon, Vitae et Res Gestae (above, n. 40), II, col. 923; D. Rezza, Il capitolo di San Pietro in Vaticano: dalle origini al XX secolo (Vatican City, 2008), 207–8; Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 347. Grimaldi, 348–9. The same was also the case for the canons for the Lateran. See P. Lauer, Le palais de Latran: ´etude historique et arch´eologique (Paris, 1911), 630–1. In the early seventeenth century Grimaldi records that the canons received an annual income of 900 scudi, the beneficiaries 440 scudi and the clerics 230 scudi. See also Blaauw, CD, 623–6, 694–5: in addition to the cardinal archpriests, seven cardinal priests (of Santa Maria in Trastevere, San Crisogono, Santa Cecilia, Sant’Anastasia, San Lorenzo in Damaso, San Marco and San Martino ai Monti) were responsible for saying masses at the high altar and did so on a rota basis. The cardinal bishop of Santa Rufina also had episcopal responsibility over the Leonine city and for certain important masses at the basilica.

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(beneficiaries), and twenty-five of the more lowly beneficiary clerics. They formed a largely resident community, living in or near the basilica’s precincts, and looked after its liturgical functions, commissioned material repairs and improvements, and maintained its library and archive. One of Paul II’s biographers, Gaspare da Verona, highlighted his particular care for the Vatican basilica: How great was the cardinal’s good sense and industry when he was in charge of the temple, the canons and the whole clergy of Saint Peter’s . . . , when he was the highest confessor, let no other evidence be sought than those to whom he gave orders, advised and governed, who raise him to the stars with the highest praise.61

There was also a family connection. Antonio Correr, Barbo’s uncle, had been Vatican archpriest from 1420 until 1429. As part of his duties he had been commissioned by Martin V to reform the basilica in personis et in rebus, most probably because of his connections with the Secular Canons of San Giorgio in Alga.62 Correr was one of the founder members of the community, along with his kinsmen Angelo Correr (Gregory XII, 1406– 15) and Gabriele Condulmer (Eugenius IV), whom the same pope used as agents of reform at the Lateran.63 Ian Robertson has demonstrated that the Venetian popes of the fifteenth century brought a particular mindset with them to their roles as protagonists of ‘the strong Venetian strain in Italian reform’ identified by Denys Hay.64 Pietro Barbo came from an extended family of Venetian nobles, who were often drawn to an ecclesiastical career by more than the political and financial benefits it could offer. As Secular Canons of San Giorgio in Alga, their members took their reforming principles into other orders, but it was 61

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Zippel, Le vite di Paolo II (above, n. 36), 4: ‘Quanta fuerit Cardinalis prudentia ac diligentia cum esset praefectus templo, canonicis et toti clero Sanctissimi Petri in Tuscia [sic], cum poenitentiarius summus existeret, nullum aliud testimonium exquiratur quan eorum, quibus is iniunxit aliqua, quos admonuit ac gubernavit, qui eum ad sidera summis laudibus tollunt.’ (Doimo, abbot of San Lorenzo de Aversa, a favourite member of Pietro Barbo’s household, was also a canon of Saint Peter’s: p. 15 n. 70.) The reference to ‘Sanctissimi Petri in Tuscia’ must be an error. Lombard Tuscia (not Tuscany) was a large region at the heart of the Papal State known as the ‘patrimonium beati Petri’. See P. Partner, The Papal State under Martin V: the Administration and Government of the Temporal Power in the Early Fifteenth Century (London, 1958), 9. Gaspare da Verona is clearly referring to a specific church and its clergy which is almost certainly the Vatican basilica. Chacon, Vitae et Res Gestae (above, n. 40), II, cols. 720, 765; Rezza, Il capitolo (above, n. 59), 200; CBB, II, 80. Robertson, ‘Musical stalls’ (above, n. 55), 90. D. Hay, The Church in Italy in the Fifteenth Century. The Birkbeck Lectures, 1971 (Cambridge, 1977), 85–6; Robertson, ‘Musical stalls’ (above, n. 55), 89–113.

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the three fifteenth-century Venetian popes, who were all related to each other, who promoted their cause: Gregory XII, Eugenius IV and Paul II.65 Although Pietro Barbo was not himself a member, he nevertheless helped secure their presence in Rome, granting the canons the church and conventual buildings of San Salvatore in Lauro, which was under the protection of his cardinal nephew, Marco Barbo. Antonio Correr’s time as archpriest of Saint Peter’s was followed by the relatively brief tenures of Lucido dei Conti di Poli (1429–34), Giordano Orsini (1434–8) and Giuliano Cesarini (1438–44) after whom Pietro Barbo took over.66 On Barbo’s election to the papacy, Cardinal Richard Olivier de Longueil was appointed archpriest, possibly as a result of a promise made at the recent conclave, and because of his considerable influence at the French court, something Paul II wanted to foster. Certainly in 1471 Louis XI of France contributed 1,045 scudi for the renovation of the rotunda of Saint Petronilla, the chapel of the kings of France.67 Cardinal Olivier was archpriest until his death in 1470.68 But in 1470 it was Giovanni Battista Zen, Paul II’s sister’s son, a member of his household from 1467 until 1471, and cardinal from 1468, who took over: Zen then held the position until his death in 1501, during which time he added a chapel to the basilica’s south flank.69 Cardinal nephews were created to secure what advantages they could for the pope’s family, both during and after his death. Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, for example, was made a cardinal by his uncle, Pius II, in 1460. While Pius II was still alive Cardinal Piccolomini was granted benefices 65 66

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Robertson, ‘Musical stalls’ (above, n. 55), 90. Rezza, Il capitolo (above, n. 59), 200–6. Grimaldi, 348–9, records that of the forty-two archpriests from 1305 to 1605 seven were members of the Orsini family. From the 1030s the cardinal bishop of Porto had responsibility for the Vatican basilica. He was not an automatic episcopal suffragan or deputy but had delegated authority from the pope for the consecration of altars, discipline, anointing with chrism oils, ordaining and conferring sacramental orders, and the consecration of churches. The pattern seems to have been broken during the brief pontificate of John XXI (1276–7) when Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, the powerful cardinal deacon of San Nicola in Carcere who succeeded him as Nicholas III, was given responsibility over the basilica. He had power to reform, build, demolish or dispose of any part of the basilica’s assets or fabric as he saw fit. Thereafter, from 1305, the archpriest was appointed from amongst the College of Cardinals. Rezza, Il capitolo (above, n. 59), 152–3. Grimaldi, 92. Chacon, Vitae et res gestae (above, n. 40), II, cols. 995–6; L. von Pastor, History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, 40 vols. (London, 1891–1953), IV, 124; G. Morello (ed.), Vatican Treasures: 2000 Years of Art and Culture in the Vatican and Italy (Milan, 1993), 56, 152; Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 343, 345, 445; Rezza, Il capitolo (above, n. 59), 210–11. Chacon, Vitae et Res Gestae (above, n. 40), II, col. 1112; for the lists of Paul II’s familiares see Zippel, Le vite di Paolo II (above, n. 36), 211–15; Rezza, Il capitolo (above, n. 59), 212–13.

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and properties that enabled him to establish a foothold for his family in Rome. On his uncle’s death, he continued to preserve Pius II’s name, by, for example, providing a tomb monument in Saint Peter’s and overseeing the completion of the altar of Saints Andrew and Gregory.70 Access to the opportunities and influence that came with the role of Vatican archpriest made it one of the most prestigious positions a pope could give his cardinal nephew: Pietro Barbo was appointed archpriest of Saint Peter’s by his uncle, Eugenius IV, while Sixtus IV made his most influential nephew, Giuliano della Rovere, cardinal archpriest of the Lateran basilica. The chapters of the papal basilicas were major landlords both in Rome and in the campagna; by 1500 the Vatican Chapter had dominion over a tenth of the Roman countryside, some 25,000 hectares.71 Grimaldi records the Vatican canons’ assets at the end of the sixteenth century as comprising 23 estates, 300 houses, more than 100 vineas (plots of land inside the walls of Rome), 16 churches in Rome itself and many more outside.72 The canons were also gatekeepers of the relics in the basilica’s care and therefore controlled its ‘spiritual assets’ and the donations that pilgrims brought with them. The chapter at San Giovanni in Laterano shared the basilica’s revenue with the pope. At Saint Peter’s, three-quarters of the income from the high altar went to the pope and a quarter to the canons, money that could be used to pay for building works instigated by them which, in the fifteenth century, included improvements to their accommodation.73 The evidence of Pietro Barbo’s projects – at least two altars and the tomb of his uncle – and the coincidence of a wider range of material and liturgical changes, demonstrates that he held considerable sway in Saint Peter’s, with overall responsibility for its fabric and its relics. This was why he formally represented the basilica during the festivities for the reception of the relic of the head of Saint Andrew that culminated there. On Sunday 18 April 1462 Pius II celebrated mass in public, something he had not done for four years. In his Commentaries, Pius II described the scene: At the close of the mass the pope took the venerable head and walked in procession with the cardinals and clergy to the part of the church where holy Veronica is kept . . . Pietro, Cardinal of San Marco . . . archpresbyter of that place, ascended the 70

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C. M. Richardson, ‘The housing opportunities of a Renaissance cardinal’, Renaissance Studies 17 (2003), 607–62; Richardson, ‘Consorteria Piccolomini’ (above, n. 42). R. Montel, ‘Un casale de la Campagne Romaine de la fin du XIVe si`ecle au d´ebut du XVIIe: le ´ domaine de Porto d’apr`es les archives du chapitre de Saint-Pierre’, M´elanges de l’Ecole Franc¸aise ˆ de Rome. Moyen Age–Temps Modernes 83 (1971), 31–87; Robertson, ‘Musical stalls’ (above, n. 55), 103–4. 73 Blaauw, CD, 624. I am grateful to Joanne Allen for this reference. Grimaldi, 348.

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steps and exhibited the venerable and holy face of our Lord while the people, as is the custom, thrice implored mercy. It was a marvellous and awesome thing to behold on one hand the holy face of the Saviour and on the other the precious relic of His apostle and furthermore to see the pope with the cardinals and all the clergy praying bareheaded on their knees.74

The powers of the cardinal archpriests of the papal basilicas depended at least to some extent on their relationship with the pope, as they deputized on his behalf.75 In addition to their responsibility for justice and discipline among the basilicas’ clergy, the archpriests had automatic access to their patronal rights, which meant they could use the most public and prestigious sites in Christendom to advertise their patronage. Meredith Gill’s reconstruction of Guillaume d’Estouteville’s patronage at Santa Maria Maggiore serves as a useful point of comparison with Pietro Barbo at Saint Peter’s, the important difference being that Barbo also became pope and was therefore in a better position to consolidate his contributions. D’Estouteville’s long relationship with Santa Maria Maggiore began in 1443 and lasted until his death in 1483.76 In 1451 Nicholas V issued a bull clarifying that the archpriest had overall authority over the physical, ceremonial and spiritual life of the Liberian basilica that included its chapels and altars. This may have been a continuation of the formal role d’Estouteville had been allocated in 1448, namely to return alienated property and assets to the Church. It was almost certainly designed to complement the restorations instigated by Nicholas V at the adjoining palace and in the Esquiline area.77 Such an arrangement also hints at the way in which Nicholas V used his cardinals to achieve his aims of restoring the city’s churches, something that is excluded from Manetti’s exclusively papal account: as Meredith Gill points out, the ‘timing echoes a pattern of reciprocity between the cardinal and pope which was borne out in other Roman contexts’ – another example possibly being Barbo at Saint Peter’s.78 D’Estouteville commissioned two chapels, one dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Peter in Chains, frescoed by Piero della Francesca and Benozzo Gozzoli, the other to Saint Anthony, in addition to the remodelling of the apse at Santa Maria 74

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Pius II, The Commentaries of Pius II, F. A. Gragg and L. C. Gabel (trans.) (Smith College Studies in History [combined in one volume]), books 1–2, vol. 22 (1936–7); books 2–3, vol. 25 (1939–40); books 4–5, vol. 30 (1947); books 6–9, vol. 35 (1951); books 10–13, vol. 43 (1957). Rezza, Il capitolo (above, n. 59), 155. M. J. Gill, ‘“Where the danger was greatest”: a Gallic legacy in Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome’, Zeitschrift f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 59 (1996), 498–522; M. J. Gill, ‘Death and the cardinal: the two bodies of Guillaume d’Estouteville’, Renaissance Quarterly 54 (2001), 347–88. Magnuson, Studies (above, n. 17), 224; Burroughs, Signs to Designs (above, n. 18), 160–1; Gill, ‘Gallic legacy’ (above, n. 76), 498. Gill, ‘Gallic legacy’ (above, n. 76), 498.

Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century

Fig. 17.6. View of the left-hand/north aisle, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.

Maggiore, which included the addition of an ornate ciborium by Mino da Fiesole. Pietro Barbo’s frequent appearance in connection with Saint Peter’s makes sense in this context. At the Vatican basilica the group of tombs and altars, along with Cardinal Zen’s chapel, gave the western end of the outer southern aisle a distinctly Venetian flavour. It is tempting to compare these and the monuments of other popes moved into the area in Saint Peter’s with the conscious amalgamation of doges’ tomb monuments in Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice in the fourteenth century (Fig. 17.6). Like the fifteenth-century papal tombs in Saint Peter’s, the doges’ monuments are arranged along the left-hand wall, together constituting, in the words of Debra Pincus, ‘a major carrier of the ducal image’. They came to represent ‘a continuing presence that bears on the time that is now’ just as the papal tombs in Saint Peter’s gave material form to the Apostolic Succession.79 Paul II and Marco Barbo, the cardinal nephew he left in charge of his own commemoration, clearly understood the symbolic possibilities of such tombs. Paul II’s monument that Mino da 79

D. Pincus, The Tombs of the Doges of Venice (Cambridge, 2000), 1, 148–9.

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Fig. 17.7. View of the archpriest’s palace, entrance into the atrium, Benediction loggia and Vatican palaces from Giacomo Grimaldi, San Pietro (1619), Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 152v–153r.

Fiesole and Giovanni Dalmata were commissioned to make was by far the largest in Old Saint Peter’s at some 10 m tall.80 Even after it had been moved, in the middle of the sixteenth century the Florentine art historian, Giorgio Vasari, described it as ‘the richest in ornamentation and figures ever erected to any pope’.81 Other work can also be associated with Paul II. As cardinal, Barbo and his successor as archpriest, Richard Olivier de Longueil, were responsible for the restoration of the archpriest’s residence, on the left-hand side of the atrium (Fig. 17.7).82 And as pope he remodelled the entrance into the papal palace on the opposite side. It is also tempting to see Barbo’s hand in the instructions to the canons and other clergy to wear violet (pavonazzo) 80

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S. E. Zuraw, ‘The sculpture of Mino da Fiesole (1429–1484)’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, New York University, 1993), 876–94; G. Zander, ‘La possibile ricomposizione del monumento sepolcrale di Paolo II’, Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 55–6 (1982–4), 175–242. G. Vasari, ‘Mino da Fiesole’, in The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, A. B. Hinds (trans.) (London, 1963), 37. CBB, II, 108 n. a.

Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century

cloaks when attending the basilica for the vigil of the feast of All Saints and on Sundays, just as he made a point of regulating cardinals’ dress when he became pope.83 And in 1469 he evicted the Benedictine monks from the church of Santa Catarina in Portica near the open area in front of the basilica and reallocated it to the canons of Saint Peter’s. The duration of Pietro Barbo’s formal relationship with Saint Peter’s was exceptional. His tenure as cardinal archpriest outlasted the popes whom scholars have most closely associated with the basilica’s fifteenth-century redevelopment. While Barbo directly commissioned a group of monuments and altars that commemorated his family, he also had overall responsibility for the basilica’s day-to-day business. His projects and those of the popes he served should be viewed in the context of the larger restoration and rationalization of the basilica’s interior, which, in turn, supported the intensification of its ceremonial symbolism, most visible in the papal coronation itself. By focusing on Barbo’s projects, and by putting them in the context of his immediate predecessors and successors both as archpriest and as pope, it is apparent that Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century deserves to be considered for more than the origins of the much later project to rebuild the edifice. 83

CBB, II, 150–1. On Paul II and cardinals’ apparel see Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 12), 136–7.

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Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea at Old Saint Peter’s robert glass

Fig. 18.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 18.

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When Old Saint Peter’s was torn down and rebuilt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one of the few monuments to be preserved intact and reinstalled in its original location in the new basilica was the set of great bronze doors standing in the central portal. Their reuse was no doubt a result not only of their material and artistic worth but of their symbolic value. Commissioned by Pope Eugenius IV in 1433 and carried out by the Florentine sculptor Antonio Averlino, called Filarete, during the following twelve years, the doors restored in bronze the famous Porta Argentea (Figs. 18.1 and 18.2). Doors of silver had marked the primary entrance to Old Saint Peter’s since the time of Honorius I (625–38), but had been despoiled repeatedly of their precious covering. Under Eugenius, the central

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

Fig. 18.2. Filarete, central doors, Saint Peter’s, Rome, including seventeenth-century additions.

portal once again received the majestic ornamentation it required as a frontispiece for the basilica and a backdrop for the rituals staged there. In the literature on Filarete’s doors, the history of the Porta Argentea has often been noted, but the ceremonial function of the site has hardly been

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considered.1 This chapter argues that this context is in fact fundamental for understanding Filarete’s design. The doors originally were slightly shorter than they appear today. In 1619, when they were reinstalled in the new basilica, additional reliefs were added to the top and bottom of each leaf in order to match the proportions of the taller portals. Filarete’s work consists of six large panels surrounded by wide, continuous borders. At the top, Christ and the Virgin sit enthroned; in the middle, Paul and Peter stand with their attributes, Peter accompanied by the kneeling Pope Eugenius, who receives his keys (Fig. 18.3, Plate 15); and in the square panels at the bottom, the martyrdoms of the saints above are represented in Roman landscapes. The iconography of the borders is complex. Acanthus vines originating from the bottom of each door run up around the sides of the large panels to the top. Nestled within their tendrils are portraits of Roman emperors, empresses and other figures, and dozens of small scenes drawn from ancient history, mythology and literature. Presumably similar decoration originally filled the four horizontal sections of the borders between the main panels. Midway through the project, however, it was decided to use these spaces to memorialize Eugenius’s achievements. This is apparent from the fact that three of the four reliefs show events from the Council of Ferrara–Florence, which took place between 1438 and 1442, five to nine years after Filarete began work. Finally, the border at the top of each leaf depicts a pair of putti holding coats of arms, those of Eugenius on the left in a shell and those of the papacy on the right in an oak wreath. Both stylistically and iconographically, the doors are quite different from the sculpture produced by Filarete’s contemporaries, and their apparent eccentricities have long posed a challenge for art historians. In the sixteenth century, Vasari strongly condemned their style, extending his criticism to the pope himself for his poor judgement in entrusting the work to Filarete.2 In the following centuries, the pagan iconography of the borders began to draw censure as well.3 Today, the peculiarities of the doors more typically are understood as the product of erudition rather than ignorance or incompetence. Since the rise of iconographic studies in the mid-twentieth century, scholars have focused in particular on identifying the subject matter, elucidating its sources and significance, and establishing the programme 1

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For an overview of the literature on the doors, see BSPV, Schede 480–7, and Atlante 252–71 (images). G. Vasari, Le vite de’ pi`u eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori: nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi (eds.), 6 vols. (Florence, 1966–87), III, 243–4. For example, J. Winckelmann, Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture (La Salle, IL, 1987), 68–9, as noted by W. von Oettingen, Der Bildhauer-Architekt Antonio Averlino genannt Filarete: eine Kunstgeschichtliche Studie (Leipzig, 1888), 5.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

Fig. 18.3. Filarete, the Saint Peter panel from the central doors showing the donor, Pope Eugenius IV (1431–47), kneeling and receiving the keys from the apostle.

of the work. But the complexity and idiosyncrasies of Filarete’s reliefs have defied simple solutions, and a variety of readings have been proposed. The best known and broadest in scope has been advanced by Ursula Nilgen.4 She reads the doors in light of the political struggles of their patron. Pope Eugenius spent his early reign fighting to establish the authority of 4

U. Nilgen, ‘Filaretes Bronzet¨ur von St. Peter in Rom’, Jahrbuch des Vereins f¨ur Christliche Kunst in M¨unchen 17 (1988), 351–76; U. Nilgen, ‘L’eclettismo come programma nel primo Rinascimento a Roma: la porta bronzea del Filarete a San Pietro’, in K. Bergdolt and G. Bonsanti (eds.), Opere e giorni: studi su mille anni di arte europea dedicati a Max Seidel (Venice, 2001), 275–90.

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his office, which was still recovering from the aftermath of the Western Schism. The Council of Basel, convened by Eugenius’s predecessor, Martin V, shortly before his death, refused Eugenius’s order to disband and claimed sovereignty over all Church affairs. At the same time, uprisings in Rome and warfare in the papal states threatened Eugenius’s temporal powers, forcing him to flee Rome in 1434. Papal forces regained control of the city relatively quickly, but Eugenius did not return until nine years later, in 1443. Emphasizing these difficulties, Nilgen has argued that the doors were conceived as a statement of papal primacy. In her view, the programme ‘proves in all parts to be a manifesto of the restoration policy of Eugenius IV and a demonstration of the papal claim to power’.5 Other scholars have used literary materials rather than political history as the basis for interpretation, arguing, for example, that certain iconographic features reflect Eugenius’s theological beliefs or the interests of contemporary humanists.6 Surprisingly, the significance of the doors’ site has received little attention. As the primary entrance to the basilica, the Porta Argentea naturally served as a backdrop for the processions of the pope and other dignitaries who had the privilege of entering through this door. But it also played a role in one of the most celebrated ceremonies carried out in the basilica, the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor.7 In 1433, the year the doors are traditionally thought to have been commissioned, this venerable ritual was in fact performed for the first time in nearly eighty years.8 Pope Eugenius crowned Sigismund of Luxembourg Holy Roman Emperor in Saint Peter’s on 31 May. Filarete later depicted the event in the fourth of the horizontal border reliefs added to the doors midway through the project (Fig. 18.4). In reviving the coronation ritual, Eugenius and his advisers naturally consulted the prescriptions recorded in the liturgical books known as the 5 6

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Nilgen, ‘Filaretes Bronzet¨ur’ (above, n. 4), 374. For example, L. Gnocchi, ‘La porta del Filarete per Eugenio IV’, Artista (1999), 8–45; A. Thielemann, ‘Altes und neues Rom: zu Filaretes Bronzet¨ur, ein Drehbuch’, Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 63 (2002), 33–70; U. Pfisterer, ‘Filaretes historia und commentarius: u¨ ber die Anf¨ange humanistischer Geschichtstheorie im Bild’, in V. von Rosen, K. Kr¨uger and R. ¨ Preimesberger (eds.), Der Stumme Diskurs der Bilder: Reflexionsformen des Asthetischen in der Kunst der Fr¨uhen Neuzeit (Munich, 2003), 139–76. E. Parlato, ‘Fonti e paesaggio urbano nella Crocifissione di S. Pietro dal medioevo al primo Rinascimento’, in L. Lazzari and A. M. Valente Bacci (eds.), La figura di San Pietro nelle fonti del medioevo (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2001), 527–8, notes in passing that the Porta Argentea was one of the stations in the imperial coronation ceremony, but does not explore the topic. For a list of imperial coronations celebrated in Saint Peter’s from the mid-twelfth century onward, see Table 19.1 in Fletcher, this volume, 381.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

Fig. 18.4. Detail of Fig. 18.2, left door: Eugenius IV crowns Sigismund of Luxembourg Holy Roman Emperor in Saint Peter’s (right) and then processes with him on horseback to the Castel Sant’Angelo (left).

ordines romani. The rite followed a precise itinerary, with specific rituals carried out in various parts of the basilica complex. The late medieval ordines specified that the emperor-elect enter the Leonine city through the Porta Collina next to the Castel Sant’Angelo and proceed to Saint Peter’s, where the pope sat waiting with his court at the top of the stairs leading to the atrium in front of the basilica (Fig. 18.1 and see Fig. 19.1). The emperor kissed the pope’s foot and offered him gifts, and was in turn kissed and embraced by the pope. They then entered the gatehouse preceding the atrium (see Fig. 19.2) that housed a small church known as Saint Mary ‘in Turri’ (also, ‘in Turribus’ or ‘inter Turres’) on account of the tower or towers that flanked the building at various points during its history.9 Before the altar there, the emperor swore an oath of allegiance to the pope and Church. Afterwards the pope entered the basilica, while the emperor remained with the canons of Saint Peter’s, who admitted him into their brotherhood. Next the emperor was led to the Porta Argentea, where he knelt while the cardinal bishop of Albano recited a prayer on his behalf (Fig. 18.1). The emperor then proceeded inside the church for rituals at several other locations before finally receiving the imperial crown before the high altar.10 As the threshold of the basilica, the Porta Argentea delineated the point at which one passed from profane into sacred space, and it is therefore perhaps 9

10

For this church, see S. McPhee, Bernini and the Bell Towers: Architecture and Politics at the Vatican (New Haven, 2002), 194–8. This summary is based on the Ordines Coronationes Imperialis from the end of the twelfth century to the mid-fifteenth, transcribed by R. Elze, Die Ordines f¨ur die Weihe und Kr¨onung des Kaisers und der Kaiserin (Hanover, 1960), 61–151. See also E. Eichmann, Die Kaiserkr¨onung im Abendland, ein Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, mit besonderer Ber¨ucksichtigung des Kirchlichen Rechte, der Liturgie und der Kirchenpolitik, 2 vols. (W¨urzburg, 1942), I, 283–6; II, 13–23; Blaauw, CD, 733–5.

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not surprising that the coronation itinerary acknowledged this transition. The custom, however, may have developed also because of the large, porphyry disk embedded in the pavement in front of the doors (Fig. 18.1). This formed a pair with a second, more famous porphyry disk located in the middle of the nave, which also played a role in the coronation ceremony (Fig. 18.1). The well-known imperial associations of porphyry made these disks especially appropriate sites for rituals during the crowning of the emperor.11 Contemporary accounts of Sigismund’s coronation in 1433 demonstrate that the ceremony was not carried out exactly as prescribed in the ordines. Because the emperor entered Rome before the day of the coronation, the rituals occurred on two separate occasions. On 21 May, Sigismund proceeded in a magnificent procession through the Porta Collina to Saint Peter’s. There he met the pope at the top of the stairs leading to the atrium and performed the traditional actions. They then entered Saint Mary ‘in Turri’ (see Fig. 19.2), where the emperor offered to deliver the oath, but it was decided that this should be reserved for the coronation day. No further rituals from the coronation ordines were performed at that point. The emperor and pope proceeded into the basilica, where they sat side by side during a mass performed by a cardinal. Finally, they venerated the Veil of Veronica before leaving the building.12 The coronation took place ten days later. The ceremony did not begin, however, in Saint Mary ‘in Turri’ where it had left off. As the chronicler Cornelius Zantfliet described it, ‘the pope and his cardinals descended to the first portico of Saint Peter’s dressed in their pontifical vestments, and there the king with his crown performed an oath to the pope and church’.13 Poggio Bracciolini’s description makes clear that this in fact took place in front of the Porta Argentea: ‘When the day of the coronation had come, Caesar entered the inner portico of the church and gave his oath to the Pope before what is called the silver door, according to the custom of his

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Blaauw, CD, 614–16, 735. The sources for these events are collected and summarized by H. Herre (ed.), Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Kaiser Sigmund, Vierte Abteilung, 1431–1433 (Deutsche Reichstagsakten 10) (Gotha, 1906), 728–9. ‘ . . . papa suique cardinals descenderunt usque ad primam porticum S. Petri, induti vestibus pontificalibus, ibique rex cum corona praestitit juramentum domino papae & ecclesiae.’ C. Zantfliet, ‘Chronicon Cornelii Zantfliet S. Jacobi Leodiensis monachi ab anno MCCXXX ad MCCCCLXI’, in E. Mart`ene and U. Durand (eds.), Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum Historicorum, Dogmaticorum, Moralium, Amplissima Collectio, 9 vols. (Paris, 1724–33), V, 433.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

forerunners’.14 Poggio may have believed the ceremony followed tradition, but, as we have seen, the delivery of the oath before the Porta Argentea was a departure from the instructions in the ordines. The change was perhaps made because the official meeting at the entrance to the atrium had already taken place, and the spacious portico with the Porta Argentea and porphyry disk was judged a more appropriate site for the start of the ceremony than the altar of Saint Mary ‘in Turri’.15 Whatever the reason, the change gave the Porta Argentea a more prominent role than was usual. Not only did it provide the backdrop for the traditional prayer on the emperor’s behalf (though not mentioned by Zantfliet or Poggio, this was presumably read before the doors as specified in the ordines), but it was the site of the start of the ceremony and the taking of the oath. In preparing the portico for these events, the tattered remains of the old silver doors were probably adorned with temporary decoration to make them a suitable backdrop for the proceedings. It seems unlikely that Eugenius’s decision to have new doors made in the same year is coincidental. The planning and staging of the coronation must have generated interest in the Porta Argentea and highlighted its poor condition. Eugenius probably decided to rectify the situation afterwards by commissioning Filarete to renovate the monument. As is well known, a passage in Filarete’s architectural treatise demonstrates that he was in Rome at the time of Sigismund’s visit and observed the emperor’s retinue first hand.16 The splendour and spectacle of the historic coronation and the role the Porta Argentea played in it were likely foremost in Filarete’s mind when he set to work designing new doors for the site. This observation is significant in several respects. First, it provides further support for dating the commission to 1433, which has been assumed previously based on Vasari’s statement that the doors took twelve years to complete and the fact that they were installed in 1445. If Eugenius only ordered the work after the coronation took place, as seems likely, the date 14

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‘Cum dies coronationis advenisset, ingressus interiorem ecclesie porticum Caesar ante portam, que dicitur argentea, iuramentum quoddam pontifici prestitit de more superiorum . . . ’ Poggio Bracciolini, Lettere, H. Harth (ed.) (Florence, 1984), 124; Herre, Deutsche Reichstagsakten (above, n. 12), 841. English translation adapted from P. W. G. Gordon (ed. and trans.), Two Renaissance Book Hunters: the Letters of Poggius Bracciolini to Nicolaus de Niccolis (New York, 1991), 180. In his summary, Herre, Deutsche Reichstagsakten (above, n. 12), 732, assumes that on the coronation day Sigismund repeated the procession from the Porta Collina and meeting with the pope at the top of the steps leading to the atrium. This seems unlikely. As the accounts of Zantfliet and Poggio suggest, the ceremony probably began in the portico before the Porta Argentea. Filarete, Trattato di architettura, A. M. Finoli and L. Grassi (eds.), 2 vols. (Milan, 1972), I. 15.

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can be narrowed to the second half of the year. Second, and more importantly, the role played by the Porta Argentea in the coronation ceremony provides a new context for interpreting Filarete’s design. Many of the doors’ unusual iconographic and stylistic features can be understood as intended to enhance this function. At first glance, the primary subject matter of the doors may not seem unusual enough to require special explanation. Images of Christ, the Virgin, Paul and, of course, Peter appeared in a number of places in Old Saint Peter’s, and the six large panels of the doors continue this tradition. But an interest in continuity with the iconographic patrimony of the basilica does not alone account for Filarete’s design, which in other respects is quite radical. As has been pointed out often, all the monumental doors with figural decoration Filarete is likely to have known, whether the two sets of doors then at the baptistery in Florence, those at Santa Sabina and San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome, or others elsewhere in Italy, are invariably made up of numerous small panels. Furthermore, in most cases, these portray narrative subjects. Filarete’s decision to depart from this tradition and use only six panels, four of which present monumental, iconic figures, was unprecedented. The explanation usually offered for this innovation is that Filarete was emulating antique models: either the simple divisions of undecorated Roman doors such as those of the Pantheon, or, less plausibly, the composition of Early Christian ivory diptychs.17 Iconographically, the figures have been understood as discrete, static images and explained in symbolic terms.18 The ceremonial role played by the Porta Argentea suggests another approach. When imagined as a backdrop for the coronation proceedings, the scale and subjects of the four largest panels become especially meaningful. By making the images of Christ, the Virgin, Paul and Peter life-size, Filarete gave them a real presence in the space of the portico (Fig. 18.5). Positioned on the upper parts of the doors, they effectively appear to preside over any gathering assembled before them. Filarete strengthened this illusion by designing the panels as flat backdrops in front of which the figures appear to sit or stand on a protruding plinth. The parts highest in relief project well beyond the height of the panel frames 17

18

C. Seymour, Jr, ‘Some reflections on Filarete’s use of antique visual sources’, Arte Lombarda 38–9 (1973), 38; Nilgen, ‘Filaretes Bronzet¨ur’ (above, n. 4), 352–4; Nilgen, ‘L’eclettismo come programma’ (above, n. 4), 277; E. Parlato, ‘Filarete a Roma’, in F. P. Fiore and A. Nesselrath (eds.), La Roma di Leon Battista Alberti (exhibition catalogue, Musei Capitolini) (Rome, 2005), 302–3. Nilgen, ‘Filaretes Bronzet¨ur’ (above, n. 4), 354–65.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

Fig. 18.5. The central doors of Saint Peter’s in use.

and the other reliefs on the doors. As a result, the figures appear to reside not in an illusionistic space within the panels, but in front of them in the actual space of the portico.19 Furthermore, in each register, Filarete portrayed one of the two figures gazing at the other. At the top, Christ looks outward, but the Virgin turns towards him, eyes lowered and arms crossed on her chest 19

Cf. J. Spencer, ‘Filarete’s bronze doors at Saint Peter’s: a cooperative project with complications of chronology and technique’, in W. Sheard and J. Paoletti (eds.), Collaboration in Italian Renaissance Art (New Haven, 1978), 40.

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Fig. 18.6. Detail of Fig. 18.2, the upper pair of panels and borders.

in humility (Fig. 18.6).20 Below, both saints turn their heads towards the centre of the doors. Peter looks outward, but Paul, his head turned further, gazes at Peter. This subtle interaction reinforces the illusion that the figures occupy a common space in front of the doors. Filarete also adorned the figures in a manner consistent with the ceremonial practices of the time. The curia, like every court in Europe, placed great value on the display of luxury goods and material splendour as indicators of status and honour, and Filarete presented Christ, the Virgin, Paul and Peter with all the requisite pageantry. Garlands supported by winged heads frame each figure, and fictive textiles, shown hanging from rings at 20

Based on this pose, some scholars have called the figure an Annunciate Virgin, but this makes little sense in this context. Her attitude, one of several often used in scenes of the Annunciation, is simply one of humility. In this case, it is directed towards Christ, as is common, for example, in depictions of the Virgin’s coronation. The confusion was probably caused in part by Filarete’s placement of the angel Gabriel’s greeting at the Annunciation on the plinth supporting the Virgin’s throne in Latin and in her halo in Greek, but this well-known phrase also appears as her attribute in numerous images of the Virgin in precisely these locations. For discussion of the humility pose as well as other gestures commonly used in representations of the Annunciation, see M. Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: a Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, second edition (Oxford, 1988), 49–56.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

Fig. 18.7. Detail of Fig. 18.3, right door, clothing and brooch in the Peter panel.

the top of the panels, provide regal backdrops. Christ and the Virgin sit on thrones engulfed by flowering acanthus vines and wear expensive brocaded fabrics. Unusually, Filarete applied coloured enamel in selected places to increase the impression of splendour: red in the cross in Christ’s halo and blue inset with variously coloured dots on the Virgin’s brooch. Paul and Peter wear enamelled brooches as well. Their clothing is less sumptuous than that of Christ and the Virgin above, but Filarete has gone to great lengths to indicate its quality. Through meticulous work with punches and chisels, he created different textures to distinguish between the types of cloth (Fig. 18.7, Plate 15). Equal care has gone into the rendering of the textiles hanging behind the figures. These imitate luxury silks imported from the east, with pseudo-Arabic inscriptions running around the borders. The main pattern, which repeats Eugenius’s coat of arms, is reproduced by thousands of tiny dots painstakingly punched into the background. Princely magnificence is expressed here in two complementary ways: figuratively, through the representation of luxury goods, themselves signs of costly materials and craftsmanship, and materially, through

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bronze and the inventive and laborious techniques Filarete used to transform it. The kingdom of heaven was itself thought to be a magnificent place, and it is not uncommon to find images of Christ, the Virgin and saints in sumptuous attire and settings. But Filarete’s remarkable efforts to convey splendour in the reliefs, which have more in common with contemporary courtly painting than the sculpture of the time, may have been motivated by the spectacle of Sigismund’s coronation rather than artistic tradition. An exceptionally detailed version of the coronation ordo, prepared in the early sixteenth century, states that the portico and Porta Argentea were to be decorated with ‘fabrics, foliage, and flowers’ (pannis, frondibus, et floribus).21 Filarete framed the figures in the four main panels with imaginative versions of precisely these ornaments. The ordo also specifies that the coats of arms of the pope and emperor should hang in the portico. Filarete included those of Eugenius and the papacy, as we have seen, at the top of the doors. Evidence that such elements were in fact used in the ceremonies of the papal court in Filarete’s day can be found in the four border reliefs documenting Eugenius’s achievements. Garlands and coats of arms appear in scenes of the coronation (Fig. 18.4) and hanging fabric backdrops in those from the Council of Ferrara–Florence (Fig. 18.6, lower left, Plate 15). In these reliefs, Filarete also recorded the distinctive clothing, headgear and accessories of the participants in minute detail. Clearly these indicators of honour and status were as important to him as the actions being performed. When depicting Christ, the Virgin, Paul and Peter in the four large panels, Filarete used the same language of material display, presenting them as the celestial counterpart of the papal and imperial courts that gathered before the Porta Argentea during the coronation ceremony. Presiding over the proceedings, Filarete’s figures would have lent splendour, solemnity and authority to the occasion. The inclusion of the kneeling Eugenius in the Peter panel (Fig. 18.6 and Plate 15), receiving the keys of heaven from the saint, who had himself received them from Christ, makes clear that the pope is heir to their authority.22 This message is well suited, as Filarete surely intended, to the Porta Argentea’s general function as a frontispiece for the Vatican basilica and the entrance used by the pope. But it would have been particularly effective during the imperial coronation, since the ceremony required the emperor-elect repeatedly to acknowledge 21 22

Elze, Die Ordines (above, n. 10), 180; Blaauw, CD, 735. For the iconography of the keys, see A. Paravicini Bagliani, Le chiavi e la tiara: immagini e simboli del papato medievale (Rome, 1998), 20–3.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

the pope’s status.23 Similarly, the messages imparted by the poses of the Virgin and Paul, humility towards Christ and special reverence for Peter, are generally appropriate for the primary entrance of Peter’s basilica, but become especially meaningful in the context of the coronation ceremony. In the traditional oath, the emperor makes his pledge in the name of God and Peter.24 The attitudes of Filarete’s figures complement this invocation. Contemporary viewers would have understood readily Filarete’s kingly Christ as the embodiment of God, and both Christ and Peter look out into the portico, witnessing the promise being made in their names. The Virgin and Paul, on the other hand, play supporting roles, confirming with their gazes that attention should be focused on Christ and Peter. The Virgin’s gesture of humility takes on additional meaning in relation to the prayer read before the Porta Argentea on the emperor’s behalf. It begins, ‘God, in whose hand are the hearts of kings, turn the ears of your mercy to our prayers of humility’.25 The Virgin’s attitude towards Christ effectively models the sentiment expected of the supplicants. New insight into the other parts of the doors can be gained also by considering them in the context of the coronation ceremony. The subjects of the two large narrative reliefs, like those of the four panels above, are not unexpected in the context of Saint Peter’s. In Filarete’s day, representations of the martyrdoms of Paul and Peter were visible in several places in the basilica.26 Filarete followed these precedents in many respects, showing, for example, Peter crucified between several distinctive Roman monuments (Fig. 18.8). This was common in late medieval depictions of the subject, but Filarete approached the convention with a new interest in archaeological accuracy. He characterized and arranged the monuments in a manner that mirrors the actual topography of ancient Rome as it was then understood. Filarete’s remarkable panorama has generated more scholarship than any other aspect of the doors. This largely has been concerned with reconciling the depiction with the various literary sources describing the location of Peter’s crucifixion, including contradictory analyses of the problem written 23

24 25

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Elze, Die Ordines (above, n. 10), 138: in addition to kissing the pope’s feet twice and pledging to protect him, the ordines specified, for example, that at the end of the ceremony the emperor hold the stirrup of the pope’s horse as the pope mounted and then lead the horse by the bridle a short distance before mounting his own horse. Elze, Die Ordines (above, n. 10), 134. Elze, Die Ordines (above, n. 10), 74. ‘Deus in cuius manu corda sunt regum, inclina ad preces humilitatis nostrae aures misericordiae tuae.’ J. M. Huskinson, ‘The crucifixion of Saint Peter: a fifteenth-century topographical problem’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 32 (1969), 141–2; Parlato, ‘Fonti e paesaggio urbano’ (above, n. 7), 528, 532–4.

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Fig. 18.8. Detail of Fig. 18.2, right door, The Martyrdom of Peter.

by the papal humanists Flavio Biondo and Maffeo Vegio in the decade following the completion of the doors.27 The abundance of relevant texts makes the topic well suited to traditional iconographic analysis, which accounts for the wealth of attention it has received. This does not necessarily mean, however, that creating a topographically accurate representation of Peter’s crucifixion was Filarete’s primary concern when designing the relief. 27

See, most recently, U. Nilgen, ‘Der Streit u¨ ber den Ort der Kreuzigung Petri: Filarete und die zeitgen¨ossische Kontroverse’, in H. Hubach, B. von Orelli-Messerli and T. Tassini (eds.), Reibungspunkte: Ordnung und Umbruch in Architektur und Kunst (Petersberg, 2008), 199–208, as well as the references in the previous note.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

As the scholarship has demonstrated, Filarete’s representation is not wholly consistent with either Biondo’s or Vegio’s account. Considering the martyrdom panels in relation to the ceremonial role played by the doors rather than the debate surrounding the location of Peter’s crucifixion brings other features into focus. When imagined as a backdrop for the coronation ceremony, the presence of the Emperor Nero in each scene immediately becomes of interest. His appearance may seem unremarkable given his obvious narrative role as the person who ordered the saints’ deaths. Traditionally, however, Nero was shown with Peter and Paul only in the story of Simon Magus, not in representations of their martyrdoms. This is the case in the earlier Peter and Paul cycles at Saint Peter’s, as well as in other versions of the subject Filarete might have known.28 Nero’s unconventional appearance in the door reliefs is rendered even more striking by the prominence with which Filarete portrayed him. In each case, the emperor appears seated in an elaborate aedicule, which, owing to its size and lavish ornamentation, dominates the panel, threatening to steal the focus from the martyrdom of the saint. Filarete strove to create an image of ancient imperial splendour here with the same enthusiasm and imagination he used when creating the ceremonial trappings of the figures in the four panels above. But while the lavish display of all’antica magnificence celebrates the glory associated with the imperial title, the reputation and actions of the particular emperor depicted sound a strong cautionary note. Nero was widely regarded at the time as the most wicked of the ancient emperors,29 and appears here perpetrating what from the point of view of the Church were the worst of his crimes, the executions of Peter and Paul. Filarete probably included the gruesome depiction of a dead horse on its back, its entrails being devoured by a dog, below the lower right corner of Nero’s aedicule in the Peter panel, as an allusion to Nero’s eventual downfall and suicide.30 For the emperor-elect who appeared before the doors in the coronation ceremony, the message would have been clear. He was expected to behave in precisely the opposite manner, acknowledging papal authority and fulfilling his oath to protect the pope and Church. Including Nero in the martyrdom scenes provided Filarete with a means of both honouring the imperial office and reminding the emperor-elect not to misuse it. 28

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Nero does appear in a ninth-century Byzantine manuscript illumination depicting Peter’s crucifixion noted by Nilgen, ‘Der Streit’ (above, n. 27), 203, but it is unlikely that Filarete knew this work. A. Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del medio evo, 2 vols. (Turin, 1882–3), I, 332–61. Cf. Nilgen, ‘Der Streit’ (above, n. 27), 203.

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Fig. 18.9. Detail of Fig. 18.2, right door, upper left corner of the borders.

This dual assessment of the emperor’s ancestry, simultaneously laudatory and admonitory, is also at the heart of Filarete’s extraordinary design for the borders of the doors. Like the six main panels, the basic iconography is consistent with the pictorial legacy of Old Saint Peter’s; relief sculptures of winding, populated vines could be seen in a number of places in the basilica.31 The borders also enhance the doors’ function as a ceremonial backdrop. In the sections framing the Peter and Virgin panels (Figs. 18.3 and 18.6, Plate 15), Filarete engraved and punched the blank areas between the flowering vines with patterns imitating silk fabrics, creating another imaginative variation on the ‘fabrics, foliage, and flowers’ prescribed as decoration in the coronation ordo (Fig. 18.9).32 31

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Most similar are the ancient marble reliefs set into the walls of the oratory of John VII, as B. Sauer, ‘Die Randreliefe an Filarete’s Bronzet¨ur von St. Peter’, Repertorium f¨ur Kunstwissenschaft 20 (1897), 17–18, and M. Lazzaroni and A. Mu˜noz, Filarete: scultore e architetto del secolo XV (Rome, 1908), 91, have noted. Peopled vine scrolls also appear in the ivory friezes on the Cathedra Petri and on the Solomonic columns around the tomb of Peter and in John’s oratory. Filarete likely intended to apply this decoration throughout the borders, but was forced to abandon this laborious work owing to pressure to finish the project in a timely manner.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

But the most striking feature of the borders is the iconography with which Filarete populated the vines. Most prominent are the twenty-six profile portraits found in the centre of the spirals. Here the reference to the imperial office could hardly be more clear. The heads represent ancient emperors, empresses and other Roman heroes.33 Many appear to have been based on ancient coins and thus potentially can be identified, but it is unlikely that all were meant to be.34 There is no apparent logic to the particular selection as a whole, nor are they placed in any sort of meaningful sequence. Consequently, they do not provide a specific genealogy for the emperorelect who appeared before the doors during the coronation ceremony, but it seems likely that they were intended to celebrate and honour his imperial lineage in a general sense. This is apparent from the imaginative way in which Filarete used the vine motif. Alternating with flowers and fruit, the portraits appear to sprout from the spirals as the vines grow up the doors. A curious detail in the upper corners of each door suggests that this process of creation is ongoing. Each of the four vines culminates in a bunch of small, round fruit, which hangs from the lower ankle of one of the putti holding the coats of arms (Figs. 18.9 and 18.10). Strangely, most of the spheres are pierced by holes – their seeds have apparently fallen. Originating from the fruit at the top of each vine, these seeds may refer to the successors of the ancient rulers produced by the tendrils below. A few of the pieces in each bunch are still intact, confirming that more seeds will fall in the future. The emperor-elect would complete this narrative when he appears before the Porta Argentea during the coronation ceremony. If this reading is correct, the vines growing up the sides of the doors both confirm his status as heir to the ancient emperors and commemorate the role played by the Porta Argentea and Saint Peter’s in perpetuating his venerable office. Another detail suggests that imperial dynasties are not the only thing produced by the vines. At the top of the left door, the tendrils wind inward around the putti, finally terminating in two additional bunches of fruit 33

34

Portraits of a few contemporaries, including Filarete himself, also appear among the ancient figures, but these were added only midway through the project. This is evident from the fact that they all occur adjacent to the horizontal reliefs celebrating Eugenius’s achievements, and were in fact cast as part of them. In the original programme, ancient heads almost certainly occupied these spaces. A. Cianfarini, Luoghi Vaticani: la basilica antica e rinascimentale, la necropoli, la tomba di Pietro, l’atrio e le cinque porte della basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano (Rome, 2002), 96–9, offers a complete list of identifications, but most scholars are dubious about the prospect of naming all the heads.

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Fig. 18.10. Detail of Fig. 18.2, left door, upper right corner of the borders.

(Fig. 18.10). These are distinguished from the fruit in the corners by the way they hang, the lack of holes, and their leaves, which are different from the acanthus foliage everywhere else in the borders. Clearly these represent grapes, and as an obvious Eucharistic symbol, must refer to Christ, who appears enthroned immediately below.35 The message seems to be that the vines, in addition to producing emperors, yielded a different kind of king. Christ in turn produced his own prolific vine, which Filarete represented in the acanthus covering the thrones of Christ and the Virgin (Fig. 18.6). Notably, the tendrils surrounding Christ appear to spring directly from his waist, whereas those around the Virgin simply envelop her.36 Finally, at the top of the right door, Filarete alluded to the succession of popes produced by Christ’s vine (Fig. 18.9). Appropriately, the vines in the borders yield no additional fruit here. Filarete instead used the oak wreath surrounding the papal coat of arms held up by the putti, representing a number of acorns among the leaves. Some of the acorns are intact, but others consist of only the cup-like cap, the nut itself being absent. The conceit is identical to that 35 36

Cf. Gnocchi, ‘La porta’ (above, n. 6), 12, 22. Cf. M. Winner, ‘Filarete tanzt mit seinen Sch¨ulern in den Himmel’, in H. Keller, W. Paravicini and W. Schieder (eds.), Italia et Germania: Liber Amicorum Arnold Esch (T¨ubingen, 2001), 270, 285.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

of the pierced fruit at the top of the vines in the corners. The missing nuts have fallen to the ground producing popes. Those that remain will fall when future popes are elected. As with the imperial seeds, the metaphor is well suited to the site, since the coronation of the popes also took place at Saint Peter’s. But if these details clarify the significance of the vines and portrait heads in the borders, the countless small scenes and figures nestled around them still require explanation. These are the most bewildering aspect of the doors. They include a remarkable assortment of subjects: episodes from the legendary history of early Rome, such as the sacrifice of Marcus Curtius, Horatius Cocles defending the bridge and the Rape of the Sabines; a handful of pastoral scenes taken from Virgil’s Eclogues; a few of Hercules’ labours, but also his death; several of Aesop’s fables; and, most unexpectedly, numerous stories from ancient mythology, mostly recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, such as Perseus and Medusa, Echo and Narcissus, and Leda and the Swan, as well as generic images of satyrs, nymphs, birds, animals and insects.37 In some cases, related subjects are grouped together or placed symmetrically, but in others they are not. No meaningful pattern can be discerned in the overall arrangement. The programme for this subsidiary iconography was likely only conceived in a general sense.38 Nilgen, in support of her all-encompassing papal primacy argument, understands the borders as representing the pagan era that preceded the age of Christianity and prepared Rome for the advent of the Church and papacy.39 In her view, the message is that the pope is heir not only to the spiritual kingdom of Christ, but to the temporal legacy of the ancient emperors. As the analysis of the vines above suggests, however, Filarete may have been thinking primarily of the emperors who appeared before the doors during the coronation ceremony when designing the borders. The remarkable scenes and figures Filarete included in the marginal spaces around the vines can also be understood as part of the emperors’ lineage. They suggest that their ancestry is both venerable and flawed: the scenes of heroic action attest to the glory of the emperors’ forerunners, 37

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H. Roeder, ‘The borders of Filarete’s bronze doors to Saint Peter’s’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 10 (1947), 150–3; Sauer, ‘Die Randreliefe’ (above, n. 31); Nilgen ‘L’eclettismo come programma’ (above, n. 4). The attempts of J. Bl¨ansdorf, ‘Petrus Berchorius und das Bildprogramm der Bronzet¨uren von St. Peter in Rom’, in H. Walter and H.-J. Horn (eds.), Rezeption der Metamorphosen des Ovid in der Neuzeit: der Antike Mythos in Text und Bild (Berlin, 1995), 12–35, and Gnocchi, ‘La porta’ (above, n. 6), 10–26, to reveal a hidden programme are in my view unconvincing. Nilgen, ‘Filaretes Bronzet¨ur’ (above, n. 4), 374; Nilgen, ‘L’eclettismo come programma’ (above, n. 4), 285–7.

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while others show the folly and failings of the ancients. Like the portrayal of the wicked, yet magnificent Nero in the martyrdom panels, the borders depict antiquity as a place of both virtue and vice. Filarete created a collection of ancient exempla, both positive and negative, intended to celebrate, inspire and admonish the emperors who came to Saint Peter’s to be crowned. It can be argued that such an interpretation is consistent with what is known about Filarete’s sources for the border iconography and the use of ancient subject matter elsewhere in his oeuvre.40 In closing, however, I instead would like to discuss one further implication of the connection I have posited between the doors and the coronation ceremony. This concerns the question of who might have assisted Filarete in designing the programme. Both Biondo and Vegio have been mentioned in this regard, but in 1433, when the overall design was likely established, neither was among the pope’s close associates. Vegio did not enter papal service until 1436.41 Biondo joined the curia at the end of 1432 as a notary in the Camera Apostolica. In early 1434, while continuing his duties as notary, he began working as a secretary for both the camerarius and pope, and conducting diplomatic missions on their behalf. He officially entered the papal chancery in 1436 and soon became one of Eugenius’s most important secretaries.42 Despite this rapid rise, it seems unlikely that in the first year of Biondo’s employment at the curia the pope would have looked to him for counsel on the doors’ project. There was, however, another learned figure in Rome in 1433 who knew Eugenius well and had overseen a large restoration project for him in the past: the famous traveller and antiquarian Ciriaco d’Ancona. Ciriaco had been on friendly terms with Eugenius since the early 1420s, when the future pope, then Cardinal Condulmer, was legate of the province of Piceno. The cardinal ordered that the port in Ancona, Ciriaco’s hometown, be renovated, and Ciriaco was entrusted with the reorganization of its financial records and accounting procedures. In 1424, when Condulmer relocated to Rome, Ciriaco visited the city as his guest, staying in his palace for forty days. After Condulmer was elected pope in 1431, Ciriaco returned to Rome to see his friend, and in 1432 or 1433, when negotiations between Pope Eugenius and King Sigismund were underway, he went to Siena with the papal ambassadors to meet with the emperor-elect. Ciriaco also advised the pope 40 41

42

I hope to explore these topics in a future publication. A. Sottili, ‘Zur Biographie Giuseppe Brivios und Maffeo Vegios’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 4 (1967), 224–6. R. Fubini, ‘Biondo, Flavio’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani X (Rome, 1968), 540.

Filarete’s renovation of the Porta Argentea

in planning the official reception of Sigismund in Rome, and, after the coronation, accompanied the emperor on a tour of the city’s ruins, presumably serving as his antiquarian guide.43 As is well known, Ciriaco’s approach to the legacy of classical antiquity, while informed by literary sources, was manifestly visual.44 During his myriad travels, Ciriaco habitually recorded in his notebooks the ancient inscriptions and works of art he encountered. It would come as no surprise if the pope enlisted the help of such a visually minded scholar when commissioning the doors. Given Ciriaco’s friendship with Eugenius and involvement in the planning of the emperor’s reception and stay in Rome, it is possible that he may have even played a role in persuading the pope to renovate the Porta Argentea in the first place. Ciriaco’s name has been mentioned occasionally in the literature on the doors ever since Saxl first noticed that Filarete’s imaginative reconstruction of the Castel Sant’Angelo in the relief with Peter’s martyrdom (Fig. 18.8) is similar to a copy of a drawing that may have been made by Ciriaco.45 Copies of Ciriaco’s drawings circulated widely, so it has been easy enough to assume that Filarete obtained the design indirectly. The correspondence, however, may instead be evidence of their collaboration. Ciriaco’s participation may account also for the inclusion of the angel Gabriel’s greeting to the Virgin, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you’, in the large panel depicting her enthroned, not only in Latin on the pedestal below her feet, but also in Greek in her halo (Fig. 18.6). Since this relief was likely planned at the beginning of the project, before the influx of Greeks into Italy in 1438 for the Council of Ferrara–Florence, Ciriaco’s love of Hellenistic culture and his knowledge of the language may be the most likely explanation for this unexpected feature. But perhaps the most intriguing parallel between Ciriaco’s interests and the design of the doors is the incorporation of ancient figures and scenes as exempla for the edification of the emperors who were crowned at Saint Peter’s. This idea is consistent with Ciriaco’s use of the ancient material 43

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These biographical details are reported by Ciriaco’s contemporary, F. Scalamonti, Vita Viri Clarissimi et Famosissimi Kyriaci Anconitani, C. Mitchell and E. W. Bodnar (eds.) (Philadelphia, 1996). References to the relevant passages can be found by consulting Mitchell and Bodnar’s chronology (pp. 15–18). For a recent overview, see P. F. Brown, Venice and Antiquity: the Venetian Sense of the Past (New Haven, 1996), 81–91. F. Saxl, ‘The classical inscription in Renaissance art and politics’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 4 (1941), 42. Earlier, Sauer, ‘Die Randreliefe’ (above, n. 31), 12, and Lazzaroni and Mu˜noz, Filarete (above, n. 31), 111, noted in passing Ciriaco’s presence in Rome in 1433, but did not believe this to be directly relevant to the Vatican doors.

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he collected. In fact, when Ciriaco met with Sigismund in Siena, he gave the emperor-elect a gold coin of Trajan as ‘an exemplar of a good emperor worthy to be imitated’.46 Ciriaco was one of the most original and eccentric interpreters of the ancient past of his day and his participation in the design of Filarete’s doors could go a long way towards explaining their unusual features. 46

Scalamonti, Vita (above, n. 43), 67, 130.

19

The altar of Saint Maurice and the invention of tradition in Saint Peter’s catherine fletcher

Fig. 19.1. Location of the features mentioned in Chapter 19.

In the 1620s or ’30s, after the old Saint Peter’s basilica built by the Emperor Constantine had been replaced by the building we know today, one of its canons drafted a letter. He wrote: There was in the [old] basilica a very ancient altar dedicated to Saint Maurice and his comrades in martyrdom, which was always held in great veneration, and which was especially renowned in rituals both ancient and modern since it was there that the Holy Roman Emperor or Empress, kings and queens, were anointed with sacred oil by the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia [before being] crowned by the Holy Pontiff in front of the altar of Saint Peter.1 I am grateful to the British School at Rome for the award of a Rome Fellowship in 2009–10, which enabled me to complete the research for this chapter. An early version was presented at the BSR scholars’ colloquium ‘Across and Between’ in December 2009, and I thank my fellow participants for their comments. 1

L. Rice, The Altars and Altarpieces of New Saint Peter’s: Outfitting the Basilica, 1621–1666 (Cambridge, 1997), 113, 214, citing, date unknown, Arch. Cap. S. Pietro, Manoscritti vari 9, unfoliated; Rice dates this to 1626–36, p. 113: ‘22 Septembris Sancti Mauritij et sociorum

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According to the masters of ceremonies, wrote the canon, it was necessary that a new altar to Saint Maurice should be installed in the new Saint Peter’s, ‘in the same place as in the described ceremonies’. This chapter explores the development of the tradition around the altar of Saint Maurice that informed his letter, and takes as its premise the idea that the basilica functioned as a material expression of evolving traditions and rituals. The manoeuvrings around its architecture, decor and furniture, it argues, offer important insights into the ways the liturgical life of Saint Peter’s changed and how such changes were justified. As many of the contributions to this volume illustrate, the idea of ‘tradition’ is central to any appreciation of Saint Peter’s and its significance. The basilica itself rested, if not definitively on the site of the Apostle’s tomb, then on the tradition that this was his place of burial. Whether one listens with scepticism or faith today to the Vatican guide’s account of the tomb and necropolis, there is none the less scholarly consensus that the basilica’s siting can be explained only by the existence of a belief that this was, indeed, the site of Peter’s tomb. Yet historians are well aware that the concept of tradition is itself problematic. As Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger argued in their influential 1983 collection, The Invention of Tradition, many practices accepted as ‘traditional’ are not organic but rather invented.2 Such traditions seek ‘to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition’. Often, they refer to a historic past. Yet claims for their longevity are not always justified by reference to historical fact.3 Although Hobsbawm and his collaborators were concerned principally with Britain and its empire in the period after the Industrial Revolution, their concepts have much resonance outside that period and, in particular, for studies of Rome, the papacy and Saint Peter’s. In expressing the relationship between the papacy and the secular monarchs of Europe, the altar of Saint Maurice is one of the most significant elements of the old basilica, although at present no evidence is available for its appearance, associated relics or altarpiece. Its story over 500 years

2 3

martyrum erat in Basilica Altare antiquissimum magna veneratione semper habitum, ac in Ritualibus tum antiquis quam modernis celeberrimum, eo quia ibi Imperator Augustus sive Augusta, Reges ac Reginae, ab Episcopo Cardinali Hostien[si] sacro oleo ungebantur, et a summo Pontifice ante Altare S. Petri coronabantur, ibique quasi locus precipuus pro Augusta et Reginis dum summus Pontifex celebrabat divina ad Altare maius, ut propterea antiqui nostri et usque ad tempora nostra officium solemne celebrarunt, dicunt n[ostri] Magistri Ceremoniarum quod est necesse in Ecclesia nova de novo erigere prefatum Altare in eodem loco, ut in exequen. Ceremonijs.’ E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), 1–14. Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction’ (above, n. 2), 1–2.

The invention of tradition in Saint Peter’s

highlights the way that Saint Peter’s functioned as a site for political conflict and compromise, and reflected secular as well as religious concerns and power struggles. In liturgical terms those political processes were most apparent during those few occasions when pope and emperor came together in Rome: the coronation ceremonies. Although a wide range of traditions no doubt existed around other altars in Saint Peter’s, the particular elite association of this one arguably accounts for the range of surviving documentation that enables this case-study. The sources include three texts describing fifteenth-century imperial coronations, the coronation rites detailed in the various ordines and descriptions of the basilica. It is perhaps not surprising that one of the key contributions to The Invention of Tradition (that of David Cannadine) focused on the question of coronations, and indeed coronations in general have, over the past thirty years, generated a considerable literature.4 Since the early medieval period, coronation rituals have brought together the ecclesiastical world with that of secular kingship. The study of such rituals in their historical context serves, therefore, to highlight the changing dynamics of the relationship between religious and lay actors. It will be apparent that this is true of the Saint Maurice altar too. Although it is now thirty years since the publication of Hobsbawm and Ranger’s seminal study, it is only in the past decade or so that the concept of ‘invention of tradition’ has been extensively used in the historical study of religion, and this chapter begins with a short survey of recent literature in the field. Its second section synthesizes current scholarship relating to Saint Maurice and the altar dedicated to him, providing an account of the saint’s cult, the altar’s likely origins, and its 500-year history. Although a number of historians refer to the altar, the literature is integrated poorly, and through a comprehensive survey it has been possible to make new connections between the existing studies. The chapter then tracks the progress of the tradition around the altar of Saint Maurice, concluding with a discussion of its significance for the study of Old Saint Peter’s. Tradition, in its simplest meaning, is ‘that which is handed down’. More specifically, it can refer to a set of beliefs and practices, often handed down 4

See, for example, J. M. Bak (ed.), Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual (Berkeley, 1990), especially the chapter by J. Le Goff, ‘A coronation program for the age of Saint Louis: the Ordo of 1250’, 46–57; D. Cannadine, ‘The context, performance and meaning of ritual: the British monarchy and the “invention of tradition”, c. 1820–1977’, in Hobsbawm and Ranger, Invention of Tradition (above, n. 2), 101–64; J. Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London and Ronceverte, 1986); and D. Cannadine and S. Price (eds.), Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1987).

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orally. The term has a more specialized use in theology, where it is used to designate a corpus of teachings transmitted orally (at least in the initial phase). In Roman Catholic thought, ‘tradition’ sits alongside scripture as a means through which divine revelation may be communicated.5 In the context of these various uses, there has been considerable debate about the usefulness of the ‘invention of tradition’ thesis among scholars of religion. As Douglas Davies notes, ‘the very notion of “invented tradition” may even be offensive to faith, suggesting a critical attack upon the sincere authenticity of the prophet, his successors, and today’s believers’.6 Some students of religion and its history consequently prefer the more neutral phrase ‘constructed tradition’.7 Yet, as Olav Hammer and James R. Lewis point out, ‘the trend of inventing ancient historical lineages seems particularly prevalent in the world of religion’, rendering the concept highly relevant.8 Even those who are sceptical about the potential for broader use of the concept, such as Marcel Sarot, concede that in the historical study of religion it has purchase.9 Moreover, it need not necessarily be pejorative. Hobsbawm and Ranger were clear that they intended to encompass ‘both “traditions” actually invented, constructed and formally instituted and those emerging in a less easily traceable manner’.10 Sarot has argued that their ambiguity around the meaning of ‘invention’ may in fact prove ‘fruitful’ for scholars.11 Hobsbawm was, of course, far from the first theorist to consider the development of tradition. Karl Popper used the term ‘invention of tradition’ in 1948; Max Weber emphasized instead the relationship between tradition and habit.12 Engler, Grieve and Weiss have attempted to work with both the Hobsbawm– Ranger perspective on tradition and the Weberian approach.13 They argue

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J. E. Thiel, Senses of Tradition: Continuity and Development in Catholic Faith (Oxford, 2000), 3–4. For a lively application of ‘invention of tradition’ by a theologian, see T. W. Tilley, Inventing Catholic Tradition (New York, 2000). D. J. Davies, ‘The invention of sacred tradition: Mormonism’, in J. R. Lewis and O. Hammer (eds.), The Invention of Sacred Tradition (Cambridge, 2007), 56–74, at p. 57. For example, P. Post, ‘The creation of tradition: rereading and reading beyond Hobsbawm’, in J. W. van Henten and A. Houtepen (eds.), Religious Identity and the Invention of Tradition (Assen, 2001), 41–59, at p. 48. O. Hammer and J. R. Lewis, ‘Introduction’, in Lewis and Hammer (eds.), Invention of Sacred Tradition (above, n. 6). M. Sarot, ‘Counterfactuals and the invention of religious traditions’, in van Henten and Houtepen, Religious Identity (above, n. 7), 21–40, at pp. 38–9. Hobsbawm and Ranger, Invention of tradition (above, n. 2), 1. 12 Sarot, ‘Counterfactuals’ (above, n. 9), 22–7. Sarot, ‘Counterfactuals’ (above, n. 9), 31. M. Weber, Selections in Translation, W. G. Runciman (ed.), E. Matthews (trans.) (Cambridge, 1978), 28.

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that the two are not mutually exclusive: ‘both imitation and invention can be actions which entail the authority of the past in forging community’.14 Catherine Bell’s work on ritual highlights that ‘the conscious or unconscious creation of rituals often involves explicit appeals to some sense of tradition, even when that tradition is being created before one’s eyes’.15 That the past is important in legitimizing religious ritual, and that ‘invented’ pasts may be important too, is well established in the literature. Despite that, however, there is great variation in the usage of the word ‘tradition’ in religious history. For scholars drawing on anthropology, the term has frequently been used to describe ‘traditional religions’ in the colonial sense, and used in a counterposition to ‘modernity’.16 Anthropological studies of religion still tend to treat the unusual or the marginal. Christianity, Fenella Cannell points out, was ‘the last major area of religious activity to be explored in ethnographic writing’, and even where Christianity is the subject of discussion it is often in those forms more exotic to the western, secular anthropologist, tied to the triad of Christianity–capitalism–modernity as the norm.17 In Eamon Duffy’s influential history of late medieval and early modern English religion, ‘traditional’ is used as an alternative to ‘popular’, and ‘traditionalist’ in opposition to ‘reformist’. The flexibility of tradition is acknowledged briefly, but for the most part remains in the background.18 The mutability of religious tradition has, however, been more central to a number of recent studies.19 It is likewise central to the present chapter, which aims to track the changing relationship between the papacy and the 14

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G. P. Grieve and R. Weiss, ‘Illuminating the half-life of tradition: legitimation, agency, and counter-hegemonies’, in S. Engler and G. P. Grieve (eds.), Historicizing ‘Tradition’ in the Study of Religion (Berlin and New York, 2005), 1–15, at pp. 4–5. C. Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (New York and Oxford, 1997), 149. Grieve and Weiss, ‘Half-life of tradition’ (above, n. 14), 14–15. F. Cannell, ‘Introduction: the anthropology of Christianity’, in F. Cannell (ed.), The Anthropology of Christianity (Durham and London, 2006), 1–50, at p. 8, which offers a detailed survey of the challenges in developing an anthropology of Christianity (albeit a contemporary, not a historical anthropology). In relation to the ‘exotic’, the selection of studies in Hammer and Lewis (eds.), Invention of Sacred Tradition (above, n. 8), offers a case in point. E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580, second edition (New Haven and London, 2005), 3. For a case-study of the rhetoric of tradition in medieval religion, see F. S. Colby, ‘The rhetoric of innovative tradition in the festival commemorating the Night of Muhammad’s Ascension’, in Engler and Grieve, Historicizing ‘Tradition’ (above, n. 14), 33–50. The idea that tradition is mutable also underlies the studies presented in N. H. Petersen, M. B. Bruun, J. Llewellyn and E. Oestrem (eds.), The Appearances of Medieval Rituals: the Play of Construction and Modification (Turnhout, 2004) and in N. H. Petersen, C. Cl¨uver and N. Bell (eds.), Signs of Change: Transformations of Christian Traditions and their Representation in the Arts, 1000–2000 (Amsterdam and New York, 2004).

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Holy Roman Empire as expressed in the changing traditions around, and status of, the altar of Saint Maurice. Numbered 22 on Alfarano’s plan, the altar of Saint Maurice was situated in the south transept of Saint Peter’s basilica (Fig. 19.1). It was one of a cluster of features in that vicinity connected, in some way, to the Holy Roman Emperors. Others included the black marble slab bearing the epitaph of Hadrian I, given by Charlemagne, and the Cathedra Petri, an ivoryinlaid throne purporting to be the Apostle’s chair but probably made in the ninth century and given by Charles the Bald to the pope at the time of his coronation in 875, both located in or near the tomb chapel of Hadrian I.20 (The origin myth of the Cathedra Petri is another example of the invention of tradition in Saint Peter’s.) Saint Maurice is not a well-known figure and insofar as he has attracted the attention of scholars it has principally been because he is sometimes depicted as black, notably by Matthias Gr¨unewald in his Meeting of Saint Erasmus and Saint Maurice (1517–23).21 Such imagery was not, however, common in Italy, and it seems unlikely that he would have been so portrayed in the context of Saint Peter’s. According to legend, Maurice was an Egyptian Christian soldier, and a commander in the Roman army. In the last quarter of the third century he and his men were martyred for refusing to make the usual sacrifices to pagan gods before going into battle.22 As a soldier-saint, Maurice was a very suitable symbol for kings and princes who valued his military credentials, and remains to this day patron saint of the Italian army. He featured in the fifth-century martyrology of Saint Eucher, bishop of Lyon, and was adopted around the same time by the Burgundians as their patron saint. His cult took off more widely around 700, when the mass of the Martyrs of Agaune was celebrated in Burgundy; a century later it had spread to Angoulˆeme. From the second half of the ninth century, his feast was celebrated not only in France and German lands, but also in England, Spain and Italy. In the 960s or ’70s Maurice was proclaimed patron saint of the empire by the Emperor Otto I.23

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J. Story, J. Bunbury, A. C. Felici et al., ‘Charlemagne’s black marble: the origin of the epitaph of Pope Hadrian I’, PBSR 73 (2005), 157–90; L. Nees, ‘Charles the Bald and the Cathedra Petri’, in M. T. Gibson and J. L. Nelson (eds.), Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, second edition (Aldershot, 1990), 340–7. For a detailed discussion of this iconography, see G. Suckale-Redlefsen with R. Suckale, Mauritius: der Heilige Mohr/The Black Saint Maurice (Houston, 1987). Rice, Altars and Altarpieces (above, n. 1), 214. P. Jounel, Le culte des saints dans les basiliques du Latran et du Vatican au douzi`eme si`ecle (Rome, 1977), 290; Suckale-Redlefsen, Black Saint Maurice (above, n. 21), 29–33.

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Some decades later, the first reference to Saint Maurice is found in the ceremonial for the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors by the pope. There is no reference, yet, to an altar, but in an ordo of 1050 mention is made of the procession of the emperor towards the basilica of Saint Peter carrying both the cross and the lance of Saint Maurice.24 This would have coincided with the reign of Emperor Henry III (1039–56), who is known to have added to the Holy Lance a silver band bearing an inscription referring to Saint Maurice (later removed),25 and is an early indication of the cult’s growth. However, the first known reference to an altar of Saint Maurice is found in the Liber Politicus written by Benedictus Canonicus under Pope Innocent II, who reigned 1130–43.26 The dating, prior to 1143, is corroborated by Alfarano’s description of its lavish endowment by one Giovanni Paparoni, a canon of the basilica. A Giovanni Paparoni was raised to the cardinalate on 17 December 1143, and would be a plausible candidate as donor.27 A second altar with connections to Saint Maurice was founded around the same time. This was the altar of St Mary ‘in Turribus’, which contained relics of Maurice and his companions (Fig. 19.2). Reference to that altar is made in the Liber Pontificalis account of the coronation of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa by Pope Hadrian IV in 1155.28 It is numbered 149 on the Alfarano plan, and Alfarano also notes its role in the coronation ceremonies: it was here that the emperor was invested as a canon of Saint Peter’s. The evidence very much supports the view that it was in the first half of the twelfth century that the cult of Saint Maurice really gained ground in the basilica of Saint Peter’s. 24

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Blaauw, CD, 737. The ordo is in R. Elze (ed.), Die Ordines f¨ur die Weihe und Kr¨onung des Kaisers und der Kaiserin (Hanover, 1960), 34. There is no reference to Saint Maurice in the earlier ritual discussed in C. A. Bouman, Sacring and Crowning: the Development of the Latin Ritual for the Anointing of Kings and the Coronation of an Emperor before the Eleventh Century (Groningen and Djakarta, 1957). Suckale-Redlefsen, Black Saint Maurice (above, n. 21), 35. The Holy Lance referred to here is the lance now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Inv. No. SK_WS_XIII_19. It should not be confused with an alternative Holy Lance presented to Pope Innocent VIII. For a discussion of the latter, and a note on the competing relics, see H. Thurston, ‘The Holy Lance’, in The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1910), available at www.newadvent.org/cathen/ 08773a.htm. M. Stroll, Symbols as Power: the Papacy Following the Investiture Contest (Leiden, 1991), 81. Stroll suggests that the altar may have come into prominence during the reign of Calixtus II (1119–24). S. Miranda, ‘The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church’, www.fiu.edu/∼mirandas/ consistories-xii.htm. Blaauw, CD, 734, citing Forcella for the inscription referring to Pope Innocent: V. Forcella, Iscrizioni delle chiese e d’altri edificii di Roma, 14 vols. (Rome, 1869–84), VI, 20. Stroll, Symbols (above, n. 26), 205. Both Blaauw and Stroll cite LP, II, 392.

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Fig. 19.2. Atrium gatehouse containing the church of Saint Mary ‘in Turribus’.

Curiously, however, the twelfth-century description by Petrus Mallius, a canon of the basilica, suggests otherwise. Mallius was writing between 1159 and 1181; his account was re-edited after 1192 by another canon, known simply as ‘Romanus’.29 In his description of the altar of Saint Maurice, Mallius explained that here de antiqua consuetudine – by ancient custom – the Roman emperor would be blessed and anointed by a cardinal bishop before his coronation at the main altar of Saint Peter (Fig. 19.1).30 Yet there is consensus among scholars that there is no evidence at all for the existence 29 30

CBCR, V, 206. ‘Juxta hoc altare per directum est altare S. Mauritii martyris, ad quod scilicet altare de antiqua consuetudine Romanorum imperator a Dominis episcopis cardinalibus benedicitur & ungitur, ad altare vero majus beati Petri a Domino Papa benedicitur & coronatur, & de sacrosancto altari ejus, per manus Romani Pontificis, ad defendendam Ecclesiam, gladium accipit.’ P. Mallius, ‘Historia Basilicae Antiquae S. Petri Apostoli in Vaticano’, in Acta Sanctorum Junii, VII, 37–56, at p. 39. Here, ‘hoc altare’ refers to the altar of Saint Silvester.

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of this custom prior to the middle of the twelfth century – not long before Mallius first made the claim for its longevity.31 Even in the second half of the twelfth century, the ceremonial texts give two options for where the anointing should take place: either in front of the main altar of Saint Peter, or at the altar of Saint Maurice (Fig. 19.1).32 And that would be rather odd, if this was indeed an ancient tradition. The practice of anointment, too, was far from truly antique. Royal anointment was a ritual that had developed between the seventh and tenth centuries in northern Europe and was a product of specific political circumstances. Janet Nelson has linked its development to the rise of synodal activity, and argues that it was a means through which the Church hierarchy asserted its monopoly in the making of kings. Anointing did not make the king a priest (bishops, too, were anointed and it is sometimes wrongly stated that this was the meaning of the ceremony), but rather ensured that he was suitably blessed as he went about his royal duties.33 Just as the development of the anointment ritual was a means for bishops to assert a political role, so the coronation ceremony of the Holy Roman Emperor symbolized the emperor’s need for religious authorization. Hence – to skip forward some hundreds of years – the Emperor Napoleon made the point that he needed no such thing by crowning himself in the presence of Pope Pius VII. Even in the medieval period, some emperors were keener on the idea of papal approbation than others. For example, in February 1111, during a long-running controversy between the pope and secular monarchs over the right to appoint bishops and abbots – the so-called investiture crisis – the Emperor Henry V turned up for his coronation in Rome, only to have his troops take Pope Paschal and a number of cardinals hostage until they backed down.34 They were later reconciled, and Paschal crowned him in April 1111. While not every coronation ceremony would prove so dramatic, the case illustrates the political tensions that might be involved. Mary Stroll has argued that the manoeuvrings around the altar of Saint Maurice in the twelfth century represented a conscious effort on the part of the popes, particularly Pope Calixtus II (1119–24), a member of the royal house of Burgundy, to assert their authority against the emperors. Maurice, she suggests, was not a particularly important saint. He was a figure local 31 32 33

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Jounel, Culte des saints (above, n. 23), 391; Blaauw, CD, 736–7. Blaauw, CD, 736, citing Elze (ed.), Ordines, xvi 13, xv 9. Nelson, Politics and Ritual (above, n. 4), esp. 247–51, 278–9, 296. See also Bouman, Sacring (above, n. 24), esp. x–xii, and for numerous references to anointment in medieval coronation ceremonies see the chapters in Bak (ed.), Coronations (above, n. 4). Stroll, Symbols (above, n. 26), 57.

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to Burgundy; he simply did not rank alongside an apostle like Saint Peter. The effect of removing those elements of the coronation ceremony not directly involving the pope, such as the anointment, to the altar of Saint Maurice, was to build up the exclusivity of papal authority and diminish imperial authority. Now, only the pope (during his own coronation) would be anointed at the main altar. Combined with Calixtus’s remodelling of the altar over the confession of Saint Peter, this suggests considerable effort on the part of the papacy to claim for itself – in terms of ceremony at least – that space of the basilica most closely connected with the apostle. Intriguingly, Calixtus, or one of his ceremonialists, went so far as to suggest that the imperial coronation itself should take place at the altar of Saint Maurice rather than at that of Saint Peter, although it seems unlikely that this proposal was ever followed through. Stroll sees the proposed move as implying a diminution of imperial authority, but a consideration of the layout of the basilica indicates that it would also have tucked the coronation out of plain view.35 That would have been an odd choice, given that the crowning itself was arguably the clearest demonstration of papal authority in the ceremony, and the interpretation of Calixtus’s plans is, therefore, problematic. However, in this context, it is evident that the description of the anointment at the altar of Saint Maurice as an ancient custom was a tradition created to justify the changes being made to the coronation ceremonies. Whether it was consciously invented or subconsciously ‘discovered’ is, on the evidence available, impossible to say. Once established and mythologized, in the coming centuries the tradition of the altar of Saint Maurice was perpetuated. In many ways it offers an exemplar for the development of the basilica more generally. From the twelfth century, the imperial coronation ritual became reasonably solidified in the ceremonial texts. In practice, there were a number of deviations from the rules, not least during the Great Schism, when the popes were not in Rome and it was left to cardinals to carry out the coronations.36 Table 19.1 shows the variations: there were two fourteenth-century coronations for which the 35 36

Stroll, Symbols (above, n. 26), 80–3. For obvious political reasons, no emperors were crowned in Avignon. Robert of Anjou was crowned there in 1309, and Stefaneschi’s description of the ceremony in Ordo XIV makes clear that the anointment was to take place at a secondary altar, presumably the nearest available equivalent to that of Saint Maurice: ‘Post hec, iuxta aliquod altare, aliud tamen, si possibile est, ab altare domini pape, Ostiensis episcopus ungat ei de oleo exorcizato brachium dextrum et inter scapulas, et etiam, si velit, inungat ei pectus, manus et scapulas ambasque compages ˆ a` la Renaissance, 4 brachiorum eius’. M. Dykmans, Le c´er´emonial papal de la fin du Moyen Age vols. (Brussels and Rome, 1977–85), II, 450. On the adaptations to the papal coronation

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Table 19.1. Imperial coronations in Saint Peter’s basilica after Calixtus II 1155 1191 1209 1220 1328 1355 1433 1452

Frederick I by Pope Hadrian IV Henry VI and the Empress Constance by Pope Celestine III Otto IV by Pope Innocent III Frederick II and Empress Constance by Pope Honorius III Ludovic IV (crowned in absence of pope) Charles IV and Anna (crowned in absence of pope) Sigismund by Pope Eugenius IV Frederick III and Empress Eleonora by Pope Nicholas V

pope was absent. It also makes clear that the coronation was not a regular event, and it is intriguing to consider how its rituals may have shifted in the long periods between 1220 and 1328, then between 1355 and 1433, when there can have been no reliable living memory of the previous coronation. In such circumstances, the ceremonial texts, and perhaps associated oral or literary tradition, must have been the only source of information from which to establish the appropriate procedure, necessitating, in some sense at least, a ‘reinvention’ or ‘reconstruction’ of tradition. We now turn to the last two coronations listed here, which proved to be the last imperial coronations in Saint Peter’s: those of the Emperor Sigismund, by Pope Eugenius IV in 1433, and Frederick III, by Pope Nicholas V in 1452. Visual evidence for these coronations is scarce. An image of the 1433 coronation, by Taccola, in the Archivio di Stato di Siena, is clearly not from life. The depiction in the Grandes Chroniques de France may be based on drawings of the basilica made during Jean Fouquet’s trip to Rome in the 1440s, even though it purports to show Charlemagne (see Fig. 13.3, Plate 10), but there is no evidence that Fouquet saw a coronation. (The depiction by Filarete of Sigismund’s coronation is discussed elsewhere in this volume by Robert Glass.)37 There are, however, several useful literary descriptions: the humanist Poggio Bracciolini and the monk Cornelius Zantfleit wrote about the coronation of Sigismund in 1433, while Enea Silvio Piccolomini and Nikolaus Muffel penned accounts of the coronation of Frederick in 1452. Although each takes a different view, the repeated emphasis placed on the

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ceremony during the popes’ sojourn in Avignon, see B. Schimmelpfennig, ‘Papal coronations in Avignon’, in Bak, Coronations (above, n. 4), 179–96. Attr. Taccola, ‘Coronation of the Emperor Sigismund in Rome’, 1433, Archivio di Stato di Siena, in U. Morandi (ed.), Le biccherne senesi (Siena, 1984), 78–9. For the attribution see J. H. Beck, ‘The historical “Taccola” and Emperor Sigismund in Siena’, The Art Bulletin 50 (1968), 309–20.

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antiquity of the ceremony or its surroundings is notable. Mallius’s ‘ancient custom’ tag reappears, adapted and reformed to fit new circumstances. Poggio drew a connection between the present emperor and his ancient counterpart Augustus.38 Piccolomini (the future Pope Pius II), in his Historia Rerum Friderici Imperatoris, described the anointment of the emperor at the altar of Saint Maurice ‘pro veteri more’ – according to ancient custom.39 Nikolaus Muffel, a German counsellor who attended the coronation and wrote a description of the city of Rome, pointed to the presence of the Cathedra Petri, venerated as a relic, opposite the altar of Saint Maurice (at the tomb chapel of Hadrian I), thereby making reference to the historic qualities of the basilica, to an imperial gift and to the apostolic succession.40 Muffel also adds a visual detail relating to the altar: placed before it was a design of five marble discs on which the emperor would prostrate himself for the unction, presumably part of a cosmatesque pavement.41 In the fifteenth century, the context of the coronation ceremony was that of renewal of the papacy’s relationship with the city of Rome. After years of schism – when there had simultaneously been one pope in Rome and another in Avignon, and for a little while a third pope too – the re-establishment of a single papacy in its traditional environment was 38

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Poggio Bracciolini, Lettere, H. Harth (ed.), 3 vols. (Florence, 1984–7), I, 124, Letter to Niccolo` Niccoli, 4 June 1433: ‘tum profecti in templum superius, pone maius altare ad dexteram partem assistens in morem diaconi indutus, ab episcopo Ostensi sacro oleo inunctus est. Hinc existimo Augusti nomen descendisse; loca enim, ut scis, augurio consecrata augusta antiqui appellabant; quod nomen tanquam sanctum inditum est Octaviano. Hac observatione et nostri quoque imperatores post consecrationem Augusti vocitantur’. Poggio does not name the altar of Saint Maurice, and his location ‘pone maius altare ad dexteram altare’ is rather unclear. Cornelius Zantfleit does refer to the altar of Saint Maurice but apparently locates it in the Lateran (this is most likely a transcription error): ‘tres cardinales, videlicet de Ursinis, Arelatensis, & sancti Sixti cum clero S. Petri, duxerunt regem processionaliter ad ecclesiam Lateranensem ante altare S. Mauritii, & ibi consecraverunt eum’. C. Zantfliet, ‘Chronicon’, in E. Mart`ene and U. Durand (eds.), Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum Historicorum, Dogmaticorum, Moralium Amplissima Collectio, 9 vols. (Paris, 1724–33), V, 67–505 (col. 433). Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Historia Rerum Friderici Imperatoris, J. H. Boecleri (ed.) (Strasbourg, 1685), 80: ‘Deinde Capellam Sancti Gregorii ingressus, Sandalia tulit, tunicellam induit, & Augustale paludamentum accepit. Mox ei in medium Basilicae profecto per alium Cardinalem benedictio superfusa est. Tertiam quoque benedictionem apud Cancellum Sancti Petri suscepit. Exinde ductus ad altare Sancti Mauricii, per Cardinalem Portuensem tunc Vicecancellarium, de quo supra meminimus, in scapulis atque in dextro brachio pro veteri more oleo sacro delinitus. hisdemque locis inuncta est Coniunx eius Leonora. quibus peractis, ambo in sua tribunalia transierunt’. Nikolaus Muffel, Descrizione della citt`a di Roma nel 1452, G. Wiedmann (ed. and trans.) (Bologna, 1999), 50–1: ‘Item vor sant Moritzenaltar und dem stul sand Peters, do er am ersten aufgesetzt ist worden, do salbt man ein ydlichen keyser und do sind V sinbel merbelstein, do die zwu hendt und die zwen fuß und das hertz in der mit aufligen muß an der fennig, so man in salbt’. Blaauw, CD, 738.

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accompanied by a concerted propaganda effort. Among its themes were renewal and renovation, ideas that found multiple and often conflicting expressions and explanations as humanist learning was brought to bear on the history of the Church of Rome.42 It is, therefore, hardly surprising to find humanists like Poggio and Piccolomini emphasizing the ancient heritage of the rituals they describe, but in the case of this altar at least reference to its antiquity was not only a Renaissance phenomenon. The myths surrounding the altar of Saint Maurice outlasted the altar itself. In the early years of the sixteenth century, the south transept of Saint Peter’s was demolished so that work could begin on the new section of the basilica, and with it went the altar of Saint Maurice. But writing in 1560, Onofrio Panvinio gives us some intriguing information about the fate of the altarpiece. He records that it was moved into the remaining part of the old basilica and placed on the altar de Ossibus, also moved from the old basilica, where the bones of Saints Peter and Paul were supposed to have been weighed and divided by Pope Silvester in the year 319.43 There is some historical scepticism about Panvinio’s claim: Cerrati, editor of the Alfarano text, citing his observation, qualified it with the comment ‘if Panvinio is not mistaken’.44 Matters are complicated by the inconsistency between Panvinio’s description and the Alfarano plan. Panvinio places the altar de Ossibus between the colonnade and the porta romana, which coincides with number 50 on the Alfarano plan.45 Alfarano, however, describes this as the altar of Saints Wenceslas and Erasmus. While attempting to resolve this conundrum is probably futile, it is notable that Wenceslas had been a king of the Romans. Perhaps Alfarano was confusing his imperial saints or perhaps, over the years, there were several moves of altars and altarpieces. None the less, even in the altar’s absence, its tradition survived. Between about 1570 and 1582, Tiberio Alfarano, who had observed various stages of the old 42

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C. Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome (Bloomington, IN, 1985), esp. chapter IV, ‘The primacy of Peter Princeps Apostolorum and the Instauratio Ecclesiae Romanae’, pp. 156–234; C. M. Richardson, Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century (Leiden, 2009). O. Panvinio, De Rebus Antiquis Memorabilibus et Praestantia Basilica Sancti Petri Apostolorum Principis Libri Septem, in A. Mai (ed.), Spicilegium Romanum, 10 vols. (Rome, 1839–44), IX, 194–382, at p. 371: ‘Inter portam romanam et peristylium columnarum in eadem media navi est altare novum translatum ex vetere ecclesia, quod sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli dicitur, in quo est lapis super quo corpora ipsorum apostolorum a sancto Silvestro papa fuerunt divisa, ut ex hac inscriptione liquet, quae ibi est in tabula marmorea: “super isto lapide porphyretico fuerunt divisa ossa sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli, et ponderata per beatum Silvestrum papam anno domini CCCXIX. quando facta fuit ista ecclesia.” Habet id altare imaginem sancti Mauritii et gradum porphyreticum’. Alfarano, DBVS, n. 46: ‘Se il Panvinio non erra, l’immagine di S. Maurizio sarebbe stata trasportata all’altare de Ossibus’. See above, n. 43.

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basilica’s demolition, repeated in relation to the altar of Saint Maurice that before his coronation, the emperor would be blessed and anointed there by the cardinal bishops ‘more veterum’ – in the manner of the ancients.46 It would be some decades before a new altar of Saint Maurice was erected. Pompeo Ugonio, writing in 1588, makes no mention of one.47 In 1605, the canons of the basilica wrote that ‘the altar of Saint Maurice, where the emperors and kings were anointed that were to be crowned, at present cannot be found, having been ruined in the first demolition’.48 Yet the tradition of its antiquity remained. For, as we saw at the start of this chapter, in the 1620s or ’30s it was said that: ‘There was in the [old] basilica a very ancient altar dedicated to Saint Maurice’. Around the same time, the ceremonialist Michele Longo wrote: I deem that it would be well to remember to restore along with the others [other altars] the famous altar of Saint Maurice, in front of which by ancient custom the emperor was anointed . . . For even if it seems that the emperors have abandoned the practice of being crowned in Rome, nevertheless it is not good that we should lose the memory of so important an altar.49

Longo’s recommendation marks a shift in the meaning of the altar of Saint Maurice. Whereas the previous altar had been the site for the living performance of a traditional ritual, the new altar was concerned not so much with ritual practice as with memorializing a past tradition that otherwise might be lost. When an altar of Saint Maurice was erected in the new Saint Peter’s, in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, it incorporated two of the white Solomonic columns from the oratory of John VII in the old basilica. The location was not, as the canons hoped, the same as that of the previous altar, but the inclusion of the columns is striking for its material perpetuation of ideas of the altar’s antiquity. An altarpiece depicting Maurice’s martyrdom was commissioned from Carlo Pellegrini in 1636 (Bernini may also have been involved in its execution). The arresting composition shows the saint pointing upward with his right hand, while on the right of the painting a 46

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Alfarano, DBVS, 46: ‘Sed hinc per directum ex adverso in parastate fornices minorum navium sustinente, ad Orientem e regione Altaris sancti Leonis papae, erat Sacellum (22) cum Altari sancti Mauritij martyris eidem parastati adhaerens, cuius illa singularis erat dignitas, quod Imperator designatus antequam ad Altare sancti Petri a Romano Pontefice coronam imperij ac gladium defendendae Ecclesiae causa susciperet, ibi primum ab Episcopis Cardinalibus, more veterum benedici et inungi solebat. Huius arae multa mentio est in actis coronationum omnium romanorum imperatorum; denique Ioannes de Paparonibus Canonicus Basilicae dotem adauxit.’ CBCR, V, 207 says this text was being prepared from the 1540s. P. Ugonio, Historia delle stationi di Roma (Rome, 1588). See the canons’ letter in the appendix to this volume, 404–15. Rice, Altars and Altarpieces (above, n. 1), 114.

The invention of tradition in Saint Peter’s

soldier raises a spear against him and to the left lies a dying comrade. Pope Urban VIII hoped that he might have the opportunity to crown Emperor Ferdinand III (succeeded 1637) in Saint Peter’s. His hope was, however, in vain, and the new altar of Saint Maurice remained simply a memorial. In the 1820s it was dispensed with entirely; perhaps, after Napoleon, memorializing an aspect of the coronation ritual seemed less than desirable. Pellegrini’s painting is now in the Vatican Pinacoteca and in the basilica hangs instead an altarpiece of Saint Francis.50 The altar of Saint Maurice embodies the birth, death, memory and eventual discarding of a tradition in the basilicas of Saint Peter, highlighting important questions about how change in this ancient space was accounted for, and how it reflected in material form relationships of power between the papacy and the secular monarchs. The case points first to an important role for antiquity in conferring status within the basilica. Saint Peter’s as a whole derives its authority by reference to a tradition of association with the apostle; so did specific aspects of the basilica, such as the Cathedra Petri. Future research might explore the extent to which more general reference to the antique, as opposed to the specifically apostolic, was important in justifying innovation in the basilica. Attention might be given also to the relationship between changing ‘tradition’ in the theological sense and material aspects of the basilica. Second, on a somewhat distinct note, the manoeuvrings around the Saint Maurice altar emphasize the interplay between religious and secular concerns within this environment. Saint Peter’s was not only a space for worship and devotion, but also a theatre of secular power. Ceremonies in the basilica regularly involved European princes or their representatives, and in these politically charged contexts it is arguable that appeals to ‘tradition’ became all the more important as a means for the papacy to assert its authority. Indeed, Saint Peter’s might well be understood as a marble-clad materialization of tradition, its altars expressing the mutations, reconstructions and inventions that that tradition has undergone throughout its history. 50

Rice, Altars and Altarpieces (above, n. 1), 112–14, 213–16, 423, 425.

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Julius II decided in 1505 to tear down Constantine’s basilica and replace the heterogeneous edifice with a modern church for which the most excellent architects supplied a series of brilliant designs; this is a neat story driven by powerful characters. According to this view, cherished by scholarship, the individual genius of Bramante determined the sudden fate of the basilica’s longstanding tradition. In reality, Julius II (1503–13) ensured that a large part of the nave and atrium of Old Saint Peter’s was preserved, while work was begun to create a new western extension that was to be crowned by a monumental dome. Proposals for a completely new church were rejected, time and again, by successive popes, until Paul V (1605–21) took the highly controversial decision to demolish the atrium and remaining part of the basilica and to build a new nave and fac¸ade. Nevertheless, Julius II’s vision for Saint Peter’s has been interpreted as if it encompassed a completely new edifice.1 However, no records survive to suggest that either the pope himself or any of his advisers spoke or wrote of any such coherent plan; it was only in the late 1530s that the idea seems to have gained momentum, becoming established by the middle of the century.2 Most scholars consider Bramante’s first concept to have been a harmonious Zentralbau.3 A minority have proposed that his original idea 1

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For example, C. L. Frommel, ‘Saint Peter’s: the early history’, in H. A. Millon and V. M. Lampugnani (eds.), The Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo: the Representation of Architecture (London, 1994), 403. Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, for example, stresses the ‘invenzione nuova’ represented by Bramante’s work, and Saint Peter’s as an example of this. See C. Thoenes, ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’, in W. Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Cambridge, 2005), 81. G. Satzinger, ‘Die Baugeschichte von Neu-St.-Peter’, in Barock im Vatikan. Kunst und Kultur im Rom der P¨apste II, 1572–1676 (Bonn, 2005), 45–74, with full colour reconstructions of the various designs superimposed on one another, and H. W. Hubert, ‘Sankt Peter in der Renaissance’, in C. Strunck (ed.), Rom. Meisterwerke der Baukunst von der Antike bis Heute. Festgabe f¨ur Elisabeth Kieven (Petersburg, 2007), 208–15. The chapters in G. Satzinger and S. Sch¨utze (eds.), St. Peter in Rom 1506–2006. Akten der Internationalen Tagung vom 22–25.2.2006 in Bonn (Munich, 2008), by C. L. Frommel, J. Niebaum, G. Satzinger and H. W. Hubert, all tend to favour the Zentralbau thesis. For a summary of his views and bibliographical commentary, see C. L. Frommel, ‘San Pietro da Niccolo V al modello di Sangallo’, in M. C. Carlo-Stella, P. Liverani and M. L. Polichetti (eds.), Petros eni/Pietro `e qui (exh¨ıbition catalogue) (Rome, 2006), 31–77.

Epilogue: the antique basilica with a modern dome

comprised a nave, or Latin rather than Greek cross, only later followed by a reduction to a centralized church.4 In both interpretations, scholars see the complete destruction of the antique basilica as a strategy predetermined by Julius and Bramante, the magnificent patron and the innovative architect. Rejected proposals, drawings and later projects have served as the key sources to create this art historical narrative, which is, in fact, largely based on hindsight. This view has dominated almost all the scholarly literature on Saint Peter’s.5 In this chapter, however, I wish to stress the conscious continuity of the old basilica during the pontificate of Julius II, and argue that plans for a completely new structure were an interesting side-line, a notion that was repeatedly proposed and rejected until the seventeenth century.6 When Julius II initiated his ambitious building campaign at Saint Peter’s, he continued an almost twelve-century-old tradition of small and large innovations and renovations, several still visible and many recorded in texts or drawings. Like his predecessors, Julius II treated the basilica and its surrounding structures as a living organism. Saint Peter’s continued to be a complicated and contradictory ensemble of human initiatives to preserve traditions and to renovate the building according to both antique and modern standards. Patrons continued to reuse old material for new purposes, they repaired roofs and walls and added chapels; mosaics, paintings and tombs were ordered, placed and relocated. Julius II ordered a section of the Constantinian basilica to be demolished, preserving the eastern half of the nave, the fac¸ade, the atrium, the stairs and the square in front of this heterogeneous ensemble, but masses were celebrated and processions organized in the old nave and at the high altar, even though, after 1507, it lacked a proper roof. Yet Julius’s renovations were new in several respects. Firstly, the extent of the fabric of the old basilica that was demolished and the scale of additions 4

5 6

This revisionist view has been introduced by C. Thoenes, ‘Neue Beobachtungen an Bramante’s St.-Peter-Entw¨urfen’, M¨unchner Jahrbuch f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 45 (1994), 109–32. It is revisionist in the sense that in previous publications the Zentralbau thesis prevailed. Thoenes elaborated this view in many subsequent publications, as well as translations, such as ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’ (above, n. 2), 64–92. Bredekamp accepts Thoenes’s view on the Langhausbau or Langhausplan, see H. Bredekamp, Sankt Peter in Rom und das Prinzip der Produktiven Zerst¨orung. Bau und Abbau von Bramante bis Bernini (Berlin, 2000). See Satzinger and Sch¨utze (eds.), St. Peter in Rom 1506–2006 (above, n. 3). See B. Kempers, ‘Diverging perspectives – new Saint Peter’s: artistic ambitions, liturgical requirements, financial limitations and historical interpretations’, Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 55 (1996), 213–51; L. Bosman, The Power of Tradition: Spolia in the Architecture of St. Peter’s in the Vatican (Hilversum, 2004), 13–16, 57–78; C. M. Richardson, Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century (Leiden, 2009), 143–56, and her view therein on ‘The Saint Peter’s problem’, pp. 317–82, and ‘Saint Peter’s in the fifteenth century’, pp. 383–421.

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planned were unprecedented. Secondly, Julius and his entourage initiated a tradition of architectural drawings and three-dimensional models associated with the project, taking care that the proposals were preserved even when they were rejected. Thirdly, Julius seems to have encouraged critical and historical reflection on his rebuilding projects. Both the designs and reactions to them – positive, neutral or negative – dictated the form of later renovations and their reception. It is the historical evidence resulting from this process of design and debate, I argue, that makes it tempting to assume Julius II’s plans for Saint Peter’s were coherent from the start. By considering first Julius II’s testimonies, then other literary sources, and then, finally, the visual evidence, I hope to demonstrate that 1505 was a point of departure, but not necessarily of the kind generally assumed by the majority of scholars to date. The main implication of my argument is that significant parts of the old basilica survived up to the seventeenth century, not because Julius II and Bramante were unsuccessful in seeing their ambitious plans executed, but because it was never their intention to replace the whole of the venerable edifice in the first place.

Official papal documents Julius II expressed his ambitions regarding Saint Peter’s in a variety of documents focusing, in particular, on the addition of a new cupola and a chapel. These official texts are backed up by the reports from Julius’s courtiers, which will be considered below. Before the ceremony of 18 April 1506, in which the foundation stone for the new crossing was laid, the pope publicized his desire to repair the basilica. In three documents of November 1505, Julius announced the provision of funds to be spent on the repair and embellishment (reparare et exornare) of Saint Peter’s (basilica beati Petri apostolorum principis).7 Between 1505 and 1512 basilica meant Constantine’s edifice, not a virtual project for a new building, although the pope’s ambitions seem to have increased as the years passed. In 1506, for example, Julius II used the verbs rehedificare, exornare and instaurare several times. He explained the reason for this: the basilica was old and 7

C. L. Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II. im Licht neuer Dokumente’, R¨omisches Jahrbuch f¨ur Kunstgeschichte 16 (1976), 92–3. The written sources – largely from the ‘Liber Mandatorum’ in the archives of the Chapter of Saint Peter’s (now BAV), the archive of the Fabbrica and the Camera Apostolica (ASV) – are very usefully brought together in this important article, pp. 57–136. See also Thoenes, ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’ (above, n. 2), 79 and 91 n. 69.

Epilogue: the antique basilica with a modern dome

nearly collapsing. Whenever Julius used the verbs construire or edificare, these specified sections of the building, such as the tribuna and construction of the side of the high altar. In February 1507, in a bull in which the pope admitted that he had wanted to develop the basilica ever since he became a cardinal, Julius chose slightly different concepts that suggest ‘reform’ and enlargement.8 This emphasis on enlargement reoccurred on 12 April, when reparatio was linked to ampliatio. These combinations of words set the subsequent tone. In 1508 Julius repeated that he started to rebuild with a great and wonderful aedificatio, attached to the basilica, the basic concept remaining repair, not replacement by a completely new structure.9 In his bulls, briefs and letters, therefore, Julius stressed the enlargement, restoration and embellishment of the existing basilica, not its replacement. Like the narrative and historical texts, payments of the fabbrica or opera refer to the old building to which new sections were attached: the apse, dome and, later, chapel. In 1510 the work comprised the arches of ‘the said basilica’. From 1511, the enlargement included a chapel that became the focus of Julius’s attention. While his courtiers paid little attention to this section of the renovation, the pope himself and some donors described the chapel at length. It was to be ‘at the head of the basilica’.10 Julius’s additions to the basilica were driven by his desire, firstly, to embellish the space around the tomb of the apostle and, secondly, to create a chapel for his own tomb. These projects involved additional structures, mainly piers to buttress the existing crossing and help stabilize the old nave. The construction that Julius II decided upon was a simple one, albeit unusually large in scale. He preserved the main entrance from the atrium and the city and therefore the east–west axis, rejecting Bramante’s proposal for monumental entries from the sides and the creation of an axis from south to north, which would have necessitated the realignment of the apostle’s tomb and the high altar into a more central position. These reductions resulted in the elimination of domes, semi-domes and towers proposed on Bramante’s ‘parchment plan’ and medals, discussed in more detail below 8

9 10

Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 97–8; Frommel, ‘Saint Peter’s: the early history’ (above, n. 1), 401: from Bologna Julius issued a long bull, referring to Sixtus IV and his newly built chapel within the basilica as his inspiration. See also B. Kempers, ‘“Capella Iulia” and “Capella Sixtina”: two tombs, one patron and two churches’, in F. Benzi (ed.), Sisto IV: le arti a Roma nel primo Rinascimento (Rome, 2000), 33–59. Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 104–10. Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 125, a notarial document of 1 January, referring to the chapel built by Julius II., ‘in capite et caput basilica principis apostolorum de urbe’. It is the chapel and tribuna that is constructed, not the basilica as a whole. On this chapel and Michelangelo’s designs for a wall tomb, see Kempers, ‘“Capella Iulia” and “Capella Sixtina” (above, n. 8), 40–5.

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(see Figs. 20.2 and 20.5). Instead, a simplified but monumental apse-chapel was adopted, attached to the westernmost crossing piers, which could be built on earlier foundations put in place during the pontificate of Nicholas V. Ambulatories in the south, west and north were proposed but apparently rejected as Julius II did not pay for any building activity in those areas. In 1511 the four arches to support the dome were completed, by which time the interventions totalled some 80,000 ducats, raised largely through the sale of indulgences.11 Nevertheless, significant sections of the antique nave and the entire atrium lay well outside the scope of these changes.

The narrative of additions by the courtiers of Julius II Many of the designs, proposals and commentaries that comprise the evidence for the ‘new’ basilica were made by artists and writers associated with the papal court: they were men who were keen to engage and impress the pope. In the history of ‘rebuilding’ Saint Peter’s, it is important to note that, rather than representing adopted or executed plans, drawings and medals often depict proposals that were rejected: they were designed to persuade and impress a potential patron, not commemorate an actual building. Indeed, the extraordinary number of designs for the redevelopment of Saint Peter’s can be explained only by the number of proposals that were put forward but never implemented. The expansion of both the area of architectural design and the market for architectural treatises and prints also accounts for the number of designs submitted that were then printed and distributed widely. In June 1509, for example, Francesco Albertini finished a book on the monuments of new and old Rome, the Opusculum de Mirabilibus Novae et Veteris Urbis Romae. Eight months later his text appeared in print, and new editions soon followed. Albertini dedicated his treatise to Julius II, praising the pope’s magnificent patronage. A Florentine canon, Albertini was well informed about the architectural project. He was secretary and chaplain to Cardinal Fazio Santoro from Viterbo, who, in turn, was one of Julius II’s most loyal courtiers and in charge of the renovation of Saint Peter’s.12 Albertini’s rambling narrative describes Saint Peter’s and the Vatican in both its antique and its contemporary context. Starting with the walls and 11 12

Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 67–9. See the reprint in P. Murray (ed.), Francesco Albertini, Opusculum de Mirabilibus Novae et Veteris Urbis Romae (Farnborough, 1972), which lacks folio numbers; see also Valentini–Zucchetti, IV, 457–546. Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 116, reproduces an abridged version of the section on the building project.

Epilogue: the antique basilica with a modern dome

gates of the antique city at the beginning of Book I, he mentions the Porta Pertusa, the eighteenth gate in his tour d’horizon, which entered the city from the Vatican hill to the west. Travellers using the gate were afforded a spectacular view of the apsidal end of the basilica, the papal palace to the left and the city of Rome beyond. He includes a new gate opened by Julius II between the Belvedere villa and the Vatican palace, presumably in Bramante’s corridorio, which allowed the pope and his cardinals easier access to the residence. Where Saint Peter’s basilica now stands, he writes, there used to be a temple dedicated to Apollo. In the second book Albertini adds that this temple stood at the place of the oratorium of Saint Petronilla, which is connected to the church of Saint Peter. After mentioning that Paul II gave two giant columns to the basilica, and the restoration of ancient monuments that were in a sorry state, he finally comes to the contemporary patronage of Julius II. Albertini states that Julius enlarged and embellished that which already existed, following the example of his uncle Sixtus IV who had initiated the instauratio of the city. Renovating the old city is the subject of Albertini’s third book and Saint Peter’s figures large in it. Apart from Julius’s restoration of the Lateran basilica and baptistery, Albertini gives pride of place to the Basilica divi Petri Apostoli Principis in Vaticano. He stresses the Vatican basilica’s ancient pedigree; it was, he states, built by Pope Saint Silvester. He praises the basilica’s hundred columns before going on to describe Julius’s enlargement (amplificatio) of it. The pope was inspired by two edifices in particular, he claims: the Temple of Diana at Ephesus and Florence cathedral. To highlight Julius’s ambitions, Albertini describes their dimensions – the length of the Greek temple and the height of the Florentine dome – so that he can compare Saint Peter’s with the largest structures with which he was familiar. Returning to Julius II, Albertini claims that the basilica of Saint Peter would reach the stars because the pope wanted to surpass every other building, ancient or modern. He finishes the section by highlighting Cardinal Santoro’s leading role in the project: he does not mention any architect by name. Albertini clearly understood Julius’s patronage as an addition to the old basilica: the pope was adding a magnificent dome to Silvester’s nave. In subsequent sections, Albertini describes the antique nave of the basilica and some of its subsidiary buildings, including the library, created by many popes but decorated at the behest of Julius II, and the chapel of Sixtus IV, Julius’s uncle. He refers to the portico and the Benediction loggia, enlarged by Julius II, and uses the same verb, ampliare, for the atrium and the piazza in front of the basilica, which had been enlarged by Pius II, Sixtus IV and Julius II. At the end of the third book, Albertini returns to Saint Peter’s

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again, and describes it as the first of Julius’s great projects. He records the dedication ceremony of the foundation of the first, westernmost, pier and records the inscription on the foundation stone, using the actual text of the foundation stone of the eastern piers: ‘IVLIVS II. PONT. MAX. AEDEM DIVO Petro dicatam vetustate collebentem in digniorem amplioremque formam ut erigat fundamenta iecit anno Christi MDVII’.13 The inscription, which was also quoted by the papal masters of ceremonies, Johannes Burchardus and Paris de Grassis, refers to an ‘amplification’ of a larger and more worthy structure that was connected to the old basilica, and makes it clear that Julius II did not intend to construct a completely new edifice.14 Among the important courtiers of Julius II Albertini mentions several who wrote about the pope’s plans for Saint Peter’s. These include Sigismondo dei Conti, the pope’s secretary and one of Julius’s advisers on Saint Peter’s, who includes the basilica in his History of the Popes. At the end of his historical narrative, Conti states that Julius set out to repair the basilica of the prince of the apostles. He focuses in particular on the basilica as a material object, paying attention to its spolia – the hundred columns for which it was famous, and bronze tiles that once covered the roof of Jupiter’s Temple on the Capitol. Nevertheless Conti is critical of the basilica’s rude style and its dilapidated state, in particular the leaning wall to the south. This gives him the opportunity to mention the repairs undertaken by Nicholas V and to praise the piety and magnificence of Julius, who wanted to see to the basilica’s repair once and for all. According to Conti, Julius was going beyond a simple restoration so that Saint Peter’s might surpass all antique buildings in beauty and scale. The pope wanted to add a dome to the basilica, which would be larger and higher than the dome of the Temple

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Albertini, Opusculum (above, n. 12); Kempers, ‘Diverging perspectives’ (above, n. 6), 225–6. The objections in J. Niebaum, ‘Bramante und der Neubau von St. Peter. Die Planungen vor dem “Ausf¨uhrungsprojekt”’, RJBH 34 (2001–2), esp. n. 116, to my use of Albertini, are insufficient. Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 94–5. Burchardus states that the foundation stone ‘pro structura novi chori’, had the letters IVLIVS II PONTIFEX MAXIMVS HANC BASILICAM FERE COLLABENTEM REPARAVIT A.D. MCCCCCVI PONTIFICATUS SVI ANNO III. These words do not allow any other conclusion than that he understood the ceremony of 18 April to mark a western extension of the existing church. De Grassis indicates the same, referring to ‘chorum sive ciborium basilice principis apostolorum de urbe’, quoting the inscription as: AEDEM PRINCIPIS APOSTOLORVM IN VATICANO VETVSTATE AC SITV SQVALENTEM A FVNDAMENTIS RESTITVIT IVLIVS LIGVR PONT MAX ANNO MDVI. In the context of the whole text, this can only mean that the author considered the project to comprise a new section added to the existing building. Differences between both diaries indicate that one has to be careful with eyewitness reports. Grimaldi’s rendering of the 16 May 1507 inscription is nearly identical with Albertini’s, see Grimaldi, 100.

Epilogue: the antique basilica with a modern dome

of the Pantheon, but construction was proceeding slowly, he said, due not so much to a lack of funding as to the hesitation of the architect Bramante.15 Albertini also referred to Lorenzo Parmenio, one of Julius’s librarians. On his own initiative Parmenio summarized Julius’s projects in a laudatory text, a finely executed manuscript that was kept in Julius’s new private library. He highlights Saint Peter’s, praising the Benediction loggia and the recently finished stairs from the basilica up to the palace, to which several additions had also been made. Parmenio notes that various parts of the basilica and palace threatened to fall into ruins, which had led Julius to instigate an instauratio, by which he meant renovation, restoration and enlargement of existing edifices, not construction de novo.16 Another key figure in the court of Julius II, again referred to by Albertini, was Egidio da Viterbo, the prior-general of the Augustinian friars. In an oration of 21 December 1507, delivered in the basilica itself, Egidio praised Julius II for his initiative to raise Saint Peter’s to heaven. After the event Julius II asked the orator to put his sermon into writing, and in the late spring of 1508 a copy was also sent to the king of Portugal, whose triumphs in Asia had been the reason for the oration.17 Egidio praises the golden age under Julius II as a fulfilment of a providential scheme. It was Julius’s religious task to bring about a rebirth of the Hebrew temple in the house of Saint Peter, surpassing in height everything built before, be it by Solomon and Onias or Constantine and Silvester. Egidio used the verb instaurare to refer to the newly added splendour and ornament provided in the service of religion, cult and piety. During the pontificate of Leo X, Egidio da Viterbo inserted a section on Bramante, Julius II and the renovation of Saint Peter’s in his ‘History of twenty centuries’. Coming before the historical narrative that concludes with Julius II and Leo X, it serves as a theological, spiritual and visionary interlude in the text.18 According to Egidio da Viterbo, Julius II wanted to raise a tabernacle above the tomb of Saint Peter, which resulted in the erection of a splendid temple above the divine tomb. But, he says, Bramante diverged from the pope’s plans and developed ideas of his own. He wanted to emphasize the entry to the basilica from the south and envisaged a major fac¸ade and vestibule to the south side that would enhance the visibility 15

16 17

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This passage in Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 124. The bronze tiles only covered the western section: the two pseudo-transept arms, and probably a central dome construction in between, as well as the apse. Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 99. Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 103, with a limited section of the text. Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 89–90.

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of the obelisk, considered to be Julius Caesar’s tomb. He proposed that the apostle’s tomb should be realigned on this axis and tried to persuade Julius II accordingly. However, he failed to convince the pope, who chose instead to preserve the sacred remains of the past, none of which were as important as the tomb of the prince of the apostles. Julius II did not mind if Bramante wanted to move the obelisk, and agreed with a new location near a new vestibule of the basilica: he could do whatever he wanted with the pagan monument, as long as he did not touch the apostle’s tomb. However, according to Egidio, Julius stated that nothing from the old temple should be replaced; nothing regarding the first pope could be changed. As for the obelisk, Egidio recorded that Bramante finally decided not to move it, as the process of doing so appeared technically too complicated. This interpolated story served Egidio’s conclusion. The sacred should be placed above the profane, religion above splendour, and piety above ornament. He concluded his rhetorical passage with a quotation: ‘It was not written that the tomb should be built in the temple but the temple above the tomb’.19 Albertini, Conti, Parmenio, Egidio da Viterbo, Burchardus and Paris de Grassis were all eyewitnesses to Julius II’s plans and activities. With different emphases, they transmitted the same idea of Julius’s ambitious renovation of the old basilica, focusing on the new cupola above the tomb of the apostle. The ancient basilica of Saint Peter’s is their point of departure and they mention only the construction of the dome and choir. None reported any proposal to build a new nave, fac¸ade and atrium.

Bramante’s drawings Although traditionally they have been incorporated into the holistic version of the basilica’s rebuilding, the architectural drawings that survive can also be interpreted to show that Julius II favoured only a partial renovation of Saint Peter’s. Probably the most important of these is Uffizi 20A, Donato Bramante’s composite drawing showing various superimposed structures, from 1505 onwards (Fig. 20.1). First, he drew the main outline of Constantine’s basilica. Second, he outlined Nicholas V’s project, which was modified and executed to a limited extent by Paul II, with its extended choir to the west and enlarged transepts to the north and south. The third element 19

For discussion of this text see, for example, Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7); it deserves more extensive analysis. On the obelisk see Osborne, this volume, 274–86.

Epilogue: the antique basilica with a modern dome

Fig. 20.1. Donato Bramante, parts of Old Saint Peter’s, foundations of Nicholas V and Paul II (apse and transept), and designs for new extensions. Red chalk on pieces of paper with a grid, partly cut off, 1505–7, 68.4 × 47.0 cm, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi.

comprises a series of rebuilding projects that took up increasing amounts of the antique nave. Bramante did not draw a complete nave with a new fac¸ade, and related all designs to the old basilica. First, he sketched new piers, aligned with the pre-existing columns. At a later stage he enlarged the piers and added extensions to the south, west and north. In the top corners he sketched elevations. The sheet was cut (in the bottom left corner and right-hand side) and then enlarged with the original pieces of paper glued on to a larger sheet. This composite drawing depicted several ideas for

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the westernmost additions to the transepts and choir, emulating previous attempts initiated by Nicholas V, Paul II and Sixtus IV.20 The composite drawing demonstrates that Bramante was interested in recent history. It shows the antique basilica, an earlier plan for a western extension, and a variety of new ideas for ever more ambitious renovations, all still connected to the existing building. Bramante drew the edifice as it was first built and highlighted the mid-fifteenth-century renovation projects, but he left out intervening projects and additions. The crucial elements in his own vision for the basilica were a crossing with a dome, a monumental apse and large-scale transepts, none of which necessitated the demolition of most of the basilica’s nave, nor of its fac¸ade and atrium. Bramante’s drawing has much in common with laudatory descriptions of Nicholas V’s ideas, primarily that provided by Giannozzo Manetti. This text is a literary exercise rather than a precise record of a building project, and in it Manetti described the ‘long and wide temple’, with its famous columns. To this edifice a new testudo or dome was to be added, crowned with a lantern, with a large tribuna or cappella attached to the western apse.21 The composite drawing is made over a precisely drawn grid that establishes its scale as 1:300.22 It depicts as accurately as possible Bramante’s concern to tie his western additions to the old basilica, which served as his frame of reference. Nevertheless, he provides only a general impression of the possible joins between the antique basilica and its new dome, transepts and apse. The extension relied on thick walls to sustain the roof, vaults and dome. The small apse and the comparatively low exedrae of the old basilica were to be replaced by a monumental structure, rising well above the nave.23 Four rows of eleven to twenty columns were to remain in place, so only a small section of the nave would have had to be demolished. Bramante’s vast parchment plan (Uffizi 1A) clarifies the initial ideas worked out on the composite plan, privileging the proposals for the western extension (Fig. 20.2). He made this plan on a larger scale of 1:150, 20

21

22

23

The complex archaeology and chronology of this sheet, Uffizi 20Ar, has been thoroughly analysed by Thoenes, ‘Neue Beobachtungen’ (above, n. 4), 110–17, 125–6. Important additions and elaborations are provided by Niebaum, ‘Bramante und der Neubau’ (above, n. 13), 87–184. On Manetti and other authors of the mid-fifteenth century, who discussed the restoration and renovation of churches, see Richardson, Reclaiming Rome (above, n. 6), 143–56, 317–421. The squares measure one minuto, that is one-sixtieth of a palmo romano, the conventional unit corresponding to 0.2234 m. One square on the sheet represents 5 × 5 palmi. A. Arbeiter, Alt-St.-Peter in Geschichte und Wissenschaft, Abfolge der Bauten. Rekonstruktion. Architekturprogramm (Berlin, 1988), with the older literature; see also Alfarano, DBVS, 451–92, 515–28, 560; Blaauw, CD, 632–5 and CBCR.

Epilogue: the antique basilica with a modern dome

Fig. 20.2. Donato Bramante, more than half of the western extension to Old Saint Peter’s, 1505. Pen, brown ink and ochre wash on parchment, 54.0 cm × 1.105 m, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi.

sometime between the first drawings of the more modest piers on the composite sheet and its later sketches with the larger piers. He conceived harmoniously designed walls, within an elaborate scheme of interconnected spaces, according to a mathematically ordered system of circles and squares for which he used a grid. To enhance the aesthetic effect he did not indicate scale and measurements, however. The parchment sheet was not a blueprint but a work of art in itself, designed to impress the patron and his advisers.24 It was presumably to be used in conjunction with the first stage of the composite sheet, which did provide the relevant measurements and showed how the new piers aligned with the old nave and its columns. Assuming that the two crossing piers depicted on the parchment plan would be mirrored by a further two to the east, there remained space for about half of Constantine’s nave. Around 1506, Giuliano da Sangallo (c. 1445–1516) produced his first plans to make a symmetrical, centralized church using Bramante’s initial ideas (Fig. 20.3). The size of the building was to be 700 palmi, as noted on Sangallo’s sheet, ‘in tutto canne 70’. This 24

For important interpretations of the parchment plan, see Niebaum, ‘Bramante und der Neubau’ (above, n. 13), 118–26, 131–6 and Satzinger, ‘Die Baugeschichte’ (above, n. 3), 50–1, as well as the publications cited in Kempers, ‘Diverging perspectives’ (above, n. 6). On Bramante, see also J. S. Ackerman, The Cortile Belvedere (Vatican City, 1954).

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Fig. 20.3. Giuliano da Sangallo, centralized church plan, 1506, 40 × 39 cm, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi.

corresponds with the width of Bramante’s plans, but on this drawing the church is completed by mirroring the western portions in the east. Julius II rejected Sangallo’s plan for a centralized church and Bramante corrected his ‘mistake’ on the reverse of his drawing (Uffizi 8Ar and v), sketching several options to connect new and old, suggesting that the relationship between the new extension and the existing nave was yet to be resolved (Fig. 20.4).25 In Bramante’s version, three arms had an ambulatory. For the fourth arm, alternative solutions were taken into consideration, with variations in the preservation of the nave and the building of bays to the east. One of the elevations for Bramante’s extension to the old basilica, elaborating on the pattern of the parchment plan, was included on the obverse of a portrait medal of Julius II (Fig. 20.5). Its most striking element is a huge dome, flanked by towers. Several versions of this medal were made, and Agostino Veneziano made a print after it, which allowed 25

Thoenes, ‘Renaissance Saint Peter’s’ (above, n. 2), 77; Niebaum, ‘Bramante und der Neubau’ (above, n. 13), 136–43, 144–6.

Epilogue: the antique basilica with a modern dome

Fig. 20.4. Donato Bramante, studies of a western extension of Old Saint Peter’s with ambulatories and sketches of San Lorenzo Maggiore and the cathedral of Milan, 1506. Red chalk on paper, 40 × 39 cm, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi.

Fig. 20.5. Cristoforo Foppa (Caradosso), Portrait of Julius II (obverse), Bramante’s design for a new western extension of Saint Peter’s (reverse), gold, silver and bronze medal, 1506, diameter 5.6 cm, British Museum.

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Fig. 20.6. Agostino Veneziano, copy of Bramante’s design for a new western extension of Saint Peter’s, Stick print, c. 1517, diameter 18.9 cm, British Museum.

an even wider audience to become familiar with the projected extension (Fig. 20.6).26 On the medal the basilica is viewed from the west, not from the east, the side of the city and the basilica’s main approach.27 Crucially, in Julius’s building medals the Vatican basilica rises behind unpaved, rough ground that represents the hilly slope that extended to the west and north. The location on the Vatican hill is indicated by the text, VATICANVS M[ONS]. Medals of a later date, showing the eastern fac¸ade, lack such a text referring to the Vatican hill, and have a flat and regular surface in the foreground on which the projected building rises. Above the building appears the text INSTAURACIO TEMPLI S. PETRI. Instauratio is a concept formulated

26

27

For a different view, see, among others, Satzinger, ‘Die Baugeschichte’ (above, n. 3) and Niebaum in his contributions to the catalogue, pp. 75–6. On the medal view, see the extended discussion in Kempers, ‘Diverging perspectives’ (above, n. 6), 214–18.

Epilogue: the antique basilica with a modern dome

by Flavio Biondo in his Roma Instaurata.28 This word usually meant the renovation of an existing structure, and rarely referred to a creation de novo, while the templum sancti Petri in 1506 and throughout the early sixteenth century meant Old Saint Peter’s. Therefore the edifice represented on the medal corresponds to the building proposed in the parchment plan. To the sides of the main dome, secondary domes appear. According to the plan these were half the size of the central dome. In the middle and above the pedimented entrance, presumably into the new choir chapel, the medal shows a dome with a lantern, which reoccurs at the ends of what can only be the transepts. These three domes are conceived as three-quarter domes, like those of Florence cathedral, which, according to the measurements provided by the composite drawings and parchment plan, would have had a diameter of 120 palmi. All Bramante’s drawings deal with western extensions of the existing basilica, none with a completely new edifice. Other sketches reflect his early thoughts on the renovation. Two sketches occur on the other side of the composite sheet.29 A quickly drawn elevation shows a view from the west: a central dome, wide transepts and a semicircular apse in the middle, which is repeated at the ends of the transepts. Using elements from the designs of his colleagues, he went on to develop his architectural concepts right up until the day of his death. Bramante also started work on a three-dimensional model in which various proposals, first rendered in drawings, were to be integrated.30 Several alternatives were considered, which also touched on the fate of the atrium and the Benediction loggia. In a letter, Bramante reported the possibility of its destruction according to a new design for Saint Peter’s.31 But none of the ambitious projects for the eastern side of the basilica was either approved or executed. In the summer of 1507 Julius decided upon a simplified western extension: the apse walls were to be directly attached to the western crossing piers; the ambulatories and the semi-domes were eliminated. At his death, in March 1514, Bramante’s model was far from

28

29 30 31

On Flavio Biondo and Roma Instaurata, see C. Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome (Bloomington, IN, 1985), 62–3, 172. Niebaum, ‘Bramante und der Neubau’ (above, n. 13), 94–9. Niebaum, ‘Bramante und der Neubau’ (above, n. 13), 106–10, 113–15. Niebaum, ‘Bramante und der Neubau’ (above, n. 13), 167–9. The documents of 1507 allow the hypothesis that a more ambitious project, extending into the east, was under consideration, at least on behalf of the architect. Some of the Julian documents allow such a reading, but they never explicitly referred to a plan for a complete new edifice; see Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7).

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finished, as several authors reported.32 His successors continued to struggle with the resolution of the new western extension and the remains of the old basilica.

Conclusion The architects who worked for Julius were all more ambitious than the pope: previous scholarship on the drawings has only obscured the pope’s conservatism. The same story of ambitious architects and pragmatic popes might be told for the next century of the basilica’s existence. On the reverse of the parchment plan (Fig. 20.2), Antonio da Sangallo, who was chief architect at Saint Peter’s from 1520, wrote ‘Pianta di Bramante di Sto. Pietro che non ebbe efetto’. With these words, he indicated the historical fate of this design: it was never used for construction. On the first complete design with a nave, submitted by Fra Giovanni Giocondo, who was appointed in 1513 to assist the aged Bramante, Sangallo noted ‘Opinione e desegnio di fra Giocondo’. In this way, Sangallo indicated that the drawing was to be interpreted as advice from Fra Giocondo, also not followed. Both notes mark the beginning of a new trend. Its focus was architectural design and attribution to individual architects rather than the progress of the project on the ground. Later in life, Antonio da Sangallo relayed more information orally to his son Francesco, who subsequently informed Giorgio Vasari. These three men formed and preserved a collection of architectural drawings devoted to Saint Peter’s and several smaller projects, which later entered the Uffizi in Florence, and which remain the key source for the basilica’s ‘reconstruction’. Sebastiano Serlio established the revised version of events in his series of books on architecture, published from the late 1530s. In his third book on the architecture of antiquity, published in 1540, Serlio did not discuss Constantine’s basilica but, instead, focused on the designs by Bramante, Raphael and Peruzzi. He made Bramante the architectural hero responsible for the rebirth of ancient architecture that ran from the Pantheon to Bramante’s Tempietto. Serlio’s combination of engravings and texts, assertions and suggestions, created a new history for Saint Peter’s, which was represented as a completely new edifice. Serlio was one of Vasari’s sources for his life of Bramante. From 1540 onwards, historical interest focused on complete plans rather than partial renovations. The memory of Constantine’s basilica was 32

Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II.’ (above, n. 7), 129–30.

Epilogue: the antique basilica with a modern dome

gradually marginalized, but returned in due course not in the history of architecture but through the efforts of the important historians and ecclesiastics, Onofrio Panvinio, Cardinal Cesare Baronio, and the canons of Saint Peter’s, Tiberio Alfarano and Giacomo Grimaldi.33 33

I shall deal with the reception from Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo and Serlio to Grimaldi in a separate article. See Alfarano, DBVS; Baronio, AE; Grimaldi, as well as Frommel, ‘Die Peterskirche unter Papst Julius II’ (above, n. 7), 86–91, 131 (included under the date of construction, c. 1505, to which these much later sources refer); Bosman, The Power of Tradition (above, n. 6), 12–13, 100, 107, 120–6, 136; G. Miarelli Mariani, ‘L’antico San Pietro, demolirlo o conservarlo?’, in G. Spagnesi (ed.), L’architettura della basilica di San Pietro: storia e costruzione. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi. Roma, Castel S. Angelo, 7–10 novembre 1995 (Quaderni dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Architettura n.s. 25/30.1995/97) (Rome, 1997), 229–42, C. Jobst, ‘La basilica di S. Pietro e il dibattito sui tipi edili. Onofrio Panvinio e Tiberio Alfarano’, in Spagnesi (above), 243–6, and C. Thoenes, ‘S. Pietro: storia e ricerca’, in Spagnesi (above), 17–23.

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Appendix

Letter of the canons of Saint Peter’s to Paul V concerning the demolition of the old basilica, 1605 carol m. richardson and joanna story

By 1602 the crossing, dome and transepts of the new basilica were complete, and abutted Paul III’s 1538 division wall (Fig. App.1). By this time, only a few parts of the Constantinian basilica survived, namely, the lower part of the nave, the atrium and the easternmost of the two rotundas on the southern flank of the basilica. (The rotunda dedicated to Saint Andrew that was later known as Santa Maria delle Febbre survived in use as the sacristy until the 1770s when it was rebuilt.1 ) A number of factors coincided to seal the fate of the eastern part of the nave and the atrium. The decision to demolish the remains of the Constantinian basilica was as much a matter of papal and architectural ambition as practical necessity. Carlo Maderno had been promoted architect of Saint Peter’s in 1602, on the death of Giacomo della Porta. Maderno had earned a considerable reputation in the workshop of his uncle, Domenico Fontana, who had overseen the successful translocation of the obelisk in 1585 and the completion of the dome in 1588–90; naturally, Maderno also wanted to leave his own mark on the building.2 Paul V Borghese was elected pope on 16 May 1605, and within a month he had established the Congregation of the Fabbrica of Saint Peter’s.3 Discussions about the fate of the old nave quickly came to a conclusion: it was leaning too far out to be saved, despite buttresses erected to help support it. In early September 1605 Mass was being said at the altar of the Madonna della Colonna when part of the cornice crashed to the floor, narrowly missing those below. On 17 September the decision of the Congregation was reported in an ambassadorial report and

With thanks to Aimee Forster, Valerie Scott, Alessandra Giovenco, Beatrice Gelosia and Orietta Da Rold for their help with the transcription and translation. 1

2

3

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J. L. Collins, Papacy and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Rome: Pius VI and the Arts (Cambridge and New York, 2004), 90–2. H. A. Millon, ‘Michelangelo to Marchionni, 1546–1784’, in W. Tronzo (ed.), Saint Peter’s in the Vatican (Cambridge, 2005), 104; P. O. Long, ‘Moving the Vatican obelisk’, in B. A. Curran, A. Grafton, P. O. Long and B. Weiss, Obelisk: a History (Cambridge, MA, 2009), 103–38. L. Rice, The Altars and Altarpieces of New Saint Peter’s (Cambridge, 1997), 34–5.

Appendix: Letter of the canons of Saint Peter’s

App.1. Plan showing the relationship between the Constantinian basilica and Saint Peter’s as completed by Carlo Maderno.

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confirmed in another of 26 September.4 Debates about the future of the basilica continued until 1607 when new foundations for the fac¸ade and nave were laid. The decision to demolish the remains of the Constantinian basilica was not welcomed by the canons of Saint Peter’s. In a well-known letter, most likely dated to September 1605, they wrote to Paul V stating the case for preserving as much of the old structure as possible. The letter, which is reproduced below and translated here in full for the first time, gives important insight into the specific values attached to different sites and altars in the basilica. While the canons quickly recognized that the old building itself could not be saved, they urged the pope to consider what it represented. The letter pressed the pope to do everything he could to accommodate the long traditions and symbols of the old within the new. It condemned the people involved in the demolition of the transepts and crossing at the beginning of the sixteenth century for their focus on the overall structure of the basilica at the expense of the altars, inscriptions and monuments it had contained.5 In the final paragraph the canons begged the pope to ensure that the new building enclosed all the spaces that had lain within the walls of the old basilica, and they included the ‘Portico of the Pontiffs’, as the western side of the atrium was then known, within this sacred space. Their concern was not so much for the fabric of the ancient church but to ensure a seamless translation of the burden of devotion that had accumulated there over a millennium and more. The power of the place was not, in the last resort, embodied by the building itself but in the countless acts of faith that had taken place within its walls. Their request was heeded, and Maderno’s nave extended sufficiently far eastwards to envelop the footprint of the nave and western portico of the old basilica. It was the canons’ desire to enclose the ancient sacred spaces within the new that dictated the final form of the building and exceptional length of the new nave. It was thus that New Saint Peter’s was completed by a basilican nave rather than, for example, the fourth arm of a Greek cross (as shown on the autograph drawing of Alfarano’s famous plan, made in 1571).6 The importance of this principle was restated in the dedicatory 4 5

6

H. Hibbard, Carlo Maderno and Roman Architecture 1580–1630 (London, 1971), 168. See Kempers, this volume, 386–403, for a summary of the evolution in the sixteenth century of the historiography of the building project. Alfarano, DBVS, tav. 2; E. Bentivoglio, ‘Tiberio Alfarano: le piante del vecchio S. Pietro sulla pianta del nuovo edita dal Dup´erac’, in G. Spagnesi (ed.), L’architettura della basilica di San Pietro: storia e costruzione (Rome, 1997), 247–54.

Appendix: Letter of the canons of Saint Peter’s

inscription that Paul V had set over the central portal of the counter-fac¸ade in 1615, which claimed that he had finished the basilica with a ‘mighty annex’, comprising ‘the whole extent of Constantine’s basilica [that was] august with sanctity’.7 The extant copy of the canons’ letter is preserved in the Vatican Library (BAV, Reg. lat. 2100, fols. 104r–v). It is evidently a draft and the fair copy does not survive. It does not carry a date, but its opening comments link it to the events of September 1605. Giacomo Grimaldi was one of the canons of Saint Peter’s at the time and may have been one of the signatories of the letter, or perhaps even its author.8 As archivist of the basilica, he was given the responsibility for documenting the de-consecration of altars in the old basilica from at least 1 October 1605.9 His work, extant in BAV, Barb. lat. 2733, provides a final record of Old Saint Peter’s as it had been known to medieval pilgrims.

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‘ . . . uniuersum constantinianae basilicae ambitum religione uenerabilem’: translation from T. Lansford, The Latin Inscriptions of Rome: a Walking Guide (Baltimore, MD, 2009), 512–13, no. 15.4B, esp. n. 1. Paul V’s inscription was removed and replaced in 1631 with another by Urban VIII, who toned down some of his predecessor’s more exuberant claims. On the latter, see also M. Gani, ‘Plaque with inscription of Paul V’, BSPV, no. 1194. Rice, Altars and Altarpieces (above, n. 3), 36. R. Niggl, ‘Giacomo Grimaldi (1568–1623): Leben und Werk des R¨omischen Arch¨aologen und Historikers’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Munich, 1971).

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Our Most Sacred Lord For the Church of Saint Peter

The Canons and Chapter of Saint Peter, devoted servants of Your Holiness, observing that, due to resolutions made in consistory, the old part of the said church must be demolished due to the danger (so they say) of collapse, driven by the example of the first demolitions made under Julius II, in which, as a result of the negligence of the ministers at that time, they demonstrated that they had more regard for the exterior of the structure than for the spiritual and divine cult of the interior. With the ruination of that part, for years many bequests represented by altars and good works were damaged, not only those of supreme and sainted pontiffs; but of cardinals, lords and various pious persons, with much injury to the divine cult. [Being] most eager to conserve as much as possible those that remain in the old part, and to satisfy in some way the obligation due to them, with all humility and reverence to Your Holiness, some of them are brought to your attention [here]. Beseeching that all that is possible is maintained of the ancient veneration and adornment of that church, and [therefore] of the devotion of the people and of all of Christianity, since it is an example to which all the others turn, the remnants being looked after, if such things please you, to order the ministers of the Fabbrica, that with mature council they should have such consideration as is befitting, and after the report that should be made to you, they should receive your command to carry it out in the way that would please you and not otherwise. Firstly, in the old church of Saint Peter before its demolition there were eighty-seven altars, with diverse oratories inside, constructed, embellished and endowed by different popes, and other very pious people, the majority of which completely disappeared as a result of the aforesaid demolition, because the monuments and inscriptions which were there were also ruined, along with the walls, and this has caused those who had particular devotion to the aforementioned church to become alienated as a result of this example, seeing that the aforementioned memorials and their donations that in different times were made to that church were held in little regard. Now there remain in the old part twenty altars, the majority of which have their chaplains with different obligations to celebrate mass, and a number are under the patronage of different families, each of which should be transferred to a particular place and altar, along with their appropriate titles and images, where those chaplains ordinarily carried out their obligations, having concern for the type of the titles to assign a proportionate space to each. In this way in the church of Saint Peter as the universal example one may see things organized and set out to conform to the sacred ecclesiastical rites and ancient traditions of the Fathers.

Appendix: Letter of the canons of Saint Peter’s

Santissimo Domino Nostro Per la Chiesa di San Pietro

Li Canonici et Capitolo di San Pietro deuotissimi serui di Vostra Santit`a Vedendo che per risolutione fatta nel Concistoro, si deue demolire la parte vecchia della detta Chiesa, per il pericolo (come dicono) di rouina, spinti dall’essempio che hanno della prima demolitione fatta sotto Guilio Secondo, nella quale per negligentia dei ministri di quel tempo, che mostrorno hauere hauuto pi`u risguardo all’esteriore della struttura, che all’ interiore dello spirituale, e culto diuino; con la rouina di quella parte, furono anes rouinate molte segnalate memorie di Altari et Benifattori, non solo de’Sommi e Santi Pontefici; ma di Cardinali, Signori et diuerse pie persone, con molto pregiudicio di esso culto diuino, desiderosissimi di conseruare quanto pi`u sia possibile quelle che in detta parte vecchia restano, et per sodisfare in qualche parte al debito loro, con ogni humilt`a et riuerenza rapresentano a Vostra Santit`a alcune di esse, Supplicandola che per mantenere, in tutto quello che si puo, l’antica veneratione et decoro di detta Chiesa, et la deuotione del popolo et di tutto il Christianismo, poi che a quella si ricorre come all’essemplare di tutte l’altre, resti seruita, se cosi gli piacer`a, ordinare alli ministri della fabrica, che con maturo consilio vi habbino quella consideratione che conuiene, e dopo la relatione che sene dour`a fare a lei, riceuano il suo commandamento per esseguirlo nel modo che a lei piacer`a ordinare, et non altrimente. Prima nella Chiesa vecchia di San Pietro auanti la sua demolitione erano Altari al numero di Ottanasette, con diuersi oratorii all’intorno fabricati, ornati et dotati da diuersi sommi Pontifici, et altri signori di molta piet`a, la maggiore parte di quali con detta demolitione e` andata in obbliuione, per che con i muri furono anco rouinati i muonumenti et scritture che ori si trouauano, il che ha cagionato che tutti quelli che haueuano particolare deuotione alla detta Chiesa con quell’ essempio si andorno alienando, vedendo il poco conto che vi fu tenuto di dette memorie, et dei beneficii che in diuersi tempi erano stati fatti alla detta Chiesa. Hora ristauano nella parte uecchia Altari in numero di vinti, la maggior parte di quali hanno li suoi Capillani con diuersi oblighi di celebrare Messe, et alcuni sono di Patronato di diuerse famiglie, ciascuno de quali si douria transferire in luogo et Altare particolare, col suo proprio titolo, et Imagine doue ordinatamente li detti Capillani potissero esseguire li oblighi loro, hauendo consideratione alla qualit`a dei Titoli, per assegnare luogo proportionato a` ciascuno: acci`o nella Chiesa di San Pietro per l’essempio vniuersale si vedano le cose ordinate et disposte conforme alli sacri Riti ecclesiastici, et traditioni antiche de’ Padri.

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Secondly, there are seven altars with particular privileges of indulgence, of which their old dedications might be worth continuing, to maintain in the people the ancient devotions written and printed in so many books that are widespread in all Christendom. Thirdly, in the said old part [of the church] there was a holy image of Our Lady, which, for the many miracles that God made through the image to the benefit of women, was named the ‘pregnant Saint Mary’.10 Now demolished, the image from the aforementioned altar, which was taken to a certain room in the building, should be placed in its own altar to conserve the same devotion; just as the other image that was called ‘Saint Mary of Succour’11 was transferred and located in the Gregorian Chapel by Gregory XIII, of sacred memory. Fourthly, being obliged to transfer all the relics which are displayed to the people to particular places near the high altar of the Apostles,12 it would be good if the place was visited by order of Your Holiness, not only to assure the safety of such, but also decency and suitability or convenience, it being the opinion of many pious and religious persons that for a number of reasons they may be much better in places outside the wall and niche, to make a small ciborium (according to the space available) of marbles separated from the walls, within which they would be conserved, as has been done in all the ancient churches of Rome; and particularly the most holy image of the Holy Face,13 fearing that remaining enclosed within these walls would be to its considerable detriment. Fifthly, all the supreme pontiffs choosing to make all the principal Apostolic functions in the aforementioned church – such as the canonization of saints, the coronation of emperors and kings, the arbitration and reconciliation of the same, and other similar functions – and because from the ancient pontiffs special locations were prescribed, where certain particular ceremonies might take place prior to the said functions, it would be necessary to renew all the aforementioned memorials in appropriate places, to preserve

10

The image of the ‘pregnant Saint Mary’ or ‘in partibus’ was originally in the transept and under the patronage of the Orsini family. It was moved to the left-hand side of the door in Paul III’s division wall of 1538 between the old and new basilicas in the altar of Saint John the Baptist that was consecrated in 1576: Alfarano, DBVS, 42–3, 49 n. 2, 51 n. 2, 63, 95 n. 2, 184, 187; Grimaldi, 66–8, 138. 11 The thaumaturgic icon of ‘Our Lady of Succour’ was in the oratory of Leo I. It was moved over the altar of the Cappella Gregoriana in 1578: Alfarano, DBVS, 94; Grimaldi, 233, 406; Rice, Altars and Altarpieces (above, n. 3), 25–7.

Appendix: Letter of the canons of Saint Peter’s

Secondo, vi sono li sitte Altari con particolare priuelegio dell’Indulgenze, quali potendosi continuare nei Titoli vecchii pareria di molta conuenienza, per mantenere nel popolo la deuotione antica scritta et impressa in tanti libri, che sono sparti per tutto il Christianesmo. Terto, nella detta parte vecchia era vna deuotissima imagine di Nostra Signora, quale per molti miracoli che Dio operaua per detta imagine in beneficio dei parti delle donne, f`u intitolata Sancta Maria Pregnantium,10 essendo hora stato demolito detto Altare, quella imagine e` stata portata in certa stanza della fabrica, si douria riporre in vn’altare proprio per conservare la medesima deuotione; come l’altra imagine che si chiamaua Sancta Maria de Succursu11 fu transferita et locata nella Capella Gregoriana da Gregorio XIII° fe. me. Quarto, douendosi transferire tutte le Reliquie che si mostrano al populo in luoghi particolari vicino all Altare maggiore delli Apostoli,12 saria bene che fosse visitato il luogo per ordine della Santit`a Vostra, non solo per vedere la sicurezza di esso; ma anco la decentia et conuenienza, essendo opinione di molte persone Religiose et pie, che per l’uno et l’altro rispetto potesse essore molto meglio nei luoghi destinati fuora del muro et nicchio, fare un piccolo ciborio (secondo il sito che vi e` ) di marmi separato da i muri, dentro al quale si conseruattero, come si vede che hanno fatto tutti li antichi nelle Chiese vecchie di Roma; et particolarmente la Santissima Imagine del Volto Santo,13 dubitandosi che per stare rinchiusa dento quei muri, sia per riceuere notabile detrimento. Quinto, sogliono tutti li Sommi Pontifici nella detta Chiesa fare tutte le funtioni principali Apostoliche, come Canonizationi de’Santi, Coronationi d’Imperatori e Regi, Abiurationi e Reconciliationi dei medemi, et altre simili: et perci`o dalli Pontefici antichi furono ordinati luoghi singolari, doue si facessoro certe particolari cerimonie precedenti alle dette funtioni, saria necessario rinouare tutte le dette memorie in luoghi proprii, per conseruare ancora in questo la dignit`a di detta Chiesa, come per esempio l’Altare

12 Presumably

the four massive piers which hold up the dome, containing the relics of the lance of Saint Longinus, the veil of Saint Veronica, the true cross of Saint Helena and the head of the apostle Andrew. 13 The veil of Saint Veronica, or the sudarium, one of the basilica’s most important relics, kept in the oratory of John VII, along with the relic of the lance of Saint Longinus. Alfarano, DBVS, 194; see van Dijk, this volume, 229–56.

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further by these means the dignity of the said church, as for example in the case of the altar of Saint Maurice,14 where the emperors and kings were anointed that were to be crowned, [but which] at present cannot be found, having been ruined in the first demolition. And the church or altar of Saint Mary ‘inter Turres’ that was in front of the atrium of the church, where each of the same emperors was received by the Chapter of the Canons of Saint Peter with particular ceremony before the coronation; for this and other reasons when the coronation took place outside Rome, as was last done for Charles V in Bologna, the plan of the church of Saint Peter was sent to order the said ceremonies in their correct places, and there were also sent four Canons of Saint Peter with the proxy of the Chapter to the same end.15 Sixthly, since the church of Saint Peter is the rightful location of the burial of supreme pontiffs, some of which now have more modern memorials, where the Sacred College gathers on the Day of the Dead after chapel to go to make particular orations,16 the said memorials should be transferred to decent and convenient places in the new church, in such a way that, not only are they conserved, but also the same said pious ceremony of the Sacred College to the edification of all the people. Seventhly, before carrying out the demolition, for the respect and reverence of the floor of the church [which is] so celebrated and revered, because of the blood and bodies of so many saints who are believed to have been martyred and buried there, that for this [reason] where there are certain porphyry stones,17 the so-called ‘pools’ of the martyrs, confessors and virgins, they should be covered in some way with wood, so that they might not suffer injury from the said ruins and rubble from the works to the disgust of the people.18 And before the roof is opened, it must be seen to

14

See Fletcher, this volume, 371–85. K. Eisenbichler, ‘Charles V in Bologna: the self-fashioning of a man and a city’, Renaissance Studies 13 (1999), 430–9; B. Schimmelpfennig, ‘The two coronations of Charles V at Bologna, 1530’, in J. R. Mulryne and E. Goldring (eds.), Court Festivals of the European Renaissance: Art, Politics and Performance (Aldershot, 2002), 137–52. 16 On these celebrations for All Souls Day on 2 November 1485, see J. Burchard, Johannis Burckardi Liber Notarum: ab Anno MCCCCLXXXIII usque ad Annum MDVI, E. Celani (ed.) (RIS 32 parts 1–3) (Citt`a di Castello, 1910–42), 1:122. Vespers for the dead were held during the evening of 1 November and a public Mass celebrated the next day, including a sermon. For subsequent years see 1486 (166), 1487 (209), 1488 (240), 1489 (280–2) etc. 15

Appendix: Letter of the canons of Saint Peter’s

di San Mauritio,14 dove si vngevano gl’Imperatori et Regi che dovevano essere coronati, al presente non si troua, essendo stato rovinato nella prima demolitione. E la Chiesa o Altare di Santa Maria inter Turres ch’era auanti l’atrio della Chiesa, doue ciascuno dei medemi Imperatori auanti la coronatione con particolare cerimonia si riceuaua del Capitolo in Canonicum Santi Petri: che per questi et altri rispetti facendosi la coronatione fuori di Roma, come l’vltima di Carlo Quinto in Bologna, f`u mandato il desegno della Chiesa di San Pietro per ordinare le dette cerimonie a i suoi luoghi proprii, et vi furono anco mandati quattro Canonici di San Pietro per il medemo effetto con procura del Capitolo.15 Sesto, essendo la Chiesa di San Pietro luogo proprio della sepoltura de’Sommi Pontifici, de’quali hoggi si vedono alcune memorie pi`u moderne, dove suole il Sacro Collegio nel giorno de’ Morti dopo la Capella andare a fare orationi particolari,16 si potria transferirui le dette memorie in luoghi commodi et decenti nella Chiesa nuoua, acci`o non solo si conseruino le medema ancora la sudetta pia cerimonia del Sacro Collegio con molta edificatione di tutto il Popolo. Settimo, Prima che si faccia la demolitione, per decenza et riuerenza del pauimento della Chiesa tanto celebre et deuoto, per il sangue e corpi di tanti santi, che si crede esserui stati martirizati e sepolti, che per ci`o doue sono certe pietre porfiretiche17 si dicono pozzi di Martiri, Confessori, e Vergini, si potria coprirlo in qualche maniera con legnami, acci`o non sottogiaccia all’ingiuria di detta rouina et macerie di fatti con scandolo del popolo.18 Et prima che sia scoperto il tetto, si douria prouedere che l’acqua

17 Grimaldi,

141. The blood red colour of the porphyry led to these slices of spolia columns inlaid into the floor being known as ‘pools of the martyrs’ blood’. 18 This may be a reference to ongoing concerns. In 1554 Giacomo Ercolano, a cleric of the basilica, wrote that ‘the small part of the old church that had been left for the holy offices and the divine cult . . . was reduced to a public street with carts and beasts of burden introduced without any respect, buffaloes and other animals, using it as a workshop for sculptors and carpenters’, from Archivio della Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano 4, 258, c.258r, cited in V. Lanzani, The Vatican Grottoes (Roma sacra 26–7) (Vatican City, 2003), 3.

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that the water from rain has an exit, so as not to permit rot and other bad effects. Eighthly, for all the aforementioned reasons, we beg Your Holiness, that as it is the right thing to do, particular consideration is made that the new design of the remaining part of this church is made and arranged in a manner that in its area it includes all the old part, and, if it is possible, the portico as well, in which, because of particular memorials and very ancient inscriptions, one finds that there are more than twenty supreme pontiffs buried there, some of whom are held to be saints, and for this reason it is called the Portico of the Pontiffs.

Appendix: Letter of the canons of Saint Peter’s

della pioggia habbia essito, per non dare occasione di putredine et altri cattiui effetti. Ottauo, per tutti li sudetti rispetti, si supplica Vostra Santit`a, che come cosa di molta conuenienza faccia hauere particolare consideratione, che il nuouo disegno del restante di essa Chiesa sia fatto et disposto di maniera, che nel suo ambito includa tutta la detta parte vecchia, e si e` possibile il portico ancora, nel quale per memorie particolari e scritture antichissime si trova che sono sepolti oltre vinti Sommi. Pontifici, alcuni de’quali si tengono per Santi, che per ci`o si chiamaua il Portico dei Pontefici.

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465

Index

Aachen, 257, 259 inscription, 259 Abgar, king of Edessa, 244, 254 acheiropoieta, 230–1, 237, 246 in Saint Peter’s basilica, 237 Lateran, 232 Fig. 12.3, 233, 237, 239, 241 see also icons; Mandylion; Venice, Bibl. Marciana, MS gr. 573 Achilleus, bishop of Spoleto, 148 Acta Cyriaci, 186 Acts of Pilate, 243 Acts of the Apostles, 33 ad sanctos, burial, 327 Adelheid, daughter of Charlemagne, 271 Adriatic Sea, 28 adventus, 28, 30, 33, 185 Agapetus, saint, 228 Agatho (678–81), pope, 159 Agaune, martyrs of, 376 Agnes, empress, 5 Agnes, saint, 2, 228 Akathistos hymn, 200, 202–3 Alaric the Goth, 96, 146 Alberti, Leon Battista, 338 Albertini, Francesco, 332 Opusculum de Mirabilibus Novae et Veteris Urbis Romae, 390–2 Albina, sister of Lampadius, 24 Alcuin, 229, 259 Alexander II (1061–73), pope, 327 Alexander III (1159–81), pope, Lateran acheiropoieta, 241 Dedication of Petrus Mallius, Descriptio Basilicae Vaticanae, 242 Alexander VI (1492–1503), pope, 196, 279, 327 Alexandria, 228, 339 Alfarano, Tiberio, 51, 196, 263, 312, 403 and Liber Pontificalis, 87 plan of Saint Peter’s basilica, 10, 12, 18–20, 183, 196, 263, 376, 383 position of baptistery, 85–6, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94 All Saints, 14, 266, 346, 347 cult at Saint Peter’s basilica, 177, 188–9

oratory at Saint Peter’s basilica, 154 alms, 32 altar cloth, 268–9 Amalarius of Metz, 160 Ammianus Marcellinus, 21, 24, 27, 138 Anacletus II (1130–8), pope, 6, 313 Anastasia, Roman matron, 85 Anastasia, wife of Marinianus, 149 Anastasius I (399–401), pope, 145 Anastasius III (911–13), pope, 327 Anastasius Bibliothecarius, 104, 237, 305 destruction of icon at Saint Peter’s, 237 Ancona, Ciriaco d’, 368–70 Andaloro, Maria, 190, 247, 248 Andrew, saint, brother of Saint Peter, 261, 264 relic of the head of, 343 rotunda, 262, 264, 283 Anicii, Roman family, 28, 124n. 18, 130, 143 annona, 27 Annunciation of the Lord (Adnuntiatio Domini, 25 March), 13 mass for feast at Saint Peter’s, 177–8, 179–84 anointing/anointment, 378, 379, 380, 382 Anonymous Florentine, plan of, 122 Anonymus Valesianus, 26–7, 30 Anthemius, emperor, 32 Antioch, 339 Apollo, temple of, 391 Vatican cult of, 179 Apostoleion, Constantinople, 125, 129 Apostolic succession, 265, 326, 337, 339, 345 Aquileia cathedral, 63, 88 Arabs, 185 Arator, 33 Arbeiter, Achim, 92 Arcadius, emperor, 30, 128 Arch of Arcadius, Honorius and Theodosius II, 30–1 mausoleum, 129, 141–2 archicantator, 153, 159 see also John the Archcantor/Archchanter Ariadne ivory (Florence, Bargello Museum), 199

467

468

Index

aristocracy, Christian, 120 see also Anicii family Arles mint, 48 Arn, archbishop of Salzburg, 261 Asella, daughter of Albina, 24 Athalaric, king of the Goths, 32 Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, 63 Athaulf, Gothic ruler, 31, 116 Attalus, prefect of Rome, 146 Augustine, bishop of Hippo, 144 Augustus, Roman emperor, mausoleum, 115 Aurelian, Roman emperor, 27 walls of, 2 Aurelius Victor, 96 authority, papal, 225, 227–8 Autun, Saint-Martin, 316n. 43 Averlino, Antonio see Filarete Avignon, 328, 329, 337, 338, 339, 380n. 36 exile in, 328, 329, 338–9 popes, 8 Ballardini, Antonella, xx, 14 baptism, 265, 269, 271 baptistery, 263, 266–7 Barbo, Cardinal Marco, 342, 345 Barbo, Cardinal Pietro, 326, 334, 335, 340, 341, 342, 343, 345, 346–7 see also Pope Paul II Baronio, Cesare, 42–3, 403 Basel, Council of (1431), 352 Basilica Constantiniana see San Giovanni in Laterano Basilica Eudoxiana see San Pietro in Vincoli Bassus, Anicius Auschenius, consul in Rome, 147n. 49 Bassus, Junius, prefect of Rome, 112, 130, 139–40, 144 burial of, 3, 130 Baths of Agrippa, 321, 321 Bede, 143, 159 Belisarius, 100 Bell, Catherine, 375 Beltramo di Martino da Varese, 331 Benedict Biscop, 183 Benedict III (855–8), pope, 94, 104 Benedict IV (900–3), pope, 327 Benedict VI (973–4), pope, 327 Benedict VIII (1012–24), pope, 327 Benedict of Sant’Andrea in Monte Soratte, Chronicle, 243, 245 Benedict, saint, 168 Benedictine monks, 347 Rule, 158

Benedictus Canonicus, Ordo of 1143, 242 benefaction, Roman imperial, 132–3 Bertelli, Carlo, 203 Bethlehem, relics of, at Rome, 178 biography, serial, 96 Biondo, Flavio, 362–3, 368 Roma Instaurata, 401 Blaauw, Sible de, 151, 203, 216, 219, 225, 332 Blachernae Sanctuary, 198 Blachernitissa iconography, 199, 202 Black Death, 8 black marble see marble Bolgia, Claudia, 15, 226–8, 237 Bologna, Nello de, 334 Bonifacio, Natale, 20 Boniface II (530–2), pope, 97 Boniface IV (608–15), pope, 276, 328 Boniface VI (896), pope, 327 Boniface VIII (1294–1303), pope, 327, 328 Boniface IX (1389–1404), pope, 327, 329 Boniface, saint, 170 Bordi, Guilia, 213 Borgo, 28, 33, 329, 331 English, 100 Borgo, Francesco de, 334 Borgolte, Michael, 105 Boron, Robert de, 242 Bosman, Lex, xx, 11, Botarea, 102 Bowersock, Glen, 23n. 5, 36, 42 Bracciolini, Poggio, 355, 381, 382 Bramante, Donato, 9–10, 283, 325, 386–7, 393 corridio, 391 drawings of plans for rebuilding Saint Peter’s basilica, 386, 394–9 and Figs. 20.1–3, 401–2 intentions, 388 medallion of Julius II, 399–400 Fig. 20.5 Zentralbau, 386 Brandenburg, Hugo, 82, 85, 87 Brandt, Olof, xx, 12 Brenk, Beat, 73 brick stamps, 42–4, 284 Brown, Peter, 21 building material, 73–5, 77–8 laws concerning, 77 bulla, 121 burial, ad sanctos, 4 imperial, at Saint Peter’s basilica, 125–6, 129, 131 papal, 3, 98, 105–17, 130–1, 134, 326–8 politics of, 10, 16

Index

practices in Rome, 110 Roman elite at Saint Peter’s, 131 Burroughs, Charles, 330, 334, 339 Byzantine emperors, coronation of, 337 Caecina Basilius, patrician, 124, 151 Calandrini, Cardinal Filippo, 335 Calendar of 354, 140 Caligula, emperor, 281–2 Callixtus I (217–22), pope, 108, 114, 117 cemetery of, 111 Callixtus II (1119–24), pope, 379, 380 Callixtus III (1455–8), pope, 327 Campus Martius, 33 Cannell, Fenella, 375 canons of Saint Peter’s, 403 Capella Magna, Vatican, 326 Caracalla baths, 70 cardinal archpriests of papal basilicas, 340, 343–4, 346 Fig. 17.7 dress, 334 cardinal nephews (nipote), 335, 340, 342 Carloman, brother of Charlemagne, 270 Carloman, brother of Pippin III, Frankish mayor of the palace, 101 Carolingians, 257–8, 269–70, 273 Carpiceci, Alberto, 35, 45, 54 Marco, 191 Cascioli, Giuseppe, 306, 313 Castel Sant’ Angelo, 275, 278, 353, 369 Castiglione, Baldasare, 66 Cathedra Petri, 7, 32, 376, 382, 385 feast of (22 February), 134, 140, 145, 148 Cecchelli, Margherita, 85 Cecilia, saint, 103, 301, 302 Ceionii Rufii, Roman family, 24 Fig. 1.2 Ceionius Rufius Volusianus, son of Lampadius, 24 Celestine III (1191–8), pope, 206 ciborium of, 229 Fig. 12.1, 237–9 Celestine IV (1241), pope, 327 Cellini, Cristo Blanco, 314 cemetery ad catacumbas see Via Appia Ceolfrid, abbot of Wearmouth, 183 ceometeria, 146 Cerdano, Antonio, 338 ceremony of the burning flax (caeremonia combustionis stipulae), 337 Cesarini, Cardinal Giuliano, 342 Chadwick, Henry, 111 Chalke Gate see Constantinople chancery, papal, 97n. 8

Charlemagne, king of the Franks and Lombards, emperor, 5, 7, 30, 181, 253n. 69, 254, 258–60, 266, 266–71, 312, 376, 381 conquers Lombard kingdom, 270–1 coronation in Rome, 7, 101, 179, 272 Fig. 13.3, 273, 311 magnus epithet, 271–3 monogram, 259 promises to pope, 270 Charles the Bald, king of the Franks, 6, 376 Charles the Younger, son of Charlemagne, 270, 272 baptism, 271 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, coronation of, 8 Chavasse, Antoine, 181, 186 child-emperors, 127–9 Christ (Saviour), dedication to, 216, 220 Christ, images of images of, 215, 230–1, 234, 237, 241–56 and Figs. 12.9–10 Clipeate, 250–2 Hadrian I and, 234, 246–7, 249–50, 252, 253–4 Paul I and, 221–2 Porta Argentea in, 350, 357–9 Figs. 18.6–7, 360–1, 366 in Saint Peter’s, 233, 234, 237, 246, 247, 249, 256 in San Marco, 227 in San Paolo fuori le mura, 247, 249 in Santa Maria Antiqua, 248, 249 Fig. 12.8 in Santa Maria Maggiore, 248, 250, 252 in Santa Prassede, 224 see also icons; Lateran acheiropoieta; Mandylion; Veronica (image) Christ, liturgical celebration of Incarnation, 178, 180 Incarnation and Passion on, 25 March, 180, 181, 182, 183 tomb of, 58–60 Christern, J¨urgen, 90 Christmas (25 December) celebration, 178, 179 Chrysopolis, battle of (324), 38, 40, 57, 62 ciborium, 237–8 Fig. 12.6, 333 Fig. 17.4 of Pope Celestine III 191, 206 Cimitile, Basilica dei Santi Martiri, 316 Circus of Nero, 326 Claudian, 33 Clement I (92–9), pope, 108 Clement VIII (1592–1605), pope, 52 Cletus (c. 79–c. 92), pope, 105 Clipeate see Christ, images

469

470

Index

Clovis king of the Franks, 100 Codex Theodosianus, 77, 110 collectae, 150–1 Colonna, Roman family, 9, 329 Colonna Santa, 217 Columbanus, saint, 168 columns, 331 base, 69 black marble, 198–9 twisted, 198, 199, 217, 219, 246 conciliar crisis, 338–9 Condulmer, Cardinal Francesco, 335 Condulmer, Cardinal Gabriele, see Eugenius IV, 341 confessio of Saint Peter, 163, 222, 263 see also Saint Peter’s basilica consecrations of popes, 103–4 at Lateran, 104 Constance, Council of (1415), 329 Constans, Roman emperor, 41–2, 43, 44, 57, 60, 63 brick stamps, 63 inscription of, 57 Constans II, Byzantine emperor, 100 Constantia, empress, 125–6 Constantina, daughter of Constantine I, 2, 146 Constantine (768), antipope, 103–4 Constantine I, Roman emperor, 2, 5, 11–12, 28, 30, 109, 117, 138–40, 186, 215, 264, 320, 386 Arch of, 41, 66, 74–5, 79 benefactions of to Saint Peter’s, 37–8, 61–2 brick stamps, 42–4 building techniques, 50n. 36 builds Martyrium in Jerusalem, 58, 62 builds Saint Peter’s, 2, 115 burial, 125 donation of, 318, 321, 322 family, 146–7 founder of Saint Peter’s, 39–41 fresco, 5 gift of columns, 217 and Helena, gold cross of, 37, 38, 57, 62 inscription, 57, 323 patron, 77, 79 sons of, 23 visits to Rome, 124n. 124 Constantine II, Roman emperor, 42, 63 Constantine V, Byzantine emperor, 220, 248 Constantine VI, Byzantine emperor, 202, 252–4, 320 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Byzantine emperor, 245

Constantine, Arch of see Constantine I Constantinople, 13, 177, 178, 180, 215, 219–20, 339 Chalke Gate, 31 Hagia Sophia in, 219–20 patriarch of, 216, 223 Rome’s competition with, 126, 129 templon of, 219–20 Constantius I, emperor, 41, 125n. 26 Constantius II, emperor, 39, 41–42, 58, 141 building techniques, 50n. 36 Constitutum Constantini, 321–2 Conti, Sigismondo dei, 392 Conti, Stefano, 318 Cooper, Kate, 111, 114 Cornelius Gallus, Roman prefect, 281 Cornelius and Cyprian, saints, mass of, 188 Cornelius (251–3), pope, 108, 110, 111 coronation, imperial, 7, 15, 352, 360, 366, 373, 377, 378–81 and Table 19.1, 382, 384 papal, 335, 337 Correr, Cardinal Angelo see Gregory XII Correr, Antonio, 341, 342 Cosmas and Damian, saints, 224 cross, gold, of Helena, 57, 62, 323 gold, in Saint Peter’s, 38, 40 silver, 6 Cross, Holy, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93, 94, 263 chapel of at Saint Peter’s basilica, 177 in Constantinople, 185 feast of Finding of (3 May), 186–7 feast of Exaltation of (14 September), 13, 184, 185–7, 301 at Lateran, 93 relic of, 13, 184–6 crucifix, 307 Carolingian, 315–16 Escorial, 314 Florence, Santo Spirito, 314 Freiburg cathedral, 307, 309, 310 Naples, San Giovanni Maggiore, 314, 315 Pavia, San Michele, from Santa Maria Teodote, 307, 308, 309, 310 Piacenza, San Savino, 314, 315 Vercelli, Sant’Eusebio, 307, 309, 310 crucifix in stucco, 307–23, 308 Fig. 16.2, 317 Fig. 16.5, Plates 12, 13 copy in silver, 310 cubicularii, 150–1, 152 cult, imperial, 116 Cura Santitatis Tiberii, 243–4, 245 curia, 358 Curran, John, 138

Index

cursus in papal chancery, 97n. 8 monastic, 159, 163, 164 Roman, 159, 164 Curzi, Gaetano, 312 custos, custodes, 140–1 Cybele, cult of, 23, 24 Sanctuary of (Phrygianum), 23–4 see also Ostia Cyriacus of Ancona, 84 Dalmata, Giovanni, 346 Damasus I (366–84), pope, 37, 86, 89, 91, 92, 110, 114, 145, 155 baptistery inscriptions, 82–5 Dante, 277 Davies, Douglas, 374 De locis sanctis, 4 Deichmann, F. W., 63, 72, 78 Deipara, 202 Denis, saint, 302–3 Depositio Martyrum, 140 Descriptio Basilicae Vaticanae, 91 Deshusses, Jean, 181 Desiderius, king of the Lombards, 101, 270–1 Deusdedit, shoemaker, 25 Dibenedetto, Giovanni, 191 Dijk, Ann van, xx, 11, 14 Diocletian, Roman emperor, baths, 69 Dionysio-Hadriana, 271 Dionysius (260–8), pope, 303 diplomacy, 100 Divine Office, 159–60 doges, of Venice, tombs of, 345 Domitian, Roman emperor, 115 Domitilla, catacomb, 221 domus of the dead, 39 domusculta Capracorum, 27n. 20 Donation of Constantine, 318, 321, 323 see also Constitutum Constantini donor images, 317 Duchesne, Louis, 88 Duffy, Eamon, 375 Dyer, Joseph, 224 Easter, 145, 182, 183 see Pascha Annotina Egeria, pilgrim, 58 Einhard, Vita Karoli, 259 elections, papal, 102 Ember weeks, 172, 175 Emerick, Judson, 179 emperors, burial places of, 115 Holy Roman, 376, 377

Enmann Kaisergeschichte, 96 Ephesus, temple of Diana, 391 episcopia, 3, 152 Esquiline hill, 344 Estouteville, Cardinal Guillaume d’, 340, 344–5 Eucher, bishop of Lyon, 376 Eugenius I (654–7), pope, 104 Eugenius III (1145–53), pope, 327 Eugenius IV (1431–47), pope, 15, 327, 329, 330, 334, 335, 340, 341, 342, 343, 348, 349, 351 Fig. 18.3, 355, 381 coat of arms, 359, 360, crowns crowns Sigismund emperor, 353 kneeling to receive keys Plate 15 on Lateran, 339 narrative reliefs, 365n. 33 Euphemia, saint, 220 Eusebius, 36, 58, 61 Historia Ecclesiastica, 36, 243 on pilgrims, 2 Theophania, 36 Vita Constantini, 36 Eusebius, imperial eunuch, 140 Eutherius, prefect (?) of Rome, 141 Eutropius, 96 Eutychius, exarch of Ravenna, 217, 219 Evangeliary, 167 Exaltation of Holy Cross, feast of see Cross, Holy Faltonia Proba, wife of Probus, 143 feast days see Easter; Peter’s Chair; Mary, saint Felicissimus, saint, 228 Felix I (269–74), pope, 97 Felix II (355–65), pope, 97, 302, 303, 305 Felix III (483–92), pope, 112 Ferdinand III, 385 fermentum, 146 Ferrara-Florence, Council of (1438–42), 350 Ferrua, Antonio, 83 Fiesole Mino da, 345, 346 Filarete, Antonio Averlino, 116, 199, 381, 348–70 bronze doors of Saint Peter’s, 348–70, Plate 15 Filocalus, 85 Fioravante, Aristotele, 333 Flavius Filippus, imperial architect, 142 flax burning ceremony, 337 Fletcher, Catherine, 15 Florence, cathedral, 391 Fontana, Domenico, 280, 281 Fig. 14.4 Formosus (891–4), pope, 327

471

472

Index

Forum of Augustus, 79 fossores, 110 Fouquet, Jean, 272, 381, Plate 10 Fouquet, Nicolas, 330 Fra Angelico, 330 France, 328, 342 Francesca, Piero della, 344 Francesco del Borgo, 334 Francia, 258, 259 Franklin, Carmen Vircillo, xxi, 14 Frazer, A. K., 197 Frederick I Barbarossa Holy Roman emperor, 322, 377 Frederick III, Holy Roman emperor, 381 coronation of (1452), 8 Freiburg, B¨ocklinkreuz, 307, 309, 310 Frommel, C., 10, 325n. 3, 330 Fulrad, abbot of Saint Denis, 101 funerals, imperial clergy in, 15 papal, 336–8 Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, 149 Galla Placidia, Roman empress, 31, 116, 121, 123, 123, 132n. 58, 133 burial, 121, 131, 133 mausoleum in Ravenna, 123n. 17 writes to Theodosius II, 134 Gallican liturgy, 177 Gaspare da Verona, 341 Gelasius I (492–6), pope, 97, 175 Gem, Richard, xxi, 12, 139, 248 Gennaccari, Cristina, 313 Gesta Innocentii III, 239 Gesta Liberii, 85, 86, 89, 94 Gesta Martyrum, 301 gifts, 257–8, 266–8, 269, 271 from Carolingian kings, 258, 266–9 Gill, Meredith, 344, 346 Gillett, Andrew, 124 Giocondo, Giovanni, 402 Giotto, 8 Giovanni, Antonello di, 334 Gisela, daughter of Charlemagne, 269 Glass, Robert, xxi, 15, 329 Godescalc Evangelistary, 270 Golgotha, 323 Goths, 30–1, 33 attack on Rome (410), 3 Gozzoli, Benozzo, 344 Grado, Sant’Eufemia, 88 Grassis, Paris de, 392, 394 Gratiam tuam, 184 Gratian, Roman emperor, 31, 126, 127

Arch of Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I, 31 burial of, 126 co-emperor, 127 Gregorian Reform, 321 Gregorius, Master, 285 Gregory I (590–604), pope, 3, 25, 26, 52, 97, 151, 153, 155–6, 199, 219, 263, 286 annular crypt, 217, 218 Fig. 11.2, 284 chapel for, 247 Dialogues, 300 mass, 103 monument of, 335 penitential procession of (590), 275 vision of Archangel Michael, 278 Vita of by John the Deacon, 302 Gregory II (715–31), pope, 160, 215 Gregory III (731–41), pope, 154, 156, 160, 176, 177, 188–9, 199, 214, 216–17, 219–20, 222, 227–8, 250, 262, 264 attitude to images, 220 burial, 220 oratory, 161, 216, 262, 263 patronage of art, 250 synodal decree inscription, 162 Fig. 8.2 tomb of, 220 tomb chapel see oratory Gregory IV (827–44), pope, 166, 226–8, 247, 251, 284 decoration of San Marco, 251 donation of icons to Saint Peter’s, 247 Gregory V (996–9), pope, 327 Gregory VI (1045–6), pope, 327 Gregory VII (1073–85), pope, 294, 295–6, 301, 321 In Die Resurrectionis, 295–6, 304 Gregory IX (1227–41), pope, 6, 327 mosaic of, 7 Gregory X (1271–6), pope, 337 Gregory XII (1406–15), pope, 337, 341, 342 Gregory, bishop of Tours, 25 Decem Libri Historiarum, 182 Grimaldi, Giacomo, 111, 42, 310, 311, 312, 313, 337, 343, 392n. 14, 403 dating of oratory of John VII, 206, 213 description of oratory of John VII, 213 drawing of oratory of John VII, 191, 193, 195, 198, 207 Instrumenta Autentica, 238 Fig. 12.6, 255 Fig. 12.10, 318, 323 records inscription, 200, 211 use of Deipara, 202, 210 works of, 205

Index

Gr¨unewald, Matthias, 376 Hadrian, Roman emperor, 270 mausoleum, 25, 270, 275, 278 Hadrian I (772–95), pope, 27, 101, 167, 181, 225, 266, 278, 320 anoints Pippin and Louis, 269–70 donation of icons to Saint Peter’s, 234, 246–7, 249–50, 252 donation of icons to San Paolo fuori le mura, 247, 252 inscription, 200, 201 Fig. 10.9, 202 gifts from, 267–8 on images, 222, 246, 252–5, 320 letter to Charlemagne, 254–5 letter to Emperor Constantine VI and Irene, 252–4 Life of, 249 monumental epitaph, 259–61 and Fig. 13.2 Synodica, 202 textiles, 247 tomb chapel/oratory, 259–60, 264, 376, 382 Hadrian II (867–72), pope, 103, 104 Hadrian IV (1154–9), pope, 91, 322, 327, 377 Hagia Sophia, 219, 220 Hammer, Olav, 374 Hay, Denys, 341 Heemskerck, Maerten van, 84 Fig. 4.2, 86, 87 Fig. 4.3, 92 Heiria, Council of (754), 220 Helena, empress, daughter of Constantine I and wife of Emperor Julian, 138–9, 146 Helena, empress, mother of Constantine I, 2, 37, 38–9, 62, 125n. 24, 186, 196 honours holy places, 61 mausoleum, 115, 116 Helena, queen of Serbia, 321 Henry III, German emperor, 377 Henry V, German emperor, 379 Heraclius, Byzantine emperor, 185 Hercules’ labours, 367 Hilarus (461–8), pope, 97, 103 Hilary, bishop of Arles, 133n. 62, 148 Hildebert of Lavardin, 285 Hildegard, queen of the Franks and Lombards, 266, 269–71 Hilduin, abbot of Saint Denis, 302 Hilkiah, high priest, 186 Historia Augusta, 96 Hitherius, Frankish notary, 101 Hobsbawm, Eric, 372 Holy Apostles church (Constantinople), see Apostoleion

Holy Cross see Cross, Holy Holy Lance see Lance, Holy Holy Week, liturgy of, 178 homiliary, 167 Honorius, Roman emperor, 16, 28, 30–1, 121, 122, 127, 128, 131, 142, 144, 146–7 burial of, 121–2 ceremonial entry to Rome, 130 image of, 128 mausoleum/tomb, 16, 31, 117, 119–36, 119 Fig. 6.1, 147 visits to Rome, 124, 130 Honorius I (625–38), pope, 95, 164 Honorius IV (1285–7), pope, 327 Hormisdas (514–23), pope, 100 Ichnographia, 20 iconoclastic controversy, 14, 215–17, 214–28, 227–8, 320 papacy’s response to, 246, 248–9, 252–4 icons, Byzantine, 234 Lateran acheiropoieta, 230–3, 232 Fig. 12.3, 237, 239, 241 Madonna of the Pantheon, 229–30, 231 Fig. 12.2, 237 Madonna of Santa Maria Antiqua, 233 Madonna of Santa Maria Maggiore, 233 metal, 234, 246–7, 249 Roman processions with, 230–1, 233, 239 of Saint Michael, 234, 236 Fig. 12.5 textiles, 247, 256 veneration of, 229–56 see also iconoclastic controversy Ihm, Maximilian, 82 images, function of, 252–4 papal attitudes towards, 246 synod in Rome, 102 see also Christ, images of; Mary, images of; Saint Peter’s basilica; Veronica In die Resurrectionis (Decree of Gregory VII), 295–6, 324 Incarnation, feast of, 178 Innocent I (401–17), pope, 145–6 Innocent II (1130–43), pope, 207–8, 321, 313, 322 donation of silver crucifix, 312–13 Innocent III (1198–1216), pope, 6, 206, 230, 239 Lateran acheiropoieta and, 230, 239 Veronica image and, 239–40 Innocent VII (1404–6), pope, 327, 329, 337 tomb of, 335

473

474

Index

Innocent VIII (1485–92), pope, 327, 335 tomb of, 335 Innocent X (1644–55), pope, 75 inscriptions, 38–41, 44, 62, 138, 258–61, 264–8, 270–1 Irene, Byzantine empress, 202, 252, 254, 320 Isaia da Pisa, 335, 336 itinerary, pilgrim, 261–6 at Saint Peter’s, 283–5 Janiculum, 86 Jeffery, Peter xxi, 13 Jerome, 24, 25, 97n. 3, 109 on sack of Rome, 96 Jerusalem, 4, 58, 185, 187, 202, 339 heavenly, 224 Martyrium, 38, 58, 59 Fig. 2.10, 60, 62 John IV (640–2), pope, 188 John VII (705–7) pope, 4, 14, 106, 193, 215, 250 3D reconstruction of oratory, 196 Fig. 10.5, 209 Fig. 10.11, 210 Fig. 10.12, 212 Fig. 10.13, Plate 5 education, 193 John VII, oratory of, in Saint Peter’s basilica, 11, 141, 190–213, 215, 234, 237, 242, 243, 245, 246, 256, 364n. 31, 384 altar inscription, 200, 201, 202, 203 archway inscription, 203 black marble columns, 198–9 Christological cycle in oratory, 211 epitaph, 199, 203, 204 frieze, 193–5, 197, 202 Greek inscription, 200 mosaics, 198, 204–213 patronage of art, 250 porphyry oval, 200 slabs with inhabited vine scroll motif, 193–4, 195 Tellus (iconography), 193 Theotokos altar, 198, 200 Theotokos image, 195, 198, 199 titulus (tabula ansata), 199–200 Fig. 10.8 tomb, 198, 200 twisted columns, 195, 198, 199 John VIII (872–82), pope, 6 John IX (898–900), pope, 327 John XI (931–5/6), pope, 327 John XIV (983–4), pope, 327 John XV (985–6), pope, 327 John XIX (1024–32), pope, 327 John the Archcantor/archicantator/ archchanter, 153, 159, 184 John the Baptist, saint, 86, 87, 92

John the Evangelist, saint, 86, 87, 91, 92 John Chrysostom, chapel of, 311, 313 John the Deacon, Vita Gregorii, 113n. 69 Johnson, Mark, 115–16 Joseph d’Arimathie, 242 jubilee, of 1400, 329 of 1450, 339 Jubilee Door, 206 Julian the Apostate, Roman emperor, 25, 138–9 Julius I (337–52), pope, 41, 62, 112 Julius II (1503–13), pope, 10, 17, 283, 325, 327, 328, 330, 386 court of, 391–3 medallion portrait of, 398–400 patronage of, 390–1 plans for renovations of Saint Peter’s basilica, 387–9, 392, 394 tomb of, 389 Julius III (1550–5), pope, 307 Julius Caesar, remains of, 279, 282–3, 284, 286 tomb of, 394 Junius Bassus, 130 sarcophagus, 112 Jupiter, 29 temple of, 392 Justin, Byzantine emperor, 100 Justinian, Byzantine emperor, 31, 100, 110, 219, 220, 268 Kempers, Bram, 16–17, 325n. 3 Kessler, Herbert, 253, 254 keys, symbol of Saint Peter, 317, 328, 449 Kludov Psalter, 227 Krautheimer, Richard, 21, 35, 45, 50, 52, 54, 56, 92, 197, 225 on spolia, 63, 77 Ladislaus of Naples, 329 Lampadius, prefect of Rome, 21–2, 24, 142 Lance, Holy, 377n. 25 Lando (913–14), pope, 327 Lateran, 3, 8, 32–4, 75–7, 99, 102, 132, 145, 152, 161, 167, 239, 265, 270, 319, 339 baptistery, 89, 90, 92, 94, 318, Plate 4 Chapel of Saint Nicolas, 322 liturgy, 164–5 narthex, 322 palace, 322 papal mausoleum, 327 scrinium, 32 triclinium, 267 see also Lateran archeiropoieta; San Giovanni in Laterano

Index

laudes, 311 Laurence (498–c. 501–5), antipope, 152 Laurentian schism, 3 Lawrence, saint, 81 lectio markings, 296–7 Lectionary, 167–9 Table 8.1 Legendary of Saint Peter’s basilica see San Pietro Legendary Leo, bishop of Vercelli, 317 Leo I, Byzantine emperor, 202, 203 Leo III, Byzantine emperor, 214, 216, 217 Leo IV, Byzantine emperor, 220 Leo V, Byzantine emperor, 223 Leo I (440–61), pope, 3, 7, 51, 144, 276, 284, 286 burial at Saint Peter’s basilica, 4, 113 and n. 69, 116, 117, 130, 131, 327 claims primacy, 133, 134 confronts Valentinian III, 134 founds monastery apud beatum Petrum apostolorum, 158 and liturgy, 172 oratory, 260 and Fig. 13.1, 262 promotes Petrine cult, 149–52, 155 and San Paolo fuori le mura, 133 sermon on Saints Peter and Paul, 276 Leo III (795–816), pope, 6, 89–90, 267, 284, 312, 313, 319, 234 baptistery in Liber Pontificalis, 89–90, 92 church decoration promoted, 132, 135 crowns Charlemagne, 179 donation of icons to Saint Peter’s, 234, 247 embellishment of presbyterium, 222 gift, 247, 311 monasteries restored by, 166 restoration of, 101 translation of, 106, 264–5 triclinium at Saint Peter’s, 100 textiles, 247, 256 Leo IV (847–55), 5, 99, 233, 237, 247, 311, 312, 313 Assumption Day procession, 233 decisions against Anastasius Bibliothecarius, 237 Leonine city walls, 6, 99, 275 Leo V (903), pope, 327 Leo VI (928), pope, 327 Leo VII (936–9), pope, 327 Leo VIII (963–5), pope, 327 Leo IX (1049–54), pope, 282, 327 Leo X (1513–21), pope, 66, 282 Leonine city/walls see Leo IV, pope Lewis, James T., 374 Liber Diurnus, 152

Liber Politicus, 377 Liber Pontificalis, 3, 15, 23, 179, 184, 185, 186, 215–17, 234 baptistery at Santa Maria Maggiore, 94 building of Saint Peter’s basilica, 37–8 Charlemagne in Rome (774), 271–2 composition, 37, 95–6 Easter baptism, 81 election of Stephen III, 229–30 gifts, 233 gifts of columns, 217, 219 Gregory IV, 226 images, 215, 219–22, 246–62 Life 88 (John VII), 213, 250 Life 94 (Stephen II), 230–1, 248–9, 250 Life 96 (Stephen III), 229–30 Life 97 (Hadrian), 246–7, 249–50 Life 98 (Leo III), 90, 247 Life 105 (Leo IV), 233, 247 narrative strategy, 117, 188 oratories of Pope Symmachus, 87–9, 93 papal ordinations, 175 patronage, 264 poor relief, 26–8 priests at tituli, 151 representation of Saint Peter’s basilica, 95–118 Saint Cecilia, 301 Saint Peter, 95–118 silver crucifix, 312 tower gateway at Saint Peter’s basilica, 221 vultus, 246–7, 249, 250, 252 Zacharias’s library, 290, 294 Liberius (352–66), pope, 37, 64, 140–1, 155 libraries in Rome, 33 Licinia Eudoxia, Roman empress, wife of Valentinian III, 31, 132, 148 Licinius, Roman emperor, 30, 41 Linus (c. 66–c. 78), pope, 105 Lisner, Margit, 314 liturgy, 12–13, 15, 23, 63, 96, 103, 224, 295–6, 305, 372 development of, 7 and imperial family, 116 Romanization, 158 at Saint Peter’s basilica, 140, 153, 155 stational, 15, 103 topography, 261, 263 year, 145, 172 see also feast days and sacramentaries Liutprand, king of the Lombards, 101 Liverani, Paolo, xxi–xxii, 12 Lombards, 101, 270, 272 Longeuil, Cardinal Richard Olivier de, 342, 346

475

476

Index

Longinus, saint, 217 Longo, Michele, 384 Lorsch sylloges, 266 Lothar III, German emperor, 322 Lothar I, Frankish Emperor, 181 Louis I, the Pious, Frankish emperor, 269, 302 Louis XI, king of France, 342 Lucido dei Conti di Poli, 342 Lucina, Roman matron, 108, 111, 113 Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, 37, 38 McClendon, Charles, xxii, 14, 188 McEvoy, Meaghan, xxii, 16 Mackie, Gillian, 93–4 McKitterick, Rosamond, xxii, 15, 215n. 5, 274, 326 Magnuson, Torgil, 331, 334 Majorian, Roman emperor, 149 Mallius, Petrus, 242, 312, 313, 321, 378, 382 description of Saint Peter’s basilica, 311 Mandylion, 244, 245–6, 254 Manetti, Giannozzo, 9, 325, 330, 344, 396 mansionarii, 150, 154, 262, 264 marble, africano, 68, Plate 2 black, 198–9 cipollino, 68, 76, Plate 2 giallo antico, 76, 79 pavonazetto, 76, 79, 202, 203 Phrygian, 203 portasanta, 68, Plate 2 stockpiles, 69, 73 varieties of, 69 Manuscripts: BAV Archivio di S. Pietro, A 2 287–93, Figs. 15.2–4, 297, 300n. 48, 303, 304 A 3, 297–300, 303, 305 A 4, 288–90, 300n. 48, 301 A 5, 288–90, 300n. 48, 301, 304 A 64, 192, 198 A 64 ter, 191, 198, 211 C 92, 294n. 20 C 105, 294n. 19 caps. 61 fasc. 223, 243n. 32 H 3 (Opusculum de Sacrosancto Veronicae Sudario), 191, 192, 195 Fig. 10.4, 196, 200, 205, 206, 207 BAV Barberini Lat. 2733 (Instrumenta Autentica), 193, 195, 205, 206, 207, 211, 238 Fig. 12.6 Pal. Lat. 833, 83n. 5, 266, 266n. 29, 267n. 31 Vat. Lat. 5736, 299 Vat. Lat. 8404, 195 Vat. Lat. 11988, 205

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze II–III–173 (Opusculum), 193 Lucca, Biblioteca Capitolare, 490, 244n. 35 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana cod. A 168 inf. 193, 197 Fig. 10.7 Padua, Bibloteca Capitolare, Cod. D.47 (“Paduense”), 180, 181 Paris, Biblioth`eque nationale de France, lat. 257 (Gospel Book of Francis II), 316 lat. 1141, 316 n.a. lat. 1132 (Saint-Amand Apocalypse), 316 n.a. lat. 1203 (Godescalc Evangelistary), 270n. 41 Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele II MS V.E. 1190, 169 Saint Paul in K¨arnten Stiftsbibliothek MS 2.1, 168n. 41 Saint-Omer, Biblioth`eque Municipale MS 202, 244n. 35 Venice, Bibl. Marciana, MS gr. 573, 245 ¨ Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. 563, 243n. 33 Cod. 795, 261 Cod. 799, 92–3 Marcella, daughter of Albina, 24 Marcella, Roman matron, 97n. 3 Maria, empress, wife of Honorius, 16, 31, 144 burial of, 121, 122, 131, 135 Mariano, Fra, 67 Marinianus, Flavius Avitus, 149–50 Marinus II (942–6), pope, 327 Mark (336), pope, 62 Mark, evangelist saint, relics of, 228 Martin I (649–53), pope, 153, 304–5 Martin V (1417–31), pope, 9, 329, 341, 352 Martin, saint of Tours, 182, 183 monastery at Saint Peter’s basilica, 153, 183 martyr cult, 2, 114, 300 Mary, saint, the Virgin, 202–4, 205, 206, 210, 216, 220 Assumption, 233 chapel dedicated to at Saint Peter’s, 3 image of, 215–16, 221–2, 229–30, 233, 234–5 Fig. 12.4, 237, 239, 248–9, 250, 256, 350, 357–9 Fig. 18.6, 360–1, 366, 369 images of in Saint Peter’s, 233, 237, 246, 247, 249 Maria Regina from the oratory of John VII, 234, 235 Fig. 12.4, 237, 255 Fig. 12.10, 256 in Santa Maria Antiqua, 248 in Santa Maria Maggiore, 248, 250, 252

Index

in Santa Maria in Sassia, 239 in Santa Prassede, San Zeno chapel, 250 see also icons maphorion, 202, 203 Master Gregorius, 285 Matthews, John, 139 Maurice, Byzantine emperor, 268 Maurice, Saint altar, 15, 371–85 cross and lance, 377 cult of, 376 depiction of, 376 mausolea see tombs Maxentius, Roman emperor, 41, 116 Meta Romuli, 279 Michael, archangel and saint, 234, 236 Fig. 12.5, 275 Michael II, Byzantine emperor, 223 Michelangelo, 314 Micrologus de Ecclesiasticis Observationibus, 296 Mignante, Filippo Maria, 311–12 Mirabilia Urbis Romae, 278, 279, 282 monasteries, 150–1, 153–5 Monte Cassino, 299 Muffel, Nicolaus, 92, 199, 381, 382 Naples, liturgy of, 177, 186, 187 San Giovanni Maggiore crucifix, 314, 315 Napoleon, 379 Naumachia, 25 necropolis, papal, 16 see also Via Appia Nello da Bologna, 334 Nelson, Janet, 379 Nero, emperor, 363–4, 368 circus of, 1, 2, 4 Nicaea Second Council (787), 222, 252, 254, 320 Carolingian response to, 254 Nicholas II (1058–91), pope, 294 Nicholas III (1277–80), pope, 318, 326, 327, 328 Nicholas V (1447–55), pope, 9, 16, 51, 163n. 7, 283, 340, 344, 390, 392, 394, 396 crowns Frederick III emperor, 381 on precedence of Saint Peter’s, 339 rearrangement of monuments, 337 restoration of Saint Peter’s basilica, 325, 326, 327, 330–1, 334 tomb, 335 Night Office, readings, 287–305 Nilgen, Ursula, 351–2 Noble, Thomas, 216, 222

Nordhagen, Per Jonas, 193, 195 Nuremberg Chronicle, 122, 277, Plate 11 ´ Carrag´ain Eamonn ´ xxii, 13–14, 216 O oak wreath, 366–7 obelisk, Vatican, 1, 5, 100, 179, 274–86, 334, 394 Odoacer, king of Italy, 124, 151 Office (liturgical), 159–60, 166–76 Olivier de Longueil, Cardinal Richard, 342, 346 Olybrius, Roman emperor, 123, 131 Optatianus, Publilius, 40 opus caementicium, 50 incertum, 50 listatum, 50 testaceum, 50 oratories, function of, 58, 261, 263 Oratorium Pastoris / Petrus Pastor (oratory of Saint Peter the Shepherd), 5, 261–9, 263, 265–6, 271, 273 oratory of Gregory III/Virgin, Christ, Apostles, Martyrs and Confessors, 262–3, 266 of Hadrian I, 259–61 of the Holy Cross, 263, 265 of Leo I, 262, 264 Paul I/Mary Genetrix Dei, 261–2 of Saint Andrew, 261–2 of Saint Martin, 261 of Saint Peter the Shepherd see Oratorium Pastoris of Saint Petronilla, 261–2, 269 the Twelve Apostles, 262 ordinations, 175 Ordines romani, 153, 353, 354, 360 Ordo of 1143, 242 Ordo Officiorum Ecclesiae Lateranensis, 296 Ordo Qualiter (Rule for Canons), 295 Ordo Romanus XIII, 168, 170, 172, 173 Table 8.3, 176 XIV, 168, 170, 171 Table 8.2, 176 XVI, 168 orientation, 225–6 Orosius on sack of Rome, 96 Orsini, Roman family, 329, 334, 342n. 66 Cardinal Giordano, 342 orthodoxy, 220 Old Saint Peter’s basilica as a symbol of, 215, 228 Osborne, John, 221 Ostia, port, 28, 69 sanctuary of Cybele, 24 Ostrogothic wars, 95

477

478

Index

Otto II, German emperor, tomb of, 188 Ovid, Metamorphoses, 367 Paduensis see manuscripts, Padua pagan images, 350, 367 Palatine hill as papal residence, 193 Palladio, Andrea, 282 Pammachius, senator, 24–5, 28, 142 Pantheon, 116, 229, 276, 332, 356, 402 see also icons; Santa Maria ad Martyres Panvinio, Onofriio, 310, 311, 383, 403 Paparone, Giovanni, 377 Paris, Matthew, 239, 240 Fig. 12.7 Chronica Maiora, 239–40 Parmenio, Lorenzo, 393 Pascha Annotina, 182 Paschal I (817–24), pope, 97, 103, 104, 166, 223 and Fig. 11.3, 250, 223, 227 decoration of San Zeno chapel, Santa Prassede, 250–1 gift of books, 97 revelation of Saint Cecilia to, 301, 302 textiles and, 247 Paschal II (1099–1118), pope, 321, 379 Passion see Christ patronage, 334 imperial, 2 papal, 326 Paul I (757–67), pope, 220–2, 248, 254, 258, 262, 269 feast of Peter and Paul, 140, 144–5, 155 letter from three eastern patriarchs, 254 oratory, 221 orientation of, 224–5, 228 patronage of art, 248 Saviour, Mother of God and All the Saints, 216, 220 Paul II (1464–71), pope, 326, 331, 334–5, 338, 342, 345, 394, 396 medal of tribune, 333 tomb, 335, 346 Paul V Borghese (1605–21), pope, 10, 16, 17, 158n. 5, 191, 386 Paul, saint, 81, 109, 110, 307, 317, 318, 321, 323 image of, 224, 317–19, 320 Fig. 16.7, 321, 323, 335, 336 Fig. 17.5, 350, 358, 360–1, 363 Paul the Deacon, 122 homily, 148 Paulina, funeral of, 37 Paulinus of Nola, bishop, 25 Epistulae, 37

Pavia, 271 Santa Maria Teodote, crucifix, 307, 309 Fig. 16.3 pavonazzeto marble, 202, 203 Pelagius I (556–61), pope, 268 Pelagius II (579–90), pope, 153, 268 Pellegrini, Carlo, 384, 385 Peroni, Adriano, 309 Persians, 185 Peruzzi, Baldassarre, 93, 402 Peter, saint, 81, 86, 179, 186, 188, 307, 321, 323, 338, 339 burial of, 1–2, 36, 105–9, 114, 117 burial near, 107 chains, 148n. 53 confessio, 32, 33, 147, 150 cult, 148–9, 151, 155, 264 feast of Peter and Paul, 140, 144–5, 155 funerary monument (tomb), 45 Fig. 2.4, 46, 47 Fig. 2.5, 48 Fig. 2.6, 56, 58–9, 61, 62, 372 icons in Saint Peter’s, 233 image of, 221–2, 224, 317–19, 320 Fig. 16.7, 321, 323, 335, 336 Fig. 17.5, 350, 351 Fig. 18.3, 356, 358–9, 360–1, 363, Plate 15 keys, 340 mosaic picture cycle, 207–8 martyrdom, 362 Fig. 18.8 Porta Sancti Petri, 31 as Shepherd, 265, 268–9 tomb of, 29, 139–40, 153–5, 215 Peter and Paul, saints, diptychon with portraits, 318, 319, 320, 323, Plate 14 feast of (29 June), 61, 140, 144, 155 ideology of, 3 images of, 215, 224, 227 Peter’s Chair see Cathedra Petri Petronilla, saint, 5, 16, 120, 136, 221, 261, 264, 284, 391 chapel/oratory/rotunda of, 120, 122, 123, 136, 221, 269, 342 Petronius Apollodorus, son in law of Lampadius, 24 Petrus Mallius, Descriptio Basilicae Vaticanae, 91, 242 Petrus Sabinus, 84 Philip II, king of France, 239 Phrygian marble, 203 Phrygianum, 23 Piacenza, San Savino crucifix, 314, 315 Fig. 16.4 Picard, Jean-Claude, 105

Index

Piccolomini family, 342–3 Piccolomini, Cardinal Francesco Todeschini, 335, 342–3 Piccolomini, Enea Silvio see Pius II, pope Piero della Francesca, 344 Pietri, Charles, 85 Pigafetta, Filippo, 283 pilaster, eighth century, 197 Fig. 10.6 pilgrimage, 12, 23, 28, 258, 260, 286 pilgrimage to Holy Land, 5 pilgrims, 3–5, 99–100, 241, 275 pilgrims’ itinerary in Saint Peter’s basilica, 261–6 Pincus, Debra, 345 Pippin III, king of Franks, 120, 157–8, 170, 221, 258, 269–70 Pippin, king of Italy, son of Charlemagne, 269–70 Pisa, Isaia da, 335 Pius II (1458–64), pope, 327, 330, 331, 332, 334, 335, 337, 342, 343–4, 335, 381, 383, 391 Pius VI (1775–99), pope, 163n. 19 Pius VII (1800–23), pope, 379 Pliny the Elder, 282 Pogliani, Paola, xxii–xxiii, 14 Pons Aelius, 276–8 Pons Neronianis, 276n. 8 Ponte Sant’Angelo, 276 poor, 142 relief of, 12, 21, 24–5, 26–7 popes, Venetian, 343 Popper, Karl, 374 populus Romanus, 27, 30 Porec, Basilica Eufrasiana, 88 Porphyry disk, 354, 355 Porta Argentea, 329, 348–70, 349 Fig. 18.1 Collina, 353, 354 Iudicii, 338 Pertusa, 393 del Popolo, 92 porticus construction of at St Peter’s, 3 Porticus Sancti Petri, 31 portraits, imperial, 365 papal, 250 Portus, 69 xenodochium Pammachii, 28 praepositi, 152 Praxedes, saint, 224 presbyterium, 222, 246 priests, 151, 153 hebdomadal, 154 primacy papal, 134, 265, 338–9

Priscilla, cemetery of, 111, 112, 302 Probus diptych, 128 Probus, Sextus Petronius, senator, tomb of, 143–4 processions, 233, 239, 242 Assumption Day, 233 icons in, 230–1, 233, 239 imperial Fig. 1.4, 29 protection of Rome against Lombards, 230–1 see also Saint Peter’s basilica, processions Procopius, 25, 31, 278 Prosper, 123 Prudentius, 29, 33, 82, 85 Pudenziana, saint, 224 pyramid, 279 Quintavalle, Armando Ottaviano, 314 Raingarda, abbess, 317 Ranger, Terence, 372 Raphael, 66, 100, 402 Ravenna, 146, 152, 217, 219 archbishop of, 217 columns from, 217 readings, monastic, 167 reform of canons, 294–5, 305 of liturgy, 295–6, 305 refrigeria (funeral feasts), 144 relics, 4, 188–9, 216, 220–1, 228 cult of, 220, 222, 224 destruction of, 220 of Saint Peter, 275 transferal (translation) of, 109–10, 221, 224 Remus, 3 supposed tomb of, 279 Ricci, Antonio, 211 Rice, Louise, 325n. 3 Richardson, Carol M., xxiii, 16 ritual, 275–6, 374–5 imperial, 21 Robert de Boron, Joseph d’Arimathie, 242 Robertson, Ian, 341 Rocca, Angelo, 310, 311 Romanus, canon, 312 Romanus (897), pope, 327 Rome, 216, 219, 221, 222, 228 apostolic see of, 339 catacombs of, 221, 224 Campus Martius, 33 Capitolium, 28, 30 cemeterial basilicas, 139, 146

479

480

Index

Rome (cont.) Circus Maximus, 28 clergy, 146 curia and senate, 28, 30, 32 fermentum, 146 parochiae, 146 Pons Aelius, 30–1 Porticus Maximae, 30–1 public monuments, 148–9 rostra, 28 sack of (410), 96, 141, 146, 313 Synod of (769), 102 temples, 138 tituli, 146–7, 149, 152, 154 Vatican necropolis, 138 Rome, xenodochia Aniciorum, 28 Valeriorum, 28 Romulus, 3 supposed tomb of, 279 Romulus, son of Maxentius, 125n. 24 mausoleum, 117 Rossi, Giovanni de, 105 Rovere, Cardinal Giuliano della, see Julius II, 339, 340, 343 Rucci, Antonio, 211 Rufia Volusiana, daughter of Lampadius, 24 ruins as quarries, 76–7 Sabina, daughter of Lampadius, 24 Sacramentary, Gregorian, 181 Hadrianum, 181 sacrarium, 184n. 27, 185 sacristan see mansionarii Saint Amand Apocalypse, 316 Saint Martin’s monastery, 159 Saint Peter’s basilica (new) Chapel of Michelangelo’s Piet`a, 310 New Sacristy, 306, 313, 314 Saint Peter’s basilica (Old), 214–17, 219–28, 252, 255 acheiropoieta, 237 alleged decay of, 8 almsgiving at, 21, 23–5, 27–8, 33, 150 altars, 203 of Saint Mark, 335 of Saints Philip and James, 311, 312 of Saints Simon and Judas, 311 of the Virgin, Saint Peter and Paul, 335, 336 ambo, 150 apse, 42, 51–3, 56, 57, 61 archchanter, 153 architectural influence of, 7 atrium, 37, 63, 145, 221, 223, 270, 331, 346

aula, 39–40, 62 baptistery, 81–94, 145, 152, 263, 265 bricks, 42–4 bronze doors see Filarete burial at, 8 canons, 10, 14, 17, 340–1, 343, 346, 347 cardinal archpriest of, 340–2 ceiling, 37, 62 Cerdano, Cardinal Antonio, chapel of, 338 chapels of Leo I, 193 Gregory I, 247 of the Kings of France see Petronilla of Saint John Chrysostomos, 311, 312, 313 see also oratories chapter of, 340–1, 343 choir of singers, 333 choir-chapel of Sixtus IV (Cappella del Coro), 335, 338 Christmas at, 64 chronology of, 11–13, 23, 35–64 ciborium-altar of Saints Andrew and Gregory, 331, 335, 337, 342 Clementine ambulatory, 193 clergy, 137–56 Clipeate images at, 250 columns, 65 Fig. 3.1, 68 Fig. 3.2, 69 Fig. 3.3, 69–76 confessio, 32, 154, 215, 217, 222, 247, 258, 263, 265, 270 consecration of popes at, 103–4 courtyard surrounding, 45–6, 60 crypt, 217, 223, 225–6, 228 cubicularii, 150, 152 cultural role of, 33 dedication, 63n. 61 designs for new building, 386 dimensions, 197–8 in plan, 46, 48–9 domus, 39 drunkenness at, 144 early medieval icons at, 233–4, 237, 246–7, 252 early sixth-century structure, reconstruction of Fig. 1.3, 26 Easter Sepulchre, 338 emulation of, 223–4, 226, 228 episcopia, 152 excavations below, 44–57 exedrae, 53–6 extant column base, 69, 70 Fig. 3.4 fac¸ade (eastern), 149 foundation inscription, 138, 392 foundations, 46–57, 60–1

Index

gallery of popes, 337 gifts to, 98, 100, 101 Gregory I’s ring crypt, 52 habitacula pauperibus, 27–8 images in, 147, 215, 216, 219, 221–2, 227 inscriptions in, 38–42 Jubilee Door (Porta Aurea), 191, 198 Lance of Longinus, chapel of, 335 library of Sixtus IV, 338 liturgies for, 161–2, 337, 341 mausolea/rotundas, 261–2, 264 mosaic of, 222 nave remnants, 336, 390, 397 necropolis under, 109nn. 51, 52 obelisk, 264 oratory of John VII, 234, 237, 242, 243, 255 Fig. 12.10, 256 oratory of Saint Thomas, 335, 338 palace of archpriest at, 346 papal burials in, 117, 326, 327 Table 17.1, 328–9, see also Leo I, pope Petronilla, rotonda of, 342 pilgrim itinerary within, 261–6 podium surrounding, 46–8, 60 Porta Iudicii, 338 portico, 318 precedence of over San Giovanni in Laterano, 339 procession for First Sunday after Epiphany/Feast of the Miracle at Cana, 239 procession for Third Sunday of Advent, 242 rejected proposals, 390 relics in, 343 sack of by Saracens, 255 south aisle, 336–8 spolia, 65 stairs leading to atrium, 331 stylized plan, 18 synods at, 102, 214–15, 216, 217, 228 tomb monument, 37, 46–8, 57–8, 62, 264–5 tomb-chapels see oratories tower gateway, 221 transept, 53–6 and Fig. 2.9, 63, 67, 336, 338 tribune, 332–3 triumphal arch, 50–1, 56, 57–61, 62, 336 inscription, 2 tropaion, 36, 45–6 twisted (spiral) columns in, 37, 46, 47, 199, 217, 219, 222 Zen, Cardinal Giovanni Battista, chapel of, 338, 342, 345 Saint Peter’s Chair see Cathedra Petri

Saint Peter’s Legendary see San Pietro Legendary Saint Peter’s letter of canons, 10, 17 Saint Peter’s Needle see obelisk, Vatican Saint Petronilla, saint, daughter of Saint Peter, 261, 264 Saint Stephen Major monastery, 164 Saint Stephen Minor monastery, 163 Saints John and Paul, monastery, 158 Saints Peter and Paul, bones, 383 statues at stair, 331 saints, cult, 141 see also Peter, saint saints, relics, 141 see also Peter, saint Salus Populi Romani see icons, Roman, Madonna of Santa Maria Maggiore Salzburg itinerary, 92, 93 Salzman, Michele, 150 Samatrian attack (322), 41 San Apollo fuori le mura, 29 San Clemente, 88, 251, 316 San Crisogono, 160, 176, 250 San Giorgio in Alga, secular canons of, 341–2 San Giovanni in Laterano archpriest of, 329, 332, 339, 340, 343 chapter of, 341, 343 columns of, 74, 80 as local centre, 339 see also Lateran basilica San Lorenzo fuori le mura, 27–8, 99, 100, 113 San Lorenzo, Milan, 126 San Marco, 14, 225–8 and Figs. 11.5–6, 251, Plate 7 palace, 334 San Marco, Florence Ricci’s altar, 211 San Marco, Venice, 236 San Martino, monastery, 153 see also Martin of Tours, saint San Paolo fuori le mura, 99, 132m, 160, 167, 227, 329, 332 chronology of, 60 columns at, 51 dwellings for the poor, 27–9 gifts to, 100 image of Christ, 252 imperial patronage of, 132–3 mosaics, 227 pictorial decoration at, 247, 250, 252 San Pietro in Vincoli (Basilica Eudoxiana), 33, 132 San Pietro Legendary, 14–15, 287–305 San Salvatore in Lauro, 342 San Stefano, monastery, 153–4

481

482

Index

San Stefano Rotundo, 149n. 47 San Vincenzo al Volturno, 316 Sancta Sanctorum, 319 Sangallo, Giuliano di, 397–8, 402 Sant’Andrea, rotunda, 86, 87, 90, 311, 313 Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, 219 Sant’Aquilino, Milan, 126 Santa Caterina in Portica, 347 Santa Cecilia, 88 Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, 132, 213 Santa Francesca Romana see Santa Maria Nova Santa Maria ad Martyres, 101, 116, 229, 237 see also Pantheon Santa Maria Antiqua, 200, 213, 233, 248–9 Fig. 12.8, 250 John VII’s inscriptions in, 200 John VII’s paintings in, 205, 213 Santa Maria in Cancellis, 161 Santa Maria Maggiore, 94, 99, 100, 165, 167, 231, 233, 248, 249, 252, 344 apse, 344 archpriest of, 340, 344–5 baptistery, 94 chapel of Saint Anthony, 344 chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Peter in Chains, 344 ciborium, 345 Santa Maria Nova, 233 Santa Maria sopra Minerva, 331 Santa Maria in Sassia, 239 Santa Maria in Trastevere, 41 Santa Maria in Turri/inter Turres/in Turribus, 353, 354, 378 Santa Prassede, 105n. 47, 223–5 and Figs. 11.3–4, 227, Plate 6 Greek monks of, 223–4 San Zeno chapel of, 250–1, Plate 9 Santi Cosma e Damiano, 224–5 Santi Giovanni e Paolo, monastery, 150–1, 153–4 Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 345 Santi Nereo ed Achilleo, 316 Santi Pietro and Marcellino, cemetery of, 3 Santi Quattro Coronati, Cappella di San Silvestro, 318, 319 Fig. 16.6 Santo Spirito, hospital, 239 Santo Stefano degli Abissini, 163 Santoro Fazio, 390 Saracen sack (846), 5, 275 Sarmatians, 30 Sarot, Marcel, 374 Savonarola, Girolamo, 314 Saxl, Fritz, 369

Schism, Great, 9, 380 Scholastica, saint, 299–300 Sch¨uppel, Katharina Christa, xxiii, 6, 14 scola cantorum, 103n. 38 scrinium, 32 seals, papa, 321 secretarium, 113n. 69 Senate, 32 senatorial aristocracy, 142, 144, 149–52, 154–5 see also tombs Septimius Severus, Arch of, 75 Serbian icon, 320–1 Sergius I (687–701), pope, 13, 106, 113n. 69, 262, 286 finds relic of True Cross, 184, 185, 186–7 Sergius II (844–7), pope, 99, 167 Sergius III (904–11), pope, 327 Serlio, Sebastiano, 402 Sessorian palace, 39 Severan pilasters, 193–4 and Fig. 10.3 sibling saints, 224 Sigismund of Luxembourg, emperor, 352–4, 353 Fig. 18.4, 368–9, 370, 381 coronation of (1433), 329 Silverius (536–7), pope, 112 Silvester I (314–35), pope, 37, 62, 115, 117, 302, 318, 320, 321, 323, 383 Simon Magus, 363 Simplicius (468–83), pope, 3, 81, 85, 103, 151, 278 singers, singing, 164, 333 Siricius (384–99), pope, 37, 144, 145n. 39 Sistine Chapel, Vatican, 326 Sixtus III (432–40), pope, 94, 107, 111, 116, 132, 147–8, 150, 326, 327, 335, 338, 340, 343, 389n. 8, 391, 396 ciborium-altar of, 332 tomb, 335 Sixtus V (1585–90), pope, 279 Smith, Julia, 221 Solomon’s temple, 202 Spain, liturgy of, 180 spolia, 12, 65–80, 219, 392 Stefaneschi, Jacopo Caetani (c. 1260–1341), cardinal, 9 Stephen II (III) (752–7) pope, 5, 100, 163, 230, 248, 252, 258, 264, 284 procession with the Lateran acheiropoieta, 230–1 donation of icon to Santa Maria Maggiore, 248, 250, 252 Stephen III (IV) (768–72), pope, 229, 270

Index

Stephen IV (V) (816–17), 104 Stephen VII (VIII) (928–31), pope, 327 Stephen VIII (IX) (939–42), pope, 327 Stephen IX (X) (1057–8), pope, 327 Story, Joanna, xxiii, 5–6, 14 sudarium, 237, 241–2, 243 see also Veronica, image Suetonius, 96 Sun, Unconquered, pagan celebration of on 25 December, 178 Sutri, 322 sylloges see inscriptions Symmachus (498–514), pope, 3, 13, 27–8, 31, 86, 87, 89, 93, 114, 151–3, 155, 261, 262, 284 Tasselli, Domenico, 192, 198, 205, 208, 211 taurobolium, rite of, 24 Tebaldeshci, Roman family, 8 Tellus, 193 templon, of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, 219–20 Thacker, Alan, xxiii, 13, 113n. 69 Theoderic, king of the Goths, 26–31, 33, 100, 135, 136, 152, 217 adventus, 30, 33 mausoleum of, 136 Theodore II (897), pope, 327 Theodore of Studios, 223 Theodosian Code see Codex Theodosianus Theodosius I, Roman emperor, 31, 124n. 21, 127, 141–2 Theodosius II, Roman emperor, 30, 32, 128, 148 rejects Council of Ephesus, 134 Theodosius, son of Galla Placidia and Athaulf, 31, 116, 121, 123, 131, 133 Theotokos, 193, 198–9, 202, 207 Thermantia, Roman empress, 131 Thierry, monk of Fleury, 304–5 Tiberius Roman emperor, 281 sight restored, 237, 244 tituli, 146, 151, 152 Titus, Roman emperor, 115 tombs and mausolea, imperial, 4, 5, 25, 31, 115, 138–9, 144, 147, 284 papal, 3, 17, 105, 155, 215, 345 Roman, 278–9 senatorial, 139–40, 142–4, 154 of Venetian doges in Venice, 345 Totila, king of the Goths, 30 Tours, 13 liturgy of, 177, 182, 183, 184

tradition, invention, 372–6, 381, 385 Trajan, Roman emperor, 79, 370 column, 115 Trebellena Flacilla, coin from urn of, 48 tribune (choir), 333 Trier, cathedral, 58, 63 triumph, abolished, 28 Troll, Mary, 379 Tronzo, William, 4, 206, 207 tropaion, 36, 45 Ugonio, Pompeo, 67, 384 Urban II (1088–99), pope, 301, 327 Urban VI (1378–89), pope, 327, 328, 329, 335 burial, 9 tomb, 328 Fig. 17.2 Urban VIII (1622–44), pope, 385 Valens, Roman emperor, 58 Valentine (827), pope, 104 Valentinian I, Roman emperor, 58 Valentinian II, Roman emperor, 31, 126, 127, 142 Valentinian III, Roman emperor, 31, 124, 127, 128, 132, 147–9, 155 church building of, 132 supports papal primacy, 133–4, 148 Vandal attack on Rome (455), 3, 97 Vasari, Giorgio, 11, 67, 346, 350, 355, 402 Vatican cemetery necropolis, 36, 46, 48, 61 Fabbrica di San Pietro, 312 grottoes, 83, 193 Vatican hill, 23–4, 114, 326 Museo Petriano, 314 palace, 346 Vatican obelisk see obelisk Vegius, Mapheus, 84, 91, 92, 94, 362–3, 368 Venantius Fortunatus, 310 Veneziano, Agostino, 398 Venice, 228, 341–2, 345 Santi Giovanni e Paolo, doges’ tombs, 354 Fig. 17.6 Vercelli, Sant’Eusebio, 307, 310 Verona Gaspare de, 341 Veronica image, 237, 254, 256 Christ’s Passion and, 237, 242–3 description by Josef Wilpert, 241 healing power, 243, 244 indulgences, 240 Mandylion and, see Mandylion miraculous production of, 237, 242, 245 see Acheiropoieta ostensions, 239

483

484

Index

Veronica image (cont.) procession to Santo Spirito/Santa Maria in Sassia, 239–40 representations of, 240 Sudarium, identified as, 237, 239, 241–3 sources for cult see Gesta Innocentii III; Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora sources for object, 243, 245, 254–5 see also Venice, Bibl. Marciana, MS gr., 573 textile, identified as, 237, 241–2, 245 see also icons veneration of, 240, 242 Vultus Christi/domini, 229–56 Veronica, saint, 237, 242, 243, 256 identification with the Woman with the Issue of Blood, 237, 243, 244, 255, 256 sources for legend see Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica; Robert de Boron, Joseph d’Arimathie; Cura Sanitatis Tiberii; Vindicta Salvatoris Veronica, Veil of, 191, 205–6, 208, 343, 354 Vespasian, Roman emperor, 115 Vestina, Roman matron, 146 Vexilla regis hymn, 310 Via Appia, 16, 110, 111, 326 cemetery ad catacumbas, 61, 108, 140 papal necropolis, 108, 111, 113, 116, 117 Via dei Banchi Vecchi, 30 dell’Arco della Fontanella, 31 del Banco di Santo Spirito, 30 Flaminia, 28 Lata, 334 Ostiensis, 28 Salaria papal necropolis, 113 Tecta, 30

Tiburtina, 28 papal necropolis, 113 Triumphalis, 28 Via sacra, 264–5 Vigilius (537–55), pope, 100 Vindicta Salvatoris, 244, 245 vine motifs, 364–7 Fig. 18.10 Vitalian (657–72), pope, 100 Viterbo, Egidio da, 393–4 Volterra, liturgy of, 296 Volto santo see Veronica, Veil of; vultus Christi Votive crown, 266–7 vultus Christi, 191, 202, 250, 252–4 definition, 244 Pope Hadrian I and, 252–4 use of term in the Liber pontificalis, 246–52 see also Veronica image; Veronica Waal, Anton de, 88, 247 Waldipert, priest, 229–30, 237 Wearmouth, Saint Peter’s monastery, 153, 183 Weber, Max, 374 Wilpert, Joseph, 213, 241–2 Witigis, king of the Goths, 25, 26 Wohl, Linndros, 79 Wolf, Gerhard, 245 xenodochia, 28 Zacharias (741–52), 27, 168, 172 library, 290, 294 Zantfliet, Cornelius, 354, 355, 381 Zen, Cardinal Giovanni Battista, 338, 342, 345 Zeno chapel, 250–1 Zephyrinus (198/9–217), pope, 108