Rome in the Ninth Century: A History in Art (British School at Rome Studies) 9781009415378, 9781009415422, 1009415379

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br i t ish s c ho ol at rom e s t u di e s

Rome in the Ninth Century A History in Art

John Osborne

Rome in the Ninth Century

Intended as a sequel to Rome in the Eighth Century (Cambridge, 2020), this survey of the material culture of the city of Rome spans the period from the imperial coronation of Charlemagne in 800 to the nadir of the fortunes of the Roman Church a century later. The evidence of standing buildings, objects, historical documents and archaeology is brought together to create an integrated picture of the political, economic and cultural situation in the city over this period, one characterized initially by substantial wealth resulting in enormous patronage of art and architecture, but then followed by almost total impoverishment and collapse. John Osborne also attempts to correct the widespread notion that the Franco-papal alliance of the late eighth century led to a political and cultural break between Rome and the broader cultural world of the Christian eastern Mediterranean. Beautifully illustrated, this book is essential for everyone interested in medieval Rome. john osborne is currently Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at Carleton University, Ottawa, and an Associate Fellow of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. His monograph Rome in the Eighth Century: A History in Art (Cambridge, 2020) won the 2021 Margaret Wade Labarge prize of the Canadian Society of Medievalists.

British School at Rome Studies Series editors Barbara Borg Chair of Publications of the British School at Rome Abigail Brundin Director of the British School at Rome Roey Sweet Chair of the Faculty of Archaeology, History and Letters and Member of the Council of the British School at Rome British School at Rome Studies builds on the prestigious and long-standing Monographs series of the British School at Rome. It publishes volumes on topics that cover the full range of the history, archaeology and art history of the western Mediterranean both by the staff of the BSR and its present and former members, and by members of the academic community engaged in top-quality research in any of these fields. In the Footsteps of the Etruscans: Changing Landscapes around Tuscania from Prehistory to Modernity Edited by Graeme Barker and Tom Rasmussen Architecture in Ancient Central Italy: Connections in Etruscan and Early Roman Building Edited by Charlotte R. Potts Roman Port Societies: The Evidence of Inscriptions Edited by Pascal Arnaud and Simon Keay The Basilica of St John Lateran to 1600 Edited by Lex Bosman, Ian Haynes and Paolo Liverani Rome in the Eighth Century: A History in Art John Osborne 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 The Punic Mediterranean: Identities and Identification from Phoenician Settlement to Roman Rule Edited by Josephine Crawley Quinn and Nicholas C. Vella Turin and the British in the Age of the Grand Tour Edited by Paola Bianchi and Karin Wolfe

Rome in the Ninth Century A History in Art john osborne Carleton University, Ottawa

Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009415378 DOI: 10.1017/9781009415422 © The British School at Rome 2023 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 & Assessment. First published 2023 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited, Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library A Cataloging-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-1-009-41537-8 Hardback Cambridge University Press & Assessment 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.

Contents

List of Figures [page vi] Acknowledgements [ix] List of Abbreviations [x] List of Ninth-century Popes [xi]

1 Introduction [1] 2 Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III [10] 3 Paschal I, the Church of Santa Prassede and the Question of a ‘Carolingian Renovatio’ in Rome [51] 4 Paschal I: Other Projects [86] 5 Eugenius II, Gregory IV and Sergius II [109] 6 The Gathering Storm: The Pontificate of Pope Leo IV (847–55) [131] 7 Benedict III, Nicholas I and Hadrian II, and the Continuing ‘Greek’ Presence in Rome [161] 8 The Last Hurrah: John VIII (872–82) [196] 9 ‘Not with a Bang but a Whimper’ [235] Afterword [263] Bibliography [267] Index [325]

v

Figures

Photographs are from the author’s archive unless otherwise indicated. 1.1 Map of ninth-century Rome, indicating churches mentioned in the text © Lacey Wallace. [page 3] 1.2 San Clemente: mural portrait of Pope Leo IV (847–55). [5] 2.1 Lateran patriarchate: facsimile of Leo III’s ‘Aula Leonina’. [22] 2.2 Vatican Museums: head of an apostle from the ‘Aula Leonina’. Photo © Governatorato SCV – Direzione dei Musei. All rights reserved. [23] 2.3 Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 5407, fol. 97r. Photo by permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana with all rights reserved. [25] 2.4 Vatican City, BAV, Barb. lat. 2160, fol. 209v (olim 157v). Photo by permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana with all rights reserved. [28] 2.5 Santi Nereo ed Achilleo: Antonio Eclissi copy of mosaics on triumphal arch. Photo: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023. [40] 2.6 Vatican Museums: Annunciation silk. Photo © Governatorato SCV – Direzione dei Musei. All rights reserved. [47] 3.1 Santa Prassede: apse and framing arch. Photo: Fabio Barry. [61] 3.2 Santa Prassede: apse mosaic. [63] 3.3 Santa Prassede: Pope Paschal I with a model of the church. [64] 3.4 Santa Prassede: mosaics of apsidal arch. Photo: Fabio Barry. [66] 3.5 Santa Prassede: portal of the San Zeno chapel. Photo: Fabio Barry. [70] 3.6 San Zeno chapel: mosaic in the vault. Photo: Fabio Barry. [72] vi

List of Figures

3.7 San Zeno chapel: hetoimasia. Photo: Fabio Barry. [73] 3.8 San Zeno chapel: Deësis. Photo: Fabio Barry. [73] 3.9 San Zeno chapel: lunette with Agnus Dei, saints and Theodora episcopa. [74] 3.10 San Zeno chapel: Theodora episcopa. [74] 3.11 San Zeno chapel: Anastasis. [75] 3.12 Santa Prassede: panel from the marble screen. Photo: Fabio Barry. [83] 4.1 Santa Maria in Domnica: apse mosaic. Photo: Fabio Barry. [89] 4.2 Santa Cecilia: apse mosaic. Photo: Fabio Barry. [95] 4.3 Vatican Museums: enamel reliquary cross from the Sancta Sanctorum. Photo © Governatorato SCV – Direzione dei Musei. All rights reserved. [103] 4.4 Vatican Museums: container for enamel reliquary cross. Photo © Governatorato SCV – Direzione dei Musei. All rights reserved. [104] 4.5 Vatican Museums: cruciform reliquary container with narrative scenes, from the Sancta Sanctorum. Photo © Governatorato SCV – Direzione dei Musei. All rights reserved. [104] 4.6 Santa Passera: murals on south (left) wall. Photo: Giulia Bordi. [108] 5.1 Santa Sabina: clerical enclosure as reconstructed by Antonio Muñoz. Photo: Fabio Barry. [112] 5.2 San Marco: apse mosaic. Photo: Claudia Bolgia. [119] 6.1 Map of the ‘Leonine City’ © Lacey Wallace. [135] 6.2 San Clemente: Ascension mural. [152] 6.3 San Clemente: Ascension mural. Photo: British School at Rome Photographic Archive, John Henry Parker collection, jhp-1268. [152] 6.4 San Clemente: Ascension mural, detail of Pope Leo IV. [153] 6.5 San Clemente: Crucifixion and other scenes from the life of Christ. Photo: British School at Rome Photographic Archive, John Henry Parker collection, jhp-1269. [155] 6.6 San Clemente: marble block with oval cavity. [157] 7.1 House in the Forum of Nerva. [166] 7.2 San Clemente: Anastasis (tomb of St Cyril). [180] 7.3 San Clemente: Anastasis. Watercoloured photograph, from Wilpert 1916, pl. 229.2. [180]

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viii

List of Figures

7.4 Vatican City, BAV, Vat. gr. 749, fol. 6r. Photo by permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana with all rights reserved. [191] 8.1 Temple of Portunus/Church of Santa Maria de Secundicerio. [209] 8.2 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: mural fragments in vertical strip. Photo: Fabio Barry. [211] 8.3 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: Joachim and the shepherds. Raccolte fotografiche ICCD, Fondo Archivio Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, E008303 – Carlo Carboni, 1923–25, gelatin silver salts on glass. With permission of the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione – MiC. [216] 8.4 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: Christ speaks to his mother. Raccolte fotografiche ICCD, Fondo Archivio Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, E008302 – Carlo Carboni, 1923–25, gelatin silver salts on glass. With permission of the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione – MiC. [218] 8.5 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: John greets Peter and the other apostles at the door of Mary’s house. Raccolte fotografiche ICCD, Fondo Archivio Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, E008304 – Carlo Carboni, 1923–25, gelatin silver salts on glass. With permission of the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione – MiC. [219] 8.6 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: Basil and the repentant sinner. [220] 8.7 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: fragment of marble cornice. Photo: Fabio Barry. [221] 8.8 San Clemente: Anastasis, detail of St Cyril’s hood. [226] 8.9 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 923 (Sacra Parallela), fol. 208r. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France. [229] 9.1 Codex Juvenianus, fol. 2r. Photo by permission of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana – Ministero della Cultura. [248] 9.2 Codex Juvenianus, fol. 1v. Photo by permission of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana – Ministero della Cultura. [249] 9.3 Codex Juvenianus, fol. 67r. Photo by permission of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana – Ministero della Cultura. [251] 9.4 Ciampini sketch of the Oratory of Formosus, Rome: BAV, Vat. lat. 7849, fol. 3v. Photo by permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana with all rights reserved. [257]

Acknowledgements

Over almost five decades of exploration of the material culture of ninthcentury Rome I have been exceptionally fortunate to have benefited from the wisdom and insights of many knowledgeable and accomplished friends and scholars, including Fabio Barry, Sible de Blaauw, Claudia Bolgia, Giulia Bordi, Leonard Boyle, Tom Brown, Leslie Brubaker, David Buckton, Robert Coates-Stephens, Robin Cormack, Caecilia Davis-Weyer, Giulio Del Buono, Judson Emerick, Julian Gardner, Manuela Gianandrea, Federico Guidobaldi, Alessandra Guiglia Guidobaldi, Ingo Herklotz, Richard Hodges, Lesley Jessop, Dale Kinney, Richard Krautheimer, Gillian Mackie, Dominic Marner, Maya Maskarinec, Charles McClendon, Rosamond McKitterick, John Mitchell, Valentino Pace, Serena Romano, Erik Thunø, Carmela Vircillo Franklin, Vera von Falkenhausen and David Whitehouse. I have profited enormously from those conversations, many of them undertaken in front of the monuments in question. More recently, as the current project neared completion, Rosamond McKitterick generously volunteered to read each chapter in draft form, resulting in innumerable valuable suggestions for improvement. Alessandra Giovenco (British School at Rome) and Daniel Partridge (Royal Collection Trust) offered prompt assistance in the provision of images in their care, as did Lacey Wallace for the two maps. Additional visual materials were generously contributed by Claudia Bolgia, Giulia Bordi and especially Fabio Barry. I am also much in debt to Hendrik Dey and Stefania Peterlini, as well as to the librarians of the British School at Rome and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. This book would not have happened without their various and considerable efforts, for which I shall be forever grateful.

ix

Abbreviations

BAV BHL BL BnF CBCR

CCSL CLA

CT

DBI ICCD LP MGH ODB OR ÖstNB PL

x

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina antiquae et mediae aetatis British Library, London Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris R. Krautheimer et al., Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae, 5 vols. (Rome: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1937–77) Corpus Christianorum Series Latina E.A. Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores: A Palaeographical Guide to Latin Manuscripts prior to the Ninth Century, 12 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934–71). Codice topografico della città di Roma, R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti (eds.), 4 vols. (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1940–53) Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1960–) Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome Le Liber pontificalis: texte, introduction, et commentaire, L. Duchesne (ed.), 2 vols. (Paris: Ernest Thorin, 1886–92) Monumenta Germaniae Historica Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, A. Kazhdan (ed.) (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) Les ‘Ordines Romani’ du Haut Moyen Age, M. Andrieu (ed.), 5 vols. (Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, 1931–61) Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina, J.-P. Migne (ed.), 221 vols. (Paris: Garnier, 1841–64)

Ninth-century Popes

Leo III Stephen IV Paschal I Eugenius II Valentine Gregory IV Sergius II Leo IV Benedict III Nicholas I Hadrian II John VIII Marinus I Hadrian III Stephen V Formosus Boniface VI Stephen VI Romanus Theodore II John IX Benedict IV

795–816 816–817 817–824 824–827 827 827–844 844–847 847–855 855–858 858–867 867–872 872–882 882–884 884–885 885–891 891–896 896 896–897 897 897 898–900 900–903

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1

Introduction

This book is first and foremost a storia, a narrative of the history of Rome over the course of the ninth century CE, with its primary focus on the category of material culture, broadly defined. In the process of constructing that story, information will be derived from a wide variety of ‘texts’. In addition to written sources, these include standing remains, items in museum and library collections, and materials unearthed in archaeological excavations or recorded by antiquarians in the early modern and subsequent eras. The intention is to weave together these various strands of evidence in the hope of creating a comprehensive picture that exceeds the sum of its individual parts. Material culture – buildings, along with their painted, sculptural and mosaic decorations, and a range of objects encompassing media such as metalwork, textiles and manuscripts – will all be treated as documentary evidence for the exploration of that history, a process for which I prefer the term ‘history in art’, as opposed to ‘history of art’.1 This approach was used in my previous study, Rome in the Eighth Century: A History in Art (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and the present book is intended very much as both a companion and sequel to that volume, picking up precisely where the first one left off. It will also adopt much the same general structure, organized primarily on a chronological matrix that itself follows the various incumbents of the ‘throne of St Peter’, in other words the bishops of Rome, the popes, who provided the principal patronage of material culture through much of the century in question. And of course this is the same organizational principle employed in our primary written source for the period, the series of sequential papal biographies known as the Liber pontificalis (LP).2 Its purpose, as Rosamond McKitterick has argued, was not simply to place the bishops of Rome at the heart of the Christian project, but to construct a notion of ‘Romanness’ in which the popes were seen as having inherited the mantle of the emperors.3 1 2

3

For a fuller discussion of this terminology see Osborne 2020: xiv–xv. English translations of LP for the eighth- and ninth-century vitae by Raymond Davis (1995 and 2007). The history, function and value of this text are examined by McKitterick 2020a. See also the conference volume edited by Herbers and Simperl 2020. McKitterick 2018.

1

2

Introduction

For well over a century since the publication of Duchesne’s edition in the late 1800s, these vitae, believed to have been compiled more or less contemporaneously with the reign of the pontiff in question, have served as the foundation for most studies of the ninth-century papacy, as well as for their patronage of material culture.4 As we shall see, the focus on buildings and gifts of textiles and metalwork is extensive, and in some instances is more or less the only topic addressed. Other written sources for early medieval Rome are exceptionally scarce; for example, there are almost no original property documents or legal records until the tenth century (only a few copies are preserved in much later cartularies), although there is some surviving papal correspondence, and information about Rome is occasionally included in chronicles written elsewhere.5 Also of exceptional value is the series of ‘stage directions’ for the performance of the liturgy known as the Ordines Romani (OR), and in particular the complete description of a stational mass set out in Ordo Romanus I (c. 700).6 The division into centuries is not simply a random accident, however convenient it may appear. The eighth century marked the political break between Rome and Constantinople, the creation of a politicallyindependent Roman ‘republic’ ruled by the pope, in other words the papal state, and the forging of a new alliance with the Frankish monarchy, culminating in its final dramatic act, the coronation of Charlemagne as the new ‘Roman emperor’ on 25 December 800. It was a transformation that in many respects paved the way for the next millennium of the city’s history. The story of the ninth century is very different. It begins on that high note, but the wealth and energy so dramatically evident in its early decades would not be sustained, and at the end of the century the city experienced one of the most economically and politically challenged moments in the entirety of its history, not only of the Middle Ages. Some of the vitae of the ninth-century popes include valuable accounts of papal engagement in the secular and religious politics of their time, while others ignore such matters entirely and focus instead on building achievements, as well as the substantial donations of luxury furnishings, vestments and liturgical implements to the city’s churches (Fig. 1.1). This written evidence is invaluable, but so too are the buildings and objects themselves. We can learn as much, if not indeed more, 4 6

Bauer 2004: 27–38. 5 Summarized in West-Harling 2020: 10–16. See also Baldovin 1987: 130–4; and Romano 2014: 15–16. For the particular Frankish interest in these texts, which has served to preserve them, see Westwell 2019.

Introduction

Fig. 1.1 Map of ninth-century Rome, indicating churches mentioned in the text © Lacey Wallace.

about Rome in the age of Pope Paschal I (817–24) from Santa Prassede and the other churches he built and decorated, and in which his name and image appear, as we do from the words of his Liber pontificalis biography. But historians of politics have rarely thought about the evidence of material culture, as recently observed and lamented by

3

4

Introduction

Francesca Dell’Acqua,7 while until the last quarter of the twentieth century historians of art had tended to ignore the political, social and religious contexts in and for which the objects of their study were created. As explained in the preface to my previous volume, the approach taken by the historian in art is not entirely novel in the twenty-first century, and the pioneering study which heralded this new direction for scholarship was Richard Krautheimer’s award-winning 1980 monograph Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308. Krautheimer was first and foremost an architectural historian, and thus his focus was squarely on buildings, with the unfortunate consequence that he rarely considered evidence in media such as wallpainting or manuscripts; and of course his study was written well before the substantial advances in medieval archaeology undertaken across the city in more recent decades. Furthermore, it surveyed a period stretching across an entire millennium, and thus could devote only a single chapter to what he called the ‘Carolingian Age’.8 The same comment also applies to the excellent recent volume by Hendrik Dey, a conscious and hugely successful attempt to ‘update’ Krautheimer’s magnum opus but still ranging over a period of a thousand years.9 The present study will be much more focused chronologically, but at the same time considerably more wide-ranging in terms of the materials and media assessed. Ninth-century Rome has exercised my imagination for almost half a century, since the day in November 1974 when I first visited the excavated ‘lower church’ of San Clemente, the Early Christian basilica which lies beneath the standing church of the early twelfth century, and discovered the well-preserved image of Pope Leo IV (847–55) (Fig. 1.2); and some five years later this same mural also played a significant role in both my doctoral thesis and my first published article.10 In the context of the visual culture of medieval Rome, the ninth century is exceptionally rich in terms of surviving material for study, in fact probably the richest era of the early Middle Ages in that regard; and from that perspective it should perhaps be an easy moment about which to write a comprehensive overview, given the wealth of information available. But it is not easy; and this is due in large part to a markedly uneven distribution of material available for consideration.

7

8

Dell’Acqua 2020: 6. The primary exception has been Paolo Delogu, whose most recent book (Delogu 2022) incorporates significant evidence of both architecture and archaeology, although covering a much broader chronology. 9 Krautheimer 1980: 109–42. Dey 2021. 10 Osborne 1979 and Osborne 1984: 24–106.

Introduction

Fig. 1.2 San Clemente: mural portrait of Pope Leo IV (847–55)

For the eighth century we have not only a complete set of papal biographies, in addition to correspondence with the Frankish kings and various other written materials, but also a more or less continuous sequence of surviving monuments, the foremost being the church of Santa Maria Antiqua in the Roman Forum, which was a recipient of high-level artistic patronage that can be documented in at least four pontificates that are known, those of John VII (705–7), Zacharias (741–52), Paul I (757–67) and Hadrian I (772–95). The portraits of all four of those popes are included in the mural decorations. For the ninth century, in comparison, with the sole exception of the church of San Clemente there is no single monument with secure surviving physical evidence of more than one moment of activity. And while there is a surfeit of information for material culture produced in the first five decades of the century, this is balanced by an almost complete absence of such evidence from the last five decades. The contrast is truly quite extraordinary. The early ninth century witnessed a massive increase of commerce and prosperity across the Carolingian and Mediterranean worlds, resulting in an enormous expansion of physical building that in western Europe was manifested in, among other things, the construction of large new monasteries.11 11

Hodges 2020: 69.

5

6

Introduction

In this era of abundance, the city of Rome was no outlier. The popes at the beginning of the ninth century quite evidently commanded unprecedented surplus wealth as well as access to both materials (new and recycled) and specialized labour, and they made good use of these resources to create lasting testimonials to the power and authority not only of the Roman Church they represented but also of themselves as individuals. They left behind a legacy of some truly spectacular buildings, many lavishly decorated with mosaics reflecting their interests and concerns, of which the most complete and best preserved is undoubtedly the church of Santa Prassede, one of a number of substantial architectural projects initiated by Pope Paschal I. By contrast, however, the less fortunate pontiffs who reigned at the end of the century appear to have been all but penniless, bereft of resources and struggling to find the means to undertake even the most basic of necessary repairs. This would lead eventually to a shift in patronage, as the ability to undertake the production of material culture gradually moved away from the direct control of the papacy to others, primarily the resident nobility and social elite, most of whom also occupied important positions within the administration of both the city and its Church. Indeed, the ninth century really is a ‘tale of two cities’, one wealthy, the second impoverished, and a second theme of this book will be an attempt to identify and explain that disparity. Not only is this development mirrored quite precisely in the accounts of papal activities preserved in the Liber pontificalis, which are all but silent on building activities after the pontificate of Leo IV,12 but it is also reflected in the essence of that source itself. We possess comparatively fulsome biographies of the popes through to Nicholas I (858–67), but then only a partial vita of Hadrian II (867–72), and no entries at all for his successors through to the end of the century, apart from a small fragment of the life of Stephen V (885–91), which covers only the very beginning of his pontificate. Furthermore, while the eighth-century lives are known from a number of surviving manuscripts, those from the ninth century have only a small handful of witnesses.13 Why this was the case still remains less than fully understood. I shall take the view that when the evidence derived from multiple sources (including written documents, standing remains and archaeology) all point in much the same direction, this represents not simply some 12

13

As observed by Hendrik Dey (2021: 140), ‘there was less to talk about because less was in fact being done’, a view which is amply supported by various strands of evidence. For a full listing of the medieval manuscripts containing some part of the text, see LP: clxiv–ccvi; and Davis 2007: xvi–xxi.

Introduction

random accident of survival, but rather a very real downturn in the city’s fortunes. By the late 800s it was no longer ‘business as usual’ for those who governed Rome and its Church, and the conditions which conspired to bring about this dramatic decline will also be explored, the principal factor being a collapse of the city’s economy resulting from the complete physical insecurity of its surrounding hinterland, arguably the source of much of its previous wealth. Finally, this book also has a third theme, again paralleling one introduced in the previous volume. For the eighth century I attempted to demonstrate that the dramatic political shift which removed Rome from the orbit of the emperors resident in Constantinople and brought the city into that of the transalpine Frankish monarchy was not paralleled by any fundamental change in underlying cultural attitudes or cultural products. In the present volume I contend that this observation largely also holds true for the ninth century, a moment of substantial contact and reinvigorated communication with eastern Christianity and the city of Constantinople, never fully interrupted but particularly prevalent in the years following the end of the second period of iconoclasm, and the so-called ‘Triumph of Orthodoxy’, in 843.14 It is perhaps worth noting here that the city was saved from a ‘Saracen’ attack in 880 not by the Frankish army, but by the imperial fleet of Emperor Basil I, despatched to protect the Tiber at explicit papal request; and we can perhaps speculate that at least some of the factional divisions which dominated the complicated internal politics of the Roman Church stemmed from a desire in some quarters to return the city to the empire which continued to bear its name. Or so at least some in the period in question seem quite clearly to have believed, as incongruous as that might seem to us today with our advantage of multiple centuries of hindsight. Tom Brown has envisaged a lingering undercurrent of nostalgic attachment to Byzantium in the city’s political life, and he is undoubtedly correct in attributing this to the mindset of the city’s secular aristocracy, many of whose families had emigrated from the eastern Mediterranean to Rome in the seventh century as soldiers, bureaucrats or ecclesiastics.15 As we shall see, this is more than matched in the evidence supplied by material culture. The murals in the church of Santa Maria de Secundicerio, 14

15

Ballardini 2007: 194, gets it exactly right when she speaks of ‘un’ecumene mediterranea ancora mobile e dialogante’. For the general use of the term ‘Byzantine’ to signify the world of eastern Christianity even beyond the confines of territory ruled from Constantinople, see Holmes 2021: 178–9. Brown 1988: 39–42.

7

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Introduction

for example, datable to c. 875, have little in common with any contemporaneous ‘Carolingian’ production, and instead fall squarely into a larger context that is usually thought of as ‘Byzantine’ art. Indeed, throughout this study I shall attempt to avoid casting Rome politically and artistically as part of the Carolingian Empire, which in legal terms it was not, and instead view it as an independent entity. This is not a book about ‘Carolingian Rome’. Rome was never ‘Carolingian’ in terms of its material culture, although of course the Franks played a prominent role in its ninth-century political life. The city stood at the crossroads of an east–west axis spanning the Christian Mediterranean, and a north–south axis crossing the Alps to Francia and Britain, and at times it borrowed from both. But at its base was a foundation of visual tradition stretching back to at least the fourth century CE, an inherited legacy of which the popes clearly saw themselves as jealous guardians and promoters. Earlier attempts to document the material culture of ninth-century Rome are very few in number, mostly consisting of short chapters within larger chronological surveys of the entire Middle Ages: for example, the chapter on ninth-century mosaics in Walter Oakeshott’s classic The Mosaics of Rome, or the contributions on papal patronage in that century by Mario D’Onofrio, Ivan Foletti and Valentine Giesser in the comprehensive recent survey of that specific topic La committenza artistica dei papi a Roma nel Medioevo.16 Previous studies have also been for the most part medium-specific, for example Erik Thunø’s synchronic approach to the apse mosaics in Roman churches,17 or the architectural surveys by Richard Krautheimer and Hendrik Dey, previously cited. Some have also been made redundant by more recent research. On the subject of wall-painting, for example, it is now a third of a century since the bold attempt by Maria Andaloro to update the first volume of Guglielmo Matthiae’s Pittura Romana del Medioevo;18 and that original text, first published in 1965, had focused almost exclusively on the concept of artistic style, with little attention paid to the political and economic contexts which governed production.19 Richard Krautheimer’s Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae (CBCR), published in five volumes by the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana between 1937 and 1977, organized its material by 16 18 19

Oakeshott 1967: 195–242; D’Onofrio 2016; and Foletti and Giesser 2016. 17 Thunø 2015. Matthiae and Andaloro 1987. Somewhat curiously, perhaps, the larger political, economic and religious contexts had been explored perspicaciously and insightfully by Matthiae in a much earlier study; see Matthiae 1954.

Introduction

monument, presented for the most part in an alphabetical sequence (with the exception of the final volume, which dealt with the city’s three major fourth-century basilicas: San Giovanni in Laterano, San Paolo fuori le mura and Saint Peter’s), and the same geographic principle governs the Corpus della scultura altomedievale, a project since 1959 of the Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo in Spoleto, still incomplete but now approaching some thirty published volumes, including seven for the city of Rome alone. Such corpora have incomparable value as a foundation for future scholarship, but their primary aim is to document and catalogue work at individual sites, rather than to weave a tapestry in which historical, art historical and archaeological threads are drawn together to create a coherent narrative. Much the same can also be said of the Corpus and Atlante volumes of the comprehensive project entitled La Pittura Medievale a Roma, edited by Maria Andaloro and Serena Romano,20 although we still await the projected Corpus volumes which will deal with the early Middle Ages, including the ninth century. A much more rounded picture is offered by Caroline Goodson’s 2010 monograph, The Rome of Pope Paschal I,21 and in many ways the present book is an attempt to set her achievement within the larger context of what would follow in the decades immediately afterwards. The year 900 marks a nadir for the material culture of medieval Rome, whether in terms of surviving buildings and objects or of knowledge about them derived from other sources; and there can be no doubt that this reflects a substantial quantitative decline in production. But this transition between the two centuries is also another ‘Janus moment’, since the early tenth century witnessed a new, albeit gradual revival of the city’s prosperity when the political and economic situation stabilized under the leadership of the aristocratic House of Theophylact, in particular in the generation of Theophylact’s grandson, Prince Alberic. That third act in the fortunes of the early medieval city, during a period all too frequently dismissed as its ‘Dark Ages’, will be the subject of a projected final volume in this series. 20

Andaloro and Romano 2006–.

21

Goodson 2010.

9

2

Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

When Pope Leo III (795–816) awoke on the morning of 1 January 801, at the dawn of a new century, he must have felt reasonably satisfied with the security of his own position, as well as the state of affairs of the Roman Church more generally. Much had happened within the preceding ten days, but the future looked bright. The eighth century had been one of the most transformative in the city’s entire history. In the year 700, Rome was a city within the still nominally ‘Roman’ Empire, although one long since ruled by emperors located in distant Constantinople, with local governance in the hands of a ‘duke’ (dux) who reported to the imperial exarch based in Ravenna; and the bishops of Rome, still struggling to assert hegemony in terms of ecclesiastical and theological authority, were engaged in what appeared to be a never-ending battle with imperial officials, who often arrived in the city with the intention of arresting them. But slowly that tide had turned. By the year 800 Rome had become an independent political entity, a self-styled ‘republic’ (respublica), its remaining political ties to Byzantium severed completely.1 The last pope to be apprehended for treason and sent to Constantinople for trial was Martin I (649–55), who was found guilty and exiled to Cherson in the Crimea, where he soon died. Subsequently, he would be regarded as a saint and martyr, and serve as a figurehead for the role of the papacy as the defender of Christian orthodoxy. There followed a number of similar attempts to impose imperial will on matters of the faith, as well as to seize the pontiff, but these were all spectacularly unsuccessful. At the end of the seventh century the imperial protospatharios Zacharias arrived in Rome with orders to arrest Pope Sergius I (687–701), but the Roman people rose up to protect their bishop, and Sergius’ Liber pontificalis biographer paints a vivid picture of Zacharias cowering under the pope’s bed in the Lateran Palace while the Roman militia and populace, assembled outside, shouted for his head.2 Once again in the early eighth century, an effort to seize Pope Gregory II (715–31) was similarly thwarted by the Roman militia.3 Their allegiance had shifted. 1

2 3

10

This use of the term respublica may be documented from at least the time of Pope Stephen II (752–57), see Noble 1984: 94–8; Gantner 2014: 467–9; and Delogu 2015: 203–8. LP 86.6–9, ed. Duchesne I: 372–4. LP 91.14–16, ed. Duchesne I: 403–4. For an overview of the political situation between 680 and 750, see Brown 1995: 320–7.

Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

That transformation did not take place only at a popular level. It soon extended to the city’s political elite. By the second quarter of the eighth century the new Roman aristocracy which had developed in the aftermath of the sixth-century Gothic wars, primarily the families of imperial bureaucrats and military officers who had settled in the city and acquired both land and power,4 was actively engaged in the creation of a new civic administrative structure, now headed de facto by the pope, and with only a nominal nod to imperial authority; and the concept of an emerging noble class appears in the Liber pontificalis from the time of Pope Hadrian I (772– 95) onwards.5 Perhaps the best documented example of this transition is provided by Theodotus, who (like his brother Theodore before him) had held the position of dux, but who then entered the papal administration, rising to become its most senior official, the primicerius sanctae sedis apostolicae. At the same time this family became actively engaged in dealing with the pressing issue of Rome’s food security, a problem severely exacerbated by the imperial confiscation of properties in southern Italy belonging to the Roman Church. Not only did they donate their own farmland in the city’s immediate hinterland in order to create new papally-controlled agricultural estates known as domuscultae, but they also began to play an active role in the administration of the diaconiae (welfare centres), which administered to the needs of the indigent urban population. In the pontificate of Zacharias (741–52), Theodotus is known to have served as the dispensator of the diaconia of Santa Maria Antiqua in the Roman Forum, where he and his family appear among the mural decorations of a chapel dedicated to Sts Quiricus and Julitta; and then a few years later he is recorded in an inscription of the year 755 as the pater of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria, a diaconia built into the remains of the Portico of Octavia. The process came full circle in the following generation when Theodore’s son, adopted by his uncle Theodotus after his father’s death, was elected pope in 772 as Hadrian I.6 These families would dominate the political landscape in Rome, providing most of the senior administrative officials and many of the popes, until replaced by an even newer aristocracy in the eleventh century.7 4

5 6 7

For the development of a new elite in Italy following the disruption of the sixth-century Gothic wars, see Brown 1984; and Delogu 2018: 161. Delogu 2015: 211–12; and Delogu 2018: 160–1. For this family, see Winterhager 2020a: 167–85; and Osborne 2020: 95–136. For the existing situation in the tenth century, and its subsequent transformation, see Wickham 2015: 186–220.

11

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Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

Conflict with the Byzantine emperor wasn’t the only external physical threat facing those who managed the Roman Church in the eighth century, nor even the most urgent one. There was another enemy, much closer at hand and even more physically threatening: the Lombards, who had entered Italy in the second half of the sixth century and established a kingdom in the northern part of the peninsula, with its capital at Pavia, as well as two militarily potent duchies situated farther south, centred on the cities of Spoleto and Benevento. Rome was in effect sandwiched between these two duchies, with only a narrow corridor across the Apennines, via Todi and Perugia, for continued communication with Ravenna.8 The Lombards posed a constant threat to an imperial presence in Italy, and Ravenna would eventually fall to them in the year 751. Nor was Rome immune to this same danger, and the city suffered significant sieges by the Lombard kings Liutprand and Aistulf. While the strength of the Aurelian walls had prevented its capture, the disruption to the surrounding countryside was significant. When requests to Constantinople for assistance fell on deaf ears, in desperation the papacy turned to the Lombards’ neighbours to the north, the Franks, where their appeal found more fertile ground. Pippin III in 756, and two decades later his son Charles, known to us as Charlemagne (‘Charles the Great’), both brought their armies into northern Italy, and in 774 Charlemagne captured Pavia, bringing the existence of the independent Lombard kingdom to an end. Seven years later he would install his son Pippin as the new king of the regnum Italiae.9 Although technically independent from Frankish rule, the Roman Church now had a new military champion and would not again face an external physical assault until the middle of the following century. How Hadrian I, Leo III, Pippin and Charlemagne envisaged their new relationship in legal terms has been the subject of much discussion and debate, complicated by the fact that no formal document has survived. We can surmise that the situation was initially somewhat fluid, and must have depended to some extent on personal relationships and understandings; but there can be no doubt that Rome was now administered by the pope and the various officials of his ‘court’.10 And of course it was in the mid 8

9

10

For the geography of this ‘corridor’, see McMahon 2022. This route had been recaptured from the Lombards by the exarch Romanus at the close of the sixth century; LP 66.2, ed. Duchesne I: 312. For the nomenclature and extent of ‘Carolingian’ Italy, which did not include Rome and the papal state, see Delogu 2021 and Bougard 2021. Noble 2015.

Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

eighth century, precisely at the moment of the initiation of the Frankish connection, that the papal chancery produced one of the most spectacular forgeries of the Middle Ages, the so-called ‘Donation of Constantine’, ostensibly a document of the early fourth century in which the first Christian emperor ceded authority over western Europe to Pope Sylvester before decamping for Byzantium.11 Recent analysis has reaffirmed the close links between the language and style of this text and the letters sent by the popes to Pippin and Charlemagne, the latter preserved in the Codex epistolaris Carolinus.12 Whatever the parties may have believed, at least one thing was clear. The safety and security of both the city and the Roman Church now rested in the hands of the most powerful ruling family in Christendom, who moreover seemed to fully embrace that responsibility. No discussion of the relationship between the Frankish monarchs and the papacy can ignore the event that, with hindsight, has been perceived as its most defining moment: the coronation by Leo III of the former patricius Romanorum as imperator Romanorum on Christmas day in 800. Despite Einhard’s statement that Charlemagne did not wish to receive this new title, and would not have entered Saint Peter’s that day if he had known what Leo was planning, it is most unlikely to have been a surprise, and the remark should probably be taken simply as a topos to indicate the new emperor’s humility.13 It was only after Charlemagne’s death in 814, and the accession of his son Louis the Pious (r. 814–40), that a formal legal arrangement (pactum) was developed, the so-called Ludowicianum of 817, negotiated initially with Pope Stephen IV (816–17) although the text that survives is addressed to his successor, Pope Paschal I (817–24). Attested by Louis, his sons and various other members of his court, this document assigned in perpetuity to the pope and his successors the patrimonia of St Peter, including Rome and its surrounding territories, southern Tuscany, Ravenna and the former cities of the exarchate, parts of southern Italy, and the islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, noting that this confirmed undertakings made previously by Pippin and Charlemagne.14 Whether Louis had legal jurisdiction 11

12 13

14

Constitutum Constantini, ed. Fuhrmann. For analysis and dating see also Huyghebaert 1979; Goodson and Nelson 2010; and Delogu 2015: 210 and n. 55. I am not persuaded by the suggestion that it was written north of the Alps in the early ninth century (Fried 2007). Pollard and Price 2021: 80–4. Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni 28, ed. Holder-Egger: 32. For the Roman view, LP 98.23, ed. Duchesne II: 7. See also Noble 1984: 291–9; Groth 2012: 23–42; and Nelson 2019: 380–5. Ludowicianum, ed. Boretius; for discussion and analysis see Hahn 1975; Noble 1984: 148–53, 299–308; Costambeys 2007: 317–23; and Goodson 2010: 30–1. It should be noted that the original document does not survive, and the modern edition has been reconstructed from quotations by later canonists, but the language is considered to be genuine. For papal territories in the hinterland of Rome, see Marazzi 1998.

13

14

Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

to assign territories in southern Italy and Sicily, or the practical ability to enforce such a claim, is of course a moot point!15 And, as we shall see, its provisions lasted only a few years before being amended by his son Lothar; but what wouldn’t change was the acknowledgement of papal jurisdiction over the lands in question, and these would be re-confirmed by subsequent occupants of the imperial throne, perhaps most famously in the Ottonianum issued by Otto I following his imperial coronation in February 962.16 In the year 800 the city was also in considerably better physical shape than it had been for some centuries. Over the last quarter of the eighth century Pope Hadrian I had done much to renew the urban infrastructure, repairing the walls, the aqueducts and a great many churches, in addition to expanding the system of domuscultae that fed the clergy and those others for whose welfare the ecclesiastical administration was now responsible.17 Leo III’s only significant concern lay within the city itself, with the landowning magnates whose families now dominated the city’s social and political landscape, both secular and religious. In the ninth century they continued to be known collectively as senators (senatores),18 although that institution had ceased to function some two centuries earlier. As noted previously, Hadrian I had himself come from such a family. Both his birth father, Theodore, and his uncle and adoptive father, Theodotus, had served as duces before shifting their allegiance to the papacy rather than a distant and ineffectual emperor in Constantinople; and Theodotus had himself risen in the papal administration to become its most senior bureaucrat, the primicerius sanctae sedis apostolicae. In exercising what Chris Wickham has described as their ‘choreography of power’, the families who comprised this new Roman aristocracy were closer to their counterparts in Constantinople than to any other group in western Europe;19 and thus it was only natural that they would compete with one another to wield authority and control over the Roman Church as well as the fledgling Roman state, and would consequently be suspicious of ‘outsiders’. Leo III may have been precisely that. His Liber pontificalis biographer describes him as ‘Roman’, but the son of someone with the unusual and distinctly non-Roman name of Atzuppius, and it is possible that the family 15

16 17 18 19

For the likelihood that Sicily is a later interpolation, Noble 1984: 172–3. For the discrepancy between papal claims and the actual situation on the ground, see also McKitterick, van Espelo, Pollard and Price 2021: 114–16. This document does survive: Vatican City, AAV AA. Arm. I–XVIII: 18. Delogu 2017: 105–7; De Francesco 2017; and Osborne 2020: 210–14. LP 103.4, 108.7, 38, ed. Duchesne II: 73, 174, 180. Wickham 2006: 5. See also Delogu 2015: 209–12; and West-Harling 2020: 153–69.

Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

originally came from southern Italy.20 From an early age he had been associated with the papal court at the Lateran Palace, and specifically with the office of the vestiarium, which managed the pope’s finances and landholdings, eventually entering the clergy and rising through the ranks to become priest of the church of Santa Susanna.21 Our Liber pontificalis text makes no mention of a contested papal election in 795, but it was not long before aristocratic resentment boiled over, leading to an attempted assassination. On 25 April 799 Leo and his entourage set out from the Lateran for the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, the starting point of the annual procession known as the Major Litany; but they didn’t quite make it. In the Via Lata district, home to a number of aristocratic families including that of his predecessor, Hadrian I, the papal party was attacked by a group of conspirators, apparently led by two of the senior lay officials: the primicerius Paschal, Hadrian’s nephew, and the sacellarius Campulus. Leo’s biographer continues: ‘Without mercy they cut his clothes off him and attempted to pluck out his eyes and totally blind him. They cut off his tongue and left him, or so they thought, blind and dumb in the street.’ Then, dragging the pope into the adjacent monastery of San Silvestro in Capite, ‘they beat him with clubs and mangled him with various injuries, and left him half-dead and drenched in blood in front of the altar.’ Most individuals receiving such treatment might be expected to succumb from their injuries, but either the reports of the atrocities suffered are exaggerated or the efforts of the attackers were extraordinarily inept. Leo did not die, and that night he was moved to the monastery of Sant’Erasmo where, we are told, his sight and tongue were miraculously restored. Moreover, he was rescued from captivity by a group of his faithful supporters, who brought him to Saint Peter’s where he was offered protection by Winichis, Duke of Spoleto. Subsequently he left Rome, travelling first to Spoleto, and then north across the Alps to meet Charlemagne at Paderborn.22 Throughout the ninth century our sources provide various hints to suggest the existence of at least two primary factions among the city’s aristocracy, one at some moments seemingly inclined politically to favour the Franks and the other tilted more towards Constantinople; but it is often 20 21

22

See discussions by Beck 1969; and Herbers 2004: 141–2. The lengthy biography of Leo III (LP 98, ed. Duchesne II: 1–48) extends to some 113 chapters. For an overview of the structure and chronology, see Geertman 1975: 37–70; Herbers 2004: 140–1; Davis 2007: 171; and Verardi 2018. LP 98.11–15, ed. Duchesne II: 4–5. For the events of 799–800, see also Noble 1984: 291–9; and Tremp 2018.

15

16

Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

difficult to get a secure picture, and allegiances seem to have shifted frequently. We shall return to this theme in subsequent chapters. An outside observer might well wonder if it is significant that the two monasteries where the pope was imprisoned and mistreated, San Silvestro in Capite and Sant’Erasmo, both housed Greek-speaking communities; but there is no easy answer to that question. What we do know is that Leo III returned to Rome on 29 November, with a Frankish military escort, and Charlemagne himself also made the same journey the following year, intending to hear the charges of perjury, simony and adultery laid against the pontiff. But no trial was ever held. We are told that the Roman and Frankish clergy came to the conclusion that they did not have the authority to judge the pope, God’s vicar on earth, and on 23 December 800 Leo himself swore an oath of innocence. Two days later he consolidated his position by crowning Charlemagne as emperor, establishing a papal claim to this prerogative that would endure for a millennium. Paschal and Campulus were then tried by Charlemagne, found guilty of treason and condemned to death. But this sentence was subsequently commuted to exile, apparently at papal behest.23 If there were repercussions against others in Rome, they are not mentioned in contemporary texts, although a century later the anonymous author of the pro-imperial tract the Libellus de imperatoria potestate in urbe Roma would report that in a single day Charlemagne beheaded some 300 people outside the Lateran Palace.24 But this seems rather improbable. This snapshot of Rome at the dawn of the ninth century is heavily dependent on written sources, and primarily the Liber pontificalis life of Leo III (Life 98), the longest in this series of papal biographies. Only a handful of the medieval copies of this text continue beyond Life 97 (Hadrian I). Life 98 is preserved in six manuscripts, of which two are sufficiently late that they were ignored in Duchesne’s edition. The earliest (Duchesne’s ‘D’, Paris, BnF MS lat. 5516) was written at Tours in or before 871.25 Of course this presents a distinctly one-sided view of events, highlighting papal accomplishments, but a useful corrective is supplied by various transalpine Carolingian authors and chronicles, including the Annales regni Francorum and Einhard’s Vita Karoli 23

24

25

LP 98.18–26, ed. Duchesne II: 6–8. The pope’s personal intervention to spare the lives of the conspirators is recorded in the Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze: 114. uno die in campo Lateranensi fecit trecentos decollari (Libellus de imperatoria potestate, ed. Zucchetti: 197). Verardi 2018; for the manuscripts, LP, ed. Duchesne II: ii–iii.

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s

Magni;26 and these accounts may be supplemented additionally by the evidence derived from material culture. Some of the buildings erected in this age are still standing, along with elements of their pictorial decorations in painting and mosaic; others are known to have survived into the early modern era, when they were often documented by curious antiquarian scholars; and much more material has been recovered in recent decades through a remarkable series of archaeological excavations, for example in the Roman Forum and also the area known as the Crypta Balbi,27 the latter the site since the year 2000 of a museum devoted to the city’s early medieval history.

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s Over the course of the seventh and eighth centuries the primary geographical locus of power and authority in the city had shifted definitively from the centuries-old complex of the imperial palace on the Palatine hill to the papal residence adjoining Rome’s cathedral church, San Giovanni in Laterano;28 and it is instructive to note the changing nomenclature with which that structure was identified. Initially it is referred to in texts and documents as a ‘bishop’s residence’ (episcopium), then a ‘patriarchate’ (patriarchium), and then from the early ninth century onwards as a ‘palace’ (palatium).29 The first use in the Liber pontificalis of that last term occurs in the vita of Pope Valentine, who occupied the throne of St Peter for a period of only forty days in 827,30 and this shift probably reflects its earlier use in the eighth-century ‘Donation of Constantine’, which claimed that the Lateran had originally been an imperial residence, given by the emperor to Pope Sylvester.31 The first inkling of this future transition in both the role of the pope and the function of his residence may perhaps be found in the time of Pope Gregory I (590–604), when the images depicting the new Emperor Phocas (r. 602–10) and Empress Leontia were brought first to the Lateran for acclamation by the Roman Senate before going to the chapel of St 26 27 28

29

30 31

For a comprehensive introduction to these two sources, see McKitterick 2008: 7–20, 31–56. Manacorda 2001; and Delogu 2022: 92–103. For the origins of the papal residence, see Liverani 2020. For a ‘visualization’ of the adjacent basilica: Bosman, Liverani, Peverett and Haynes 2020. For the evolving nomenclature, see Liverani 1999: 542–7; Noble 2015: 237–8; and Ballardini 2015: 905. LP 102.3, ed. Duchesne II: 71. palatium imperii nostri Lateranense (Constitutum Constantini, ed. Fuhrmann: 87, line 219).

17

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Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

Caesarius on the Palatine.32 But there is little doubt that the old imperial palace (Domus Augustana) continued in use, and it is surmised that it served as the residence of Emperor Constans II during his Roman visit in 663. At least some occupation apparently continued into the early eighth century, as demonstrated by the discovery of a seal of the exarch Paul (723–6).33 The first pontiff known to have undertaken substantial alterations to the Lateran patriarchium was Zacharias (741–52), who, we are told, ‘had found the place very poverty-stricken’. His Liber pontificalis biographer records the addition of a dining hall (triclinium), sumptuously decorated ‘with varieties of marble, glass, metal, mosaic and painting’, and a portico with a bronze door and railings, surmounted by a tower. The mention of the installation of a ‘world map’ is particularly tantalizing.34 It is unlikely to be a coincidence that Zacharias is also one of the first popes to have functioned in a more political sense as a ‘head of state’, negotiating treaties with the Lombard kings Liutprand and Ratchis as an equal, and travelling with a significant retinue; and his alterations to the Lateran clearly reflect this changing role. It was also at this time, or very shortly thereafter, that a collection of classical bronze statues was placed on display outside the main entrance to the palace. These included the equestrian statue of an emperor, now known to be Marcus Aurelius but frequently misidentified in the Middle Ages as representing the first Christian emperor, Constantine, as well as a wolf (lupa), a time-honoured symbol of the city of Rome which had featured frequently on imperial coinage. The political overtones are readily apparent, and presumably influenced both the selection and placement.35 The other primary node of papal authority lay on the western side of the city, outside the perimeter of the Aurelian walls on the right bank of the Tiber, at the suburban shrine church of Saint Peter’s. This had been an imperial construction of the first half of the fourth century, on the site identified by tradition as that of Peter’s martyrdom in the time of the emperor Nero, and of his subsequent burial in the adjacent cemetery on the Vatican hill. By the end of the fifth century the basilica had largely passed from imperial control to that of the popes, who traced their lineage, 32

33 34

35

Gregory I, Registrum Epistolarum XIII.1, ed. Hartmann, 364–5. This is the last recorded reference to a meeting of the Roman Senate, and the only occasion when it is known to have assembled at the Lateran. Augenti 1996: 46–8. See also Coates-Stephens 2017: 204–9. LP 93.18, ed. Duchesne I: 432; English translations from Davis 2007: 43. See also Ballardini 2015: 906–11; and Osborne 2020: 140–8. Osborne 2020: 148–58. The bronzes are now housed in the Capitoline Museum.

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s

and hence their claims to authority, directly from this ‘prince’ of the apostles. Pope Leo I (440–61) had been the first pontiff to select the shrine of Peter as the location of his own burial, initiating a tradition that would be followed by the vast majority of his successors through to the present day.36 But the most significant factor contributing to the burgeoning importance of Saint Peter’s, and to the changes to its physical appearance, was the increasing popularity of pilgrimage. Around the year 600, Pope Gregory I had raised the altar and constructed a semi-annular crypt beneath, allowing access to Peter’s relics without causing a disturbance to the liturgy being performed above; and, as we shall see, this architectural model would have important echoes in ninth-century church construction. Although established well before the end of the sixth century, when some details of the practices undertaken at Peter’s tomb are provided by Gregory of Tours,37 pilgrimage to Rome would grow significantly in popularity over the course of the seventh and eighth centuries. One factor in this process may have been the loss of Jerusalem to the Arabs in the year 638, which placed new constraints on travel to the sites in the Holy Land, and it is probably no coincidence that the core contents of the two earliest surviving texts of pilgrim guides to the city of Rome can both be dated c. 640: the Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae and the De locis sanctis martyrum quae sunt foris civitatis Romae.38 The growing popularity of pilgrimage brought considerable wealth, but also a need for the requisite infrastructure.39 Pilgrims needed to be housed and fed, and this led to the growth of a sprawling suburb in the area between Saint Peter’s and the Tiber bridgehead, comprising hostels (xenodochia), baths, monasteries, and a variety of secondary churches and residences.40 Some four ethnic groups soon established their own sociopolitical organizations, known as scholae, each with its own particular 36

37

38

39 40

LP 37.9, ed. Duchesne I: 239. For the siting of early papal tombs, see Picard 1969; Borgolte 1989; and most recently de Blaauw 2016. Gregory of Tours, De gloria martyrum 28, ed. Krusch: 54. For similar accounts in Georgian and Arabic sources, see Sauget 1973. CT II: 67–95, 106–18; CCSL 175: 303–22. For their dating, see also Geertman 1975: 198–202. It should be noted that the editions of both texts include later appendices, one listing churches within the city walls and the other a pilgrim’s itinerary for visiting Saint Peter’s, which were probably added when the manuscript (Vienna, ÖstNB, lat. 795) was created at the end of the eighth century; see Diesenberger and Wolfram 2004; Story 2013: 261; Costambeys 2014: 160–1; and McKitterick 2020b: 218–19. For Saint Peter’s as a destination for pilgrims, see Bauer 2004: 154–9. For the growth over the eighth century of this burgh, or borgo as it came to be called (for the name see LP 100.7, ed. Duchesne II: 53), see Reekmans 1970: 214–27; Krautheimer 1980: 261–9 and Krautheimer 1985: 22–7.

19

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Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

space, institutions and church within this zone, and they are recorded as having gone out to greet Pope Leo III when he returned to the city from Paderborn in November 799: the Franks, the Frisians, the Saxons and the Lombards.41 Leo III is known to have been actively engaged in projects at both the Lateran and Saint Peter’s, all of which bear quite evident political overtones.42 Within the Lateran patriarchate he was responsible for the creation of two very important formal spaces, both identified as dining halls (triclinia), although there is evidence that they were also used more generically for large gatherings.43 The first, constructed very early in his pontificate, probably in the indiction (fiscal) year 797–8, was a tour de force celebration of pontifical munificence and magnificence. It took the form of a triconch with three apses, emulating triclinia from Late Antiquity and the imperial palace in Constantinople.44 The main apse and its framing arch were both decorated with mosaics, a medium which combined durability with stunning visual effects and served as an eloquent testimonial to the wealth of the patron, the walls were sheathed in plaques of marble and coloured marble was also employed for the floor pavement. There were porphyry columns, no doubt consciously appropriating the time-honoured imperial privilege of exclusive use of this prestigious purple stone, and even the doorposts were decorated with carvings in the shape of lilies.45 Although the structure itself has long since been demolished, a recent survey of the area using ground-penetrating radar has identified a curved foundation structure which may possibly correspond to the site of the central apse.46 The mosaics which once adorned the ‘Aula Leonina’, as it has come to be called, can be regarded as a sort of visual manifesto, setting forth the papal claim to leadership of the Christian church as well as portraying their preferred understanding of the new political relationship with the Franks; and thus they constitute a historical ‘document’ of exceptional importance.47 Remarkably, at least part of the ‘Aula’ decorations 41

42 43 44 45 46 47

LP 98.19, ed. Duchesne II: 6. For the scholae, see also Cassanelli 1976; Saxer 2001: 592–5; Bauer 2004: 176–7; Santangeli Valenzani 2014; and Ermini Pani 2015. For a summary of his architectural projects: D’Onofrio 2016. Overviews in Bauer 2004: 68–72; Goodson 2010: 20–6; and Dey 2021: 118–20. For the imperial connotations of this architectural form, see Lavin 1962. LP 98.10, ed. Duchesne II: 3–4. For the papal use of porphyry, see de Blaauw 1991. Piro, Haynes, Liverani and Zamuner 2020: 63–4. The very extensive modern literature includes Lauer 1911: 105–19; Ladner 1941–84, I: 113–26 and III: 26–30; Davis-Weyer 1966; Matthiae 1967: 225–8; Walter 1970; Davis-Weyer 1974; Belting 1976; Belting 1978; Iacobini 1989; Herklotz 1995/2017; Osborne and Claridge 1998: 56– 9; Luchterhandt 1999a–d; Noble 2001: 68–70; Bauer 2004: 109–15; Moretti 2006b; Goodson and

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s

survived not only the Middle Ages but also the subsequent demolition of much of the old Lateran Palace undertaken by Domenico Fontana for Pope Sixtus V (1585–90), although they were already in a parlous condition by the mid sixteenth century when viewed by the antiquarian Onofrio Panvinio, who provided a description.48 In the early seventeenth century, as part of the preparations for the celebration of the 1625 Jubilee, the remaining fragments were restored at the behest of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII, in order to preserve the important political message which they were believed – with good reason – to embody.49 Following an unsuccessful attempt by his predecessor to move the mosaic to a different location, in 1743 Pope Benedict XIV commissioned a full-scale ‘facsimile’ on an immediately adjacent site (Fig. 2.1), the work of the artist Pier Leone Ghezzi; and this is what one sees today, to the right of the main façade of San Giovanni in Laterano, adjoining the only part of the Lateran Palace to have been preserved, containing the Sancta Sanctorum chapel on its upper floor. While not a single tessera is medieval, and the iconography now reflects the Barberini restoration, itself perhaps overly imaginative, the original subject matter can be largely reconstructed on the basis of the various antiquarian drawings and descriptions. The mosaics in the conch of the apse depicted the ‘Mission of the Apostles’, with a central figure of Christ flanked by eleven standing apostles, illustrating Christ’s instruction to his followers that they should ‘Go and teach all nations’ (Matthew 28:19); this text was in fact cited in the inscription running beneath.50 The papacy regarded missionary activity as an important component of its mandate, and had been actively engaged in this process since the time of Pope Gregory I, who launched the very successful campaign to convert the Anglo-Saxons. The theme was also highly topical in the last years of the eighth century, as the Franks despatched missions to evangelize central Europe in the aftermath of their conquest of the Avars; and the same Biblical quotation features prominently, for example, in the contemporaneous correspondence of Alcuin with Charlemagne and others, stressing the importance of missionary activity.51 An earlier attempt to convert the Saxons, by forced baptism

48

49 51

Nelson 2010: 460–6; Ballardini 2015; Curzi 2016; D’Onofrio 2016; Osborne 2020: 220–6; and Delogu 2022: 281–4. Panvinio, De sacrosancta basilica IV.3, ed. Lauer: 481–2. English translation in Davis-Weyer 1986: 89. Herklotz 1995/2017. 50 Thunø 2015: 215. Alcuin, Epistolae 110 (to Charlemagne), 111 (to Megenfridus), 113 (to Arno), ed. Dümmler: 158, 160, 164. For the context, see also Costambeys 2014: 261–2.

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Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

Fig. 2.1 Lateran patriarchate: facsimile of Leo III’s ‘Aula Leonina’.

rather than through persuasion, had not been very successful,52 and Alcuin emphasized the need for the Franks to act as ‘preachers, not predators’.53 The heads of two of the apostles from this mosaic survive today at the Vatican, thought to have been acquired by Pope Pius VII in 1819 as part of the Mariotti collection of Christian antiquities. One of these, the first apostle to Christ’s right, belongs entirely to the Barberini restoration; but the second, believed to have been the second apostle to Christ’s left, is quite possibly an original work of the late eighth century, despite a few subsequent repairs (Fig. 2.2).54 Consequently, it serves as an important witness to the technique of mosaic as practised in Rome at the beginning 52 53

54

Flierman 2016; and Rembold 2017: 75–84. The Latin features a lovely play on words: praedicatores non praedatores (Alcuin, Epistolae 111, ed. Dümmler: 161). Davis-Weyer 1974; Iacobini 1989: 194–6; Luchterhandt 1999a–b; Moretti 2006b: 219, fig. 5; and Di Filippo 2022.

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s

Fig. 2.2 Vatican Museums: head of an apostle from the ‘Aula Leonina’.

of Leo’s reign. Unlike the mosaics from the beginning of the eighth century, best known today from the surviving fragments of the funerary oratory constructed by Pope John VII (705–707) in Saint Peter’s, in which the flesh tones were created with various shades of coloured marble, here all the tesserae are composed of glass, a practice which is also predominant in the more abundant survivals in Rome from subsequent decades. A more interesting and arguably more significant political message was expressed in the decorations on the arch that framed the apse. The right side of the arch was still intact in the late sixteenth century, and was recorded at that time in both words and pictures. In addition to the very detailed description by Panvinio, and a rough sketch of the triclinium made

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Rome in 800: The Pontificate of Leo III

by Pompeo Ugonio,55 there are a number of other drawings, of which the earliest is thought to be one now preserved in Vatican Library.56 Also useful is the watercolour copy in a manuscript associated with the Spanish historian Alonso Chacón (Ciacconio) (Fig. 2.3).57 Numerous other views were in circulation around the turn of the seventeenth century, including some that were clearly copies of copies rather than drawn directly from the original, and yet another written description was prepared by Giacomo Grimaldi for Pope Paul V.58 Thus, at least for this section, there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the 1625 restoration and the subsequent full-sized facsimile. The mosaic depicted an enthroned image of St Peter, flanked on each side by another figure, the latter shown kneeling and in the act of receiving objects from Peter’s outstretched hands. All three were identified by inscriptions. In the place of honour on Peter’s right side (the viewer’s left) was Pope Leo III, receiving his ‘badge of office’, the pallium, a woollen stole decorated with crosses at both ends;59 his counterpart on the other side was Charlemagne, receiving the military standard of Christianity. Given that it lacks any indication of a chi-rho monogram, it is unclear if this flag is supposed to represent the Constantinian labarum, the term used by Eusebius in his account of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October 312, or the military banner of the city of Rome (vexillum Romanae urbis) which Leo III had sent to Charlemagne following his election to the papacy.60 Probably the latter, and Panvinio uses the term vexillum. The Frankish monarch was labelled ‘king’ (rex), not ‘emperor’, once again confirming the pre-800 date implied by the placement of the Liber pontificalis passage. The heads of both Leo and Charlemagne are framed within rectangular devices invariably referred to as ‘square haloes’, although this designation is something of a misnomer and they bear no relation to an individual’s possible claim to sanctity. Additionally, they are often said to signify that the person in question was still alive. But the reality is somewhat more prosaic. These frames derive from the long tradition in the Roman world of wooden portrait panels, and the intention was simply to indicate that the face is an actual likeness of the person in 55

56 58 59

60

Vatican City, BAV, Barb. lat. 2160, fol. 55r; reproduced in Bauer 2004: 68, fig. 21; and Curzi 2016: 143, fig. 2. Vatican City, BAV, Barb. lat. 2738, fol. 104r. 57 Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 5407, fol. 97r. Davis-Weyer 1986: 91–2. For the pallium, see Ladner 1941–84, III: 269–70; Miller 2014a: 26–7; and more generally Schoenig 2016. Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze: 98.

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s

Fig. 2.3 Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 5407, fol. 97r.

question. They were often used in funerary contexts, for example the portraits attached to mummified figures in Egypt, but had crossed the divide into Christian art, and more specifically to monumental mosaics, by at least the mid sixth century, when they were used to frame the heads of the two commissioners of the apse in the Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai: the abbot Longinus and the deacon John. In early medieval Rome they may be found on all known depictions of contemporaneous individuals from the beginning of the eighth century (portraits of Pope

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John VII in Saint Peter’s and Santa Maria Antiqua) through to the turn of the millennium.61 By way of contrast, almost nothing is known regarding the original subject matter on the left side of the arch, but in 1624–5 it was reconstructed as showing the historical antecedents of this theme. Here the enthroned figure of Christ presents a similar military standard to the first Christian emperor, Constantine, and the keys of the church of St Peter. The political message is thus neatly summed up in the juxtaposition of the two compositions: type and antitype. Christ had entrusted the Christian church to the bishop of Rome and his successors, and the physical defence of that Christian world to the Roman emperors. Charlemagne was thus being encouraged to view himself as the ‘new Constantine’, with all the ideological baggage that this notion carried. This concept was not new in papal thinking in the late 790s. It may be traced back at least as far as the time of Pope Hadrian I, who had used the phrase novus christianissimus Dei Constantinus imperator as early as his first letter to Charlemagne;62 and the final step in the process would be the actual conferral of the imperial title in December 800. Judson Emerick’s apt observation, namely that in using this expression Hadrian ‘did not seek to flatter but to obligate’,63 applies equally well to Leo III’s mosaic. Of course we shall never know what exactly was depicted originally on the left side, but the seventeenth-century reconstruction is certainly plausible, and corresponds to the known political thinking of both ages: in other words, both the late eighth century and the early seventeenth. If the composition was not precisely as seen today, it is likely to have been something very similar, perhaps with Pope Sylvester, Constantine’s contemporary in the early fourth century, rather than St Peter, although as Gaetano Curzi has observed, ‘the real protagonist of the sequence is Peter – therefore the Roman Church’.64 There was certainly no doubt who possessed the authority to confer the imperial title. This was firmly viewed as being in the gift of St Peter and his successors as bishops of Rome. 61

62

63

Ladner 1941/1983; Osborne 1979; Ladner 1941–84, III: 310–18; Gandolfo 2007; and most recently Liverani 2018: 315–20. For the larger context of portrait images in medieval Rome, see Gandolfo 2004. Codex epistolaris Carolinus 60, ed. Gundlach: 587, lines 16–17; English translation in McKitterick, van Espelo, Pollard and Price 2021: 297. For the view that the Franks came to reject Roman imperial notions of rulership in favour of one modelled instead on Old Testament kingship, and thus preferred to see Charlemagne not as a ‘new Constantine’ but rather a ‘new David’, see Emerick 2017 and the discussion of Old Testament models in McKitterick, van Espelo, Pollard and Price 2021: 74–9. Emerick 2017: 133. 64 Curzi 2016: 144.

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s

The message of the ‘Aula Leonina’ mosaics was presumably aimed largely at a Frankish audience, the visiting dignitaries who were entertained in this space, and was likely intended as an invitation to Charlemagne to take on more formally the responsibility for protecting the city of Rome, as well as its Church, a role which he had already assumed in actual practice a quarter of a century earlier when he intervened against the threat posed by the Lombards. It certainly would have been experienced by the members of the Frankish nobility and clergy who accompanied Leo back to Rome in November 799, as we are told that their initial inquiry into the circumstances of the assassination attempt on the pope took place in this very hall.65 A second and larger triclinium would follow early in the ninth century, of ‘wondrous size’ (mire magnitudinis), with eleven alcoves fitted with dining couches, one on the end wall and five on each side. In the centre was a fountain, made from a porphyry shell (in medio concam porphireticam), and the pavement was again composed of multicoloured marbles. The overall theme of the decorations was once again the ‘Mission of the Apostles’, with the walls ‘painted with various representations of the apostles preaching to the nations’ (diversis storiis depictas apostolos gentibus praedicantes).66 This ‘Council Hall’ (Sala del Concilio), as it is generally called due to the fact that it was used for church councils through to the reign of Pope Julius II in the early sixteenth century, did not survive the demolitions and rebuilding undertaken in the 1580s, but once again a detailed written description is provided by Onofrio Panvinio, as well as a useful sketch of the room and its surviving decorations by Pompeo Ugonio (Fig. 2.4).67 On the strength of this evidence Hans Belting has reconstructed the mosaic decorations of the apse to feature a central image of Christ, flanked by Peter and Paul and other saints, with the pope at the far left, in the traditional location for donors, offering a model of the hall.68 This follows a general pattern for the decoration of Roman churches, although with the unprecedented addition of the figure of Mary, whose presence is attested explicitly by Panvinio. She was presumably the saint immediately beside Pope Leo. At the bottom of the wall an inscription 65 66

67

68

LP 98.20, ed. Duchesne II: 6–7. LP 98.39, ed. Duchesne II: 11. See also Lauer 1911: 103–5; Ladner 1941–84, III: 32–3; Belting 1978: 67–72; Bauer 2004: 115–17; and Ballardini 2015. Panvinio, De sacrosancta basilica IV.9, ed. Lauer: 483–4; English translation in Davis-Weyer 1986: 89–90. Ugonio’s sketch is preserved in the Vatican Library (Vatican City, BAV, Barb. lat. 2160, fol. 209v, olim 157v), published by, among others, Lauer 1911: 104, fig. 30; Bauer 2004: 70, fig. 24; and Curzi 2016: 143, fig. 3. Belting 1978: 69, fig. 3.

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Fig. 2.4 Vatican City, BAV, Barb. lat. 2160, fol. 209v (olim 157v).

voiced a prayer that Christ should save those dining in this space as he had saved Peter from drowning in the Sea of Galilee and Paul three times from shipwreck;69 and Leo’s name appeared as a monogram at the top. 69

Thunø 2015: 214.

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s

The mosaic decorations extended to the framing wall, where the composition included, at the top, roundels depicting Christ and the symbols of the four evangelists, with the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse raising their crowns in the spandrels beneath, twelve on each side. Once again the iconography has precedents in Rome, perhaps best known from the arch mosaics of Santi Cosma e Damiano in the Roman Forum, a project of Pope Felix IV (526–30). It will also feature prominently in the surviving work of one of Leo III’s immediate successors, Pope Paschal I (817–24), and, consequently, be discussed in full in Chapter 3. Philippe Lauer proposed that the specific architectural model was the main triclinium in the imperial palace at Constantinople, known as the ‘Hall of the Nineteen Couches’ (Decanneacubita), a notion further developed by Richard Krautheimer and Paolo Verzone.70 They are undoubtedly correct. Apart from the similarity in arrangement and nomenclature, there is simply no evidence for the previous existence of such dining halls in western Europe at this time. Liudprand of Cremona’s tenth-century account of a banquet in the palace of the Byzantine emperor speaks of an elaborate mechanical system used to deliver large dishes to the table, as well as circus-like entertainments to amuse the diners. It was a combination of theatre and spectacle, aimed at impressing participants, which in Liudprand’s case it certainly did.71 While we have no corresponding eyewitness accounts of events in the two Lateran triclinia, we can surmise that Leo’s intention was much the same. There is one final Lateran project assigned to Leo III in the Liber pontificalis, and again we are given a remarkable amount of detail. This was the construction of a new chapel, dedicated to the ‘Holy Archangel’ (St Michael) and ‘adorned [. . .] all over with mosaics, various pictures and very beautiful marble minerals in various colours; and there he presented all the sacred gold and silver equipment and various veils’. At the same time, he also rebuilt the long upper-level passageway joining the two wings of the palace, known as the macrona (from the Greek word for ‘long’), installing a stone pavement and repairing its solarium. This space too was decorated with mural paintings, although their subject matter is not specified.72 The ability to command and exercise authority depended to a large extent on the creation of an appropriate visual display, including the physical settings for ceremonies and other official functions. There is little 70 71

72

Lauer 1911: 102–3; Krautheimer 1966; and Verzone 1976. Liudprand of Cremona, Antapodosis VI.8–9, ed. Becker: 156–7. English translation in Squatriti 2007: 199–200. LP 98.92, ed. Duchesne II: 28–9; English translation from Davis 2007: 220.

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doubt that Leo wished to create a living and working environment that could rival those of other important rulers, and it is instructive that Charlemagne’s own palace complex at Aachen was on occasion referred to by his contemporaries as the ‘Lateran’.73 It included a number of similar architectural features, not to mention its own collection of bronze statuary. Imitation is always the sincerest form of flattery. On the opposite side of the city, the church of Saint Peter’s also benefited from the continuing papal concern to provide necessary infrastructure, not only for pilgrims but increasingly to facilitate engagement with high-status visitors, who either chose or were required to reside outside the city’s Aurelian walls. Entry inside the walls required papal permission,74 a telling indication of Roman independence from both Frankish and Byzantine authority. The Liber pontificalis provides a lengthy and detailed account of Charlemagne’s first visit to Rome in 774, interrupting his siege of Pavia in order to celebrate Easter at the shrine of St Peter. With Hadrian I’s explicit acquiescence, the Frankish king did enter the city briefly, in order to attend mass in the Lateran basilica, but it is stated that he then returned to Saint Peter’s. Again the following day, Easter Sunday, he attended mass at Santa Maria Maggiore, and dined with Hadrian at the Lateran, but there is no suggestion that he remained in the city and the political discussions on the following Wednesday are specified as having taken place at Saint Peter’s. With his own hand Charlemagne then deposited a copy of the resulting agreement, granting to the Roman Church the former imperial territories in north and central Italy, on the apostle’s tomb.75 On another occasion, in November 800, once again it is specified that Charlemagne was received by Pope Leo III at Saint Peter’s, and the subsequent council convened to assess the charges against the pontiff also met there.76 As attested by Einhard, Charlemagne, who visited Rome on four occasions, was particularly devoted to this church, more so than to any other saint’s shrine, and it received exceptionally lavish gifts as a result.77 The five gold objects alone that he offered for the high altar following his coronation – a crown, a paten inscribed with his name and three chalices – totalled 216 pounds in weight.78 The close connection between the Frankish 73 75 77

78

See Falkenstein 1966; and Kramer and Gantner 2016. 74 Delogu 2015: 219. LP 97.35–43, ed. Duchesne I: 496–8. 76 LP 98.21–2, ed. Duchesne II: 7. Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni 27, ed. Holder-Egger, 32. For Frankish devotion to Saint Peter’s, see also Schieffer 2000; and Story 2013. LP 98.24, ed. Duchesne II: 8.

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s

monarchs and Saint Peter’s had been initiated in the time of his father Pippin, who was encouraged by popes Stephen II and Paul I to embrace the cult of St Petronilla, believed to have been Peter’s daughter; and it was at this time that the former imperial mausoleum of the Honorian dynasty, situated on the south side of Saint Peter’s, was rededicated to this saint.79 But where exactly did Charlemagne and his successors stay during their Roman visits? Although the precise moment is unknown, at some point in the late eighth century a residence was constructed adjacent to Saint Peter’s for the Frankish royalty, probably on the north side of the church, and this was still in use a century later when, in May 872, Emperor Louis II issued a diploma to Farfa there: in civitate Roma palatio imperatorio.80 Writing in the second half of the ninth century, Andreas of Bergamo associated its construction with Charlemagne’s visit to Rome in 781, but Mario D’Onofrio and François Bougard prefer a slightly later date.81 Perhaps not surprisingly, it finds no mention in the Liber pontificalis as it was not a papal project. The need to receive and entertain important visitors at Saint Peter’s, in addition to the Lateran, presumably explains the pope’s decision to construct a formal reception space, including a triclinium, on the south side of the basilica ‘at the Needle’ (in Acoli), the name generally used to designate the great Egyptian obelisk erected in the first century CE on the spina of the Vatican circus. This location corresponds to one of the two main entrance pathways into the church, through the two Roman-era mausolea, now dedicated to Sts Andrew and Petronilla respectively, and then into the south transept. This dining hall ‘was decorated with wondrous beauty, with an apse adorned with mosaic and two other apses to right and left, resplendent with depiction on marble; he had the pavement laid with marble designs and had other spacious and elegant buildings constructed at the stairs up to the triclinium and behind it’.82 A decade or so later Leo added a bath (balneum), ‘a round construction marvellously decorated’, with the location again identified in relation to the adjacent obelisk (iuxta 79 80 81

82

Bauer 2004: 75–80; Goodson 2015; and Bougard 2015: 238. Diplomata Ludovici II., 57, ed. Wanner: 180. Andreas of Bergamo, Historia, ed. Kurze: 224; D’Onofrio 2007; and Bougard 2015: 238–9. See also Brühl 1954; Brühl 1958; Schieffer 2000: 285–6; Bauer 2004: 177; and West-Harling 2020: 282–3. LP 98.27, ed. Duchesne II: 8; English translation from Davis 2007: 190. For the medieval understanding of the obelisk, which retained its original placement until moved to its present location in 1586, see Osborne 2013: 279–84. The original foundations were discovered in excavations undertaken in 1958–9, and the spot is now marked by a plaque set into the pavement of the Piazza dei Protomartiri.

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columnam maiorem);83 and one of his successors, Gregory IV (827–44), would add a small hospice (hospicium parvum), intended, we are told, as a space where the pope could rest following morning prayers and services in the basilica.84 The other main route providing access to the basilica, through the imposing entrance portico, across the atrium and then through the façade into the eastern end of the nave and aisles, also received papal attention on that second occasion. We are informed that Leo restored (restauravit) the steps leading from the gateway structure to the atrium as well as those from the atrium to the church, and on the right hand side of the atrium he constructed a ‘house beautifully decorated on a wondrous scale, and in it placed dining couches’. Here he also added a second bath, and this time its purpose is specified explicitly. It was intended ‘for the benefit of Christ’s poor and pilgrims’.85 The precise significance of the two entrances to Saint Peter’s remains unknown. Were they perhaps used by different groups, for example one for distinguished guests and one for ordinary pilgrims? Or did the purpose of the visit determine the choice? The clues are few, but perhaps favour the latter possibility. A description of a visit to Saint Peter’s, believed to date from the late eighth century and probably to be associated with Bishop Arn of Salzburg, very clearly specifies an itinerary through the basilica commencing with an entrance via the south transept: Intrante in porticum sancti Andreae.86 This route provided direct access to the steps leading down into the crypt, and thus would have been appropriate for those intending to venerate Peter’s relics and pray at his tomb. The main portal may have been reserved for more general visits, as well as ceremonial occasions and liturgical processions. For example, this route is specified for the pope and his clergy in the Ordines Romani (Ordo IV), and Charlemagne had himself entered in this fashion on his first visit in 774, when Pope Hadrian I had greeted him on the steps leading into the atrium.87 83

84 85 86

87

LP 98.89, ed. Duchesne II: 28; English translation from Davis 2007: 218. See also Bauer 2004: 174–6. LP 103.35, ed. Duchesne II: 81. LP 98.89, ed. Duchesne II: 28; English translation from Davis 2007: 218. CT II: 95; CCSL 175: 310. See also Story 2013: 261–6, who described this route as a ‘Petrine via sacra’. The itinerary is known from a single manuscript (Vienna, ÖstNB, lat. 795), where it is appended to the text of the Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae. For its date and origin see references in footnote 38 in this chapter. For the association with Arn, see Diesenberger and Wolfram 2004; and McKitterick 2006: 45–6. For a plan of Saint Peter’s indicating this route, see Bauer 2004: 157, fig. 73. OR IV: 259.27; LP 97.38, ed. Duchesne I: 497. For the monumental entrance gateway with its chapel of Santa Maria in Turri, and the atrium, see Bauer 2004: 159–70, and Osborne 2020: 185.

The Lateran Palace and Saint Peter’s

Due to the dramatic decline of Rome’s population between the fourth and the seventh centuries, from approximately one million to a figure that was probably no more than fifty thousand, and perhaps considerably fewer,88 the vast area between the two poles represented by the Lateran and Saint Peter’s constituted a post-urban landscape inhabited by the physical vestiges of the ancient city, most of which still stood largely intact, interspersed with small ‘islands’ of population. Chris Wickham has envisaged ‘as many as a dozen “urban villages” scattered across the vast area inside the Aurelian walls’,89 and Roberto Meneghini has observed that the entire population of the city could have filled the seats in the Colosseum with room to spare.90 Weaving all of this space together was the papal stational liturgy, thought to have largely been in place by the beginning of the eighth century, which provided for the pope and his clergy to visit churches throughout the city on specific days in the liturgical calendar. This necessitated formal processions through the streets, with all the accompanying pomp and ceremony, as did other celebrations and public ‘litanies’, including the Major Litany held annually on April 25.91 The early ninth century witnessed a further expansion of these visible expressions of the inherent link between the city and its church, for example the three litany processions instituted by Leo III in the week preceding the feast of the Ascension: on Monday from Santa Maria Maggiore to the Lateran, on Tuesday from Santa Sabina to San Paolo fuori le mura, and on Wednesday from Santa Croce in Gerusalemme to San Lorenzo fuori le mura.92 An exceptionally valuable witness to this inherent dual nature of Rome’s urban space – a juxtaposition of sacred and secular buildings and monuments – is provided by the document now generally referred to as the ‘Einsiedeln Itinerary’, dating most probably from the second half of the eighth century. The text is preserved in a single manuscript, formerly in the monastic library at Pfäfers (canton of St Gall) and now at Einsiedeln (Bibliotheca Monasterii Ordinis Sancti Benedicti MS 326, fols. 79v–86r), where it forms part of a collection of texts about Rome, including among other things a sylloge of inscriptions and a description of the walls. Despite its singular name, there are in fact some ten itineraries through the streets 88 89 91

92

See discussion in Osborne 2020: 3–6. Chris Wickham (2000: 164) suggests 25,000. Wickham 1999: 15. 90 Meneghini 2018: 13. For the origins and development of the stational liturgy and processions through the city’s streets, see Baldovin 1987: 147–53, 158–66; Quattrocchi 2002; and Dyer 2017. For the Major Litany, which replaced the pagan festival of Robigalia, held on the same date and following much the same routing, see also Dyer 2007. For the letania septiformis, see Latham 2009. LP 98.43, ed. Duchesne II: 12.

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of the city, mostly beginning and ending at one of the principal gates, and an eleventh extending beyond the walls, with an enumeration of the various landmarks which those following each path would encounter on either side of their route. This includes not only churches, but also a wide range of ancient monuments, all identified by name, including the Colosseum, triumphal arches and columns, monumental statuary, baths and aqueducts.93 Rome in 800 offered an extraordinary vista encompassing the substantial physical remains of its long history.94 Over time, some of these would be repurposed, some would eventually fall victim to decay, while others would be deliberately demolished in order to reuse their materials in new building projects; but a few would continue to fascinate visitors to the city for many centuries to come, and of course still do so today.

Santa Susanna In addition to his activities at the papal residence and the church of Saint Peter’s, Leo III is also known to have undertaken building work elsewhere in the city. At San Paolo fuori le mura, for example, he was responsible for extensive repairs to the roof, which had collapsed in an earthquake during the night of 29–30 April 801, in the process inflicting significant damage on the area around the saint’s tomb. Thus the presbytery, the area around the altar reserved for the clergy, also required repairs. The pope provided new marble furnishings, silver liturgical vessels and window lattices,95 followed by many other lavish gifts in the years that followed. A number of other churches are also recorded as having required new roofing, including an enormous cluster around the year 810. These included Santa Maria Maggiore, Sant’Andrea Catabarbara, Santa Lucia in Orfea, Santa Balbina, Santi Cosma e Damiano, Santa Martina, San Lorenzo in Damaso, San Valentino, 93

94

95

CT II: 155–207; Walser 1987: 14–63, 143–58; CCSL 175: 329–43. For analysis, see most recently Bauer 1997; Bellardini and Delogu 2002; Bauer 2004: 18–21 (with map on p. 20, fig. 9); Del Lungo 2004; Maskarinec 2018: 139–41; Blennow 2019: 33–53; Santangeli Valenzani 2019; and Delogu 2022: 247–53. The inclusion of the church of San Silvestro in Capite provides a probable terminus post quem of the pontificate of Paul I (757–767), who founded this monastery in his family home, and the reference to the Aqua Virgo as ‘broken’ (fracta) may indicate a terminus ante quem of the repairs to this aqueduct undertaken by pope Hadrian I (772–795); see discussion in Davis 2007: 153, n. 131. For the ancient monuments as ‘pathways to the sacred past’ for medieval viewers: Goodson 2016. LP 98.31, ed. Duchesne II: 9–10. See also Camerlenghi 2018: 129–32.

Santa Susanna

Santi Apostoli and Sant’Agata in Suburra (now Sant’Agata dei Goti).96 Most significantly, however, he completely rebuilt and decorated two of Rome’s older churches: Santa Susanna and Santi Nereo ed Achilleo. Santa Susanna was among the very first projects undertaken by Leo III in the aftermath of his election, and its choice is readily explained by the fact that he had served previously as its priest, a fact noted by his biographer. We are told that the existing church was both small and in a poor state of repair, and that Leo installed a firm new foundation on which a new and larger basilica was constructed: ‘a wonderful lofty church, with an apse filled with mosaic, wonderful galleries, and a decorated apse-vault, and he adorned the presbyterium and the pavement with beautiful marble. In this construction he used marble columns on right and left and for the porticoes.’97 The pope also added an adjacent baptistery and presented a great many gifts. Much of this has been confirmed by modern analysis and archaeology, although Leo III’s church was itself partially demolished at the end of the sixteenth century under the auspices of Cardinal Girolamo Rusticucci, and rebuilt by the architect Carlo Maderno.98 Based in part on excavations undertaken in 1938, Richard Krautheimer concluded that the earlier church had been substantially widened in Leo’s rebuilding, and in order to facilitate the new construction large blocks of volcanic tufa were redeployed, robbed almost certainly from the adjacent stretch of the ancient Servian Wall.99 At the time of his study, the outer aisle walls still survived in some places to a height of 17 metres from the original ground level. The reference to ‘galleries’ is particularly curious. This is normally regarded as a feature belonging primarily to the context of eastern Mediterranean architecture, and the use in our text of a Greek term, caticuminia, referring to these spaces as being those used by converts preparing for Christian baptism (catechumens), may possibly imply some unfamiliarity on the part of Leo’s biographer. In fact, there are only a few known precedents in early medieval Rome, including the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin as reconstructed by his predecessor, Hadrian I, and there is no requirement for such spaces in the Roman liturgy. Why are they here, and how did they function? While it is tempting to read something into this anomaly, a possible Eastern or 96

97 98 99

LP 98.88, 91, ed. Duchesne II: 27–8. For the difficulties in sourcing timber of sufficient size, see Noble 2000: 63–4. LP 98.9, ed. Duchesne II: 3; English translation from Davis 2007: 179. CBCR IV: 254–78; D’Ignazio 2017; and Delogu 2022: 278–81. D’Ignazio 2017: 170, fig. 11.

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‘Byzantine’ influence perhaps, Krautheimer counsels against this, remarking for example that they may already have been present in the earlier structure.100 On the other hand, galleries will appear again in Leo III’s other significant church rebuilding, Santi Nereo ed Achilleo, and this is surely more than coincidence. Was it a conscious papal choice, or perhaps simply a decision made by his architect or the construction crew? We are unlikely ever to know. After noting a potential link to Early Christian funerary basilicas situated at the tombs of saints, Paolo Delogu cautiously hints at the possible need for increased space in order to accommodate the various social groupings in Roman society,101 but this too is mere supposition, and doesn’t explain their absence in all other churches of this era. Although the apse mosaics no longer survive, once again they were recorded in antiquarian descriptions and drawings made before the 1595 demolition. The dedication inscription at the base of the apse, recorded by the Flemish scholar Philip van Winghe and others, and published by Giovanni de Rossi, named the pope (domnus Leo tertius papa) and also recorded his translation here of the relics of St Felicitas, previously located in her nearby extramural shrine on the Via Salaria.102 Presumably those of Susanna herself were already in the church, and both sets would have been placed in the new silver confessio, weighing some 103 pounds and 2 ounces. When it comes to documenting weights, the Liber pontificalis is remarkably precise. Pompeo Ugonio’s description of the apse mosaic indicates that it followed a well-known formula for Roman mosaics and mural paintings, going back at least as far as the apse of Santi Cosma e Damiano in the Roman Forum, a project of Pope Felix IV (526–30): a central figure of Christ is flanked on both sides by Peter, Paul and other saints; and at the far left (thus on Christ’s right hand) a donor figure is shown holding a model of the church.103 This scheme would also be used in Leo’s second triclinium at the Lateran, and we shall encounter the same iconography on numerous occasions in the chapters to follow, including the apse mosaics of the churches of Santa Prassede, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere and San Marco. At Santa Susanna, two innovations are worthy of mention. The first is the addition of Mary, considered one of the primary intercessors for the 100 102 103

CBCR IV: 277–8. 101 Delogu 2022: 279–80. De Rossi 1884–5: 181; see also CBCR IV: 245; and Thunø 2015: 215. Vatican City, BAV, Barb. lat. 2160, fols. 177r–v (transcription in Davis-Weyer 1965: 191). For this iconographic formula, see Thunø 2015: 13–29.

Santi Nereo ed Achilleo

souls of humankind, although not previously included in known Roman examples of this formula. Here she occupies the place of highest honour, at Christ’s immediate right hand, and consequently Peter was displaced by one position farther left, just in front of Susanna herself, who in turn presented the pope. Again this would subsequently be echoed in the apse of the Lateran ‘Council Hall’. And the second innovation was the presence at the far right of the composition of a figure depicted in military dress, and wearing a sword belt, being introduced by St Gabinus, Susanna’s father.104 He is generally identified as Charlemagne, although Ugonio’s initial uncertainty on this matter suggests that there was no identifying inscription, or at least none still visible in the late 1500s. Both Leo III and Charlemagne were depicted with ‘square haloes’ indicating portrait likenesses; and it was undoubtedly their presence in the apse that generated the substantial antiquarian interest, resulting once again in the circulation of numerous copies, including some of rather dubious accuracy.105 Almost nothing is known about the mosaic decorations on the framing arch, and these may not have survived the Middle Ages. The only possible clue is a transcription of the text of John 1:1 (In principio erat verbum) on one of the drawings of Alonso Chacón, who commented on its misspelling (Rome, Biblioteca Angelica MS 1564, fol. 45r.).106 This suggests the original presence of another popular Roman iconography, this time for the decoration of arches, featuring St John the Baptist on one side and St John the Evangelist on the other. We shall return to this in our discussion of the church of Santa Maria in Domnica (Chapter 4).

Santi Nereo ed Achilleo In contrast to Santa Susanna, Leo III seems to have had little if any previous connection to his other documented church construction project. Santi Nereo ed Achilleo, fronting the Via Appia on the south side of the city, in 104

105

106

Although the parallel is not exact, a precedent is provided by the mural on the end wall of the Theodotus chapel in Santa Maria Antiqua, where the reigning pontiff, Zacharias (741–52), occupied the position of honour at the far left, balanced at the far right by the donor of the chapel, Theodotus. Davis-Weyer 1965. See also Ladner 1941–84, I: 126–8 and III: 31; Osborne and Claridge 1998: 60–3; Nilgen 1999a; Luchterhandt 1999d; Bauer 2004: 106–9; Bernacchio 2018: 219–32; and Lešák 2020. Rome, Biblioteca Angelica MS 1564, fol. 45r; full-page colour illustration in Lešák 2020: 161. The transposition of the letters ‘B’ and ‘V’ was common in early medieval Rome and in fact attests to both the date and the accuracy of the inscription.

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the immediate vicinity of the Baths of Caracalla, was a diaconia (welfare station) of no known stature or particular significance.107 In keeping with gifts to other institutions of a similar function it had earlier received a silk cloth adorned with crosses and a silver crown,108 but is otherwise unmentioned until the very end of Leo’s pontificate.109 We are then informed that the previous structure was ‘now giving way through great age’ and was also ‘being filled with flood water’, with the result that the pope made the decision to rebuild it on higher ground, ‘a church beautifully decorated on a wondrous scale’. The building campaign was afterwards supplemented with gifts, including a silver ciborium weighing 225 pounds, a chalice and a paten, a gold crown to hang over the altar and two silk altar cloths, one of which bore scenes of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, as well as Pentecost.110 Despite later restorations, most notably under Pope Sixtus IV in 1475 and by the titular cardinal Cesare Baronio in 1596–7,111 the ground plan remains unchanged from the early ninth century. It was a simple basilica, comprising a central nave terminating in an apse, and an aisle on each side. At a later date, probably in the fifteenth century, the original colonnades were replaced by brick piers, and the clerestory walls above them also date from that time; but the outer walls and apse are original, constructed of undulating courses of brickwork on a foundation of tufa blocks, and they still survive to a height of at least 6.5 metres. Much of the original brickwork remains visible, particularly on the south side, and Richard Krautheimer describes it as ‘typically Carolingian’. The considerable variation in the size and shape of the bricks implies that they were reused, presumably robbed from the adjacent Bath complex. These features – a foundation of large blocks of tufa or stone (sometimes called opus quadratum), supporting undulating and uneven courses of brickwork, in both cases reusing earlier materials – would become distinguishing and consistent hallmarks of Roman building through the first half of the ninth century.112 There are two additional architectural features which merit mention, both rather unusual. The first is the apparent presence of galleries above the aisles, an uncommon occurrence in early medieval Rome but, as we have 107 108 109 110

111

Bauer 2004: 195–204; Bernacchio 2018: 232–49; and Delogu 2022: 291–6. LP 98.29, 75, ed. Duchesne II: 9, 21. Geertman (1975: 64) places completion in the summer of 815. LP 98.111, ed. Duchesne II: 33; English translation from Davis 2007: 226. For the practice of placing ciboria over altars, see Guidobaldi 2000a. Herz 1988. 112 Bertelli and Guiglia 1976; Pensabene 2015: 389–90; and Barelli 2020a.

Santi Nereo ed Achilleo

just seen, also found in Santa Susanna; the second is the existence of two small towers, one on each side of the apse. As Krautheimer noted, both of these are usually associated with churches in the Middle East and have no obvious precedent in Rome, but once again he considered such evidence insufficient to permit any firm conclusions.113 It now seems the towers may belong to a slightly later phase, as the masonry is not bonded with that of the apse, and an analysis of the mortar reveals two different types, suggesting at least the involvement of different workshops if not different moments of construction.114 The original apse decoration was executed in mosaic,115 but evidently it was in poor shape by the end of the Middle Ages, and in the sixteenth century Pompeo Ugonio reported seeing glass tesserae which had fallen down onto the floor beneath, including what he took to be the monogram of a pope named Leo.116 Luckily, however, the mosaics on the framing arch were in better condition, and these still survive today. They were also recorded in a seventeenth-century watercolour by Antonio Eclissi (fl. c. 1630–44), a copyist employed by Cardinal Francesco Barberini, and this drawing is preserved today in the Cassiano dal Pozzo ‘Paper Museum’ (Museo cartaceo) in the collection of the Royal Library at Windsor (Fig. 2.5).117 Three scenes are depicted: at the far left, the Annunciation to Mary by the archangel Gabriel; in the centre, the New Testament event of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1–8; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 9:28–36) in which Christ is raised up in glory to converse with Moses and Elijah, witnessed by three prostrate apostles (Peter, James and John); and at the far right an enthroned figure of Mary holding the infant Jesus, attended by an angel. This specific combination of juxtaposed elements is without precedent in Rome, or indeed elsewhere, and thus has sparked a variety of efforts to explain the choice. Diego Giunta, for example, has attempted to relate the iconography to the ‘Adoptionist’ heresy, a view promulgated in the second half of the eighth century by the Spanish clerics Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo, and Felix, Bishop of Urgell, in which the human Jesus was only ‘adopted’ as the son of God, and consequently should not be regarded as an equal element of the Trinity. This belief was categorically rejected by a number of church councils, including those held at Frankfurt in 794 and Rome in 798.118 But by the second decade of the ninth century ‘Adoptionism’ 113 114 116 117 118

CBCR III: 135–52. See also Turco 1994; and Pensabene 2015: 393–4. Turco 1994: 101–2. 115 Oakeshott 1967: 199–200; and Matthiae 1967: 229–33. CBCR III: 157–8, citing Ugonio’s notebook (Vatican City, BAV, Barb. lat. 2160, fol. 196v). Osborne and Claridge 1996: 264–5. Giunta 1976. For ‘Adoptionism’, see Cavadini 1993.

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Fig. 2.5 Santi Nereo ed Achilleo: Antonio Eclissi copy of mosaics on the triumphal arch.

was no longer a significant theological issue, so its relationship to a mosaic undertaken late in the pontificate of Leo III is not immediately obvious. A more likely possibility is related to the broader continuing debate about the nature of Christ, and of the appropriateness of depicting him visually.119 The Transfiguration had been selected as the theme for two sixth-century apse mosaics, in the Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai, and in Sant’Apollinare in Classe at Ravenna, and in both instances this choice is usually understood in the context of the emperor Justinian’s attempts to combat Monophysitism, the doctrine which held that Christ had but a single, divine, nature, thus denying his humanity. The Transfiguration is the principal moment in the New Testament narrative in which Jesus simultaneously demonstrates both his humanity and his divinity, giving rise to the Greek title used to identify this scene, the Metamorphosis; and a similar interpretation was given to his ‘Incarnation’ in human form, resulting in the formal designation of Mary as ‘Mother of God’ (theotokos) at the Council of Ephesus in 431. As Francesca Dell’Acqua has recently observed, ‘Both the Incarnation and the Transfiguration illustrate the perfectly combined human and divine nature of the Incarnate God’.120 119 120

Curzi 1993; Nilgen 1999b; Thunø 2002: 129–31; and Dell’Acqua 2020: 124–8. Dell’Acqua 2020: 127.

Santi Nereo ed Achilleo

Monophysitism too was largely a spent force by the early ninth century, apart from those areas of the eastern Christian world now outside the confines of the Empire, but some of its underlying principles lived on in the Byzantine movement known as ‘iconoclasm’, which forbade the depiction of religious figures in human form, considering this to be idolatry. In opposing that thinking, iconophile theologians had stressed the point that Christ’s birth in human form gave licence to portray him in precisely that form, just as the apostles had witnessed both human and divine forms during the Transfiguration. If indeed this was intended as an affirmation of the two natures of Christ, then its appearance might be appropriately linked to the discussions then under way in Constantinople that would lead to a return to iconoclasm as official imperial policy in the year 815; and this debate regarding images would indeed dominate papal relations with Byzantium over the next quarter of a century. We shall return to it. No earlier depictions of the Transfiguration are known from Roman churches, although it was a popular subject in Byzantium, leading Erik Thunø to suggest the possibility of ‘influences from contemporary Byzantine pictorial programs transmitted through portable objects like the Constantinopolitan reliquaries’.121 But it was also a theme found in contemporaneous Latin homiletic literature, and notably that of the prolific Italian theologian Ambrosius Autpertus (d. 784), monk at the central Italian monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno,122 so we need not necessarily assume direct influences emanating from the eastern Mediterranean.123 The other issue engaging the minds of theologians in the early ninth century was the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit, and more specifically whether it descended from both Father and Son or only the Father, with the latter wording clearly expressed in the fourth-century Nicene Creed. The Frankish view, established at church councils held at Frankfurt in 794 and Aachen in 809, supported the double procession, and this led to the addition of the word filioque (‘and the Son’) to the liturgy used in the Carolingian realm, arousing the eventual ire of the Eastern church and initiating a divide that persists to this day. Leo III seems to have taken a middle position, supporting the orthodoxy of the double procession while professing a reluctance to alter the traditional wording of the statement of faith.124 It is not immediately evident how 121 123

124

Thunø 2002: 130. 122 Dell’Acqua 2020: 152–5. For a broad survey of Transfiguration iconography and its theological exegesis, see Labatt 2019: 99–157. McKitterick 2005: 949–58; and Siecienski 2010: 93–100. I am grateful to Rosamond McKitterick for raising this possibility with me.

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the Santi Nereo ed Achilleo mosaics would have contributed to this debate,125 although the issue can certainly be related to other contemporaneous discussions about the nature of Christ, and the Franks took the position that to deny the filioque was to deny the consubstantiality of Father and Son. The most significant piece missing from our puzzle, and one which would be of enormous value, is knowledge of what imagery Leo III placed in the conch of the apse. In Cardinal Baronio’s restoration the few remaining fragments of mosaic tesserae were removed and replaced with a mural painting depicting a cross flanked on each side by standing saints: five men on the left and five women on the right.126 But does this reflect the earlier composition? It was long believed that indeed it did, at least with regard to the central cross, based on a framed ‘copy’ which hangs on the wall in the office of the Prefect of the Vatican Library.127 This depicts the triumphal arch mosaics as we see them, and in the apse beneath there is a monumental cross flanked by six sheep, recalling the sixth-century apse of Sant’Apollinare in Classe at Ravenna. It is perhaps only a coincidence, but one of the few projects undertaken by Leo III outside Rome was the restoration of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, which required new roof beams,128 so this church and its apse decorations would presumably have been familiar to builders and mosaicists. However, a recent conservation of this ‘copy’ has revealed that it is in fact a pastiche, and that the drawing of the arch is a separate item from that depicting the apse, with the latter most likely belonging to a later date; and this in turn calls into question its value as evidence for the lost mosaic. Umberto Utro, the first to bring this discrepancy to public attention, has suggested that the drawing of the apse may in fact have been inspired by the 1596–7 mural, rather than the other way around.129 Thus we are left, it would seem, with a frustrating impasse, at least until additional evidence is discovered; given what we know of Leo III’s other projects, it seems rather unlikely that the original apse mosaic would not have included his own image. But we do still have the arch mosaics, and these constitute the largest surviving body of pictorial art from Leo’s pontificate. Seen from a distance they appear stylistically similar to the 125

126 128

129

The decretal issued by the Aachen Council makes no reference to the Transfiguration, for example: see Decretum Aquisgranense de processione spiritus sancti a patre et filio, ed. Willjung. Herz 1988: 608, fig. 12, 610–12. 127 See Giunta 1976, fig. 200; and Thunø 2002, pl. VIII. LP 98.106, ed. Duchesne II: 31–2. For the apse of the Ravenna church as the possible model, see Wisskirchen 1991a. Utro 2004.

The ‘Donation List of 807’ and Other Papal Gifts

much more abundant survivals from a few years later, in the time of Pope Paschal I, and they merit a much more detailed technical analysis, preferably one undertaken from scaffolding. One final note on this church: in February 1987 an exciting discovery of mural paintings was made in the tower to the right of the apse, previously concealed by layers of whitewash and plaster. These depicted various narrative episodes from the lives of Roman martyrs, in addition to a scene of the Crucifixion, and initially there was some thought that they might also date from the time of Leo III’s rebuilding. But a comprehensive study by Stefania Pennesi Verrocchio now assigns them convincingly to a later date, probably the late tenth or early eleventh century.130

The ‘Donation List of 807’ and Other Papal Gifts As would also be the case with the Liber pontificalis biographies of his immediate successors, much of the long vita of Leo III is devoted to an enumeration of his gifts to various churches, all but a handful located in Rome. Indeed, following the events of the imperial coronation in 800, this is the only subject addressed in Leo’s biography. Subsequent political events are ignored entirely. It has long been recognized that the donation lists follow a chronological sequence, and Herman Geertman proposed that they were updated annually, probably by incorporating information received from the papal vestiarium at the end of each indiction year.131 We are often provided with very detailed descriptions, and, as noted previously, in the case of precious metals with the specific substance of the metal (gold, silver or gilded silver) and the weight of the piece. Taken as a whole, these entries provide us with an unparalleled snapshot of the range of material culture, and in particular the wealth of luxury objects, available in the city at the dawn of the ninth century; and it is particularly valuable because almost none of the objects themselves have survived the twin ravages of time and human agency.132 One particular section of the vita should be singled out for particular attention: a massive programme of donations of silver crowns and 130 131

132

Bresciani and Sacchi 1987; Sacchi 1988; and Pennesi Verrocchio 2007. Geertman 1975: 3–4, 34. He further suggests (ibid., 67–8) that the first few chapters (3–6) in fact record papal gifts in the last years of Hadrian I, prior to Leo III’s election. See also Bougard 2009. For the substantial statistical increase in references to metalwork and textiles in the ninth century, as compared to the seventh and eighth, see Delogu 1988; Ponzo 1996; and Noble 2000: 73–4. For their importance as evidence for Christian iconography, see Croquison 1964.

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‘canisters’ (canistra),133 which included almost every religious institution known to have existed in the city at this time, inserted between the entries for the year 806–7 and 807–8 and thus usually referred to as the ‘Donation List of 807’.134 When this is read in conjunction with other Liber pontificalis passages, there can be little doubt that metal objects were being produced on what Tom Noble has called ‘an industrial scale’.135 This accounting of papal largesse has also attracted attention for its comprehensive catalogue of some 117 ecclesiastical institutions, organized mainly by category but also partly by importance, beginning with the major basilicas and the diaconiae dedicated to Mary, and then continuing with the other titular churches, the remaining diaconiae, the monasteries (separated into various clusters, apparently depending on the language and gender of the community in question), before finishing with other chapels and xenodochia. Only the extramural cemeteries appear to have been excluded, perhaps because many may have been in some state of comparative disuse by this time, with the exception of those sites which featured major shrine churches, most notably Saint Peter’s and San Paolo fuori le mura. In some instances, this donation record constitutes the earliest known reference to a particular church; for example, the very last item in the list is the gift of a silver ‘canistrum’ to ‘St Peregrinus’ oratory in the Lord’s hostel at the Naumachia’.136 This oratory, previously unmentioned in any other source, still stands on the north side of Saint Peter’s, now situated within the walls of the Vatican City. Since 1671 it has functioned as the chapel of the Swiss Guard. A notice in a subsequent papal biography credits its foundation to Pope Leo III, a date also consistent with the architecture; and while the mural decorations in the apse belong primarily to the late Middle Ages, parts of an underlying figure of Christ may go back to the early ninth century.137 At the other 133

134

135 136

137

Davis (2007: 234), following the suggestion of Henri Leclercq, identifies these as the vessels placed beneath lamps to catch the dripping wax. See Geertman 1975: 82–129; Saxer 2001: 623–31; Bauer 2004: 186–8; Davis 2007: 172–5; Delogu 2017: 112; and Delogu 2022: 289–91. Noble 2015: 253. in oratorio sancti Peregrini qui ponitur in hospitale dominico ad Naumachiam (LP 98.81, ed. Duchesne II: 25; English translation from Davis 2007: 215). LP 100.18, ed. Duchesne II: 57. For the architecture, see CBCR III: 175–7; for the murals, Osborne 1994. This may also be the hospice ‘in Naumachia’ referred to in LP 98.90, and I am inclined to agree with Raymond Davis’ suggestion (2007: 218–19, n. 178) that the compiler of the vita simply made an error in recording a dedication to St Peter, rather than St Pellegrinus. Apart from that one detail, the description is otherwise entirely appropriate. For the opposing view, namely that two separate hospices are intended, see Reekmans 1970: 226–7.

The ‘Donation List of 807’ and Other Papal Gifts

end of the chronological spectrum, the list also contains the last recorded papal gift to Santa Maria Antiqua in the Roman Forum. This church ranks first in the list of the Marian diaconiae, a position reflected in the weight (and hence presumably the size) of the crown it received: some 13 pounds.138 Those received by other diaconiae were mostly less than half that amount. Apart from the specific distribution of 807, the vast majority of Leo’s donations took the form of textiles, more than 700 of which are specified as silks,139 and these fall into three major categories, each designated by a different Latin noun. The largest in size, but least frequently mentioned, were curtains (cortinae), used to close large entranceways; for example, the ‘great white silk curtain with a fringe and cross of interwoven gold’ presented to Santa Maria Maggiore.140 Next in size were the vela (small curtains or drapes), used primarily in arcades and for ciboria over altars. These often came in substantial sets, for example a gift to Saint Peter’s of ‘65 veils of cross-adorned silk and with interwoven gold, to hang between the great columns on right and left’.141 And in many cases it is specified that they were to be used on specific days in the liturgical calendar; for example, another gift to Saint Peter’s comprised ‘white veils for use at Eastertide and very beautiful veils of cross-adorned silk for use on the feast day of God’s apostle’.142 Smallest were the cloths adorning altars (vestes). The descriptions in the Liber pontificalis are quite detailed, generally specifying the material, colour and nature of any decorations. There are a number of references to textiles as being ‘Alexandrian’ or ‘Tyrian’, presumably indicating either a type of fabric or a geographic place of origin, although one may also imply the other. And it would be rather interesting to know the difference between blatin bizanteo (‘Byzantine purple’, presumably the famous ‘imperial purple’, derived from the secretions of the murex snail) and blatin neapolitano (a cheaper imitation made in Naples?).143 Indeed, much of the vocabulary is highly technical, often employing transliterations of Greek words where 138

139 140 141 142 143

LP 98.70, ed. Duchesne II: 19. A few years earlier Leo had presented Santa Maria Antiqua with a silver ciborium for the high altar, weighing some 212 pounds (LP 98.52, ed. Duchesne II: 14), but the next time we hear of this church it is being rebuilt at a different site by Pope Leo IV, and is now known as Santa Maria Nova (see Chapter 6). Brubaker and Haldon 2001: 83; and Andaloro 2002: 54–6. LP 98.4, ed. Duchesne II: 2; English translation from Davis 2007: 177. LP 98.48, ed. Duchesne II: 13; English translation from Davis 2007: 198. LP 98.8, ed. Duchesne II: 3; English translation from Davis 2007: 179. LP 98.100, ed. Duchesne II: 30. See also Delogu 1998: 127–8.

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presumably no Latin equivalent existed; and in some instances determining their precise meaning has posed a serious challenge for modern commentators and translators. What is a veste de ymizino, for example? A type of material perhaps?144 The vast majority of the vestes were decorated with a cross (de stauraci), presumably woven into the silk, although in one instance it is specified that this image was composed of pearls (de margaretis); and many such altar cloths are described as having a purple border or fringe (cum periclisin de blati).145 Much of the other decoration is described as being non-figural (wheels and chevrons were popular) or depicting animals (including elephants, tigers and griffins), although some displayed events from the life of Christ.146 Most common among that last group was the ‘Resurrection’ (presumably the Anastasis or ‘Harrowing of Hell’).147 These too were presumably woven into the fabric, and two fragments of early medieval silk which still survive in Rome, formerly in the Lateran chapel of the ‘Sancta Sanctorum’ and now in the Vatican’s Museo Sacro, depict scenes of the Annunciation (Fig. 2.6) and the Nativity, both with parallels in Liber pontificalis listings.148 In a fascinating study, Edward Philipps has explored the possibility that the subject matter can in some instances be related to the specific church receiving the gift. Thus the monastery of St Anastasius received a vestis depicting his passion; and a vestis depicting the Healing of the Blind Man was presented to San Paolo fuori le mura, where the relevant Biblical passage for this miracle (John 9:1–38) was the reading for a papal station in this church during Lent.149 Given the fragility of the materials, and hence the dearth of survivals, the set of papal biographies constitute our most significant source of information regarding early medieval textiles, and consequently this text has been mined for information by numerous scholars.150 There is no evidence to suggest that Rome had anything resembling its own domestic silk industry, and thus all such textiles must necessarily have been imported from 144

145

146 147 148

149 150

LP 98.30, ed. Duchesne II: 9; see discussion by Martiniani-Reber 1999: 293; and Davis 2007: 191, n. 78. For surveys of the vocabulary: Delogu 1998; and Martiniani-Reber 1999. For example, of the twenty-four vestes enumerated in a listing assigned to the indiction year 802–3, nineteen bore crosses, and fourteen are specified as having a purple fringe; LP 98.44–45, ed. Duchesne II: 12. For the cross of pearls: LP 98:40, ed. Duchesne II: 11. For a full survey of subject matter, see the tables in Brubaker and Haldon 2001: 104–8. LP 98.8, 61, 82, 101, 109, ed. Duchesne II: 3, 16, 25, 31, 32. See also Andaloro 2002: 50–1. Martiniani-Reber 1986; King and King 1986; Osborne 1992: 321; Brubaker and Haldon 2001: 91–92; and Andaloro 2002: 63–6. Philipps 1988. For example, Croquison 1964; Petriaggi 1984; Osborne 1992; 313–20; Martiniani-Reber 1999; Brubaker and Haldon 2001: 82–9; Andaloro 2002; Riganati 2002; Miller 2014b; Jäggi 2020; and Franceschi, Pruno and Zagari 2020.

The Roman Economy in 800

Fig. 2.6 Vatican Museums: Annunciation silk.

Byzantium or the Muslim world. Their apparent abundance at the beginning of the ninth century reflects in turn the substantial level of international trade across the Mediterranean at this time, with a particular focus on goods not otherwise available to western Europeans. In addition to silks, these included mineral pigments such as lazurite, aromatic resins used in incense and a wide variety of medicines.151 In the rare instances of fabrics decorated with specifically Roman subject matter, for example the ‘goldstudded cloth representing the Major Litany’, presented appropriately to Saint Peter’s where this procession terminated, we must assume an addition made locally in some form of embroidery.152

The Roman Economy in 800 The sources of the extraordinary papal wealth recorded by Leo III’s biographer have been the subject of considerable discussion and debate, and it seems likely that there is no single correct answer to the question of how the 151

152

For the larger patterns of Mediterranean trade in luxury goods, see for example Delogu 1998: 135–8; Brubaker 2004; and Wickham 2004. For the ingredients for incense and medicines, McCormick 2001: 708–19; and Burridge 2020. LP 98.33, ed. Duchesne II: 10; English translation from Davis 2007: 192. For Roman additions to imported silks, see Osborne 1992: 318–20; and Delogu 1998: 138–9. For the larger context of embroidered silks in medieval Europe, see Gajewski and Seeberg 2016.

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Roman Church acquired such vast resources.153 Charlemagne himself must have played an important role. Einhard’s description of his patron’s particular love for the church of Saint Peter’s informs us that he ‘showered its altars with a great wealth of gold, silver, and even gems’ over and beyond ‘a vast number of gifts to the popes’;154 and an anonymous Frankish poet, possibly Angilbert, similarly records the ‘many gifts’ (multa [. . .] dona) sent by Charles to Leo.155 This may have included items from the famous treasure of the Avars, acquired by Charlemagne in the aftermath of their defeat in 796. The Annales regni Francorum entry for that year records that a large part of it was sent to Rome.156 Other members of the Frankish elite would also have played some part; and the Liber pontificalis, while generally silent on the source of papal donations, does break this rule on one occasion to record that a gift from Fridugis, abbot of the important monastery of St Martin at Tours, was the source, appropriately, for the gilded silver covering of the altar dedicated to Martin in the passage connecting the chapels of St Andrew and St Petronilla on the south flank of Saint Peter’s.157 Other possibilities may be related less directly to specific gifts but instead to the general conditions of peace and prosperity, and consequent expansion of commerce and trade, which the Carolingian consolidation of power in western Europe made possible.158 Paolo Delogu, for example, has championed the role in this process of the consolidation of lands in central Italy under papal authority, a process which must have generated substantial revenue for the papal coffers, although perhaps primarily in the form of produce. He deems it a ‘patriarchal economy’,159 and much of the same thinking is also implicit in Tom Noble’s discussion of the land endowments provided to new monasteries, diaconiae and other similar institutions, which consequently must have been substantially self-sufficient.160 But Delogu allows that other factors may also have contributed, suggesting that Leo III’s massive donation in the year 807 may have been the specific consequence of his receipt of the Avar treasure, which he believes only reached Rome in 805.161 And the burgeoning pilgrim traffic presumably also played 153 154

155 156 158

159 161

For example, Noble 2000: 79–83; Delogu 2007; and Delogu 2022: 357–65. Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni 27, ed. Holder-Egger: 32; English translation from Dutton: 33. Some of these are detailed in the Liber pontificalis, in particular the gifts presented in 800 on the occasion of the imperial coronation (LP 98.24–25, ed. Duchesne II: 7–8). Angilbert(?), Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa, line 532, ed. Dümmler: 379. Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze: 98. 157 LP 98.110, ed. Duchesne II: 33. For the growth of regional economies throughout the Italian peninsula at this time, see Costambeys, Innes and MacLean 2011: 358–75. Delogu 2007: 108–10. 160 Noble 2000: 70–3. Delogu 2007: 114; and Delogu 2017: 114.

The Roman Economy in 800

some role. The burgh housed a large community from beyond the Alps, all of whom will have spent money on food and lodging beyond any gifts made to the shrine of St Peter. Rome in the early ninth century seems to have been both prosperous and remarkably self-sustaining. There is almost no evidence for the importation of foodstuffs or pottery, for example, suggesting that the agricultural estates in the hinterland and the local ceramic industry were adequate to meet the city’s needs. Thus it seems slightly odd that recent archaeology has not identified many sites of material production, compared to earlier and later periods, apart from a number of lime kilns, presumably to be associated with the production of mortar for building projects.162 Nor, curiously, does archaeology suggest the existence of any significant use of small denomination coinage in daily commerce, perhaps suggesting a limited market economy centred primarily around imports.163 Thus the Liber pontificalis lists of gifts of gold and silver totalling many thousands of pounds, not to mention the vast quantities of imported silks, pose a real puzzle. How did Leo III and his fellow pontiffs acquire such extraordinary wealth in luxury goods? And if through trade, what did they offer in return? Michael McCormick has suggested that they may have trafficked in human beings, in other words slaves,164 a trade which he regards as central to the Carolingian economy; but an analysis of the scant documentation relating to papal attitudes to this particular commerce discounts the likelihood of this possibility. While there is a single reference to the existence of a slave market in Rome in the mid eighth century, in the Liber pontificalis life of Pope Zacharias, the popes are known to have spent time and resources on ransoming captives, not selling them, and Hadrian I was active in opposing the international trade.165 For the moment, therefore, the question must remain open. With the advantage of hindsight, we can view the twenty-year pontificate of Leo III as setting the stage for the half century that will follow, as the reigns of his immediate successors on the throne of St Peter would follow a remarkably similar pattern. Yes, it was a period of internal squabbles, as 162 163

164

165

Palombi and Spera 2016: 27–31. Rovelli 2000a: 95–7; Rovelli 2000b: 208–12; Rovelli 2001: 842–51; Delogu 2007: 106; and Delogu 2022: 359. Of the more than 2,000 coins discovered in the Crypta Balbi excavation, only one can be dated to the ninth century; but Wickham (2015: 175) voices concern about drawing conclusions regarding the non-circulation of coinage based solely on the meagre archaeological evidence. McCormick 2001: 618–27; and on the slave trade more generally, ibid., 733–77, and McCormick 2002. Delogu 2007: 112–13; and Osborne 2021a. See also Rio 2017: 24–8, 36–7.

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political factions within the city competed for control, but at the same time it was one of unprecedented peace and tranquillity in terms of external relations, with no physical threats to the city, resulting in substantial economic prosperity abetted by generally good relations with the Frankish monarchs, Charlemagne and his immediate descendants. Excess wealth was clearly abundant, and this would be expended lavishly and conspicuously on new churches and their mosaic decorations, the latter often reflecting current theological issues and concerns, and clearly Rome was a ‘player’ in the Mediterranean trade in luxury items such as silks. This state of comparative bliss would continue unabated until shattered, suddenly and dramatically, in the last days of August in the year 846. But for a few generations it must have seemed a golden age, a return to the fabled splendour of much older times, and we can easily forgive the Carolingian poet Moduin of Autun for voicing what must have been a common sentiment: Our times are transformed into the civilisation of Antiquity, Golden Rome is reborn and restored anew in the world.166

166

Rursus in antiquos mutataque secula mores. Aurea Roma iterum renovata renascitur orbi (Moduin of Autun, Ecloga, ed. Dümmler: 385, lines 26–7; English translation from Godman 1985: 193).

3

Paschal I, the Church of Santa Prassede and the Question of a ‘Carolingian Renovatio’ in Rome

The apogee of early medieval Roman achievement in the realm of material culture, and more specifically in terms of impressive new buildings and their decoration in the glittering and costly medium of mosaic, occurred in the pontificate of Paschal I (817–24). Paschal ascended the papal throne at a difficult moment. Following Charlemagne’s death in 814, factional strife had once again broken out in the streets of Rome, and while the Liber pontificalis is entirely silent on the matter, the Annales regni Francorum entry for the year 815 reports yet another attempt to assassinate Pope Leo III. Forewarned of the conspiracy, the pope arrested and executed the ringleaders, apparently with sufficient savagery that the new emperor, Louis the Pious (r. 814–40), considered it necessary to send his nephew, Bernard, King of Italy, to investigate. When Leo subsequently fell ill, further insurrection ensued, and Duke Winichis of Spoleto was required to intervene in order to restore order.1 The situation must have remained volatile at the time of the pope’s death in May 816. Leo III was succeeded by Stephen IV (816–17), ‘a reconciliation candidate’ in the view of Tom Noble.2 As we learn from his Liber pontificalis biographer, Stephen came from one of the city’s aristocratic families, and he would spend much of his exceptionally brief pontificate visiting Louis the Pious at Reims, where he crowned and anointed the emperor, and also negotiated the formal pactum known as the Ludowicianum.3 As noted previously, this confirmed the independence of the lands of St Peter from the Frankish empire, and stipulated that the emperor would not interfere in papal elections. Upon his own election in January 817, Paschal I immediately despatched one of his household officials, the nomenclator Theodore, to Louis to reconfirm the arrangement; and this request was granted.4 We know very little about Paschal’s origins, although the Liber pontificalis informs us that he was a Roman by birth, the son of Bonosus. It is unlikely that he came from the ranks of the aristocracy, since at an early age 1 3

Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze: 142–3; Noble 1984: 201–2. 2 Noble 1984: 202. LP 99.2, ed. Duchesne II: 49. 4 Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze: 145–6.

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he had been ‘given’ (mancipatus, the same terminology used for chattel slaves in documents of this era5) to the church, and subsequently was raised at the Lateran palace where he excelled in the study of scripture and at psalm singing. Entering the clergy as a deacon, and subsequently rising to the priesthood, under Leo III he was appointed abbot of the important monastery of St Stephen Maior, which provided service to Saint Peter’s basilica.6 If he possessed factional allegiances, these are not documented. What we do know is that unrest continued to plague the streets of Rome, and it is interesting to compare the Liber pontificalis description of Paschal as someone ‘slow to anger and quick to have pity, repaying no one evil for evil, nor taking vengeance according to what each one committed, but ever compassionate’,7 with Frankish reports a few years later that he had ordered the blinding, and subsequently the beheading, of two of the most senior Lateran officials, the primicerius notariorum Theodore (presumably the former nomenclator, subsequently promoted) and his son-in-law, the nomenclator Leo, ostensibly on the treasonous grounds that their primary allegiance was to Louis the Pious’ eldest son, Lothar, rather than to the papacy. Both men had previously served as envoys to the Frankish court, with Theodore having represented the Roman Church at the wedding of Lothar and Ermengarde at Thionville in October 821.8 Imperial attempts to unearth the truth of the matter proved to be unsuccessful, and Paschal swore an oath of purgation from complicity in any wrongdoing while nevertheless maintaining the justice of the executions.9 As is almost always the case, Roman sources are completely silent on political events which might reflect negatively on the pope, and the Liber pontificalis devotes the entirety of its account to Paschal’s devotion to the cults of Rome’s Early Christian saints and martyrs, in addition to his efforts to rebuild, decorate and endow some of the city’s churches.10 A cynic might observe that, throughout history, many an autocrat has sought to construct impressive new monuments in order to divert attention away from the murkier aspects of their rule; lest viewers, contemporaneous and future, had any doubt about who was responsible for such magnificence, Paschal made certain that his name and image appeared prominently in his 5 7 8 9

10

6 See Osborne 2021a. LP 100.1–2, ed. Duchesne II: 52. LP 100.3, ed. Duchesne II: 52; English translation from Davis 1995: 6. Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze: 156. Ibid., 161–2. For these events see Noble 1984: 309–12; and Davis 1995: 2–4. For an overview of Frankish-papal relations in the first quarter of the ninth century, and their possible influence on the construction of Paschal’s Liber pontificalis biography, see Verardi 2017; and Verardi 2020. For the view that this departure from previous practice was a very deliberate choice, see Delogu 2020.

Paschal I and the Church of Santa Prassede

projects, just as Leo III had done before him. Unlike Leo, however, he did not also include images of the emperor. But it is rather puzzling that the pope’s vita also ignores events which reflected more positively on his authority, for example his coronation of Louis the Pious’ son, Lothar, as king of Italy and co-emperor during the Easter celebrations in 823.11 Perhaps this is yet another sign that their relationship was not entirely amicable. The first of Paschal’s great building projects was the church of Santa Prassede (St Praxedes), situated on the Esquiline Hill in close proximity to Santa Maria Maggiore. We are told that the existing church was suffering from age and on the point of collapse, and in order to avoid this eventuality the pope rebuilt it completely, on an adjacent site.12 Santa Prassede was, and remains, a stunning concoction encompassing work in a broad variety of media – architecture, mosaic, mural painting and sculpture – clearly intended, like Leo III’s earlier triclinia, to send a powerful message and make a statement to viewers regarding the stature of its patron; and what is perhaps even more remarkable is that it still survives, almost entirely intact with only a few subsequent alterations. In fact, it is by far the best-preserved monument to the skills of Roman builders and decorators, not only in the early ninth century but indeed in the larger context of the entire early Middle Ages; and thus it comes as no surprise to discover that this church and Paschal’s other projects have been the subject of intense examination, particularly over the last few decades.13 This is how the Liber pontificalis describes the pope’s actions: This holy and distinguished pontiff sought out, found and collected many bodies of saints lying in destroyed cemeteries, with dutiful concern that they should not remain neglected; with great affection and veneration he removed and buried them in the church of Christ’s said martyr St Praxedes, which he had wonderfully renewed and constructed, with the assistance of all the Romans, bishops, priests, deacons and clerics chanting psalms of praise to God. And [. . .] he constructed in that place from its foundations a monastery, which he dedicated in the name of the virgin St Praxedes; in this too he gathered a holy community of Greeks, which he placed therein to carry out carefully by day and night praises to almighty God and his saints resting therein, chanting the psalms in the Greek 11 12

13

Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze: 160–1. See also Schäpers 2018: 115–21. in alio non longe demutans loco (LP 100.8, ed. Duchesne II: 54). Archaeology has not yet revealed the location of the earlier church. For the topography, see Caperna 2017: 31–4. In addition to some dozens of journal articles, of particular note are the monograph by Caroline Goodson (2010), and the two-volume set of conference proceedings edited by Ammirati, Ballardini and Bordi (2020). See also Delogu 2022: 297–307.

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manner. On that venerable monastery he conferred many estates and landed properties in the city and the country, and he enriched it profusely and abundantly.14

Architecture The primary determinant of the form taken by any new building is its function, and the Liber pontificalis passage opens with a clear statement of Paschal’s intention to construct a new shrine church for the relics of Early Christian saints brought from the catacombs. The same goal is also stated in the verse inscription placed at the base of the apse mosaic, which proudly proclaims that ‘he collected the bodies of many saints and buried them under these walls’, and then continues with an explanation of his motive for doing so, ‘in order that he might be more eligible to approach the gates of Heaven’.15 Unlike cities such as Constantinople or Milan, which already in the fourth century had begun to import relics in order to ‘sanctify’ their urban spaces,16 Rome had no need to look elsewhere for saintly bodies. Its ring of extramural cemeteries provided a seemingly inexhaustible supply, as witnessed by pilgrim guides such as the De locis sanctis martyrum quae sunt foris civitatis Romae, which lists all the major catacombs and enumerates the various martyrs whose remains could be venerated at each location. Already in the late fourth century Jerome spoke of the practice of Christians in Rome to visit the graves of the saints on Sundays;17 and many of their tombs were marked with commemorative inscriptions in the time of Pope Damasus (366–84).18 By the end of the sixth century, when the catacombs ceased to be used for their original purpose as places of burial, this became their primary and indeed only function, with various pontiffs constructing new suburban shrine churches over the sites of important burials – for example those of St Lawrence by Pelagius II (579–90) and St Agnes by Honorius I (625–38)19 – or facilitating pilgrimage visits through 14 15

16 17 18 19

LP 100. 9–10, ed. Duchesne II: 54; English translation from Davis 1995: 10–11. qui corpora condens / plurima s(an)c(t)orum corpora subter haec moenia ponit / fretus ut his limen mereatur adire polorum. For the full text of the inscription, see LP, ed. Duchesne II: 63, n. 10; and Thunø 2015: 211. English translation from Goodson 2010: 151. For Milan, see Mackie 2003: 18–22; for Constantinople, Mango 1990. Jerome, Commentarii in Ezechielem XII.40, ed. J.P. Migne: 375. Trout 2003; Sághy 2010; Thunø 2015: 172–81; and Trout 2015. For the various efforts of Pope Honorius I to promote the cults of Roman martyrs, see Trout 2021.

Architecture

the provision of access staircases adjacent to popular tombs, as well as blocking off underground passages no longer in use. A good example is provided by the Catacomb of Pontianus on the hill of Monteverde, above Trastevere, where the shrines of Sts Polion, Milix and Pumenius were created by walling up one of the underground galleries, and adding murals with their images.20 At about the same time, accounts of the lives and passions of the various Roman martyrs began to circulate widely.21 The Roman Church had always stoutly resisted any and all attempts to extract and export the corporeal relics of its early saints, and the papal position on this matter is set out in the famous response of Pope Gregory I to the Empress Constantina, who in 594 had asked him to send her the head of St Paul. He writes that it is not the Roman custom to even touch the bodies of the saints, that to do so would be considered a sacrilege and that the perpetrators of such impious deeds would not go unpunished.22 Instead he offered the empress contact relics, following the established practice. But by the beginning of the ninth century the official policy had changed dramatically. The seventh century had witnessed the first efforts to bring corporeal relics to Rome from other locations, including those of the martyrs venerated at Salona and other cities along the coast of Dalmatia and Istria, for whom the San Venanzio chapel was newly created in the Lateran baptistery by Pope John IV (640–2).23 John IV’s successor, Theodore (642–9), looked much closer to home when he moved the relics of Sts Primus and Felicianus from a sandpit cemetery on the Via Nomentana to a new chapel in the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo;24 but the catacombs in the immediate vicinity of the Aurelian walls seem to have remained more or less untouched until the late 750s, when a major campaign to relocate relics to new locations within the city was undertaken by Pope Paul I (757–67). We are told that the pope arranged ceremonial processions, accompanied by the singing of hymns and other spiritual chants, in order to translate the bodies of the saints to their new homes in urban churches, monasteries and welfare stations (diaconiae).25 Among the primary recipients was the new monastery that Paul established in his own family home in the Via Lata 20 22

23

24

25

Osborne 1985: 319. 21 Lapidge 2018. Gregory I, Registrum epistolarum IV.30, eds. Ewald and Hartmann: 263–6. See also McCulloh 1976, and McCulloh 1980. LP 74.2, ed. Duchesne I: 330. For the chapel, see Mackie 2003: 212–30; and Goodson 2007a: 69–70. LP 75.4, ed. Duchesne I: 332. See also Davis-Weyer 1989; Goodson 2007a: 70–1; and Taddei 2022. LP 95.4, ed. Duchesne I: 464.

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district, dedicated to two earlier popes, the martyr Stephen (254–7) and the ‘confessor’ Sylvester (314–35). Its church still stands, now known as San Silvestro in Capite. Two fragmentary inscriptions listing those saints whose relics were acquired on this occasion, one of men and one of women, arranged according to the sanctoral calendar of their feast days, also survive today, set into the façade wall adjacent to the entrance.26 The reasons for this somewhat abrupt and dramatic change appear to have been twofold. It was certainly the case that the catacombs were now many centuries old, and undoubtedly feeling their age. The Liber pontificalis passage recording Paul I’s action describes them as ‘almost in ruin’ (iam vicina ruine posita) and ‘destroyed’ (ipsis dirutis [. . .] cymiteriis). Two previous eighth-century pontiffs are specifically mentioned as having undertaken repairs,27 but given the sheer number of cemeteries this must have been a never-ending task. Rather, the immediate catalyst seems to have been the removal of relics perpetrated by the Lombards during the three-month siege of Rome undertaken by King Aistulf early in the year 756. Although the Lombards were not successful in penetrating the circuit of the Aurelian walls, they did occupy the city’s immediate hinterland, and the Liber pontificalis makes specific mention of their despoliation of the suburban cemeteries, accusing Aistulf of stealing many of the bodies of the saints, an action ‘greatly to his own soul’s detriment’.28 The same motive is expressed in Pope Paul I’s 761 charter letter, addressed to the abbot of San Silvestro in Capite, Leontius, in which the Lombards are once again accused of having taken relics from the catacombs.29 It was the threat of losing the physical remains of their patron saints that most aroused papal indignation, and their presence in the unprotected catacombs left them highly vulnerable in that regard. The record of a donation of relics to the Roman church of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria in 755 had emphasized those of non-Roman saints, but this focus now changed abruptly.30 This view of the events of 756 persisted well into the ninth century. As we shall see in Chapter 4, Paschal I tried but initially failed to find the body of St Cecilia, and he blamed this apparent loss on Aistulf. But Cecilia appeared to him in a dream and advised that while the Lombards had

26

27 28 29

LP 95.5, ed. Duchesne I: 464–5. For the inscriptions, Silvagni 1943, I: pl. XXXVII.1; Gray 1948: 52–3, no. 10; Goodson 2010: 208–11; and Osborne 2020: 173–4. John VII (LP 88.2, ed. Duchesne I: 385), and Gregory III (LP 92.13, ed. Duchesne I: 420). LP 94.41, ed. Duchesne I: 451–2; English translation from Davis 2007: 68. Federici 1899: 257. 30 Osborne 2023.

Architecture

indeed sought for her remains, they had been unsuccessful. She encouraged Paschal to search again.31 Despite the inflammatory language of the papal letters to Pippin III, intended to secure his intervention, the Lombards are unlikely to have committed wanton acts of vandalism against Christian shrines, and their reputation has suffered from having subsequently been seen largely through Roman eyes. Their kings were both devout Christians and assiduous founders of new monasteries, and thus enthusiastic collectors of relics with which to endow them.32 The Roman Church suddenly realized that it had a very precious asset, and one that it needed to take action to preserve. Six decades later, the reasons for Paschal’s initiative may have been much the same, and the Liber pontificalis echoes the language of the vita of Paul I in speaking of ‘neglected’ bodies lying in ‘ruined’ cemeteries. But Rome was also once again facing intense pressure to part with the bodies of its saints, now to supply the needs, not of the Lombards, but rather of the new Carolingian institutions being founded in areas north of the Alps. Relics for the consecration of altars were in great demand, particularly as new monasteries were founded and the frontiers of Christianity pushed eastwards, and those of Roman martyrs were the most highly prized.33 Alcuin, among others, asked those travelling to Rome to return with relics.34 Indeed, many of the inscriptions placed at the graves of saints by Pope Damasus in the fourth century are known today only because their texts were copied and preserved in Carolingian manuscripts, a reflection of their keen interest.35 Despite Rome’s nominal independence from Frankish authority, and Paschal’s apparent attempt at pre-emptive resistance, the pressure on Roman pontiffs to acquiesce to the requests made by Frankish clerics would continue through the reign of Louis the Pious and beyond, and many of these are documented in both chronicles and hagiographic literature. In 826, for example, Hilduin, abbot of the monastery of Saint-Denis and one of the emperor’s foremost advisers, requested and received the remains of St Sebastian from Pope Eugenius II, who was himself heavily dependent on Carolingian military protection in a city overly prone to factional strife.36 These were placed in the church of Saint-Médard at 31

32 33

34

LP 100.15, ed. Duchesne II: 56. This may have been intended to counter the Lombard claim that Aistulf had taken Cecilia’s relics to Pavia; see Tomea 2001: 43. Succurro 2015; and Osborne 2020: 178–80. Osborne 1985: 294–5; and Costambeys 2014: 263–5. For a comprehensive analysis of Frankish requests to Rome, see Smith 2000. For an overview of the larger phenomenon of transalpine relic translations in the Carolingian era, see also Vocino 2011. Alcuin, Carmina 44, ed. Dümmler: 255–7. 35 Maskarinec 2015. 36 Smith 2000: 323.

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Soissons, where they were said to have effected many miracles.37 And beyond any formal requests, there was also a flourishing clandestine commerce in relics. Einhard recounts how, in the following year, he obtained by theft the relics of the martyrs Peter and Marcellinus from their tomb on the Via Labicana for his monastic foundation at Seligenstadt, through connivance with the Roman deacon Deusdona. He considered these to be ‘a treasure more valuable than gold’.38 Many other Roman relics would find new homes north of the Alps in the following decades.39 What makes Paschal’s translations to Santa Prassede so remarkable is their sheer scale: the largest documented single movement of relics in the entire history of Christianity. In addition to the passage in the Liber pontificalis, considerable detail is provided by a lengthy marble inscription, now set into a pier separating the nave from the right aisle of the church. This identifies the pope, and then provides the names of many of the saints whose relics were transported within the walls, grouped by category – some thirteen early popes, for example – concluding with the statement that the total numbered some 2,300.40 This was an absolutely colossal and unprecedented undertaking. Caroline Goodson’s analysis of the names has demonstrated that the bodies came from all sectors of the suburban hinterland, not just a small handful of cemeteries, and this has prompted her to suggest that the motivation was ‘ideological, not practical’.41 However, it is not difficult to imagine the perceived necessity of a massive response on the part of the Roman Church when faced with the urgent prospect of the potential loss of their custodes sanctissimi.42 In light of Santa Prassede’s specific function, it may perhaps come as no surprise to discover that its architecture copies very precisely that of 37

38

39 40

41 42

Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze: 171–2. Hilduin did not receive all the relics of Sebastian, or else was given false ones, as some were later placed in Saint Peter’s by Pope Gregory IV (LP 103.7, ed. Duchesne II: 74), and a reliquary containing Sebastian’s head was subsequently moved by Pope Leo IV to the church of the Santi Quattro Coronati, where it was rediscovered in 1624 (see Chapter 6). auro pretiosiorem thesauram (Einhard, Translatio et miracula sanctorum Marcellini et Petri, ed. Waitz: 243, line 41). For the ninth-century relic trade and the role of Deusdona, see Guiraud 1892; Geary 1978: 52–8, 143–5; and Delogu 2022: 312–16. A number of examples are detailed by Maskarinec 2018: 145–53. LP, ed. Duchesne II: 64 (transcription); Silvagni 1943, I: pl. XXIX.1; Ferrua 1957–58; Nilgen 1974; Goodson 2005: 136–7; Goodson 2010: 228–34, 327–33 (transcription and translation), and fig. 34; and Ferrazza and Michetti 2020: 330–1. First recorded by various visitors to Rome in the fifteenth century, the inscription’s dating has been the subject of some controversy, but both the language and palaeography appear consistent with a ninth-century origin. Goodson 2010: 234. For a map of the cemeteries, see also Goodson 2005: 124, fig. 11.1. This phrase was used c. 800 to describe the saints whose relics protected the city of Verona; see Versus de Verona 19, ed. Dümmler: 121.

Architecture

Rome’s foremost saint’s shrine, Saint Peter’s, albeit at a much reduced scale. In some senses it takes the form of a traditional basilica, with a central nave flanked by an aisle on each side, but, unusually, like Saint Peter’s it was approached through a formal gateway. This fronted onto the ancient clivus Suburanus, the street that climbed up the Esquiline hill from the valley of the Forum, now known in this stretch as the Via di San Martino ai Monti.43 And again echoing Saint Peter’s, the entrance opened to a long flight of steps, rising some 4 metres to the level of the colonnaded atrium, of which two columns still survive in place on the west side.44 In addition to the overall layout, the parallel extends to the presence of a semi-annular crypt in which Paschal placed the bodies of the saints translated from the suburban cemeteries, as well as to numerous other constructional details. For example, the eleven columns separating the nave from each aisle (a 50 per cent reduction from Saint Peter’s twenty-two) support an architrave rather than the more customary arcade. Once again, the columns, bases and capitals, along with many other bits of stone used in the construction, are spolia from ancient buildings.45 But the foremost architectural feature that both copies Saint Peter’s and differentiates Santa Prassede from other early medieval churches in Rome is the presence of a continuous transept, separating the nave and aisles from the apse, and giving the ground plan of the basilica its T-shaped form. Richard Krautheimer believed this emulation to have been specific and deliberate, leading him to posit the concept of a ‘Carolingian Renaissance’ of fourthcentury Constantinian models in the early ninth century.46 We shall return to a discussion of that notion later in this chapter. The existence of a transept certainly marks Santa Prassede as unusual. In Saint Peter’s, built originally to combine the functions of a shrine church with that of a funerary basilica, this space was likely inserted to permit the increased possibility of burial ad sanctos, adjacent to the relics of Peter; but that function had long since ceased to be active, and there is no reason to think that it played a role in the design of Santa Prassede. After the seventh century, however, and the insertion of the crypt at Saint Peter’s, the transept served as the principal means of access to that subterranean space, with pilgrims entering by means of a staircase in the left (south) arm and then afterwards exiting on the north side. The possibility that this 43

44 46

For the architecture, CBCR III: 235–62; Krautheimer 1980: 123–4; and most recently Caperna 2013 and Caperna 2020b: 197–200. For the topography, Caperna 2017 and Caperna 2020a: 153–60. CBCR III: fig. 207. 45 Pensabene 2015: 402–29. Krautheimer 1942; and Krautheimer 1980: 122–4.

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was also the rationale for the inclusion of a transept in the design of Santa Prassede finds support in the subject matter of the murals with which the space was decorated, another point to which we shall return presently. In terms of the actual construction, Santa Prassede is a typical product of the early ninth century, built entirely of reused bricks on a foundation of recycled tufa blocks (opus quadratum);47 and, as we shall see, there is also an extraordinary amount of reused stone sculpture in addition to some pieces newly carved. But we shall first turn our attention to the mosaic decorations.

The Mosaics of the Apse and Arches48 The apse, its framing arch, as well as the outer face of the arch set between the nave and the transept (Fig. 3.1), were all completely decorated with mosaics, a technique in which very small cubes of coloured glass or marble, known as tesserae, are set into a plaster bed, usually at an angle in order to catch and reflect the ambient light, creating visual images in a manner not unlike late-nineteenth-century French ‘pointillism’.49 At first employed only for floor pavements, the practice migrated to walls and vaults in or about the first century BCE, and by the fourth century CE was widely in use for the decoration of Christian churches. In Rome there is evidence of continuity in mosaic decoration from the age of Constantine onwards, with examples surviving from every century. However, many of these are no longer in pristine condition, having suffered subsequent repairs, or in some cases substantial losses of surface area, and some are known only from records of patronage, or, as we have seen for the triclinia of Leo III, from the descriptions of antiquarians in the early modern era or facsimile copies. This is partly what makes the Santa Prassede apse mosaic so remarkable. Not only are there few areas of significant loss, but a campaign of conservation and cleaning undertaken in the 1980s revealed that the majority of the tesserae in place are original. Almost all the tesserae are in this instance made of glass.50 There is some use of white stone, but none of coloured stone.51 The mosaicists first prepared the 47 49

50

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Barelli 2020a. 48 For a fully illustrated survey of the mosaic decorations, see Pennesi 2006. For a detailed introduction to mosaic technique, see James 2017: 46–95; and more specifically for Rome: D’Angelo 2017. For the production of glass tesserae, see Verità 2017; James 2017: 32–40; and Maltoni, Deiana and Silvestri 2022. The traditional view that ‘Roman’ mosaicists used glass and ‘Byzantine’ workshops stone tesserae requires a more nuanced discussion; see Croci and Gianandrea 2022: 130–6.

Architecture

Fig. 3.1 Santa Prassede: apse and framing arch.

wall surface with plaster, on which the design was sketched in black and red lines. The tesserae were then applied in patches of about one half of a square metre, each representing a giornata, or one day’s work; and the fact that many are rounded, not square, suggests that they were probably reused, and not freshly manufactured for this purpose.52 Evidence from the excavations undertaken in Rome at the Crypta Balbi suggests in fact that most early medieval glass used recycled cullet as its base material, particularly after the seventh century.53 The apse mosaic employs a pictorial formula that is one of the most characteristic of the arts of early medieval Rome: a theophanic vision of the 52

53

These remarks are based on personal observation from the scaffolding in the apse, as well as discussions with the conservators, on 12 June 1987. Mirti, Davit, Gulmini and Saguì 2001.

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Second Coming in which an image of Christ is flanked by the two primary Roman saints, Peter and Paul, in addition to saints particular to the specific site, with the donor of the work, depicted at the far left, being introduced by his saintly patrons and vouchsafed as worthy of salvation.54 As we have seen, the earliest surviving example of this iconography is the sixth-century mosaic in the apse of Santi Cosma e Damiano, where the papal patron shown offering a model of the church is Pope Felix IV (526–30). His agency is confirmed by his entry in the Liber pontificalis, as well as the inscription at the base of the apse, which conveys the motive for the work: ‘that he may be granted life in the airy vault of heaven’ (ut aetheria vivat in arce poli).55 Many similar depictions of papal donors are known from the next three centuries, not all in mosaic and some not located in apses, but the basic formula usually remains the same, albeit occasionally with minor variations. These include the mosaic on the arch of San Lorenzo fuori le mura (Pope Pelagius II, 579–90), the mosaic in the San Venanzio chapel in the Lateran baptistery (Pope John IV, 640–2), a mural in the narthex of Santa Sabina (Pope Constantine, 708–15), a mural on the altar wall in the Theodotus chapel at Santa Maria Antiqua (Pope Zacharias, 741–52), a mural formerly in the atrium of the same church (Pope Hadrian I, 772–95) and the two that we have already encountered: the mosaics in the apse of Santa Susanna and Leo III’s ‘Council Hall’ (Sala del Concilio) in the Lateran palace. Before the middle of the ninth century it will surface again in the apses of the churches of Santa Cecilia and San Marco, both to be discussed in subsequent chapters. All these examples share a context in which ‘patron’ saints intervene to support their ‘client’ on the Day of Judgement; and as has long since been noted, the composition owes much, in both ideological and visual terms, to praesentatio ceremonies at the imperial and other courts.56 Roman audiences of the early ninth century would thus have been very familiar with this visual theme. The Santa Prassede apse parallels its Santi Cosma e Damiano predecessor in almost every minor detail (Fig. 3.2).57 The figure of Christ is raised above the ground line and set against a background of clouds tinged by the 54

55

56 57

For this ‘formula’, see Thunø 2015: 13–39. For a detailed examination of the imagery, see Wisskirchen 1990: 28–50, 109–14. For the implications of the donor pontiffs with models of their gifts appearing in other-worldly settings, a practice seemingly without precedent in earlier Roman art, see McKitterick 2020a: 116–20. LP 56.2, ed. Duchesne I; 279, 280 n. 3 (apse inscription). For additional bibliography, see Osborne 2008. Grabar 1936: 204–5; and Ihm 1960: 24–6. Nordhagen 1976: 159–60; and Thunø 2015: 13–16.

Architecture

Fig. 3.2 Santa Prassede: apse mosaic.

rays of the rising sun. His right hand is raised, palm outwards, and a furled scroll is held in the left. On either side, Peter and Paul, standing in a lush floral landscape watered by a river identified by inscription as the Jordan (IORDANES), present two richly-dressed female saints, not identified but presumably Praxedes and her sister Pudentiana, holding crowns signifying their status as martyrs. At the far left (in other words, at Christ’s right hand) Pope Paschal, his head framed with a ‘square halo’ indicating a portrait, offers a model of the church (Fig. 3.3). A nimbed phoenix, a symbol of immortality due to the ancient belief that it was reborn from its own ashes, perches in the branches of a palm tree behind him. At the far right is the standing figure of a male saint, a tonsured cleric holding a codex, and once again not identified.58 In the zone beneath, twelve lambs process from representations of cities (not labelled, but known from other contexts to represent Jerusalem and Bethlehem, for example in the fifth-century mosaics at Santa Maria Maggiore, where they are identified by name) towards the Agnus Dei (‘Lamb of God’) in the centre, standing on the Mount of Zion from which flow four streams, the four rivers of Paradise (Genesis 2:10–14). And below the lambs is the two-line dedication inscription, in hexameter verse, boldly expressed in golden capital letters set 58

The usual identification as St Zeno, to whom an important chapel in the church was dedicated (to be discussed below), is possible but cannot be certain.

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Fig. 3.3 Santa Prassede: Pope Paschal I with a model of the church.

against a rich blue background.59 The only difference from Santi Cosma e Damiano is the insertion of the relevant saints and donor pope. And lest any viewer be uncertain on that last point, Paschal’s name appears prominently in the verse inscription at the base of the apse, and his monogram is displayed on the underside of the arch above.60 Letters or monograms carrying religious significance have a long tradition in Christian art, with perhaps the best-known example being the chirho symbol created by the first two letters of the Greek word Christos. By the fifth century, the display of individual names of emperors, aristocrats and senior officials, contrived as a single graphic device combining the 59

60

This is a standard colour combination for mosaic inscriptions in Roman churches, going back at least as far as the inscription on the inner façade wall of Santa Sabina, dating from the early fifth century. See Thunø 2011; Thunø 2015: 47–51; and Ammirati, Mancho and Pogliani 2020. For the text of the inscription, and English translation: Thunø 2015: 211. See also the detailed description by Goodson (2010: 149–52). For the monogram, see Garipzanov 2018: 267–8.

Architecture

requisite letters, had become increasingly widespread in the Roman world: on coins, seals, silver control stamps and in many other contexts where an official mark of ownership or patronage was deemed desirable. For example, a number of the churches built in Constantinople in the first half of the sixth century have marble capitals displaying the monograms of their patrons, including St Polyeuktos, Sts Sergius and Bacchus, St Sophia and St Irene.61 These were public expressions of power and authority. The practice soon spread to western Europe, where it quickly became popular among bishops along the Adriatic littoral, for example Elias (571–86), whose monogram appears in the floor pavement of his cathedral at Grado. It would subsequently become widespread throughout the Carolingian world.62 The use of this format in a papal context can similarly be traced back at least as far as the first half of the sixth century, when the marble panels of the so-called schola cantorum in the church of San Clemente were presented by Pope John II (533–5), whose name, expressed in the form of a monogram, appears on a number of the surviving slabs.63 His device has also been found on a set of capitals, now in the cathedral treasury at Lyons, but formerly in the Roman church of Santi Cosma e Damiano.64 As an element in, or an addition to, an apse mosaic, the earliest recorded instance in Rome is the monogram which Pope Hadrian I (772–95) placed in the church of Santa Pudenziana, presumably added to the much earlier mosaic when he restored that structure. Although long since lost, its presence was recorded by the sixteenth-century antiquarians Ugonio and Panvinio, and also in a drawing associated with Alonso Chacón.65 Subsequently, this custom was also adopted by his successor, Leo III, who, as we have seen, is known to have displayed his own name in this fashion at the apex of the apse mosaic in his ‘Council Hall’ in the Lateran palace, as well as in the church of Santi Nereo ed Achilleo. But the Santa Prassede mosaic is the first in which the monogram survives intact in this prominent location. The use of Santi Cosma e Damiano as a model also extends to the mosaics on the framing arch. Here the enthroned ‘Lamb of God’ (Agnus Dei) is shown flanked by seven candlesticks, four angels and the symbols of the four evangelists (the man representing Matthew and the lion representing Mark on the left, and the eagle representing John and ox representing Luke on the right), while in the broad spandrels underneath on either side 61 63 64 65

Garipzanov 2018: 160–86; and Stroth 2021. 62 Garipzanov 2018: 186–96, 242–85. Barsanti and Guiglia Guidobaldi 1992: 70–2; and Garipzanov 2018: 187–8. Guidobaldi 1989. Andaloro 2006: 114, 115 (fig. 2), 122. For Hadrian’s restoration of Santa Pudenziana: LP 97.76, ed. Duchesne I: 508.

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Fig. 3.4 Santa Prassede: mosaics of apsidal arch.

the twenty-four ‘elders’ raise their crowns toward the Lamb in acclamation (Fig. 3.4).66 These images derive entirely from the text of the last book of the Christian Bible, the Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse), in keeping with the general theme of the ‘Second Coming’ at the end of chronological time, and the iconography follows the Santi Cosma e Damiano model very precisely. The placement of the Agnus Dei, in a precise vertical alignment with the altar on which Christ’s sacrifice was ritually memorialized in the celebration of the eucharist, has various precedents, in Rome and elsewhere, for example the golden lamb placed by Pope Hilarus (461–8) on the arch covering the confessio in the Chapel of the Holy Cross in the Lateran Baptistery.67 At least one scholar, Godefridus Hoogewerff, has questioned whether Santi Cosma e Damiano, which he perceived as being a somewhat unimportant church, could have exerted such a compelling influence on so many others, and he suggested that perhaps both apses, and the others which employ the same formula, stem from some unknown common model, now lost: for example, possibly the original apse mosaic of San Giovanni in Laterano.68 To this, however, a detailed and compelling 66 67

For the iconography, see Wisskirchen 1990: 50–62, 114–19. LP 48.3, ed. Duchesne I: 242. 68 Hoogewerff 1955: 316.

Architecture

rebuttal has been offered by Per Jonas Nordhagen, who observed not only the remarkable similarity between Santi Cosma e Damiano and Santa Prassede in compositional and organizational details, but also in technical aspects including the colour scheme. It is notable, for example, that silver tesserae are used in both monuments on only a single occasion, for the halo of the Agnus Dei at the base of the apse.69 And while some of the elements in the arch composition do have an earlier precedent at San Paolo fuori le mura (mid fifth century), others do not: the seven candlesticks, for example.70 Thus, it seems safe to conclude that Paschal I, or whoever designed the decorative programme, had Santi Cosma e Damiano firmly in mind. Santa Prassede differs from most Roman churches in having not one but two arches, both decorated with mosaics. This stems from its unusual architectural feature, namely the transept separating the body of the church from the apse; and the decorations of this second arch, situated between the nave and the transept, are also still substantially intact in the uppermost section. It is worth noting that, in architectural parlance, arches framing the presbytery zone are often referred to as ‘triumphal arches’, and this term is used for the first time in an ecclesiastical context in our Liber pontificalis passage: ‘Likewise he embellished the triumphal arch with the same minerals, carrying it out in a marvellous fashion.’71 The imagery here is both striking and remarkably innovative, and does indeed depict a ‘triumph’: that of the Christian church. The central image features a walled city, constructed of precious stones and adorned with jewels, stemming from the description of the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ in the Book of Revelation (21:10–21); and Hendrik Dey has suggested that the walls were modelled visually on Rome’s circuit of Aurelian walls, dating from the second half of the third century.72 Standing within the walls is Christ, flanked by angels along with the two primary intercessors for human souls, Mary and John the Baptist (on Christ’s right), a female saint easily identified from her depiction and dress as Praxedes (on his left), and the twelve apostles (six on each side). Open gates at either extremity are guarded by angels, who greet the approaching crowds of martyrs, the latter bearing their crowns in covered hands. On the right they are welcomed additionally by Sts Peter and Paul, signifying the specific role 69 70 71

72

Nordhagen 1976. For their possible specific link to the site of Santi Cosma e Damiano, see Osborne 2008. Simili modo et arcum triumphalem eisdem metallis mirum in modum perficiens compsit (LP 100.8, ed. Duchesne II: 54; English translation from Davis 1995: 10). Dey 2011: 147–9.

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of the Roman Church in the process of salvation.73 In many respects this is a visualization of the pope’s desire, expressed in the inscription placed in the lower zone of the apse mosaic, that he might himself ‘be more eligible to approach the gates of Heaven’.74 And for a second time we find Paschal’s monogram placed prominently at the apex of the underside of the arch. The images on this ‘triumphal arch’ have no known precedent, either in Rome or elsewhere, and consequently they have attracted considerable attention, with a number of scholars attempting to link them to the liturgy performed in the space immediately beneath. Marchita Mauck, for example, has identified a possible connection between the triumphal arch mosaics and the words of the antiphon In paradisum, sung in funerary processions, which describes the action of angels leading the deceased into the Heavenly Jerusalem. She has also linked the imagery to the actual events of 817, when thousands of saintly bodies were translated from the catacombs to this church, its architecture standing in metaphorically as a terrestrial manifestation of the heavenly city.75 The In paradisum link has, however, been discounted by Joseph Dyer, who instead prefers a source in the liturgy for the installation of relics during the dedication ceremony of a church.76 Perhaps somewhat less compellingly, Rotraut Wisskirchen sought parallels in contemporary poetry and hymns, while Ursula Nilgen looked instead to the words of the mass itself, and specifically the text of the ‘Common Preface’ (praefatio communis) immediately preceding the eucharist.77 However, as Erik Thunø has observed, while the liturgical links may have been understood implicitly, they are not always visually explicit, and no single source can on its own explain all the disparate elements.78 It is likely that more still remains to be said on this subject, and thus for the moment our jury remains ‘out’.

The San Zeno Chapel The proverbial ‘icing’ on the Santa Prassede ‘cake’ is the San Zeno chapel, originally an attached chapel protruding from the right aisle of the church, but now enclosed in later structural accretions.79 The Liber pontificalis 73

74 77 79

For detailed discussions of the imagery, with the apposite Biblical references and theological interpretation, see Wisskirchen 1990: 63–99, 119–23; and Thunø 2015: 164–70. For the most recent analysis, including the possibility that the Arch of Constantine may have served as a visual model, see Bordi and Mancho 2020: 208–29. See footnote 15 in this chapter. 75 Mauck 1987. 76 Dyer 1995. Wisskirchen 1990: 99; and Nilgen 2000. 78 Thunø 2014; and Thunø 2015: 119–28. For an architectural survey using modern technology, see Angelini and Carpiceci 2020.

The San Zeno Chapel

describes it in these words: ‘Also in that church he built an oratory of Christ’s martyr St Zeno, and there he also placed his holy body, and fully adorned it with mosaic.’80 Further particulars are provided by the previously discussed relic inscription, which locates the chapel on the right hand side of the basilica (in ipso ingressu basilicae manu dextra), records that Paschal placed here the relics of Zeno and two others, and offers the useful information that it housed the tomb of Paschal’s mother, Theodora episcopa (ubi utique benignissimae suae genetricis scilicet domnae Theodorae episcopae quiescit).81 The inscription also provides information about two other chapels, neither of which survives nor have their exact locations been identified. The first, dedicated to St John the Baptist, was on the left side of the church and functioned as a sacristy (secretarium). It received the relics of St Maurus and forty other martyrs. The second, dedicated to St Agnes, was located in the attached monastery. Here Paschal placed the remains of a second-century pope, Alexander, along with the priests Eventius and Theodulus, all three previously venerated in a cemetery on the Via Nomentana.82 The St Agnes chapel is also mentioned in the Liber pontificalis, which states that it was wonderfully decorated (oratorium beatae Agnetis Christi martyris, mire pulcritudinis exornatum), presumably also with mosaics.83 The phenomenon of subsidiary chapels may be traced back at least as far as the fifth century84 and is related to the development of the sanctoral liturgy, and Judson Emerick has interpreted the relic chapels in Santa Prassede in precisely this context.85 The creation of funerary chapels for the burial of papal parents seems to have been rare in the early Middle Ages, although actual evidence is almost non-existent. However, the practice was not entirely unprecedented, and in the mid seventh century Pope Theodore (642–9) had buried his father in a chapel which he added to the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo, dedicated to Sts Primus and Felicianus.86 We also have the text of the epitaph, now lost, which the future John VII (705–7) composed for the tombs of his parents, the imperial bureaucrat Plato (vir illustris, cura palatii urbis Romae) and his wife Blatta, in the church of Sant’Anastasia.87 What is perhaps unusual at Santa Prassede is the designation of Theodora as episcopa, presumably continuing, or perhaps reviving, a Roman tradition of associating the title of a prominent 80 81 84 86 87

LP 100.10, ed. Duchesne II: 55. English translation from Davis 1995: 12. Goodson 2010: 328–9, lines 36–42. 82 Ibid., 329. 83 LP 100.11, ed. Duchesne II: 55. Bauer 1999: 398–417; and Mackie 2003: 71–5. 85 Emerick 2005. Davis-Weyer 1989; Mackie 2003: 75–7; and Taddei 2022. See LP, ed. Duchesne I: 386, n. 1.

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male member of a family with his immediate female relations; and, as we shall see presently, her image is also included in the chapel’s decorations. The oratory of San Zeno is entered from the right aisle of Santa Prassede through a formal portal: two granite columns with Ionic capitals support a reused section of an ancient marble entablature, a combination of spolia and new or newly reworked pieces,88 and the lintel bears an elegantly carved two-line inscription, yet again naming Pope Paschal and concluding with his monogram (Fig. 3.5).89 Above this there is a window opening, surrounded by two concentric sets of mosaic medallions: the outermost

Fig. 3.5 Santa Prassede: portal of the San Zeno chapel. 88 89

Pani Ermini 1974a: 135–41 (cat. nos. 81–90, pls. XXXV–XLI); and Ballardini 2020: 35–41. LP, ed. Duchesne II: 65, n. 14; Silvagni 1943: pl. XV.2; and Gray 1948: 100, no. 77, who describes it as ‘beautifully done’.

The San Zeno Chapel

depicts the bust of Christ, flanked by Peter and Paul (recognizable from their distinctive facial types) and ten other apostles, and the innermost features Mary and the infant Jesus at its apex, flanked by two males (generally thought to be Zeno and his brother Valentine), and then eight richly adorned, crowned and bejewelled females. There are no identifying inscriptions. Only the rectangles in the lowermost corners, containing the heads of two tiara-bearing popes, have been remade at a post-medieval date, apparently replacing earlier images in paint.90 Moving inside, the entirety of the upper walls and vaults above the cornice are covered in mosaics, one of the few places where the modern visitor can examine the tesserae at reasonably close range. As in the apse, these are primarily glass, with some very limited use of stone tesserae for garments and hair. The colours are vivid, and their range extensive. Gold tesserae predominate, and these come in two varieties: some with amber as a transparent base colour supporting a thin slice of gold leaf, and some with green, the latter showing signs of having possibly been recycled.91 The original marble floor also remains fully in place, its opus sectile design featuring a large porphyry roundel at its centre.92 So too do the marble columns at the four corners (capitals, shafts, bases, pedestals), which, like the exterior of the portal, present an interesting mélange of reused older elements and contemporaneous ninth-century carving.93 The iconographic range of the mosaic images is impressive, and has been explored in considerable detail by scholars such as Beat Brenk, Gillian Mackie and Rotraut Wisskirchen.94 The vaulted ceiling is occupied by a bust of Christ, enclosed in a medallion supported by four angels whose bodies spring like architectural ribs from the corners of the space, all set against a solid gold background (Fig. 3.6). In the upper section of the entrance wall, above the portal, Sts Peter and Paul, both here identified by inscriptions, raise their right hands in a gesture of acclamation towards an empty throne, the hetoimasia, or prepared seat of final judgement (Fig. 3.7). This image is reasonably common in Early Christian art, appearing in Rome, for example, in the fifth-century mosaic 90 91

92

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94

Oakeshott 1967: 207 and Fig. 125; and Mackie 1989: 188–90. For a detailed analysis of the technique, including some remarkable photographic details of the tesserae, see Pogliani 2020. McClendon 1980: 157; Guidobaldi and Guiglia Guidobaldi 1983: 468–9; Angelini and Carpiceci 2020: 262 (fig. 19); and Ballardini 2020: 21. Pani Ermini 1974a: 141–4 (cat. nos. 91–4, pls. XLII–XLV); Paroli 1998: 100–1; Pensabene 2015: 413; and Ballardini 2020: 22–35. Brenk 1972–74; Mackie 1989; and Wisskirchen 1991b. Earlier studies of the chapel include Baldoria 1891; Baldracco 1942; and Matthiae 1967: 239–41.

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Fig. 3.6 San Zeno chapel: mosaic in the vault.

at the apex of the arch in Santa Maria Maggiore, where the throne is also flanked by the same two saints. The imagery derives from Biblical sources such as Psalms 9:7 and 89:14. Facing them on the opposite (east) wall are Mary and John the Baptist, flanking a window (Fig. 3.8). On the left (north) wall, three female saints offer crowns: from left to right, Agnes, Pudentiana and Praxedes; and they are balanced on the right (south) wall by three males: John the Evangelist, Andrew and James, all again identified by inscriptions. With the exception of the entrance wall, the other three open in their lower zones to a barrel-vaulted recess, thus giving the chapel’s ground plan a somewhat cruciform shape. The lunette-shaped end walls of these extensions feature on the east a depiction of the Transfiguration, and on the south Christ between two unidentified male saints, one of whom is usually identified as Zeno, to whom the chapel is known to have been dedicated, although neither figure is dressed as a priest. The northern extension is perhaps the most interesting (Fig. 3.9). Divided into two zones, the uppermost depicts the

The San Zeno Chapel

Fig. 3.7 San Zeno chapel: hetoimasia.

Fig. 3.8 San Zeno chapel: Deësis.

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Fig. 3.9 San Zeno chapel: lunette with Agnus Dei, saints and Theodora episcopa.

Fig. 3.10 San Zeno chapel: Theodora episcopa.

Agnus Dei standing on the hill of Zion, from which flow four rivers. Drinking from the latter are four deer. Beneath are the heads and torsos of four female figures: Mary, flanked by two jewelled saints, again presumably Praxedes and her sister Pudentiana, and at the far left a woman with a ‘square halo’, identified by an inscription as THEOD[ORA] EPISCOPA (Fig. 3.10).

The San Zeno Chapel

Fig. 3.11 San Zeno chapel: Anastasis.

On the side wall of this niche, to the right, is a depiction of the ‘Harrowing of Hell’, or Anastasis (in Greek), in which Christ raises up Adam and Eve (representing humans who died before the advent of the ‘Era of Grace’) from the fires of Hell (Fig. 3.11).95 The barrel vaults are also completely decorated: on the north and south sides with geometric motifs, and on the east with an elaborate acanthus scroll filled with birds and animals, including leopards, lambs, deer, doves, geese and peacocks.96 And, finally, it should be noted that the mosaic decorating the altar in the eastern niche, depicting an enthroned Madonna and Child, belongs to a much later date, probably the mid thirteenth century, as revealed by both its style and technique.97 The funerary function of the space, documented in Paschal’s long inscription, is also readily apparent from its physical nature, which in many ways resembles a cubiculum burial chamber, here transposed from an underground catacomb to a constructed structure above ground. The architecture has various precedents in Late Antiquity, of which the best known is probably the so-called ‘Mausoleum of Galla Placidia’ in Ravenna, now freestanding, but originally attached to the now-demolished church of Santa Croce, which had been constructed by that empress in the first half of the fifth century.98 There too the images of drinking deer feature prominently. In addition to the apses of Roman churches, this motif is often associated with baptisteries, based on 95

96 98

Davis-Weyer 1976; and Labatt 2019: 56–60. For the early medieval origin and development of Anastasis iconography, see Kartsonis 1986. Mackie 1995. 97 Pace 1997/2000; Pennesi 2006: 297; and Queijo 2012. Mackie 2003: 172–94. Krautheimer (1980: 130) cites a Roman parallel in the mausoleum of Tiburtius adjacent to the fourth-century cemetery basilica of Santi Pietro e Marcellino.

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the text of Psalm 42:1, which expresses the longing of the Christian soul, symbolized by a deer, to find God. Thus it was equally appropriate in funerary contexts. The concept of the funerary chapel stems from the belief that on the ‘Day of Final Judgement’ bodies would be resurrected precisely in the places where they had been buried. This is turn gave rise to the practice of burial ad sanctos, ensuring that, at that critical moment, the deceased would be in the presence of a saint who could speak on their behalf. A good example from the fourth century is the chapel erected in Milan to house the tomb of St Victor, in which Ambrose, the city’s archbishop, also placed the body of his brother, Satyrus.99 In Rome, in the first half of the sixth century this notion was rendered visually in a large mural placed over the tomb of Turtura in the Catacomb of Commodilla. This depicts the deceased widow being presented to the enthroned Madonna and Child by her ‘guarantor’ saints, Felix and Adauctus, whose bodies also reposed at this spot.100 In a similar fashion, Paschal arranged for his mother’s body to be interred in immediate proximity to Zeno and two other unnamed saints, providing her with future advocates for her own safe passage into heaven. We can presume that her tomb, long since lost, was originally placed in the northern extension beneath her portrait, where now a door opens through to the adjoining space. The funerary function of the Zeno chapel is also very clearly reflected in the subject matter of the other mosaics. In addition to the prepared ‘Throne of Judgement’ (hetoimasia), and the Anastasis (‘Resurrection’), both bearing obvious relevance to the theme of the salvation of the deceased, the composition on the east wall (Fig. 3.8) has been interpreted as a depiction of the deësis (‘intercession’), employing a formula which would become exceptionally popular in subsequent Byzantine art, both on its own and as the centrepiece of depictions of the Last Judgement: Mary and John the Baptist, regarded as the two primary intercessors for the souls of humanity, are shown as advocates flanking the figure of Christ as judge.101 Here, of course, Christ is not visually present, as the central space is occupied by a window, but Marianne Asmussen has proposed the intriguing possibility that this was intended to stand in for the figure of Christ, who is often identified using the metaphor of ‘light’ (lux, cf. John 8:12).102

99

100 102

Now known as the chapel of San Vittore in Ciel d’Oro attached to the church of Sant’Ambrogio; see Mackie 2003: 116–29. Osborne 1985: 300–2. 101 Mackie 1989: 175–7. Asmussen 1986: 74. See also Pace 1997/2000: 197–8 (repr. 120–1); and Dell’Acqua 2020: 131.

The San Zeno Chapel

The oratory’s decorative programme thus emerges as a carefully crafted combination of iconographic elements stemming from two primary visual sources: the city’s own Early Christian past and more contemporaneous developments in the arts of the eastern Mediterranean.103 And it is that second component in particular, including the placement of a medallion bust of Christ at the centre of the dome, presaging subsequent practice in Byzantium,104 which has sparked the most interest and discussion. We don’t know if Paschal himself came from hellenophone roots, although his name and that of his mother might possibly suggest this. We do know that he placed a community of ‘Greeks’, presumably monks, in Santa Prassede, where, as his biographer records, they sang the psalms both day and night ‘in the Greek manner’.105 And we can also document both his contacts with the church in Constantinople and his fervent objection to the reintroduction there, by Emperor Leo V in the year 815, of iconoclasm as an official imperial policy. Leo V sent an embassy to Rome, seeking papal support, and Paschal responded with a letter, written in Greek, expressing his strong opposition to this unwelcome development. He also corresponded with Theodore, the iconophile abbot of the Studios monastery in the imperial capital.106 Rome would become known as a place of exile for those who continued to defend the veneration of images, and the monks installed in Santa Prassede may have been precisely such a community. The appropriateness of depicting religious figures was once again a matter for debate across the Christian world, including the Frankish realm,107 and Santa Prassede must have functioned, consciously or otherwise, as a powerful statement in support of images as well as a possible home for those who professed this view.

103

104

105

106

107

The ‘Byzantine connection’ is explored explicitly by Brenk 1972–74 and Mackie 1989, whereas the Early Christian elements are emphasized by Asmussen 1986 and Wisskirchen 1991b. In what Otto Demus has called the ‘classical system’ of Middle Byzantine church decoration, the physical placement of images in a church reflected their theological importance, and thus the dome was usually reserved for a medallion bust of Christ; see Demus 1964: 15–19. LP 100.9, ed. Duchesne II: 54. The precise meaning of ‘in the Greek manner’ remains unclear, and various possibilities are explored by Goodson 2010: 187–92. It may simply refer to the Byzantine monastic practice of reciting the entire set of 150 psalms over the course of one week, and twice during Lent, rather than any particular musical expression: see the section on ‘Byzantine psalmody’ in Troelsgård et al. 2001. For what little is known about music in the early medieval Roman liturgy, see Romano 2016: 40–6. Grumel 1960; and Bordino 2020a: 120–2. For links to the Studite opposition to Iconoclasm, see also Gill 1966; and Patlagean 1988. For Paschal’s letter to Leo V: Englen 2003. For an overview of western European responses to Iconoclasm: Noble 2021. For the Roman response to the return of Iconoclasm in 815, see also Winterhager 2020a: 272–87. Bordino 2020a.

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The ‘Double-line Fold Style’ Another tantalizing connection to the contemporaneous arts of Byzantium may be found in the pictorial technique that pervades the Santa Prassede mosaics. It is characterized by a strong emphasis on linearity, with little or no attention paid to modelling through variations in the shades of colour; and to some extent this was also determined by the almost exclusive use of glass tesserae, as opposed to stone, as the latter had permitted a much subtler chromatic range, especially for flesh tones. In this regard Paschal’s mosaics are demonstrably unlike those created just over a century earlier in the time of Pope John VII,108 but when, why and how this change occurred remains undocumented. We know from the Liber pontificalis that mosaic continued to be produced in Rome over the full course of the eighth century, for example in the decorations undertaken by Pope Paul I (757–67) in the churches of San Silvestro in Capite and Saint Peter’s,109 but nothing now survives in that medium between the fragments from John VII’s funerary chapel in Saint Peter’s and the pontificate of Leo III, by which time the change had taken place. More generally, moreover, discussions of ‘style’ in the arts of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean are fraught with enormous difficulty, in part because they have been conditioned by subsequent prejudices in favour of ‘classical’ standards of naturalism in the rendition of figures, and in part because we have no real understanding of the factors which influenced the ‘style’ of a painting or mosaic. Was it an actual choice, perhaps made by a patron? Or was it dependent on a workshop tradition in which the manner of execution was passed on from seasoned masters to their apprentices? My own inclination strongly favours the latter model, but unfortunately the paucity of surviving evidence rarely permits definitive conclusions.110 In recent decades, however, some considerable progress has been made in the chemical analysis of the components used in pigments and plasters, and this has facilitated an assessment of the practices of specific workshops and, on occasion, allowed us to assign different works to the same artist or atelier; for example, mortar and pigment analysis has established that those responsible for the image of St Anne

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109 110

For the technique of the John VII mosaics, see Nordhagen 1965: 145–53; Andaloro, Anselmi and D’Angelo 2017a; and Osborne 2020: 25–6. LP 95.5–6, ed. Duchesne I: 464–5. For the difficulties inherent in understanding the ‘style’ of medieval mosaics, see James 2017: 6–16.

The ‘Double-line Fold Style’

on the presbytery wall of Santa Maria Antiqua also produced the figure of an angel on the nearby ‘palimpsest’ wall.111 In addition to the increased use of scientific data regarding materials, the way forward in any attempt to better understand ‘style’ must also incorporate analysis of the solutions employed by specific workshops when undertaking particular tasks, and in Santa Prassede a good example is provided by the manner in which drapery folds are created on garments of solid colour, particularly those coloured white and gold. The solution was to eliminate almost all indications of folds in favour of a sort of ‘shorthand’ rendering comprising two parallel lines, most noticeably evident on the right thigh above the knee: for example, in the figures of Christ, Peter and Pope Paschal in the apse mosaic, or the standing male and female saints on the upper walls of the San Zeno chapel. This workshop practice was first identified by Kurt Weitzmann, who coined the phrase ‘double-line fold style’ (Doppelliniensystem) to describe it;112 and what makes it of more than passing interest is that it was by no means unique to Santa Prassede. In fact, it appears to have been broadly employed across the Mediterranean Christian world in the ninth century, and can be observed in a wide range of media, encompassing not only mosaics and mural paintings but also metalwork, ivory and illuminations in Greeklanguage manuscripts. Among the many examples identified by Weitzmann are a Sinai icon depicting two Palestinian saints, Chariton and Theodosius, and an ivory carving (Staatliche Museen, Berlin) almost certainly produced in Constantinople, showing on one side the coronation by Mary of an emperor named Leo.113 Perhaps wisely, Weitzmann would eventually conclude that ‘the double-line fold style as such provides no clue to locale, but must be understood as a general reflection of the style of the time’.114 This formulaic approach to the visual rendering of drapery folds also had a remarkable longevity. In Rome, in addition to a number of other mosaics and objects datable to the time of Paschal I, we shall encounter ‘double-line folds’ in murals belonging to the much later pontificates of Leo IV (847–55) and John VIII (872–82), as well as in a number of manuscripts for which a Roman origin has been suggested, usually on that specific basis. Thus we shall return to this topic frequently in the pages to follow. 111 113

114

Pogliani, Pelosi and Agresti 2021: 311–13. 112 Weitzmann 1935: 80. For the eighth- or ninth-century icon, see Weitzmann 1976: 64–5 and pl. XXVI, a comparison which I do not find convincing. For the Leo ivory, see Weitzmann 1971; Corrigan 1978; and Cutler 1994: 200–1. A dating to the reign of Emperor Leo VI (886–912) is now generally accepted. Weitzmann 1979: 18.

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Murals and Sculpture Beyond its vast array of mosaics, Santa Prassede is also a repository for work in the media of wall-painting and sculpture. Originally, the walls of the transept were fully covered with murals, of which remnants survive today on three walls of the upper left side, in the space that now functions as the base for the thirteenth-century bell tower. Until recently, these had attracted rather little scholarly attention, perhaps because their dilapidated condition rendered them exceptionally poor cousins to the mosaics elsewhere in the church.115 In fact, they are best studied today through the watercoloured photographs prepared by Joseph Wilpert in the first decade of the twentieth century, rather than in situ.116 It is estimated that only about one-sixth (17 per cent) of the original painted wall surface survives even in part, and this bears evidence of at least three horizontal registers of narrative scenes, all of which depicted the passions of Early Christian martyrs, with the specific moments identified by painted inscriptions written horizontally in the border above and introduced by the Latin word ubi (‘where’). The saints are shown being arrested, imprisoned, tried by an enthroned magistrate, tortured, executed and finally buried. There are no vertical borders separating the individual scenes, but architectural backdrops are frequently employed to serve this function. The uppermost of the surviving registers, of which portions of some ten episodes can be discerned, depicted the Roman martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria, a married couple who nonetheless remained chaste, as well as Claudius, the magistrate who was moved by their steadfast faith to convert to Christianity, along with his sons Jason and Maurus; the second register featured a group of saints martyred in either Egypt or Antioch (depending on the version of their vitae), including another celibate couple, Julian and Basilissa, and Celsus and his mother Marcionilla; and the third, of which only portions of the painted tituli now remain, depicted the lives of the titular saint, Praxedes, and her sister Pudentiana. In terms of iconography, these follow a pattern for the depiction of saints’ lives already well established in earlier Roman church decoration, of which the primary surviving example is the mid-eighth-century narrative cycle of Sts Quiricus and Julitta in the 115

116

Wilpert 1908; Pennesi 1998; Zaccagnini 1999; Forti 2009; Goodson 2010: 235–41; Bordi, Mancho and Valentini 2017; Mancho 2019; Croci 2019; Croci 2020; and Bordi and Mancho 2020: 230–4. Wilpert 1916: pls. 202–4. The original photographs are housed today in the library of the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana. For their exceptional value as a resource, see Nordhagen 1985; Bordi 2009a; and Bordi 2009b.

Murals and Sculpture

Theodotus chapel in Santa Maria Antiqua.117 Narrative cycles of martyrs also enjoyed a new popularity in early-ninth-century Constantinople, at least until the revival of iconoclasm when they were deemed illegitimate.118 Some, but not all, of these names appear in the inscription recording the saints whose remains were brought to the church by Paschal, but the specific rationale for their depiction here remains uncertain, and of course the loss of the vast majority of the murals makes it difficult to assess the intended context. It is also impossible that the identifying captions in the uppermost registers would have been legible to those standing at ground level, so the identities of the individual saints may not have been as important as the pattern of events depicted. As Caroline Goodson has observed, however, the surviving murals demonstrate a number of common threads, for example the inclusion of two couples who preserved their chastity even in marriage. But perhaps her most plausible suggestion is that the intention was to highlight members of the Early Christian community who had taken responsibility for the collection of the bodies of the martyrs and made arrangements for their burial, thus prefiguring Paschal’s own efforts in this church, intended to secure his personal salvation as the apse inscription proclaims.119 No trace now remains of whatever was painted on the lower sections of the wall. We can surmise that there were additional narrative registers, followed perhaps by a series of standing saints above a dado featuring fictive drapery, as we know was the practice in other early medieval churches in the city.120 Another as yet unresolved question involves the various bits of sculpture which survive in different parts of the church. Unlike the mosaics and murals, which are not portable and thus have necessarily remained in their original positions, with the exception of the San Zeno chapel and the nave colonnade most of Paschal I’s other marble additions have fallen victim to a variety of subsequent remodelling campaigns, although some have been repurposed for use in new settings. As is usually the case with objects of stone, none finds any mention in Paschal I’s vita in the Liber pontificalis. Presumably, it was not considered a sufficiently prestigious material to warrant inclusion. Most prominent in this regard are the six marble columns, which were redeployed in the fifteenth century, and again in the early eighteenth, to 117

118 119 120

Osborne 2020: 99–103. For a survey of Roman narrative cycles of saints before the ninth century, see Jessop 1999. Bordino 2020b. Goodson 2005: 131; and Goodson 2006: 184. See also Bordi and Mancho 2020: 233. Bordi and Mancho 2020: 230.

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support the choir lofts inserted on either side of the presbytery, in the process blocking off the wings of the transept. The columns clearly comprise a set, and are all elaborately decorated in the same fashion, their vertical fluting interrupted by intricately carved bands of vegetal ornament. Leaves and berries also feature in the decoration of the capitals. Today there are three of these ‘fancy’ columns, to use Judson Emerick’s descriptive term,121 on each side; and we must ask where they might have been placed in the ninth century. Various possibilities have been suggested, each with some degree of possibility. The first to tackle the question, Richard Krautheimer, noted the similarity to the columns used in the ciborium covering the altar in Saint Peter’s, placed directly over the apostle’s tomb, and suggested that four of the Santa Prassede columns might originally have served a similar purpose, while noting that ‘our proposal must remain entirely conjectural’.122 But it appears to be more likely that the Santa Prassede ciborium was supported by the four porphyry columns which continue to exercise that same function today, and this has led Judson Emerick to propose that the six columns originally stood at the end of the nave, forming a columnar screen or pergula, surmounted by an architrave whose fragments also survive, framing the view of the presbytery.123 This suggestion appears highly plausible, and also had a known precedent in Saint Peter’s, where in the previous century Pope Gregory III (731–41) had set up six twisted columns, a gift from the Byzantine exarch Eutychius, in front of the raised altar. These supported wooden beams, sheathed with silver and decorated with images of Christ, Mary and various saints.124 Charles McClendon has interpreted Gregory III’s action as an immediate response to the initial introduction of iconoclasm in Byzantium, constituting a dramatic proclamation of the Roman Church’s defence of images,125 and a similar columnar screen in Santa Prassede may have been intended to serve precisely the same purpose. That said, it must be noted that there is no evidence that its architrave bore images, nor even conclusive proof that such a pergula existed. But the parallel seems to make good sense, and Paschal would later create the same arrangement in the nearby church of Santa Maria Maggiore, where the Liber pontificalis records that a pergula composed of six columns once again supported an architrave.126 The most recent solution, proposed by Maurizio Caperna, views the columns as originally having been placed more or less where they remain today, 121 122 125

Emerick 2000. See also Pensabene 2015: 404–5; and Caperna and Ballardini 2020: 178, fig. 1. CBCR III: 257. 123 Emerick 2000: 143–8, figs. 10, 12. 124 LP 92.5, ed. Duchesne I: 417. McClendon 2013: 217–20. 126 LP 100.31, ed. Duchesne II: 60.

Murals and Sculpture

separating the transept wings from the presbytery,127 but this lacks the advantage of having known parallels elsewhere in early medieval Rome. And, finally, considerable evidence survives for the former existence of an arrangement of stone panels used to create a waist-high barrier extending from the presbytery zone into the nave of the church. These low walls served to restrict physical access by the laity to areas reserved for the clergy, while not impeding sight lines. This general phenomenon will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5, so for the moment it will simply be noted that the restoration of the church by Antonio Muñoz in the second decade of the twentieth century brought to light four large rectangular slabs of cipollino marble, each approximately 2 metres in length and the largest just over 1 metre in height, along with a number of smaller fragments, all carved in relief on one side with geometric, vegetal and other designs, including crosses (Fig. 3.12). At an unknown later date, perhaps in the fifteenth century, these panels had been turned upside down, such that their decorations were now hidden, and reused in a new floor pavement. Muñoz determined that the few surviving remnants were insufficient to permit a possible recreation of the original ninth-century arrangement, as

Fig. 3.12 Santa Prassede: panel from the marble screen.

127

Caperna 2013: 84–5; and Ballardini and Caperna 2020: 185–8 and fig. 6.

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he would later attempt in the church of Santa Sabina, and thus he decided to display them in the former right arm of the transept, now known as the Chapel of the Crucifix, where they remain.128

The ‘Carolingian Renaissance’ Over the last eighty years Santa Prassede has been at the heart of a scholarly debate regarding the possibility of a conscious revival of Early Christian architecture, dubbed by Richard Krautheimer, who first proposed it, as part of a larger cultural movement known as the ‘Carolingian Renaissance’.129 As we have seen, there can be no doubt that the church is a scaled-down version of the basilica of Saint Peter’s, a project initiated by Emperor Constantine in the first half of the fourth century CE, and it was the first Roman church since that time known to have featured a colonnaded atrium and, more significantly, a transept, with the latter giving the ground plan a characteristic ‘T’-shape. Observing this apparent departure from subsequent Roman practice over the intervening fifth to eighth centuries, and noting parallel developments in transalpine Francia – for example, the new shrine churches built at Saint-Denis, outside Paris, and Fulda (St Boniface), both of which featured transepts – Krautheimer proposed that this shift to a much earlier model was not only deliberate but in fact politically inspired, linked to the notion of renovatio in which Charlemagne was regarded as the ‘new Constantine’.130 Subsequent scholarship, however, has unanimously rejected the idea of a political link to Constantine, and coalesced instead around a rather different motive. There is no question concerning the accuracy of Krautheimer’s architectural eye, and few today would question his formal analysis, which posited the dependence of Santa Prassede on Saint Peter’s. The current consensus, however, maintains, in my view correctly, that the rationale for this ‘revival’ had little or nothing to do with its imperial patron, but depended instead on the primary function of Saint Peter’s as 128

129

130

Muñoz 1918: 127–8; Pani Ermini 1974a: 116–30 (cat. nos. 58–73, pls. XXIV–XXXI); Ballardini 2008; Goodson 2010: 138–42; Osborne 2012; Ballardini 2017; and Ballardini and Caperna 2020: 192–4, 198–203, and Figs. 14, 19–21. The term ‘Carolingian Renaissance’ has a long history, dating back to its use by the French philologist Jean-Jacques Ampère in 1839. See discussion in Foletti and Rosenbergová 2020: 19. Krautheimer 1942. See also Krautheimer 1980: 122–4, where his original word ‘renaissance’ has been replaced by ‘renascence’, a term preferred by Erwin Panofsky (1969) to distinguish medieval periods of classical ‘revival’ from ‘The Renaissance’ of the fifteenth century.

The ‘Carolingian Renaissance’

a shrine church – and indeed the most important shrine church in western Europe, if not all Christendom. Furthermore, as first expressed by Charles McClendon, Santa Prassede proclaims not the power and authority of the emperor, but rather that of the papacy, based on a direct line of succession from Peter, the city’s first bishop and the ‘rock’ on which Christ stated that he would construct his Church (Matthew 16:18).131 In both its architecture and much of its decoration, Paschal’s new basilica draws on quintessentially ‘Roman’ models from the Early Christian era.132 Other recent authors have further amplified this view, with Valentino Pace also downplaying any notion of a conscious political revival and speaking instead of a ‘politics of relics’, and Caroline Goodson emphasizing the importance of form following function.133 Rome was sanctified by the bodies of its many martyrs, including the early pontiffs, and in constructing a new ‘home’ for some 2,300 of these saints it was only natural to adopt the architectural model most closely associated with that specific function. No additional and deliberate political or social messages need be adduced. Nor was it the case that the early ninth century was preceded and followed by ‘dark ages’ when no architecture was built, a notion that has now been fully discredited by Robert Coates-Stephens.134 Santa Prassede is arguably the most spectacular papal project of the early Middle Ages, and we are exceptionally fortunate that it has mostly survived the vicissitudes of time. It provides the modern viewer with an exceptional snapshot of the architecture, mosaics, wall-painting and sculpture produced in Rome at the beginning of the ninth century. From these we can derive not only useful information about materials and techniques, but more significantly in a broader historical context, valuable insights concerning the self-fashioning of the papacy in a world dominated politically by Rome’s principal neighbours on either side, the Carolingian and Byzantine empires. Popes such as Paschal I used material culture to proclaim to the world their aspirations for the Roman Church. Even more remarkably, perhaps, it is not the only project associated with this pope of which some significant evidence remains, and this permits even more detail to be added to an increasingly complete picture. We shall next turn our attention to some of Paschal I’s other projects. 131 133

134

McClendon 1996. 132 Matthiae 1954: 270; and Matthiae 1967: 241–2. Pace 2002: 69; and Goodson 2006. See also Emerick 2005; Goodson 2010: 81–90; and Caperna 2013: 79–88. For the broader intellectual and historiographical context: McCurrach 2011 and, especially, Foletti and Rosenbergová 2020. Coates-Stephens 1997.

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Paschal I: Other Projects

Santa Maria in Domnica One of the many factors that make the church of Santa Prassede remarkable is that it can be situated within a broader context of Paschal I’s patronage, given that two of his other major projects also survive in large part, including two apse mosaics which once again feature his image. The first of these, an account of which follows immediately after Santa Prassede in the text of the Liber pontificalis, is the smallest of the three surviving churches: Santa Maria in Domnica on the Caelian hill. The passage reads: As for the church of God’s holy mother our lady the ever-virgin Mary, called Domnica, built of old and now close to ruin, this pontiff with skillful vigilance renewed it, building it from the foundations bigger and better than it had been before. He wondrously decorated this church’s apse with mosaic. There too he presented many gifts [. . .].1

The core of the early-ninth-century structure today remains essentially intact, comprising a nave and side aisles separated by nine granite columns on each side (thus creating ten arcades), and built of undulating courses of reused bricks, as indicated by the great variation in their thickness. The columns appear to have come from a single source, although the capitals are varied.2 The Liber pontificalis speaks of a confessio, or space for relics, covered by both exterior and interior grilles; but it is not known if there was an actual crypt, since all evidence pertaining to the original configuration of the space beneath the altar was destroyed when the present crypt was installed in the 1950s. This possibility seems unlikely, however. A crypt would imply the presence of bodies, and there is no record of any relic translations to this site.3 Moreover, of course, the dedication was to Mary, and not to a particular Roman saint. 1 2

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LP 100.11, ed. Duchesne II: 55; English translation from Davis 1995: 13. For the architecture, CBCR II: 308–21; Goodson 2003; Goodson 2010: 100–1, 118–19; and Guidobaldi 2019b. A convincing case is made by Goodson 2010: 134–6.

Santa Maria in Domnica

The architectural feature of perhaps greatest interest is the presence of subsidiary apses at the end of each aisle, flanking the main apse. This is usually regarded as an ‘Eastern’ or ‘Byzantine’ feature, known primarily from churches in Syria, but all but unknown in Rome prior to the eighth century, when they suddenly appear in Sant’Angelo in Pescheria and Santa Maria in Cosmedin, the building projects of the primicerius Theodotus and his nephew Hadrian I respectively, a family with apparent hellenophone roots. Sant’Angelo was not a papal project, and hence is not mentioned in the Liber pontificalis, but the novelty of this feature at Santa Maria in Cosmedin did attract the attention of Hadrian’s biographer, who mentions it specifically.4 There is no known requirement for such side apses in the Roman liturgy, and, as Richard Krautheimer has observed, ‘The reasons for its revival in Rome in the later eighth century remain as yet unexplained.’5 We simply have no idea how they were actually used. That said, it seems unlikely to be a coincidence that all three of these Roman churches were specifically designated as ‘welfare stations’ (diaconiae),6 and thus the additional apses may perhaps have served as some form of pastophoria, in a similar fashion to the prothesis and diakonikon which flanked the central apse in contemporaneous Byzantine churches. These were used respectively for the ritual preparation of the bread and wine for the mass and the storage of the liturgical vessels and other implements.7 In this regard it would be rather useful to know if the Santa Maria in Domnica subsidiary apses had altars, but there is no evidence to either support or deny such a presence. If nothing else, like the galleries (caticuminia) in Leo III’s Santa Susanna, the occurrence of secondary apses demonstrates the continuing architectural dialogue with both liturgical practices and buildings from the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean; but whether it was a conscious and deliberate choice, and if so a personal one on the part of the pope, we are unlikely to ever know. As usual, the Liber pontificalis records the papal donations in considerable detail.8 The silver ciborium over the altar weighed some 332 pounds, and the altar-frontal itself (propiciatorium) was decorated with silver sheets.9 Other 4 5

6

7 9

LP 97.72, ed. Duchesne I: 507. See also Osborne 2020: 205–6. CBCR II: 321. For the suggestion that Roman churches served as the model for the construction of three-apsed churches in Lombardy and Raetia (now mostly eastern Switzerland) in the late eighth century, see Winterhager 2020b. Santa Maria in Domnica is designated as such in the ‘Donation List of Leo III’: diaconia sanctae Dei genetricis quae appellatur Dominica (LP 98.70, ed. Duchesne II: 19), which is also its earliest mention in any known source. ODB: 1594 (pastophoria), and 1743 (prothesis). 8 LP 100.11–14, ed. Duchesne II: 55. Davis declines to offer an English translation for propitiatorium, an Old Testament term describing a metal covering for the Ark of the Covenant, made of gold and decorated with reliefs depicting cherubim (Exodus 25:17–21, 37:6–9). The word was clearly in fashion in Paschal’s

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gifts included a gold chalice; eight silk altar cloths (vestes), mostly purple and decorated with crosses, but one depicting Christ’s Nativity and another featuring the face of Mary with attending angels; thirty-nine silk drapes (vela), of which twenty are specified as being intended to hang in the intercolumniations between the nave and aisles; and a large curtain (cortina) for the entrance. Of course none of these items survive today, although a few fragments of the marble liturgical furnishings were rediscovered in the 1953– 4 renovations, and these reveal the same vocabulary of geometric designs interspersed with crosses, lilies and rosettes that we encountered at Santa Prassede.10 The pieces in both churches are of approximately the same date, and there is little doubt that they were products of the same sculptural workshop. What does survive intact, however, is the mosaic decoration of the apse, and this seemingly breaks with previous tradition to depict an iconography for which there is no known precedent in any Roman church.11 In the centre, set in a grassy meadow full of flowers, presumably representing Paradise, is the figure of Mary, seated on a jewelled throne with the infant Jesus perched on her lap, and flanked on each side by a host of angels (Fig. 4.1). Mary’s right hand reaches down to the figure kneeling on her right side, the viewer’s left. This is Pope Paschal, dressed in the same papal vestments (tunic, chasuble, pallium) that he wore in the apse of Santa Prassede and with his head again framed by a ‘square halo’ indicating a portrait, but here shown holding Mary’s right foot with both hands, an action signifying his obeisance and devotion. Above Mary’s head at the apex of the arch is his papal monogram, and at the bottom a three-line inscription concludes with the invocation ‘O Virgin Mary, to you Paschal the virtuous happy bishop has founded this regal hall, to remain through the centuries’.12 Mary had featured prominently in papal commissions since at least the time of Pope John VII, who described himself as her ‘servant’ (servus/ doulos) in a bilingual inscription on the pulpit which he donated to Santa

10 11

12

time, as it is used some six times in this vita, and then only once elsewhere, in the later biography of Leo IV. I am happy to accept the view of both Louis Duchesne and Richard Krautheimer that the sheets were attached to the actual block of the altar; see discussion in Davis 1995: 315; Goodson 2010: 142; and especially de Blaauw 2020: 262–5. Melucco Vaccaro 1974: 167–75 (cat. nos. 129–37, pls. XLIX–LI); and Ranucci 2003a. Oakeshott 1967: 203–4 (and figs. 114–20 and pl. XX); Matthiae 1967: 234–7; Ranucci 2003b; Svizzeretto 2003; Andaloro 2005: 537; Ballardini 2007: 199–204; Goodson 2010: 153–4; and Thunø 2015: 19–20. virgo Maria tibi Paschalis praesul honestus condidit hanc aulam laetus per saecula manendam (English translation from Goodson 2010: 153).

Santa Maria in Domnica

Fig. 4.1 Santa Maria in Domnica: apse mosaic.

Maria Antiqua, and the same pope is likely the figure depicted at Mary’s feet in an icon in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere.13 Indeed, it is not impossible that this icon may have provided Paschal with his immediate model, although the general formula, usually known by its Greek term proskynesis, was widespread across the Mediterranean world, for example in the image of the donor on a Palestinian icon depicting Sts Irene and Nicholas, preserved in the collection of the Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai.14 Elsewhere in Rome, figures in similar attitudes of obeisance, either prostrate or kneeling, may be found in eighth-century murals in the narthex of Santa Sabina and the Theodotus chapel in Santa Maria Antiqua.15 So this imagery, redolent of patron–client relationships in terrestrial society, was certainly not unknown, but there is no evidence that it had appeared previously in an apse, let alone as the central theme. Paschal’s evident personal devotion to the ‘Mother of God’, and perhaps equally importantly her gesture of acceptance, is here given very public 13 14 15

Osborne 2020: 37–8 (pulpit), 63–5 (icon). Weitzmann 1976: 66–7, pl. XXVI. For proskynesis, see ODB: 1738–9; and Franses 2018: 54–7. Osborne 2020: 68, 109–11.

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expression; and unlike the apse of Santa Prassede there is no suggestion of any requirement for Roman martyrs to intervene on his behalf. Mary was the intercessor par excellence at the celestial court.16 The apse mosaic conveys a powerful message of the pope’s direct relationship with divinity. A second possible theme relates to the reintroduction of iconoclasm in Constantinople in 815, itself in some measure a response to the annihilation of the imperial army and death in battle of Emperor Nicephorus I inflicted by Krum, the Bulgarian khan, in July 811. Floriana Svizzeretto, who has championed this view, points to the various eastern Mediterranean elements in both the architecture and the iconography, and views the host of angels as the ‘celestial army of iconophiles’.17 In her view the apse mosaic should be read as a ‘manifesto’ in favour of images, and of course the incarnation of Christ in human form, and consequently the importance of Mary, loomed large in that debate. Francesca Dell’Acqua takes a largely similar stance, emphasizing the centrality of Mary to this discussion from its origins.18 Both make very valid points, particularly given the resurgence of the debate over images at precisely this moment, although this is unlikely to have been the only factor at work. The mosaic decorations on the framing arch have also survived, and here the imagery is somewhat more conventional. At the top, the figure of Christ, enclosed in an oval mandorla, is flanked by two angels and twelve apostles, led by Peter and Paul. As observed by Erik Thunø, the conjunction of an enthroned Madonna and Child in the conch of the apse and an upper register of Christ with the apostles does have a precedent in the sixthcentury Basilica Eufrasiana at Poreč in Istria, and there may well have been Roman examples from the same era that are now lost.19 In the spandrels, two standing haloed figures raise their right arms, with two fingers extended in the gesture of speech. Various identifications have been proposed for them, but as clearly recognized by Walter Oakeshott and others, there can be no doubt whatsoever that they represent the two primary saints named John: John the Baptist on the left, and John the Evangelist on the right.20 Quite apart from their standardized facial types, 16

17 19

20

Thunø 2015:148–52. As observed by Francesca Dell’Acqua (2020: 8), it is not a coincidence that at least three eighth-century popes (John VII, Gregory III and Paul I) dedicated their funerary chapels to Mary, revealing ‘their intention . . . to entrust their souls to her intercession’. Svizzeretto 2003: 246 (‘esercito celeste degli iconoduli’). 18 Dell’Acqua 2020: 16–44. Thunø 2015: 20. We do not know what was depicted in the fifth-century apse of Santa Maria Maggiore, for example. Oakeshott 1967: 203; Ballardini 2007: 202–4; and Thunø 2015: 20. Matthiae’s proposal (1967: 237) that they represent Moses and Elijah, and Svizzeretto’s suggestion (2003: 249) of Isaiah and David are not tenable.

Santa Maria in Domnica

their stances belong to an iconographic formula for the spandrels of arches that was well established in Rome by at least the end of the eighth century, when we find it in murals in churches as varied as San Lorenzo fuori le mura, Santa Susanna and San Martino ai Monti;21 and, as we have already seen, it is also recorded as having featured in Leo III’s arch mosaic in Santa Susanna. In those examples the two Sts John raise their hands towards the mystic Lamb of God (agnus Dei), and both are associated with written inscriptions. Accompanying John the Baptist are the words he utters on first seeing Jesus: ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29); and John the Evangelist proclaims the opening words of his gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1:1). John the Baptist’s words had been added to the Roman liturgy in the time of Pope Sergius I (687–701), an action usually considered to have been an aggrieved response to the decision made by the Quinisext Council (also known as the Council ‘in Trullo’) held in Constantinople in 691–2 to prohibit the representation of Christ in the form of a lamb.22 What is perhaps most intriguing at Santa Maria in Domnica is that the agnus Dei is itself missing, replaced by the full figure of Christ at the centre of the upper register, and there are no inscriptions recording the Biblical texts. This does seem more than a little odd. Paschal, or whoever was responsible for planning the mosaic programme, would certainly have been aware of the other standard elements in this iconographic formula, without which the images of the two Sts John lose much of their meaning; but perhaps it was considered sufficient simply to include them in their normative positions, particularly given the decision to replace the ‘Lamb of God’ with the depiction of Christ in human form. Was that change, one wonders, intended as an additional statement in opposition to iconoclasm? Additionally, Erik Thunø has proposed that the depiction of Christ in a mandorla of light is a critical element for understanding the theological meaning of the apse, and is closely related to the inscription at its base. This invokes the sun god and proclaims in part: ‘This house was formerly shattered into rubble. Now, adorned with diverse metals, it shines continually. And look! Its glory blazes with splendor as Phoebus runs his course after routing the dark veils of loathsome night.’23 It seems unlikely that Paschal’s intentions will ever be known with any certainty. More than one 21

22 23

Wilpert 1916: 333 and pl. 208.3 (San Martino ai Monti); Osborne 1984: 131–2; Andaloro 2005: 528–33; Pogliani 2006a: 256, 266–7; Osborne 2020: 200–2; and Croci 2022: 35–6. Andaloro 2005: 233; and Osborne 2020: 202, 215–16. Thunø 2002: 144–5; Thunø 2003; and Thunø 2015: 108–9, 212 (translation of inscription).

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strand of meaning is of course possible, and multivalent readings may well have been intended from the outset. The most significant factor that sets Santa Maria in Domnica apart from this pope’s other projects is undoubtedly his own prominence, now depicted centrally and shown playing an active role, rather than being relegated to the outermost extremity. The primary message is likely to have been Paschal’s claim for personal salvation, despite whatever other horrendous deeds he may have committed in his lifetime. Finally, while there have been some areas of restoration since the ninth century, there is no reason to question the accuracy of the overall composition, and such a view is bolstered by some technical observations.24 As at Santa Prassede, the tesserae are almost all made of glass, with some white marble used for the garments of the apostles in the uppermost register. Once again, an analysis of the glass tesserae suggests that they have been reused, their shape and opacity the result of being subjected to high temperatures in the process of burning off the original mortar beds. One prominent stylistic similarity is the use of the ‘double-line fold’ on the upper thigh, seen most readily in the figure of St Paul. In sum, there is little doubt that they were produced by the same team of mosaicists we have already encountered at Santi Nereo ed Achilleo and Santa Prassede, and Antonella Ballardini has envisaged a sharing of expertise between multiple projects that may have been undertaken more or less simultaneously.25

Santa Cecilia The third of Paschal’s surviving churches is Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, albeit a structure whose interior has been heavily restored in later centuries. But much of its ninth-century architectural core is still in place. We are informed that the pope found the existing titulus ‘shaken with extreme old age and about to fall to the foundations’, and thus he determined to rebuild it.26 The result was a substantial basilica comprising a nave (43.5 metres or 150 Roman feet in length), terminating in an apse, with side aisles separated on each side by arcades of twelve columns, of which only two now remain following their replacement with pillars in an 1823 restoration. Beneath the apse is a semi-annular crypt, intended as at Santa Prassede for the veneration of relics, although unlike that latter church there was no transept 24 26

Ranucci 2003b. 25 Ballardini 2007: 194. LP 100.14, ed. Duchesne II: 56; English translation from Davis 1995: 15.

Santa Cecilia

separating the nave and aisles from the presbytery. A substantial portion of the original brickwork is still extant, with undulating courses of masonry, and double voussoirs around the clerestory windows, typical of constructions dating to the first half of the ninth century.27 In addition to the absence of a transept, there is another very significant difference between Santa Cecilia and Paschal’s other basilicas. Here the archaeology suggests that a deliberate effort was made to preserve some elements of the earlier buildings that had occupied the site, notably on the right side of the church. These included a fifth-century baptistery and parts of an earlier private bath complex. Caroline Goodson has argued that Paschal’s intention was to interpret these as loca sancta, in other words as holy places in their own right, the very structures that had featured in the written account of Cecilia’s life and martyrdom: the baptistery where her converts were received into the Christian faith by Pope Urban, and the caldarium where the first attempt was made to terminate her life.28 Paschal’s rediscovery of Cecilia’s relics, and their translation to the church from her tomb in the Catacomb of Praetextatus adjacent to the Via Appia, is the subject of a rather amusing anecdote related at length in the Liber pontificalis. We are told that Paschal’s first attempt to locate her remains had been unsuccessful, and it was assumed that her body had been purloined by the Lombards during Aistulf’s siege of the city in 756 – not an unreasonable conclusion given that a number of saints had indeed been removed from the suburban catacombs at that time and taken north to consecrate new churches and monasteries in the Lombard heartland. But early one Sunday morning, the pope having fallen asleep during the matins service in Saint Peter’s, Cecilia appeared to him in a vision. She assured Paschal that the Lombards had also failed to find her tomb, which consequently still remained intact, and exhorted him to search again, this time more diligently. He subsequently proceeded to do so, and this time was successful, discovering not only the grave of Cecilia, along with the bloodstained linen cloths in which her body had been wrapped, but also the remains of her husband Valerian, along with a number of others who figured in the story of her passion: the martyrs Tiburtius (Valerian’s brother) and Maximus (the soldier sent to kill them, but who was instead converted by Cecilia), and the third-century popes Urban I (who performed their baptisms) and Lucius I. All were placed in sarcophagi installed beneath the altar of the new basilica, visible through a small opening 27 28

CBCR I: 103–10. For an analysis of ninth-century window embrasures, see Fiorani 2020. Goodson 2007b.

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(fenestella confessionis) as well as by those entering the crypt. In order to provide for regular services, the pontiff also founded an adjacent monastery, dedicated to Cecilia and another popular virgin martyr, Agatha (whose cult was centred at Catania in Sicily).29 Once again the Liber pontificalis informs us that the apse was decorated with mosaics,30 and once again these have survived to the present day, with little evidence of subsequent restoration (Fig. 4.2).31 Here the imagery returns to the model of Santi Cosma e Damiano, mirroring what we saw at Santa Prassede: a standing central figure of Christ, right hand raised, is flanked by three figures on each side, none identified by an inscription. On the viewer’s right are St Peter, identifiable by facial type and keys, followed by another male saint (Valerian?), and then a richly adorned female (Agatha?), both holding crowns of martyrdom; and on the left St Paul, again recognizable by facial type, who holds a book and gestures toward another female saint, presumably Cecilia.32 She is shown presenting the pope, her right arm around his shoulder, and he in turn offers a model of the church. His head is enclosed in a ‘square halo’, signifying a portrait; and above this is the customary phoenix, perched as always in the branches of a palm tree. Paschal’s monogram is placed at the apex and, in the frieze beneath, the twelve lambs process from the cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem towards the agnus Dei in the centre. At the bottom, a threeline inscription, employing the usual golden letters set against a dark blue background, praises the restoration of the building and the pope’s effort to translate the bodies of Cecilia and her companions from their previous location in the catacombs (quae pridem in cryptis pausabant).33 In purely visual terms, however, the Santa Cecilia mosaic presents a number of differences from its Santa Prassede counterpart, possibly suggesting that at least some different mosaicists were involved. The letters of the inscription, for example, are less precisely rendered, and vary slightly in 29

30 31

32

33

LP 100.15–17, ed. Duchesne II: 56–7. See also Hartmann 2007, who observes (56–7) that the Lombards did in fact claim to have brought Cecilia’s relics to Pavia. This might explain the great effort made by Paschal’s biographer to convince readers to the contrary, adding details such as the blood-soaked linens. LP 100.19, ed. Duchesne II: 57. Matthiae 1967: 234, 236; Oakeshott 1967: 212–13; Goodson 2010: 152; Thunø 2011; Thunø 2015: 16–19, 43; and Andaloro, Anselmi and D’Angelo 2017b. It seems entirely logical that it should be Cecilia who presents Pope Paschal, and this is the identification preferred by Goodson 2010; Thunø (2015: 43); and Bordino (2017: 213), but Oakeshott 1967, followed by Davis (1995: 19, n. 56), much less plausibly places her on the right, with St Peter and Valerian. Why Paul should take precedence over Peter at Christ’s right hand remains unexplained. Thunø 2015: 111–12.

Santa Cecilia

Fig. 4.2 Santa Cecilia: apse mosaic.

size. The cross inscribed in Christ’s halo is additionally adorned with jewels; and the portion of Paschal’s papal pallium which falls down behind his back, not visible in the Santa Prassede apse, is here depicted falling outwards beside his body on the left side. On the other hand, the ‘doubleline fold’ is again very clearly apparent on the upper thighs of the figures of both Christ and St Paul. A substantial conservation campaign was undertaken by the Istituto Centrale del Restauro in 1992–3, and this has resulted in the publication of a wealth of technical detail, including the chemical composition of the plasters and the glass tesserae, data as yet unavailable for Paschal’s other projects. The tesserae reveal a broad range of vibrant colours, including striking shades of blue, red and orange. Some stone was employed for substantial areas of white, notably for the garments of Sts Peter and Paul, Paschal’s pallium and the frieze of lambs. Perhaps most interesting is the suggestion that the mosaicists incorporated optical effects aimed at correcting distortions created by the curved surface of the apse, for example so that the haloes would appear circular to viewers standing in the nave.34 As was the case in the other churches, mosaics also formerly decorated the arch framing the apse, but this space is no longer visible, now hidden 34

Gennari and Massa 2017; Santopadre, Sidoti and Bianchetti 2017; Verità and Santopadre 2017; and Andaloro, Anselmi and D’Angelo 2017b.

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behind a new and lower ceiling installed in 1724. We do know what was depicted here, however, as the arch decorations are the subject of two seventeenth-century drawings preserved today in the ‘Paper Museum’ of Cassiano dal Pozzo (Windsor, Royal Library, RL 9218 and 9221), and these also form the basis for a subsequent engraving published at the end of that century by Giovanni Ciampini.35 In the frieze at the top, two groups of female saints bearing crowns, five on each side, process from representations of walled cities (presumably Jerusalem and Bethlehem) towards an enthroned Virgin and Child, who are flanked by angels. This is a variation on the iconography observed in Santa Maria in Domnica. In the spandrels beneath, the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse raise their crowns, in a fashion similar to the mosaics in Santa Prassede. Explorations undertaken in 1979 in the space above the inserted roof revealed that some of the mosaic tesserae were still in place on the ninth-century wall, principally in the areas of Mary’s face and the depictions of the two cities.36 Other papal gifts to Santa Cecilia included a silver ciborium to cover the altar, weighing 600 pounds; silver sheets for both the exterior and interior of the confessio, together totalling some 154 pounds; a wide variety of other images in metal; liturgical vessels, including no fewer than twenty-six silver chalices; and a large assortment of altarcloths, among them a ‘cloth of byzantine purple, with a gold-studded panel in the middle representing an angel crowning St Caecilia and Valerian and Tiburtius’; veils to hang in the colonnades; and a ‘great fourfold-woven and cross-adorned curtain, beautifully adorned’ for the entrance.37 Clearly, no expense was being spared, and later entries record the subsequent gifts of a silver shell (concam ex argento) to contain the relic of Cecilia’s head, and an altarcloth depicting Christ’s Resurrection (presumably an Anastasis).38

Saint Peter’s There were at least two additional projects undertaken by Paschal I’s teams of mosaicists, and these may in fact have been the first he commissioned, since they are listed in the Liber pontificalis immediately prior to the mention of Santa Prassede.39 Both were situated in the south transept of 35 36 37 38

Osborne and Claridge 1996: 78–80 (cat. nos. 4–5). Andaloro, Anselmi and D’Angelo 2017b: 218. LP 100.19–21, ed. Duchesne II: 57–8; English translations from Davis 1995: 20–1. LP 100.28, 38, ed. Duchesne II: 60, 62. 39 Ballardini 1999: 34–49.

Saint Peter’s

Saint Peter’s, and both involved translations of relics from the catacombs: an arch, decorated with mosaics (musibo exornatum), over an altar shrine created for two third-century papal martyrs, Sixtus II and Fabianus, located near the entrance to the crypt,40 and an apsed chapel dedicated to Sts Processus and Martinianus, by tradition the Roman soldiers who had been the jailors of St Peter, in the transept’s south-east corner. This latter undertaking is the subject of a lengthy description in the Liber pontificalis, on which we are very much dependent. Above the altar itself, four columns supported a vault, decorated with mosaic; and the oratory was otherwise splendidly adorned with marble, metalwork and silk textiles, including three gilded silver images depicting the figures of Christ and the two saints in question, together totalling some 36 pounds in weight. And in a subsequent passage we are provided with the particulars of additional gifts, including textiles, a silver censer and a golden icon depicting the face of Mary (habentem vultum sanctae Dei genetricis), weighing just over 10 pounds.41 Petrus Mallius’ twelfth-century description adds that the relics of Processus and Martinianus were housed in a porphyry basin (in conc[h]a porfiretica), protected by bronze railings (cancellis aeneis),42 and this basin is the only element of Paschal’s chapel known to have survived the early modern rebuilding of Saint Peter’s. It is now located under the altar dedicated to these two saints in the north transept, where their martyrdom is depicted in an eighteenth-century mosaic. Paschal’s choice of this location was highly significant. In 688 Pope Sergius I (687–701) had relocated the tomb of Pope Leo I from the narthex of the church to the southern wing of the transept, adjacent to the entrance into the church from the rotundas of Sant’Andrea and Santa Petronilla;43 and in the mid eighth century this area became the preferred place of burial for a number of subsequent pontiffs, beginning with Paul I in 767, and followed by Hadrian I, whose sumptuous epitaph, carved in a block of black marble, was supplied by Charlemagne.44 Pope Leo III may also have originally been buried somewhere in this part of the basilica, but in the early twelfth century Pope Paschal II brought together the remains of the 40

41

42 44

LP 100.5, ed. Duchesne II: 53. The shrine of popes Sixtus and Fabianus survived until at least the late twelfth century, when it was mentioned by Petrus Mallius (Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae 19, CT III: 397). See also de Blaauw 1994: 570–1; and Goodson 2010: 185–6, 226. LP 100.5–6, 23, ed. Duchesne II: 53, 58. See also de Blaauw 1994: 569–70; and Goodson 2010: 185, 227–8. Petrus Mallius, Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae 15, CT III: 395. 43 Osborne 2021c: 216–25. Ballardini 1999: 40 (‘luogo privilegiato delle sepolture pontificali’); Osborne 2020: 183–5, 217. For the funerary inscription, now located in the portico of the sixteenth-century church, see Story et al. 2005.

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first four popes of this name in the chapel of Leo I,45 and their rediscovery on 1 August 1580 is documented by Tiberio Alfarano.46 The Liber pontificalis records only that Leo III was buried in Saint Peter’s, without specifying the precise location,47 but given the choices of his predecessors it is likely to have been in this increasingly crowded and contested space, where indeed he remained. Elsewhere I have suggested that the south transept was selected for this function in order to place the papal tombs in a sequence of funerary monuments of famous Romans leading from the bridgehead across the Tiber at the Castel Sant’Angelo (tomb of the emperor Hadrian), past monuments believed (obviously incorrectly) to be the sepulchres of Romulus and Julius Caesar, followed by the actual fifth-century tombs of the late Roman Honorian dynasty of emperors, before entering the south transept where stairs led down to the crypt and the relics of St Peter. In traversing this route, which Jo Story has called the ‘via sacra for the cult of Saint Peter’,48 pilgrims and other visitors performed a sort of ritual mimesis of Roman history, culminating in the triumph of the Christian Church represented by its pontiffs, and finally St Peter himself.49 The oratory of Sts Processus and Martinianus was undoubtedly intended to house Paschal’s own tomb, but while we are indeed informed that he was buried in Saint Peter’s, once again no information is supplied regarding the specific location within the church.50 The Liber pontificalis studiously avoids any mention of the disruptions in the city at the time of his death, nor the disputed election from which the candidate proposed by the nobility, Eugenius II, would eventually emerge victorious, but some sense of this can be gleaned from a variety of Frankish chroniclers, including the claim that at first the Roman people refused Paschal burial in Saint Peter’s.51

Santa Maria Maggiore One final architectural project merits our attention, and this involved internal alterations to an existing church, Santa Maria Maggiore, the city’s principal Marian shrine, which had been constructed in the second

45 47 49 51

Petrus Mallius, Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae 12, CT III: 390–3. 46 Alfarano 1914: 40. LP 98.113, ed. Duchesne II: 34. 48 Story 2013: 264. Osborne 2013 and Osborne 2021c: 217–24. 50 LP 100.40, ed. Duchesne II: 63. Noble 1984: 310.

Santa Maria Maggiore

quarter of the fifth century under Pope Sixtus III (432–40). Once again, we are provided with remarkable detail.52 Paschal may well have had a particular devotion to Mary and various female martyrs (Praxedes and Cecilia were ‘teenagers of seductive charm, Paschal’s Lolitas’, in the inimitable words of Richard Krautheimer),53 but this seemingly did not extend to lay women of his own day and age, his mother Theodora perhaps excepted. The stational liturgy brought him frequently to Santa Maria Maggiore, where the papal throne was apparently placed in close proximity to the part of the church (normally in Rome the north or right aisle) reserved for women. Space in early medieval Roman churches was ‘gendered’, in the sense that men and women occupied separate areas, and each of these was further divided by social standing. Elite men and women stood closest to the sanctuary, in areas designated respectively as the senatorium and matroneum (or pars mulierum).54 Our knowledge of this is derived in large measure from the wording of the Ordines Romani, a set of staging instructions for papal services and ceremonies, including baptisms, ordinations, church consecrations, funerals, imperial coronations and of course the mass itself. Ordo Romanus I, the earliest surviving description of the procedures for a papal stational mass, thought to date from roughly the year 700,55 provides details of two important moments when the pope and clergy interacted with the congregants: first during the reception of the offertory, and subsequently during the celebration of the Eucharist. On both occasions the pope left his seat in the presbytery and descended to interact with the congregation.56 As the pontiff descended the stairs to the barrier separating the clergy from the laity the men were on his right (in other words in the left aisle) and the women on his left (in the right aisle). Similar language may be found in the Liber pontificalis, and in Chapter 5 we shall encounter the establishment by Pope Gregory IV of a new matroneum, defined by a marble enclosure, in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Usefully, Gregory’s biographer adds the information that this was located in the north (i.e. right) aisle.57 52 53

54 55 56

57

LP 100.30–37, ed. Duchesne II: 60–2. Krautheimer 1980: 133–4. But the depiction of young and richly adorned female saints goes back at least to the seventh century; see Gianandrea 2022a. Mathews 1962; De Benedictis 1981; de Blaauw 1994: 100; and Romano 2016: 54–5, 97–100. Baldovin 1987: 131–4. OR I 69, 74, 75, 113, 117, 118; ed. Andrieu, II: 91, 92, 104, 105. The importance of the participation of the laity is stressed by Romano (2016: 54–62, 219–75), who also provides an extensive analysis and English translation of OR I. LP 103.32, ed. Duchesne II: 80.

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With regard to Santa Maria Maggiore, we are told that ‘our Lady’s church [. . .] had been formerly constructed in such a way that women standing behind the pontiff’s seat for the holy ceremonies of mass were almost next to the pontiff; consequently, if the pontiff wanted to have any conversation with his assistants, he could not do so, given the women’s very close crowding, without their intruding’.58 Whatever the precise original organization of the space may have been, and this is far from clear,59 there is considerably less ambiguity regarding Paschal’s solution to the problem posed by this apparently undesirable proximity to the female congregants. He elevated the altar and presbytery above the floor level of the nave and aisles, and moved the papal throne to the back wall of the apse.60 His biographer further informs us that ‘He fashioned the seat better than it had formerly been, adorned with beautiful marble, and constructed from each side steps by which to reach it. And raising the altar’s pavement he covered it with precious marble.’61 Paschal’s marble throne (sedes) has not survived, but was presumably somewhat similar to one thought to belong to the late eighth century (perhaps from the time of Hadrian I?) and currently housed in a private collection.62 This was not the only alteration made to the interior space. At the same time, Paschal added a pergula, comprising six porphyry columns, arranged in two groups of three, each bearing a white marble architrave (trabes) and linked by an additional piece of porphyry. These were apparently decorated, although no precise details are supplied.63 The arrangement is similar to what we have already observed in Santa Prassede, and the ultimate model will have been Gregory III’s installation of a similar structure in Saint Peter’s, again comprising six columns surmounted by an architrave sheathed with silver reliefs. That latter pope’s vita also provides the first instance of the occurrence of this Latin term, albeit in the context of a chapel, not the high altar.64 Although the pergula is not known to have served any specific liturgical role, it presumably functioned as an imposing visual and psychological barrier between the nave and the presbytery, the latter now raised to a higher level, clearly separating the ‘public’ part of the church from that 58 59

60

61 63

LP 100.30, ed. Duchesne II: 60; English translation from Davis 1995: 24–5. See discussion in Davis 1995: 24–5, n. 82. It was perhaps the case that the papal throne had formerly been placed to the right side of the altar, immediately adjacent to the area reserved for high-status women. CBCR III: 52–3, and fig. 54 (Spencer Corbett’s proposed reconstruction); Gandolfo 1976; de Blaauw 1994: 382–94; Ballardini 1999: 49–67; Bauer 2000: 101–2; and Delogu 2022: 305. LP 100.30, ed. Duchesne II: 60; English translation from Davis 1995: 25. 62 Aimone 2019. LP 100.31, ed. Duchesne II: 60. 64 LP 92.5, 7, ed. Duchesne I: 417.

The Sancta Sanctorum Treasure

reserved for the clergy and the celebration of the mass. And, needless to say, all of this was accompanied by lavish gifts of gold and silver metalwork, and numerous textiles, all enumerated at great length and described in considerable detail. One of the curtains is specified as being intended for ‘weekdays’ (pro cotidianis diebus),65 so presumably the various fabrics displayed in the church would be changed according to the occasion. There is also the possibility that repairs were undertaken about this time to the fifth-century mosaics in the nave and on the triumphal arch. Carlo Bertelli was the first to suggest that the setting of the tesserae in the panel depicting the Old Testament ‘Miracle of the Quails’ indicated a medieval restoration; and this notion was taken up by Suzanne Spain, who proposed a significant campaign and identified the moment in question as the early ninth century, preferring to opt, however, for the pontificate of Leo III rather than that of Paschal I. But an examination from scaffolding undertaken by Per Jonas Nordhagen has dismissed the idea of any substantial ninth-century alterations, apart perhaps from the one panel identified originally by Bertelli.66

The Sancta Sanctorum Treasure Our survey of new constructions, re-buildings and other architectural interventions has made frequent reference to the extensive Liber pontificalis record of gifts of gold and silver objects, as well as luxury fabrics, mostly silks.67 But Paschal I’s engagement with material culture can be shown to have gone even further. He is also known to have added to the large papal collection of relics and other precious objects, amassed from at least the time of Leo III onwards in a cypress-wood chest placed beneath the altar of the ‘Sancta Sanctorum’, the pope’s private chapel on the upper floor of the Lateran patriarchium. In the first decade of the twentieth century, this chest was opened and its contents were examined by Hartmann Grisar and, afterwards, Philippe Lauer.68 Subsequently, the various reliquaries and other objects were removed to their current location in the Vatican 65 66 67 68

LP 100.36, ed. Duchesne II: 62. Bertelli 1955; Spain 1977; Spain 1983; Nordhagen 1983; and Bauer 2004: 191–2. For the latter, see also the summary in Andaloro 2002: 58–9. The wooden chest bears the inscription + LEO INDIGNUS TERTIUS EPISCOPUS D(e)I FAMULUS FECIT (‘Leo III the unworthy bishop and servant of God made this’); see Grisar 1907: 70, fig. 21; Thunø 2002: 160–6; and Bauer 2004: 75–80. For the relics of numerous saints and their authenticating labels, see also Galland and Vezin 2004; Smith 2014; and Maskarinec 2018: 133–7.

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Museums. It is a highly eclectic assortment, including some imported pieces: for example, a variety of Byzantine silks including two depicting the Annunciation (Fig. 2.6) and the Nativity,69 and also a gilded silver reliquary, featuring roundels with busts of Christ and six saints, whose official control stamps indicate a Constantinopolitan origin in the reign of the emperor Heraclius (610–41).70 Of particular interest in the present context are three ninth-century objects, all of which seem likely to have been manufactured in Rome: a gold reliquary cross whose cover is decorated with seven cloisonné enamel scenes depicting episodes from the story of the infancy of Christ (Fig. 4.3), along with a rectangular silver box in which it was housed (Fig. 4.4); and a second casket, this one cruciform in shape and again made of silver, with gilded narrative scenes in repoussé relief (Fig. 4.5). It formerly contained a second gold reliquary cross, inset with jewels and placed on a silk cushion. That cross is now missing.71 All three items were included in John the Deacon’s twelfth-century account of the Sancta Sanctorum chapel and its relics.72 The narrative scenes on the enamel cross unfold in the vertical axis from top to bottom, and in the horizontal arm from left to right.73 The largest scene, located at the centre, depicts the Nativity of Christ. Mary reclines beneath the manger, watched over by the ox and ass, and Joseph is seated on the right. Also included is the episode in which the infant Jesus is bathed by the two midwives, a non-Biblical element which has been associated with the concept of ‘service’ to Mary, and hence to God.74 In the upper arm we see the Annunciation to Mary, and the Visitation with her kinswoman Elizabeth, future mother of John the Baptist; in the left arm the Journey to Bethlehem; in the right arm the Adoration of the Magi; and at the bottom the Presentation in the Temple and Christ’s baptism by John. The sides of the cross also bear thin strips of red and green enamel, with words of a dedication inscription in Latin uncial letters. This was 69 70 71

72

73

74

Grisar 1907: 169–82; Martiniani-Reber 1986; King and King 1986; and Andaloro 2002: 63–6. Dodd 1961: 156–7 (cat. no. 47). Lauer 1906: 194; Grisar 1907: 110–17; Matena 2017: 59–62; and Brandt 2020. The cross apparently disappeared in 1945, and was presumably stolen. It may well have been the cross recorded in the Liber pontificalis as having been discovered just over a century earlier by Pope Sergius I in ‘a darkest corner’ (in angulo obscurissimo) of Saint Peter’s: LP 86.10, ed. Duchesne I: 374; see also Thunø 2002: 21. John the Deacon, Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae 13, ed. Valentini and Zucchetti: 356; English translation in Thunø 2002: 17. Lauer 1906: 191–3; Grisar 1907: 79–84; Thunø 2002: 25–51, and pl. 1; Cornini 2004; and Matena 2016: 56–9. Deshman 1989: 39–42; and Thunø 2002: 29–32.

The Sancta Sanctorum Treasure

Fig. 4.3 Vatican Museums: enamel reliquary cross from the Sancta Sanctorum.

reconstructed by Charles Rufus Morey as ‘Please accept, my sovereign, queen of the world, this vexillum of a Cross which Bishop Paschal offers you’.75 There are at least two points of interest here, the first being yet another affirmation of Pope Paschal’s particular devotion to Mary, as was already evident from the apse mosaic he placed in Santa Maria in Domnica. Secondly, her appellation as ‘queen of the world’ (regina mundi) additionally reflects the language of this era, with perhaps the most notable example being the mural featuring the portrait image of Pope Hadrian I in Santa Maria Antiqua. There, the central figure is identified for the first time in an appended inscription as Maria regina, although that latter noun may be found earlier in written texts.76 Unlike the eighth-century depictions of Mary, however, Paschal’s images show her richly adorned but never with an imperial crown. Whether this change was made for ideological reasons 75

76

ACCIPE QUAESO A D[O]MINA MEA REGINA MUNDI HOC VEXILLUM CRUCIS QUOD TI(BI) PASCHALIS EPISC(OPUS) OPT(ULIT); see Morey 1937. English translation from Thunø 2002: 25. Osborne 2020: 197.

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Fig. 4.4 Vatican Museums: container for enamel reliquary cross.

Fig. 4.5 Vatican Museums: cruciform reliquary container with narrative scenes, from the Sancta Sanctorum.

The Sancta Sanctorum Treasure

or was simply the result of a change in fashion is impossible to say. Morey proposed that, originally, the missing back face of the cross would also have been decorated with enamel scenes, probably depicting the Crucifixion (given the presumed nature of the contents of the reliquary, based on its shape). When found, the underside was covered only with a thick coat of wax, resin and balsam. The centre section of the cross has five compartments for relics. These were apparently found empty, although more recent research has revealed the presence of small fragments of wood.77 A word must also be said about cloisonné enamel itself, a technique in which areas of molten glass are separated by tiny barrier screens (cloisons). The introduction of cloisonné in Byzantium in the ninth century has been the subject of considerable interest and debate, but David Buckton has persuasively argued that the earliest examples were manufactured in western Europe, not Constantinople, and that only in the mid ninth century, after iconoclasm, did the technique pass to the eastern Mediterranean.78 The inscription’s reference to Paschal strongly implies that the cross was produced in Rome, and not imported from elsewhere, a supposition also supported more generally by the apparently experimental nature of the process involved. The metal cloisons separating the areas of coloured paste are, most unusually, made of copper, not gold as would later become the standard practice, and the pock-marked surface suggests the presence of oxygen bubbles and in turn an artist lacking extensive experience of working with molten glass.79 Buckton’s view is at least partially corroborated by the discovery of an enamel fragment in a workshop at the central Italian monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno;80 and, as we shall see in a later chapter, there are also references to enamel objects in the Liber pontificalis life of Pope Stephen V (885–91). Consequently, this may be a comparatively rare instance of a new direction in the arts of Rome, one perhaps emanating from the Carolingian heartland. The enamel cross was found inside a silver casket, opened by means of a sliding lid, and decorated with repoussé reliefs on its front and sides.81 The lid depicts the figure of Christ, seated on a raised throne with foot platform (suppedaneum), beneath which are indications of the four rivers of Paradise. He is flanked by the standing figures of Sts Peter and Paul, the former holding a key and the latter a book, and in the upper corners are two 77 80 81

Grisar 1907: 103–4; and Cornini 2004: 95. 78 Buckton 1988. 79 Cornini 2004: 96–7. Mitchell 1985. Lauer 1906: 193–4; Grisar 1907: 104–9; and Thunø 2002: 53–78 and pl. 2, Figs. 35–9.

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medallions, each enclosing the half figure of a haloed archangel carrying a staff. Three of the sides contain another cycle of Christ’s infancy: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity (minus the episode of the bath), a shepherd and the three Magi gesturing towards the star, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Presentation in the Temple. The fourth side is non-narrative, and depicts an agnus Dei flanked by the symbols of the four evangelists, recalling the uppermost register of the Santa Prassede arch mosaics. Although there is no inscription, the figure style, and in particular the very prominent use of ‘double-line’ folds on the side panels, leaves little doubt that this too is an object of the ninth century, very likely made for the specific purpose of containing the enamel cross, and presumably at more or less the same time. There is less uncertainty about the circumstances of production of the final object, the cruciform casket, as it again bears an inscription, in niello, naming the pope: ‘Bishop Paschal had this made for the people of God’ (PASCHALIS EPISCOPUS PLEBI DEI FIERI IUSSIT). This wording echoes that which Pope Sixtus III (432–40) had placed on the arch of Santa Maria Maggiore, a church that, as we have seen, Paschal knew well. Once again the top and sides of the casket are decorated with narrative scenes, this time depicting the adult life of Christ (four episodes on the lid), and then continuing on the sides with a specific focus on post-Crucifixion events (twelve episodes), including the Maries at the Empty Tomb, the Anastasis, the Road to Emmaus and the Incredulity of Thomas. The sole non-narrative scene, situated in the centre of the lid, illustrates the ‘Communion of the Apostles’, in which Christ stands at an altar and administers the Eucharist to his apostles, an iconography with numerous earlier parallels in the eastern Mediterranean but hitherto unknown in western Europe.82 The style of the gilded repoussé reliefs is to all intents and purposes identical on both caskets, suggesting that they share a similar date and place of manufacture. The possible theological import of the subject matter has been thoroughly explored by Erik Thunø, and need not be repeated here.83 He detects an emphasis on the role of Christ as mediator between earth and heaven, and views the emphasis on post-Crucifixion events as establishing the rationale for the subsequent development of the Christian church. For our purposes, it will suffice to regard the casket as a rare survival of the silverwork being produced in Rome in the early decades of the ninth 82

83

Lauer 1906: 194–5, who inexplicably dates it to the reign of Paschal II (1099–1118), and not Paschal I; Grisar 1907: 129–35; Thunø 2002: 79–117 and Figs. 65–79; and Castellani 2022. Thunø 2002.

Other Paintings

century, and in this instance an object which, thanks to the inscription, we can unequivocally link to Paschal’s patronage.

Other Paintings Finally, it must be noted that a considerable quantity of mural painting, much of it quite fragmentary, has been attributed rather loosely to the era of Paschal I, based primarily on assessments of style and subject matter but lacking secure documentation of any kind: for example, the images of Sts Agnes and Cecilia, identified by Greek inscriptions, in a niche in the atrium of Santa Maria Antiqua, immediately adjacent to the entrance.84 Recently, however, a more substantial body of painting, located in the extramural church of Santa Passera, on the right bank of the Tiber some 3 kilometres south of the Aurelian wall, has also been assigned to Paschal’s pontificate. Although the church has been much restored, and the apse was repainted in the later Middle Ages, the early medieval painting on the left wall includes narrative scenes, now identified as related to the passio of St Praxedes, as well as a comparatively well-preserved group of five standing ‘Greek’ saints, each identified by a painted inscription (John Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus and Nicholas) (Fig. 4.6). Also assignable to this time are the remnants of fictive curtains at the bottom of the apse.85 Of course, a narrative cycle devoted to Praxedes does not necessarily prove a dating in the pontificate of Paschal, nor indeed his patronage, and it would be useful to have a better sense of how the site was used at this time and why these fathers of the Eastern Church were selected for such prominence. Although Paschal I occupied the throne of St Peter for only seven years, the sheer volume of his building activity testifies to his remarkable legacy of achievement in the realm of material culture. The architecture, sculpture, mosaics, mural paintings and metalwork from this time in many instances represent unique survivals. When viewed in conjunction with the detailed descriptions in the Liber pontificalis, we are presented with a very complete picture of the arts in the early ninth century, and this can serve as a solid foundation for the study of what comes afterwards. Rome was clearly a major centre for the construction of new churches, as well as their sumptuous decoration, and the requisite financial resources appear to have posed no problem. The evidence available also suggests an interesting combination of 84 85

Osborne 1987: 192–4. Bordi 2020, who summarizes the previous literature. For the architecture, which incorporates the remains of a second- or third-century tomb complex, see Santella 2020.

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Fig. 4.6 Santa Passera: murals on south (left) wall.

sources and influences, including the introduction of at least one new medium, cloisonné enamel, for which we have no evidence of earlier production in Rome. In terms of iconography, Paschal’s decorators drew heavily on two primary sources: Roman monuments of an earlier age, coupled with the latest developments emanating from the eastern Mediterranean. The ‘double-line’ fold style presents an exceptional enigma, as it will become a characteristic of much of the Roman mural painting produced later in the century, and we shall return to it in subsequent chapters.

5

Eugenius II, Gregory IV and Sergius II

Eugenius II There were further violent disturbances in the streets of Rome following Paschal I’s death in February 824, but the candidate for the papacy championed by the Roman aristocracy ultimately prevailed, and was duly elected: Eugenius II (824–27). The situation was deemed sufficiently serious to warrant a Frankish intervention, and Louis the Pious despatched his eldest son, Lothar, who now held the title of King of Italy. He had also been appointed co-emperor by his father and was crowned initially at Aachen but then again at Rome by Paschal I in April 823, an event not mentioned in the Liber pontificalis but known from Frankish sources.1 While the precise details of Lothar’s actions in Rome remain undetermined, the Annales regni Francorum record that he was well received by Eugenius, and succeeded in settling ‘the affairs of the Roman people, which for a long time had been confused due to the wickedness of several popes’.2 Those who had suffered losses under Paschal had their goods and property restored. All parties involved seem also to have realized that the status quo was not sustainable, and this led to a new agreement to modify the previous pactum Ludowicianum. The Constitutio Romana of November 824 made no change to the recognition of papal jurisdiction over central Italy, but did make provision for some measure of Frankish oversight of the administration of justice. Two representatives (missi), one appointed by the emperor and one by the pope, were to be based permanently in the city, charged with the responsibility for ensuring that papal elections were carried out legally and fairly. They were also required to make an annual report to the emperor concerning events in Rome. Furthermore, newly elected pontiffs would be required to reaffirm the Frankish–papal alliance before being consecrated; and, in perhaps the biggest departure from the previous situation, all Romans were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the emperor, while simultaneously acknowledging their primary obedience to the pope. The precise wording 1 2

Annales regni Francorum [a. 823], ed. Kurze: 160–1. Annales regni Francorum [a. 824], ed. Kurze: 166; English translation from Scholz 1972: 117.

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of this oath is preserved.3 If the intention was to make the city’s streets safer from the violence occasioned by factional strife, it seems to have worked reasonably effectively, at least in the short term. As the biographer of Eugenius II describes it, ‘In his days there was great peace and stillness throughout the whole Roman world’.4 Although rather meagre in comparison to the wealth of surviving evidence for the pontificate of Paschal I, each of the reigns of his immediate successors – Eugenius II (824–7), Gregory IV (827–44) and Sergius II (844–7) – has provided us with at least one significant survival. As we shall see, papal patronage of building and decoration activities continued unabated, although now at a slightly less frenetic pace. On the other hand, given that factional unrest in the city also seems to have lessened somewhat, perhaps the need for bold architectural statements of power and authority had been diminished.

Santa Sabina One of the factors that appears to have played a major role in determining the location of papal patronage was the prior connection of a particular pontiff to a specific site. And thus Eugenius II, like many of his other ninthcentury counterparts, accorded special favour to the church in which he had formerly served as a priest, prior to his elevation to the papacy. This was Santa Sabina, situated at the summit of the Aventine hill, overlooking the Tiber, a spacious basilica dating from the early fifth century, constructed during the pontificate of Pope Celestine I (422–32) by a priest named in the surviving mosaic dedication inscription as ‘Peter of Illyria’. Its renovation constitutes the only project we can associate with Eugenius’ three-year pontificate, and indeed is the only act of patronage mentioned in the very brief fragment that survives of his life in the Liber pontificalis. We are told: ‘In the time of his priesthood he held Santa Sabina the martyr’s church on the Aventine hill; by God’s dispensation, after the grace of the pontificate was granted him, he brought it to a higher standard and decorated it all round with pictures.’5 The passage goes on to mention a silver ciborium, but the figure for its weight is missing. It then signals that there were further gifts to be enumerated, but the vita breaks off in the middle of the following sentence. No trace remains of Eugenius’ ‘pictures’, 3

4 5

Constitutio Romana, ed. Boretius. See also Bertolini 1956/1968; Noble 1984: 308–22; and Davis 1995: 33–6. LP 101.2, ed. Duchesne II: 69; English translation from Davis 1995: 39. LP 101.3, ed. Duchesne II: 69; English translation from Davis 1995: 39.

Eugenius II

although some almost illegible mural fragments on the aisle walls, depicting fictive vela, were discovered in 1959 when new electrical wiring was being installed, and these may perhaps date from his time.6 While Santa Sabina has been the recipient of a great many campaigns of restoration over the centuries, including one undertaken by Leo III only a few decades earlier,7 perhaps the most damaging was that of Pope Sixtus V (1585–90).8 In 1586–7, Domenico Fontana, the principal papal architect, closed most of the original windows, removed and replaced the outdated liturgical furnishings, and added a crypt. The apse had already been repainted a generation earlier by Taddeo Zuccaro, apparently replacing an original mosaic, since in 1916 Antonio Muñoz discovered some of the original tesserae still imbedded in the apse wall beneath the Zuccaro mural.9 In the early twentieth century, however, an attempt was made to turn back the clock. In the years 1914–19 Muñoz was engaged to restore the basilica’s interior to something resembling its original state, and in 1933–6 he returned to undertake a second round of alterations.10 These included the re-installation of the marble screens that served to separate the clergy from the laity at the presbytery end of the nave. In contrast to Santa Prassede, where Muñoz had discovered only a few stone panels, reused in a later floor, at Santa Sabina enough remained that he felt confident in attempting to fully recreate the original. A first attempt to reconstruct the chancel barrier was made in 1918, but this was then redone completely in 1936, when the process of laying a new floor pavement revealed not only the footings of the original screens but also a number of additional marble panels (plutei).11 This second reconstruction remains in place today (Fig. 5.1).12 Although not mentioned in the Liber pontificalis, which tends to focus only on materials of intrinsic value, there is general agreement that the original arrangement should be dated to the pontificate of Eugenius II. The central opening was originally fitted with a metal gate, and this bore an inscription, seen and reported by Pompeo Ugonio in 1588 as EUGENIUS SECUNDUS PAPA ROMANUS.13 Beginning with Leo III’s rebuilding of Santi Nereo ed Achilleo in 815, most Roman churches of the first half of the ninth century reused a variety 6 8 9

10 12

13

7 Darsy 1961: 48, 104. LP 98.4, ed. Duchesne II: 2. For the overall chronology, CBCR IV: 72–98. Muñoz 1938: 38. For his 16 December 1916 report of the discovery to the Director General for Antiquities and Fine Arts, see Bellanca 1999: 34–5. Muñoz 1918; Muñoz 1938; and Bellanca 1999: 13–17. 11 Muñoz 1938: 35–6. Darsy 1961: 107–11. For a complete catalogue of the early medieval sculpture, Trinci Cecchelli 1976: 194–230 (cat. nos. 231–63, and esp. 235–50). Ugonio 1588: 10; CBCR IV: 75; and Gianandrea 2011.

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Fig. 5.1 Santa Sabina: clerical enclosure as reconstructed by Antonio Muñoz.

of decorated architectural elements of an earlier age, of which perhaps the most common are the consoles supporting the cornices of apses, possibly all deriving from a single original source.14 However, not all sculptural elements were redeployed in this fashion without alteration; and as we have seen at Santa Prassede there is plenty of evidence for the existence in the early ninth century of a significant Roman workshop (or workshops) involved in the production of carved marble.15 The actual material itself was of course spolia. There is nowhere any suggestion that the ancient marble quarries continued to be worked in the early Middle Ages, nor that there was any continuing trade in such materials across the Mediterranean; and much of the marble in question had come originally from outside Italy. But as the Roman liturgy became more formalized, and was increasingly orchestrated theatrically, there was a corresponding need for very specific church furnishings in order to create an appropriate setting, and the supply

14

Guiglia Guidobaldi and Pensabene 2006.

15

Paroli 1998.

Eugenius II

issue was resolved by recutting and re-carving older pieces of stone to serve new purposes. The Santa Sabina enclosure is composed of a series of marble plutei approximately a metre in height and of varying widths, and is a unique survival, albeit recreated, of what presumably once existed in many of the ninth-century churches in the city, or at least those visited by the popes for a stational mass. Originally, the plutei would have been separated by vertical pilasters, the latter cut with grooves into which the larger pieces were slotted. All exterior faces were carved, using a broad vocabulary of geometric, twisted ribbon (guilloche) and floral designs, including some birds (peacocks, eagles) and crosses, although human figures were apparently avoided. In this particular instance, two decorative patterns appear to predominate. The first comprises a Latin cross set under an arch supported on columns.16 In the lower zone the cross is flanked by stylized depictions of trees, symbolic representations of the ‘Tree of Life’, while the upper quadrants display medallions, one carved as a rosette with petals and the other with a pinwheel design. This ‘cross-under-arch’ motif is rare in Rome, but very frequently found in the contemporaneous Byzantine world, where it was usually associated with the concept of imperial victory, and also in Venice, where it featured prominently on the superstructure of ninthcentury cisterns.17 Its precise significance in a Roman context remains unknown. The second pattern features an elaborate vine scroll enclosing small crosses.18 But the designs on other panels are more purely abstract. The overwhelming presence of crosses, along with the occasional stylized four-lobed ‘knot’, may indicate that the decorations were primarily regarded as apotropaic, intended to protect the sanctity of the space the enclosures served to define. Muñoz’s reconstruction of the marble barriers in Santa Sabina provides modern viewers with a good sense of the presumed appearance of the interior of an early medieval Roman church. While today the term schola cantorum is widely used generically to describe these clergy enclosures, that usage is possibly somewhat misleading and dates only from the sixteenth century.19 The schola cantorum was the papal choir, and the name was also used for the physical location of the Orphanage (Orphanotropheum), situated near the Lateran patriarchium, where young boys were educated and taught to chant the liturgy. First mentioned in the eighth century, it is 16 18 19

Trinci Cecchelli 1976: 201–7, cat. nos. 235–8 and pls. LXXIV–LXXVI. 17 Osborne 1997c. Trinci Cecchelli 1976: 207, 210–12, cat. nos. 239, 242–3 and pls. LXXVII–LXXIX. Dyer 1995: 93.

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known to have been restored by Pope Sergius II in the mid 840s.20 The choir would have accompanied the pope on visits made as part of the stational liturgy, but this would have happened infrequently at any particular location, in some instances only once a year. By contrast, the use of furnishings and pavements to define space within a church may have begun as early as the fourth century, beginning with a passage down the centre of the nave for the entrance and exit processions of the officiating clergy. This path was known as the ruga or solea, and evidence for its existence in the Lateran basilica has been discovered in the excavations beneath the floor of Borromini’s seventeenth-century remodelling.21 Approaching the altar, the solea widened out, often to the full width of the nave, presumably to create a space for the use of the papal choir on days when the stational liturgy brought the pontiff and his entourage to a specific church, or perhaps simply to accommodate the elaborate papal entourage that participated in the processions described in Ordo Romanus I.22 Much of what actually happened in early medieval churches still remains undetermined, including for example how precisely the pope and clergy received the offerings of the faithful and distributed the Eucharist. Almost all that is known has been gleaned from the Ordines Romani. The solea also served quite effectively to divide the area of the church reserved for men from that allocated to women. As Dale Kinney has observed, ‘The subspaces direct traffic and express hierarchical distinctions among those who are permitted to enter them and those who are not.’23 As we have seen, the earliest surviving evidence in Rome for a marble barrier of this sort may be found in the church of San Clemente, where the presence of a monogram provides a date in the time of Pope John II (533–5), although the present location and arrangement belong only to the early twelfth century, when the standing church was constructed. Not all enclosures were made of stone. They could also be made of masonry, in which case the evidence suggests that they were painted, not carved, and we have a good example of this type in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua, where the murals in question, depicting Old Testament themes, are believed to have been created in the time of Pope John VII.24 But all the known ninth-century 20 21 22

23 24

LP 104.24, ed. Duchesne II: 92. See also Davis 1995: 85–6, n. 46; and Page 2010: 245–59. CBCR V: 43–4. See also Saxer 2000. Mathews (1962) was the first to attempt to relate the material evidence to the text of Ordo Romanus I. Kinney 2019: 84. For Santa Maria Antiqua, see van Dijk 2004. For the general phenomenon, Guidobaldi 2000b.

Eugenius II

examples were made of marble, presumably a more expensive undertaking but one that popes of the day could apparently afford, and for which the necessary materials and expertise were quite evidently available. There is one other aspect of Santa Sabina which merits a brief comment, namely its medieval windows. Most of these had been blocked in the sixteenth century, and in reversing that process Muñoz discovered that Domenico Fontana had not bothered to remove the original lattice grids that held together the small pieces of translucent selenite (a crystalline form of gypsum), which in turn made possible the passage of light into the basilica’s interior, but had instead simply covered them over with brick. Numerous fragments still remained in place, and these provided the inspiration and model for the creation of new windows in 1918.25 The original grids featured a variety of decorative designs and patterns, and had been made from a material known as scagliola, in which selenite was reduced to a powder and mixed with water to make a malleable paste. In visual terms, it had an appearance similar to alabaster, although lacking the latter’s strength. Their modern replacements were made of cement infused with marble dust, and were thus much stronger, but selenite was again used to fill the open spaces in the grid. Muñoz obtained his selenite from Brisighella, near Ravenna, and even made a personal journey to the quarry in order to inspect the material in question. He reports that some 12,000 small sherds had been employed in creating the thirty-eight new windows, a task requiring ‘great patience’ (‘una grande pazienza’).26 It is not impossible that the same source, or one close by, had also provided the original material many centuries earlier.27 But were the window grids original to the fifth-century basilica or added in the ninth century? At least two pieces of circumstantial evidence point towards the second possibility. The Liber pontificalis life of Leo III makes two specific references to gypsum windows (ex metallo gypsino), in relation to the churches of San Paolo fuori le mura and San Giovanni in Laterano; and in the latter instance these are additionally differentiated from the coloured glass windows placed in the apse.28 At the same time, there is no record of an earlier use in Rome of selenite in this context. But what convinced Muñoz was the existence of precisely the same form of window 25 27

28

Muñoz 1938: 29–33; and Trinci Cecchelli 1976: 224–7, cat. nos. 256–9. 26 Muñoz 1938: 31. Isotopic analysis suggests that the ninth-century source was probably also in northern Italy, in either Tuscany or Romagna; see Lugli, Reghizzi and Pannuzzi 2020. Necnon et fenestras ipsius aecclesiae mire pulchritudinis ex metallo gypsino decoravit (LP 98.31, ed. Duchesne II: 10); Simul et fenestras de absida ex vitro diversis coloribus decoravit atque conclusit; et alias fenestras basilicae ex metallo gypsino reparavit (LP 98.82, ed. Duchesne II: 25).

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in another church which he had also restored: Santa Prassede, for which a dating to the time of Paschal I was beyond any doubt. Although his own preference was to assign the Santa Sabina windows to the restoration undertaken by Leo III,29 no mention is made of them in Leo’s otherwise exhaustive vita; and thus Eugenius II should remain as a strong contender to have been their patron. Windows of this type may be found in a number of Roman churches dating to the first half of the ninth century, and there is also some evidence to suggest that the scagliola grids were originally painted.30

Gregory IV After the death of Eugenius II, the choice of pontiff next fell on the archdeacon Valentine, whose reign lasted a mere forty days. The surprisingly lengthy entry in the Liber pontificalis is full of effusive praise for his character and nobility, but absolutely lacking in details of any specific activity apart from claiming that he made numerous gifts to the clergy, the senate (a term always used in this period as a collective noun to indicate the aristocracy, and not an actual legislative body) and the people of Rome. No doubt his very brief reign did not allow sufficient time to initiate any significant projects.31 By contrast, his successor, Gregory IV (827–44), once again the candidate supported by the aristocracy, enjoyed the longest tenure on the papal throne of any ninth-century pontiff after Leo III, almost seventeen years, although he apparently suffered from illness for much of that time. He also became deeply embroiled in the civil strife now afflicting the Carolingian heartland, as first Lothar and his younger brothers undertook to depose their father, Louis the Pious, and then following the senior emperor’s death in 840 fought among each other over the division of the Frankish empire. Matters came to a violent head at the battle of Fontenoy in 841, and peace was only restored two years later with the Treaty of Verdun.32 Needless to say, the Liber pontificalis studiously ignores all the non-Roman events, perhaps in part because Gregory IV’s considerable efforts to secure peace were dramatically unsuccessful. Instead we return to the model of earlier

29 31 32

Muñoz 1938: 33. 30 Flaminio 2020; Flaminio and Guidobaldi 2020; and Pannuzi 2020. LP 102.8, ed. Duchesne II: 72. For the Carolingian ‘civil war’, see Screen 2003. For Gregory IV’s engagement with the Franks, see Scherer 2013: 133–201.

Gregory IV

vitae in which records of construction, repairs and donations were appended following a pattern determined by the fiscal (indiction) year.33 Much of this biographical entry is written in what Davis has deemed ‘abysmal Latin’,34 but it nonetheless provides a great deal of interesting and useful information regarding the state of material culture in Rome. Most of the city’s churches and monasteries appear to have benefited from papal largesse, with gifts of silk textiles clearly predominating. Thus, there can have been little if any diminution in the volume of such imports, implying in turn that the Roman Church still commanded considerable amounts of surplus wealth. As usual, the subject matter of the fabric designs is almost always specified, and this covers a very extensive range. But there is a precipitous decline in the number of textiles bearing explicitly Christian subject matter, perhaps a side effect of the second period of Byzantine Iconoclasm, when we can presume that silk factories in Constantinople would be focusing on a different repertory of images. Among Gregory IV’s first projects was the construction of a new chapel inside Saint Peter’s, to which he moved the remains of his namesake Pope Gregory I, whose tomb had previously been located in the narthex. Continuing the tradition established a decade earlier by Paschal I, he also translated the bodies of three Roman martyrs – Sebastian, Gorgonius and Tiburtius – from the catacombs to this new space.35 It is probably not a coincidence that this followed at least two clandestine attempts to steal the relics of Tiburtius from a cemetery on the Via Labicana, by agents acting on behalf of two senior Frankish clerics: Hilduin, the important abbot of a number of monasteries, including the royal abbey of Saint-Denis outside Paris and Saint-Médard at Soissons, and Einhard. As related in considerable detail in Einhard’s Translatio et miracula sanctorum Marcellini et Petri, these nocturnal expeditions had apparently been unsuccessful, but Ratleig, Einhard’s notary, made off instead with the remains of Sts Peter and Marcellinus.36 For his part, Hilduin claimed to have earlier received at least some of the remains of Sebastian from Eugenius II, and these had been installed at Soissons, where they reportedly performed numerous miracles.37 Gregory IV no doubt wished to secure and protect whatever parts of Sebastian’s body still remained in Rome. Apparently, these included the saint’s head, for which a silver reliquary was procured; and 33 35 36

37

Geertman 1975: 71–80; and Delogu 2022: 317–26. 34 Davis 1995: 48. LP 103.6, ed. Duchesne II: 74. Einhard, Translatio et miracula sanctorum Marcellini et Petri, 1–5, ed. Waitz: 239–42. See also Geary 1978: 52–8; and Delogu 2022: 312–16. Annales regni Francorum [a. 826], ed. Kurze: 171–2.

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two decades later this would be moved to the church of the Santi Quattro Coronati by Pope Leo IV (see Chapter 6). Of his many other activities, three church projects stand out as worthy of our attention: San Marco, San Giorgio al Velabro and Santa Maria in Trastevere.

San Marco The first significant building project described in the Liber pontificalis life of Gregory IV is the church of San Marco, where he had served as priest prior to his election. We are informed that the structure ‘seemed likely soon to collapse on account of its great age’. Accordingly, it was demolished down to its foundations, and rebuilt ‘to a better standard and beauty, and to the delight of all he depicted this basilica’s apse with gold colours on the overlaid mosaic’.38 The new church was large, just over 40 metres in length, with the nave separated from the aisles by twelve columns on each side.39 In the fifteenth century it would be encased on three sides within the Palazzo Venezia. Excavations undertaken in the years 1947–50 revealed that it was in fact the third basilica on the site, built some 1.3 metres higher than its immediate predecessor, and reusing the existing foundations just as the Liber pontificalis informs us. Richard Krautheimer cautiously attributed the earlier buildings to the fourth and sixth centuries respectively, but observed that ‘the archaeological evidence is too scarce for us to assign a precise date’.40 Surviving from Gregory’s time are the semi-annular crypt, the clerestory walls and, perhaps most importantly, the apse and its decoration in mosaic (Fig. 5.2). The current colonnades are not original, having been replaced in the eighteenth century. The apse mosaic is remarkable for both its similarities to and differences from the apses of Paschal I, the latter executed only a decade or so earlier. The overall formula clearly follows the general model of Santa Prassede and Santa Cecilia, albeit with some significant variations.41 Set against a gold background, the central figure is again Christ, though now shown standing on a small carpet or podium (suppedaneum) inscribed with the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and omega, a reference to him as ‘the beginning and the end’ derived from the texts of the Book of Revelation 1:8 and 22:13. His right hand is raised in blessing; and in his left he holds an open codex, inscribed with the words ‘I am the light, I am the life, I am the 38 39 41

LP 103.8, ed. Duchesne II: 74; English translation from Davis 1995: 52–3. CBCR II: 216–47. See also Scherer 2013: 42–4; and Delogu 2022: 320–3. Matthiae 1967: 243–4; Oakeshott 1967: 213–16; and Thunø 2015: 22.

40

CBCR II: 245.

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Fig. 5.2 San Marco: apse mosaic.

resurrection’ (combining elements of John 8:12 and 11:25). To his right, the viewer’s left, are Felicissimus, a third-century Roman martyr, and Mark the Evangelist, the latter presenting Pope Gregory, replete with ‘square halo’, who carries a model of the church. Balancing them on the viewer’s right are Pope Mark, the traditional founder of this church in the year 336, along with the two Roman martyrs Agapitus42 and Agnes. All six figures similarly stand on some form of suppedaneum, which here are rather usefully inscribed with their names. Missing is the palm tree with its phoenix. Beneath, we find the usual procession of lambs from the cities of Bethlehem (named by an inscription) and Jerusalem (not named) towards a central agnus Dei, and at the bottom a dedication inscription, written in the now customary gold letters set against a blue background, naming the pope and asking Mark to intercede on his behalf such that God will ‘give him long life and […] guide him, after death, to the stars of heaven’.43 Gregory’s name 42

43

Saints Felicissimus and Agapitus were deacons martyred with Pope Sixtus II in the year 258 CE. Oakeshott (1967: 214) errs in identifying the latter figure as Pope Agapetus (535–6). He clearly wears a deacon’s dalmatic, not a papal chasuble. … VIVENDI TEMPORA LONGA DONET ET AD CAELI POST FUNUS SIDERA DUCAT; English translation from Thunø 2015: 213.

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also appears in the usual position at the apex of the apse. The mosaic decorations of the framing arch, too, have survived. A central medallion contains a bust of Christ, flanked by the symbols of the four evangelists; and in the spandrels are the figures of Sts Peter and Paul, shown raising their right arms in gestures of acclamation. As was the case with Paschal I’s apse mosaics, the general theme is eschatological. Gregory is envisaging his future case for entry into Paradise, although here also expressing the hope that this won’t happen too soon. As Claudia Bolgia has quipped, ‘The prayer clearly worked.’44 The San Marco mosaic has generated scholarly interest for a number of reasons, not least because it is the most recent of the ninth-century apse mosaics to have survived in a Roman church, albeit not the last to have been produced, as we shall see. Guglielmo Matthiae’s stylistic analysis presented the case for a significant diminution of the technical expertise of the mosaicists, based on details such as the very erratic and rather clumsy lettering in the inscriptions beneath the principal figures.45 By contrast, Walter Oakeshott, who is much less critical, speaks of the chief mosaicist as having ‘a highly individual and original style’, and that while ‘the Roman revival died with him […] its demise cannot be attributed to any lack of talent in his work’. He then suggests that this individual may have moved east to Byzantium after the final end of iconoclasm in 843.46 What he forgets, however, is that we have numerous references to the production of mosaic in Rome in subsequent decades, and thus it is simply a question of survival, or rather the lack thereof. This renders any speculation somewhat moot, but there can be no doubt that mosaics continued to be produced in Rome, at least for another few decades. In a particularly insightful analysis, Claudia Bolgia has observed that the most significant departure from the iconographic model may be found in the identity of the saint who here presents Pope Gregory to Christ – Mark the evangelist, and not the fourth-century Pope Mark for whom the church was named – and it cannot be a coincidence that this was the very moment when St Mark’s relics were stolen by Venetian merchants in Alexandria and brought to Venice, where they would feature prominently in the construction of a new state church.47 Nor did that theft happen in a political vacuum. Like Rome, Venice also sat on the frontier between the Frankish empire and Byzantium, and the cult of the saints played a prominent role in establishing and cementing 44 47

Bolgia 2006: 15, n. 26. Bolgia 2006.

45

Matthiae 1967: 261–4.

46

Oakeshott 1967: 216.

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political allegiances in this region.48 In 827 the Synod of Mantua had determined the primacy of the Frankish-controlled Patriarch of Aquileia over the nominally Byzantine see of Grado and the other suffragan bishops of north-eastern Italy, in part because it was believed that the church at Aquileia had been founded by Mark, despatched from Rome for this purpose by St Peter. The actual possession of Mark’s relics, however, allowed Venice to claim a measure of independence, ecclesiastical and otherwise, and subsequently that city would construct its identity around the evangelist and his symbol of the winged lion. Bolgia proposes that Gregory IV also wished to claim some measure of ‘ownership’ of Mark, who was regarded as the spiritual ‘son’ of St Peter,49 not least because the papal claim to the territories formerly administered by the Byzantine exarchate of Ravenna included Venice and Istria. Mark the evangelist’s prominent role in the San Marco apse and his personal relationship with Pope Gregory, made explicit in the imagery, coming at precisely the same moment that his new shrine was being constructed in Venice, may thus have been intended as a statement of such a claim. There can be no doubt that some such motive must have occasioned such a dramatic departure from previous practice. As was invariably the case with major papal projects, the reconstruction was followed by a substantial series of gifts, including silver crosses, censers, altar panels and a ciborium weighing 1,000 pounds. Gregory also presented a wide variety of textiles, from large curtains to small altarcloths, including a set of twenty-six vela specified as being intended to hang in the nave arcades (where twelve columns created thirteen intercolumniations on each side). Many are specified as being coloured purple, and animal designs – lions, griffins, unicorns, eagles, even ducks – seem to have been dominant.50

San Giorgio al Velabro Another significant recipient of papal attention was the diaconia church of San Giorgio al Velabro, situated in the area of the Forum Boarium, near the Tiber bank and immediately adjacent to two much older Roman monuments which still survive: the Arcus Argentariorum (Arch of the Silversmiths) and the Arch of Janus. In this instance, however, the specific 48 49

50

Osborne 1999. Based on 1 Peter 5:13. It was additionally believed that Peter had been responsible for dictating the Gospel of Mark; see McKitterick 2020a: 75–8. LP 103.9–11, ed. Duchesne II: 74–5.

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rationale for the connection is not mentioned by Gregory’s biographer, and thus remains unknown. The passage in question is slightly enigmatic, and relates that the pope ‘provided porticoes on each side and […] decorated them with various paintings’, as well as redoing the apse and adding a new sacristy.51 This project is interesting for at least two reasons. Firstly, San Giorgio seems to have housed another Greek-speaking religious community, as its physical location in the schola Graecorum or ‘Greek quarter’ might also imply. Funerary inscriptions in Greek indicate the survival of this presence through to at least the tenth century.52 Of more immediate significance, though, is the simple fact that much of the ninth-century church survives or has been revealed through excavation. Richard Krautheimer’s analysis suggests a more or less complete rebuilding of whatever structure existed previously, with the brickwork closely resembling contemporaneous projects elsewhere in the city.53 The surviving fragments of an opus sectile marble floor in the presbytery have also been assigned to this era.54 The side aisles were separated from the nave by rows of eight columns,55 creating nine intercolumniations, and this serves to explain the subsequent gift of eighteen curtains. Although not specified by Gregory’s biographer, the apse was apparently decorated with mosaic, of which some tesserae were discovered in 1924–5, in yet another restoration undertaken by Antonio Muñoz.56 The apse would be redecorated with painting about the year 1300. The Liber pontificalis does mention that the aisles were decorated with picturas, and some fragments of mural painting were brought to light by Muñoz at the entrance end of the left aisle, where a bell tower (campanile) was inserted in the later Middle Ages. These were badly damaged, and indeed partially destroyed, by the terrorist bomb detonated outside the church in July 1993, but what survives suggests that the programme included various registers of narrative scenes above a series of standing saints, very similar to the decoration found in the transept of Santa Prassede, at Santa Passera and elsewhere.57 Also rediscovered by Muñoz were fragments of the ninth-century marble furnishings, including portions of a chancel barrier, many of which had been 51

52 53

54 56

LP 103.14, ed. Duchesne II: 76; English translation from Davis 1995: 56. The Latin term porticos is probably meant to indicate ‘aisles’. See discussion in Chapter 7. CBCR I: 244–65. For the earlier church on the site, probably dating to the pontificate of Leo II (682–683), see also Coates-Stephens 1997: 184–6. For the Eastern origins of the cult of St George and its importation to Rome, see Maskarinec 2018: 79–90. Guidobaldi and Guiglia Guidobaldi 1983: 470–6. 55 Pensabene 2015: 438–47. Muñoz 1926: 33. 57 Gianandrea 2022b.

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reused in later medieval tombs.58 These continue to be displayed in the church, and two merit special attention. One is a fragment of a marble pluteus, which has part of a much earlier Roman inscription on its reverse, demonstrating beyond any doubt that the ninth-century sculptors reused earlier material. And the second, slightly more controversial from the point of view of its dating, is part of an architrave or cornice bearing a small figural scene depicting the Annunciation to Mary.59 If from the ninth century, then it constitutes a unique survival from this era; but that dating is not universally accepted,60 and the complete lack of comparanda renders this process exceptionally difficult, if not indeed impossible. Otherwise, the San Giorgio sculpture reveals the usual repertory of designs found in other churches at this time, encompassing a broad range of ribbon interlace, rosettes, crosses, birds, lilies and foliage.

Santa Maria in Trastevere Santa Maria in Trastevere presents a special case, since unlike the other churches we have examined its core fabric was not rebuilt by Gregory.61 He did, however, reorganize the interior space rather dramatically, with a special focus on the ‘main stage’, so to speak. His actions provide considerable insight into both the burgeoning importance of the papal liturgy, which by now had evolved into a ritual form of religious theatre, and also the desire to elevate such ceremonies above the commonplace or ordinary and to exert control through the provision of greater uniformity in physical settings, in the process also creating a sense of increased religiosity and dignity.62 A relic chamber was first excavated, to which he moved the bodies of Sts Callixtus, Cornelius and Calepodius, previously located in the left aisle of the church where they had been ‘lying behind people’s backs’ and ‘not worthily honoured’. And above this he constructed a new sanctuary space (the Latin noun used is tribunal), reached by stairs, so that the main altar was now placed physically above the level of the nave and aisles, following the model for shrine churches established by Saint Peter’s and mirrored in the other ninth-century building projects. Prior to this moment the altar had been at floor level, and furthermore had been situated ‘almost in the middle of the nave’, where ‘people of both sexes congregated around it, and the pontiff 58 60

61

62

Melucco Vaccaro 1974: 67–80, cat. nos. 5–23. 59 Muñoz 1926: 36, and figs. 33, 34, 38. Melucco Vaccaro (1974: 81–4, cat. no. 27 and pl. IX) prefers a later date, perhaps in the tenth or eleventh century. The standing church was constructed in the first half of the twelfth century. For the evidence of earlier structures on the site, see CBCR III: 65–71. For Gregory IV’s renovations, see Kinney 1975: 93–189; and Kinney 2019: 91–2. See also the comments by Bauer 2000: 117–18.

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celebrated the sacred mysteries while the people intermingled in a disorderly fashion with the clergy’. We can easily imagine the pope’s disdain for this untidy state of affairs, and hence his efforts to set matters right, an attitude previously encountered with Paschal I at Santa Maria Maggiore. As Gregory’s biographer observes, ‘the religious pope did not bear this lightly’. In front of the raised sanctuary he installed a presbyterium, no doubt intended to separate the clergy from the other congregants and define the space to be used for the performance of the liturgy, and in the right aisle an enclosure for elite women, ‘a matroneum fenced round with stone’. Finally, there was the question of ensuring a sufficient presence to perform the daily office. This was resolved through the standard practice of constructing an adjacent monastery, in which ‘he gathered canonical monks to perform the office therein and chant thanks and praises every day and each ensuing night’.63 The reference to ‘canonical monks’ (monachos canonicos) is unprecedented in the Liber pontificalis, and its precise meaning remains unknown. How did they differ from other monks? Duchesne suggested that this might be an early reference to ‘canons regular’, who would later occupy a middle ground between the clerical and monastic disciplines, but it may imply more simply that they lived by a ‘rule’.64 All this activity was of course accompanied by lavish gifts of metalwork and silk textiles, including a golden image of Mary, inset with many jewels (all enumerated); three gold bowls, of which at least one bore an inscription naming the pope; and an altarcloth bearing depictions of Christ’s Nativity and Resurrection along with ‘an image of God’s mother St Mary cherishing an image of its presenter’.65 Gregory IV’s structural alterations to the interior of Santa Maria in Trastevere were lost when the church was rebuilt in the twelfth century, although some marble fragments of the chancel barrier were uncovered in 1864 in the excavations undertaken by Virginio Vespignani. These were carved in low relief with designs similar to those found in other churches of this period.66 63

64

65 66

LP 103.24–5, 31–2, ed. Duchesne II: 78, 79–80; English translations from Davis 1995: 60–1, 64– 5. See also Kinney 1975: 160–2; Bauer 2000: 102–5; Bull-Simonsen Einaudi 2000; and Scherer 2013: 44–6. LP, ed. Duchesne II: 84, n. 8; and Davis 1995: 60–1, n.51. See also Kinney 1975: 162–5. Ninthcentury concern about the different categories of religious person, and in particular the differentiation between clergy and monks, was primarily a Carolingian development: see Kramer, Kurdziel and Ward 2022. LP 103.25–6, 33, ed. Duchesne II: 78–9, 80; English translation from Davis 1995: 65. Kinney 1975: 348–53; and Bull-Simonsen Einaudi 2000: 187–90.

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Urban and Papal Infrastructure Churches were not the only structures to have commanded Gregory IV’s time and attention. He also undertook repairs and additions to the Lateran patriarchium, parts of which ‘were now destroyed and almost on the point of collapse from great age’. These included yet another dining hall (triclinium), its apse decorated in mosaic; a small apartment (habitaculum) for papal use close to the chapel of St Lawrence (the ‘Sancta Sanctorum’), and singled out as a quiet space (‘ubi et quies est optima’); three reception rooms (caminatas); and a bath which he ‘adorned […] with marble and other pleasing works’.67 Unfortunately, no additional details are provided, but the intention seems to have been to make the pope’s daily life more comfortable. The same motivation presumably also applied to a new hospice (hospicium parvum) at Saint Peter’s, on the south flank of the church adjacent to the obelisk, ‘for the pontiff to rest in when after morning prayers or the offices of mass his limbs are liable to fatigue’, as well as spacious new houses on two country estates to the south of the city, seemingly situated on opposite sides of the Tiber river just inland from the coast.68 This seems to be the first record of papal residences outside the city, establishing a tradition that of course continues to the present day. Two other projects engaged a more ‘public’ audience. The first involved necessary repairs to the Sabbatina aqueduct, which, as we are informed, provided the water required to run the grain mills on the Janiculum hill as well as feeding the fountains in and around Saint Peter’s. This had been cut in the middle of the eighth century, during the Lombard siege of 756, and subsequently restored by Pope Hadrian I, but ‘was now for many years broken and disrupted’.69 Gregory once again returned the aqueduct to full use. The second project was a fortress adjacent to the port city of Ostia, intended as a pre-emptive response to ‘unaccustomed and alarming perils’. This is the first hint in the Liber pontificalis of the potential threat posed by the ‘ungodly, wicked and god-hated race of the Agareni [Hagarenes]’ (impia atque nefaria et Deo odibilis Aggarenorum gens), a 67 68

69

LP 103.15, 35, 36, 37; ed. Duchesne II: 76, 81. English translations from Davis 1995: 67. LP 103.35, 42, ed. Duchesne II: 81, 82; English translation from Davis 1995: 66. The locations are specified as in curte quae cognominatur Draconis and in curte alia, quae Galeria vocitatur. For the identifications of these sites, see LP, ed. Duchesne II: 85, n. 18; and Davis 1995: 69, nn. 93, 94. For the curtes, see also Scherer 2013: 61–2. LP 103.19, ed. Duchesne II: 77; English translation from Davis 1995: 58. For the earlier repairs under Hadrian I, see Osborne 2020: 211–12.

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term intended to describe Muslim raiders from North Africa and Sicily,70 and indeed the first suggestion since the Lombard siege of 774 that the city of Rome might be vulnerable to a physical attack. Readers of the vita are provided with considerable detail. Named Gregoriopolis (Greek for ‘the city of Gregory’) in the pope’s honour, the new ‘city’ (urbs) boasted high walls with crenellations, towers, a deep outer ditch and the latest machinery of war. It occupied the site of Ostia’s former extramural necropolis and incorporated the shrine church of St Aurea.71 However, as shall see in Chapter 6, when put to the test a few years later the population would simply abandon the new fortification and flee in terror.

Sergius II Following the death of Gregory IV, thought to have occurred early in 844 although the precise date is nowhere recorded, the papal election was once again contested, this time between the priest Sergius, the candidate of the Roman aristocracy, and a deacon named John, who gathered a crowd of ‘naïve and rustic folk’ and attempted to occupy the Lateran patriarchium by force, ‘smashing the doors with weapons of war and overstepping the tradition of law and order’.72 But Sergius prevailed and was quickly elected, and then consecrated in Saint Peter’s. However, this was contrary to the provisions of the 824 Constitutio Romana, and Lothar’s son, Louis II, now King of Italy, accompanied by arguably the senior Frankish cleric, Drogo, half-brother of Louis the Pious and now Bishop of Metz, marched on Rome from Pavia with the intention of reasserting Frankish prerogatives.73 In the process, some parts of the patrimonium, including the city of Bologna, were apparently ravaged by Frankish troops as the army passed through; and although Sergius was prepared to receive Louis in the extramural basilica of Saint Peter’s, he refused to allow the Franks entrance into the city itself. 70

71

72 73

Named after the Old Testament Hagar (Genesis 16), Sarah’s Egyptian slave with whom Abraham fathered a son, Ishmael. He was regarded in both Christian and Muslim traditions as the founder of the Ishmaelites (Arabs). For the terminology used in ninth-century sources, see also Kreutz 1991: 48–50; and Chapter 6, n. 2. LP 103.38–40, ed. Duchesne II: 81–2; English translation, Davis 1995: 67–9. For the growth of abusive papal language regarding the Muslims of North Africa, using in part a vocabulary first developed a century earlier to describe the Lombards, see Gantner 2012: 412. For Gregoriopolis, see also Marazzi 1994: 265–6; Pannuzzi 2009; and Scherer 2013: 58–61. LP 104.5, ed. Duchesne II: 87; English translations from Davis 1995: 76. Pseudo-Liutprand, De pontificum Romanorum vitis CIV, ed. Migne: 1244.

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Difficult negotiations ensued, but in the end an agreement was reached, despite the persistent attempts by Drogo and a coterie of northern Italian bishops to press their advantage. All of the latter are shamed in the Liber pontificalis by being called out individually by name, beginning with George, Archbishop of Ravenna. In the end, Sergius II was confirmed as pope; the Roman clergy and nobility swore an oath of loyalty to Emperor Lothar (although apparently refusing a second one to his son, Louis); and Louis was crowned as ‘King of the Lombards’. The Frankish army then returned to Pavia, much to the relief of ‘the senate and people of Rome with their wives and children’.74 The vita of Sergius II has survived in two recensions, which diverge significantly after recounting the circumstances of his election. An alternative and possibly earlier version is known from a single manuscript, the socalled Farnesianus (Duchesne’s MS E5), now lost but seen and transcribed by scholars in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.75 It presents an absolutely scathing picture of the pope, physically unable to walk due to gout, who allowed the administration of the city and its Church to fall into the clutches of his brother, Benedict, the Bishop of Albano, a man of ‘great obstinacy and madness’, ‘uncouth morals, lecherous and always chasing strumpets’, who presided over the sale of ecclesiastical offices (simony), seized property from both individuals and monasteries, bribed the emperor and coveted for himself ‘the primacy and lordship at Rome’. According to its author, ‘when the Lord saw the church […] undergoing shipwreck […] God decided that his church should not endure such a reproach [and] sent pagans to avenge what Christians had failed to amend’.76 It also describes the calamitous events of August 846 in considerable detail. The second and later recension, by contrast, spares its readers all the political discussion and any mention of the Saracen attack. Both versions enumerate the papal gifts and work undertaken in various churches, although the details vary slightly. At the Lateran, for example, Sergius constructed a new and enlarged ambitus around the altar, added a confessio space beneath, into which he deposited relics (perhaps the first relics placed in the basilica), and presented many gifts including two sets of twenty silk vela; and at the other end of the church he built and decorated 74

75 76

LP 104.7–18, ed. Duchesne II: 87–90; English translation from Davis 1995: 82. For a summary of events, see Llewellyn 1993: 260–1; Davis 1995: 70–2; and, especially, Gantner 2021a. For the very successful working relationship between Lothar and his son, Louis II, unusual in the Carolingian Age, see also Screen 2021. Vircillo Franklin 2021. The manuscript itself will be discussed in Chapter 9. LP 104.40–44, ed. Duchesne II: 97–9; English translations from Davis 1995: 92, 93.

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an arched entrance portico.77 The precise nature of the ambitus remains unknown. We are told only that the previous space was too narrow for those gathering there to hear the mass.78 At Santa Maria Maggiore (the epithet Maior is used here for the first time in the Liber pontificalis), the pope donated gilded silver panels with reliefs depicting the births of both Jesus and his mother Mary.79 But only the now-lost Farnesianus manuscript recorded the papal repairs to the Aqua Jovia aqueduct, which ‘had lain demolished for a period of years and was fully ruined’, as well as the devastating Tiber flood on 22 November 844, which engulfed the Campus Martius district and invaded the churches of San Lorenzo in Lucina, Santa Maria in Via Lata and San Marco.80 Sergius II’s one major building project, again documented in both versions of his Life, was the church of San Martino ai Monti, situated on the Oppian spur of the Esquiline hill in close proximity to Santa Prassede.81 Not surprisingly, Sergius had served as its priest prior to his election.82 We are told not only that he rebuilt the church, which ‘was now suffering fatigue from its great age so that collapse to its foundations was threatening its ruin’, but also that he ‘sought out, found and collected many bodies of saints lying in destroyed cemeteries, with that dutiful concern that they should not remain in neglect’ and brought them to this new building. Some twenty-six saints are cited by name, including no fewer than six popes, and mention is then made of ‘many others whose names are known to God alone’.83 Presumably these were bodies taken from graves in the catacombs which lacked identifying inscriptions. This was no small undertaking, and began with the construction of an enormous terrace necessary to provide a level platform on the sloping terrain, in the process at least partially burying the earlier Christian structures on the site. Whether any or all of the previous titulus remained in use, or even accessible, remains a subject of some debate.84 The basilica itself survives largely intact, described by Richard Krautheimer as ‘a perfect example’ of ninth-century architecture,85 particularly the apse wall and

77

78 80

81 83 84 85

LP 104.19, ed. Duchesne II: 91. For the entrance portico, see de Blaauw 1994: 170–1; and Barelli 2020b: 251–2. See detailed discussion in de Blaauw 1994: 174–5. 79 LP 104.20, ed. Duchesne II: 91. LP 104.21–22, ed. Duchesne II: 91–2; English translation from Davis 1995: 84. The precise identification of the Aqua Jovia is disputed; see Coates-Stephens 2003: 99–101. CBCR III: 87–124, esp. 108–13; and Accorsi 2002. 82 LP 104.5, ed. Duchesne II: 87. LP 104.27–9, 31–2, ed. Duchesne II: 92–4; English translations from Davis 1995: 87, 88, 89. For the most recent analysis, see Croci 2022. CBCR III: 124. See also Bauer 2000: 107–10.

Sergius II

the east side of the clerestory, although the interior aspect is now concealed beneath a seventeenth-century Baroque overlay. On a foundation of large tufa blocks, some 60–70 centimetres in height, and still clearly visible on the exterior, walls were constructed in undulating courses and employing recycled bricks, which serves to explain the wide variation in their size, shape and colour. As the walls rise, the width of the mortar beds increases, a phenomenon which Krautheimer suggested was due to the fact that brick was the more costly of the two materials. Typical of the age, the windows were framed by double voussoirs. Moving inside, the central nave terminated in an apse and was separated from the side aisles by twelve columns supporting an architrave. The columns, capitals and most bases date from Sergius II’s campaign, although of course redeploy earlier elements.86 The original relic chamber beneath the altar also survives, although the semi-annular crypt which no doubt led to it has now been replaced by a Baroque hall crypt. Numerous additional details are provided by the Liber pontificalis. The apse had three window embrasures (now reduced to two), and for these Sergius provided windows ‘adorned with glass and various colours’; and he also ‘decorated the presbyterium with carved marble’. Other gifts included ‘a fine silver canopy with four porphyry columns, weighing 810 lb.’, and a wide variety of gold and silver liturgical vessels and implements, lamps and crowns, as well as the usual assortments of silks.87 As elsewhere, fragments survive of various church furnishings, with decorations carved in shallow relief.88 We can easily imagine that the intention was to emulate the building projects of his immediate predecessors. In order to provide for services in his new basilica, Sergius additionally constructed an adjacent residence, where he installed a community of monks.89 Apparently, at least some of the work remained unfinished at his death, and the Liber pontificalis assigns the decoration of the interior to the time of his successor, Leo IV. This included mosaics and mural paintings, and 116 pounds of silver for the altar. A mosaic inscription on the apse wall, seen and recorded in the early sixteenth century, named both pontiffs.90 There had been very few attempts at substantial new church building in Rome between Honorius I’s Sant’Agnese fuori le mura in the first half of the seventh century and Paul I’s San Silvestro in Capite in the middle of the 86 87 88 89 90

Pensabene 2015: 447–52. LP 104.29, 33–8, ed. Duchesne II: 94–7; English translations from Davis 1995: 88. Barsanti, Flaminio and Guiglia 2015: 436–56, 468–74, cat. nos. 197–9, 206–8. LP 104.39, ed. Duchesne II: 97. LP 105.98, ed. Duchesne II: 131. For the inscription, CBCR III: 90–1.

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eighth, and both those undertakings were intimately linked to the cult of the saints. The physical presence of the remains of the early martyrs, most notably of course those of Peter and Paul, constituted the basis for the wider authority claimed by the Roman Church and attracted pilgrims from across the Christian world. Following a period of architectural experimentation in the pontificates of Hadrian I and Leo III, when there is evidence of possible external influences in the form of multiple apses and the inclusion of galleries, the first half of the ninth century witnessed a much greater standardization of the more traditional Roman basilica type, based on the models of Saint Peter’s and other earlier Roman churches, as well as their interior settings. The popes from Paschal I through to Sergius II – and, as we shall see, also including the next in the line of pontiffs, Leo IV – were consummate builders; and their projects not only look remarkably similar but were also constructed in much the same fashion, employing undulating courses of reused bricks on a foundation of recycled blocks of tufa. There can have been little if any break in the need for specialists in the building and decorating trades, which may help to explain the evident general continuity in practice. The provision for the housing and display of relics, whether in fully accessible crypts or smaller confessiones installed under altars, remains a constant common thread. Providing appropriate settings for the relics of the saints and facilitating their veneration was clearly a powerful motivation for the ninth-century pontiffs, who saw in such pious acts a way to ensure their own future passage into heaven. Their other main concern centred on contemporary theological debates, primarily the reintroduction of iconoclasm in Byzantium. The eye-catching mosaics were in and of themselves a defence of the role of images in Christian worship. The surviving physical evidence, supplemented by the extensive documentation preserved in the Liber pontificalis, leaves no doubt that the Roman pontiffs maintained access to considerable quantities of surplus wealth through to at least the sixth decade of the ninth century, permitting not only the more or less permanent employment of teams of builders, but also expenditure on very lavish interior decorations and furnishings, including vast quantities of gold and silver, as well as silk textiles. While the sources of the metalwork remain undetermined, there is no doubt that the luxurious fabrics were imported from Byzantium and the Muslim world. In the first half of the ninth century the Roman Church was clearly not short of rather spectacular material resources, as well as labour and technical expertise, and this makes the contrast to what follows in the second half of the century all the more dramatic.

6

The Gathering Storm: The Pontificate of Pope Leo IV (847–55)

From a papal perspective, the ninth century had started very well. Deemed to be answerable effectively only to God, and with the military might of the Carolingian emperors to protect them from the internal political rivalries and machinations of the Roman aristocracy to which many of the popes themselves belonged, Leo III and his immediate successors had embarked on an unprecedented spree of construction, decoration and lavish giftgiving. Times were good and resources apparently plentiful . . . but this situation would not endure. There were two flies in the proverbial ointment, and their conjunction would lead to the eventual collapse of what was seen in its time as a ‘golden age’, the aurea Roma lauded by Moduin of Autun and expressed visually in glittering golden mosaics.1 These were the gradual decline of Carolingian authority in Italy and the arrival of a new external threat: the ‘Arabs’ or ‘Saracens’ of the Maghreb.2 In the decade of the 830s any semblance of Carolingian political unity had fallen apart, as the sons of Louis the Pious conspired first against their father, and then, following his death, against each other, their civil war culminating in the Battle of Fontenoy in June 841. This internecine struggle exerted a traumatic effect on Carolingian society.3 While the hostilities all took place north of the Alps, and thus did not affect Rome directly, they did contribute significantly to the subsequent Frankish inability to react to political developments in Italy and to continue to provide effective security for the papal state. Writing at the beginning of the tenth century, the historian Regino of Prüm would lament that after Fontenoy the Carolingian empire was unable not only to expand but now also to defend itself.4 1 2

3

4

Moduin of Autun, Ecloga, ed. Dümmler: 385. The term ‘Arabs’ is now often applied generically to Muslims from North Africa, in preference to the terms ‘Saracens’, ‘Moors’ or ‘Hagarenes’ used in most ninth-century sources, but it should be noted that these raiders were for the most part unlikely to have been ethnically ‘Arab’, but rather mostly North Africans with their home in the Aghlabid Emirate of Ifrīqiya, centred on what is today Tunisia, with its capital at Kairouan; see discussion of terminology in Kreutz 1991: 48–9. The term ‘Berber’ for this group is also problematic: see Rouighi 2019. For the terminology employed by medieval Christian writers, see Berto 2020: 47–52. Costambeys, Innes and MacLean 2011: 379–88. For Emperor Lothar’s perspective on these events, as evidenced by his charters and other documents, see Screen 2003. Regino of Prüm, Chronicon, ed. Kurze: 75 (a. 841).

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Complicating matters further, papal authority within the city of Rome was increasingly under threat, as rival political factions within the papal administration continued to vie for hegemony. Marios Costambeys, for example, has viewed ‘the papacy’s decline over the course of the ninth century’ as ‘a process of erosion from within, as a lordship centred on the Lateran fragmented into the lordships of different aristocratic families’.5 But that view on its own may not accord sufficient agency to the larger political situation. It will be argued here that both internal and external factors played a significant role, and both will be assessed in the chapters that follow. Muslim merchants had been present in Rome from at least the late eighth century, but were apparently not seen as posing any particular threat.6 However, that view would soon change, and Maghrebi involvement in the political affairs of the Italian peninsula may be traced back to at least the second decade of the ninth century, when the Byzantine patricius of Sicily requested the assistance of the cities of Benevento, Amalfi and Gaeta in responding to attacks. Writing to Charlemagne on 26 August 812, Pope Leo III conveyed the news of raids on the islands of Lampedusa, Ischia and Ponza.7 The Annales regni Francorum entry for that year also reports intelligence reaching Aachen of a seaborne threat against Italy emanating from both Ifrīqiya (North Africa) and al-Andalus (Spain), prompting the emperor to send his grandson Bernard to marshal the defence. The following year (813), the Annals record not only that Count Irmingar had captured eight ships returning to Spain, ‘on which he found more than five hundred Corsican prisoners’, but also assaults by the Mauri on the cities of Nice and Civitavecchia, and the island of Sardinia.8 In the following decade there began a more concerted North African effort to capture the island of Sicily, beginning with the siege of Syracuse in 827, and this would continue until the fall of the last Byzantine garrison, at Taormina on the east coast, in 902. It was not long before the mainland of southern Italy also began to ‘slide within the orbit of Islam’, in the words of Barbara Kreutz, who offers a detailed account of this development.9 5 6

7 8 9

Costambeys 2000: 379. McCormick 2001: 622–5; and Gantner 2012: 405–6. But the principal Arab source for this, an account preserved in a later work of the geographer Yāqūt, lacks credibility in its details, given the reference to the city as having 660,000 baths and a church altar made of emerald; see De Simone and Mandalà 2002: 76. Leonis III papae epistolae, letter 6; ed. Hampe: 96–7. Annales regni Francorum, ed. Kurze: 136–7, 139; English translation: Scholz 1972: 96. Kreutz 1991: 18; see also Martin 2018. It is important to note that these conflicts, at least initially, were political rather than religious in motivation. It is only in the second half of the century that they become viewed in terms of an assault on Christianity: see Gantner 2012: 418–21; Herbers

The Gathering Storm

Complicating matters, various southern Italian polities found it expedient to hire North African mercenaries in their own struggles, for example the Neapolitans when attacked by Sicard, Prince of Benevento, in 835.10 Nor was the Adriatic coast exempt. In Apulia, the city of Brindisi was captured and plundered by raiders from Sicily in 838, with Bari following in 840 or 841, and the latter city was permanently occupied in 847, becoming the capital of a new emirate that survived until 871.11 Rome must have been a highly attractive target, and, as we have seen, in the early 840s the possibility of imminent assault ‘by the most wicked Saracens’ (a Sarracenis nefandissimis) had prompted Pope Gregory IV to construct a new fortification for the protection of the port at Ostia: Gregoriopolis.12 Despite the best papal intentions, however, in 846 its ramparts would prove to be woefully inadequate, requiring further efforts undertaken a few years later by Pope Nicholas I (858–67).13 Papal fears in this regard were certainly well founded. In the time of the next pontiff, Sergius II (844–7), towards the end of August 846, a major force from Muslim Palermo,14 reportedly comprising some 11,000 men on 73 ships, arrived at the mouth of the Tiber and quickly occupied Ostia, whose inhabitants fled in terror along with those of neighbouring Portus. Skirmishing ensued with the Roman militia, but while the Aurelian walls were successful in preventing entry into the city itself, the meagre papal forces were not able to prevent the capture and sack of the two major suburban basilicas on the south and west sides of the city: San Paolo fuori le mura and the great shrine church of Saint Peter’s itself. The text of the Liber pontificalis speaks of ‘unspeakable iniquities’ before breaking off in mid story.15 It was a profound blow, both physically and psychologically. In an earlier passage, known from a single manuscript of the Liber pontificalis, its compiler had attributed the catastrophe to God’s punishment of the Roman Church for the ‘shipwreck’ occasioned by

10 11 12 13 14

15

2018; and Whitten 2019. By the eleventh century both sides had come to regard the conflict in terms of a ‘holy war’ (Berto 2020: 34–43). Kreutz 1991: 20. Ibid., 25, 32, 37–40. For the Emirate of Bari, see also Musca 1978; and Di Branco 2018. LP 104.38, ed. Duchesne II: 81; English translation from Davis 1995: 68. LP 107.67, ed. Duchesne II: 164. For a summary of events, see Llewellyn 1993: 262–3. The geographic origin of this ‘great army’ (magnus exercitus) is recorded in John the Deacon’s history of the bishops of Naples (Gesta episcoporum Neapolitanorum, cap. 60; ed. Waitz: 432). Opinions differ whether this was a politically orchestrated Aghlabid invasion of central Italy or merely a very large raiding party; see Gantner 2012: 406. LP 104.44–7, ed. Duchesne II: 99–101; English translation in Davis 1995: 93–6. The subsequent arrival of imperial troops and eventual repulse of the invaders can be pieced together from other non-Roman sources, usefully summarized by Davis, ibid., 96–7, n. 92.

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its manifold sins, citing specifically the widespread practice of simony, in which even bishoprics were being sold to the highest bidder.16 The Frankish response was reasonably swift, coordinated with the new pope elected in April 847, Leo IV (847–55).17 Emperor Lothar despatched troops to Rome, under the command of his son, Louis II, King of Italy;18 the next attack on Rome by ‘those sons of Satan’ (ipse Satane filii) was repulsed at Ostia in 849, an event reported in considerable detail in the Liber pontificalis, stressing the papal role in organizing the defence and giving his personal blessing to the troops prior to battle.19 A peace was brokered among the southern Italian principalities under the terms of which all parties agreed not to employ Muslim mercenaries. On Easter Sunday in 850, Leo IV crowned Louis II as co-emperor with his father, and for the next quarter century Louis would devote most of his time and effort to this cause.20 From a strictly Roman perspective, he would be largely successful in keeping the enemy at bay.

The Leonine City and Leopolis The proven vulnerability of Rome’s two most important shrine churches, those housing the bodily remains of Sts Peter and Paul, both situated outside the protective walls of the Aurelian circuit, led almost immediately to what was arguably the most ambitious building project to be undertaken in Rome in the entirety of the Middle Ages: the extension of the walled urban perimeter across the Tiber to enclose the church of Saint Peter’s and its adjacent basilicas, monasteries, hostels and other structures (Fig. 6.1).21 This required some four years to complete, and was the only significant addition to the Aurelian walls in their entire history. Not surprisingly, the Liber pontificalis once again provides an exceptionally detailed account, including the full texts of the prayers offered by Leo IV on 27 June 852 at the formal dedication of each of the three gates.22 Two were on the north side: a major gate, the Porta Sancti Peregrini (more or less on the site of the 16 18

19 20

21

22

LP 104.43, ed. Duchesne II: 98–9. 17 For the papacy of Leo IV, see Herbers 1996. For the general collaboration between Lothar I and Louis II, and Louis’ assumption of responsibility for Italy, including his earlier visit to Rome in 844, see Screen 2021 and Gantner 2021a. LP 105.47–54, ed. Duchesne II: 117–19. For an overview of political events, see Kreutz 1991: 27–47; Schieffer 2018; Gantner 2018; and Gantner 2021b: 10–15. Reekmans 1970: 228–33; Krautheimer 1980: 117–20; Marazzi 1994: 252–62; Herbers 1996: 137–52; Dey 2021: 124–5; and Delogu 2022: 332–9. LP 105.68–73, ed. Duchesne II: 123–4.

Fig. 6.1 Map of the ‘Leonine City’ © Lacey Wallace.

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modern Porta Angelica entrance to the Vatican City), providing direct access to Saint Peter’s for those arriving from the north on the Via Cassia, and a smaller postern (posterula), named for the adjacent Castel Sant’Angelo.23 Another postern, opening on the south side, and known as the posterula Saxonum from the burgh of the Saxons in whose vicinity it was located, provided access to those going to or coming from the district of Trastevere. Although much of the project disappeared or was subsumed in the course of later alterations to the fortifications surrounding the Vatican, a detailed survey of the standing remains undertaken by Sheila Gibson and Bryan Ward-Perkins identified substantial sections of the ninth-century construction, primarily in two areas: the first in what are now the papal gardens behind Saint Peter’s, where the wall climbed the slope to the summit of the Vatican hill, and the second in the lower section of the passetto, the stretch linking the structures on the north side of Saint Peter’s to the Castel Sant’Angelo.24 The wall itself was some 7 to 8 metres in height, 2 to 3 metres thick, and roughly 3 kilometres in length, with towers set at intervals. Materials employed in its construction included a rubble core, faced with reused bricks, often in undulating and very uneven courses typical of this century; tufa blocks, of the type used in Roman church construction since the mid eighth century; and numerous miscellaneous bits of marble, all spolia, including some broken fragments of sarcophagi.25 A plan to fortify the church of Saint Peter’s and its surroundings had apparently been conceived at the beginning of the century by Pope Leo III, but little progress had been made, and the Liber pontificalis relates that following that pope’s death the vestiges of this tentative beginning were in fact removed.26 However, the events of 846 demonstrated the urgent need for such a project, and plans were immediately set in motion by order of the Carolingian emperor, Lothar, who in that same year commanded that ‘a very strong wall be constructed around Saint Peter’s church’.27 Leo IV’s biographer claims that the wall was entirely a papal initiative, while conceding that Lothar offered his approval and, perhaps most importantly, that he and his royal brothers provided the necessary funding: ‘many 23

24

25 26 27

This may be the earliest datable reference to the medieval name given to the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and still in use today: castellum [. . .] que vocitatur sancti Angeli. Gibson and Ward-Perkins 1979; Gibson and Ward-Perkins 1983 (map on p. 223); and Delogu 2022: 336–9. For the marble spolia and their possible ideological connotations, see Pergola 2002. LP 105.69, ed. Duchesne II: 123. Itaque decernimus [. . .] ut murus firmissimus circa aecclesia beati Petri construatur (Capitularia Hlotharii I, ed. Boretius and Krause: 65–8, no. 203, at 66 [cap. 7]; English translation from Davis 1995: 139–40, n. 105).

The Leonine City and Leopolis

pounds of silver’.28 But the criticism lingered that the emperor had not done enough to protect the city, and this belief made its way north of the Alps, where it was reported in the Annales Bertiniani entry for 853.29 Lothar’s name was certainly included with Leo’s in the metrical inscriptions placed above the three gates, all now lost although two of the texts are known from antiquarian copies.30 The verses set over the Porta Sancti Peregrini included a boastful line reminiscent of Moduin of Autun: ‘Rome, head of the world, splendour, hope, golden Rome’ (Roma, caput orbis, splendor, spes, aurea Roma).31 Two fragments of a third inscription, possibly the one placed over the posterula Saxonum, were discovered during the course of twentieth-century repairs to the passetto linking the Vatican palace to the Castel Sant’Angelo, where they had been reused in earlier modifications.32 In the mid fifteenth century, the humanist scholar and poet Maffeo Vegio, a canon of Saint Peter’s, also transcribed a prose inscription he had encountered adjacent to the Castel Sant’Angelo: ‘The Lord indeed worked this recent wonder in the time of the most saintly Pope Leo IV and the unconquered lord emperor, ever Augustus, Lothar.’33 An undertaking of this size and scope required the marshalling and coordination of a substantial quantity of labour, both skilled and unskilled, over a period of four years, and a glimpse of how this was managed is provided by our primary source. The Liber pontificalis reports that the pope arranged for ‘men [. . .] to turn up in shifts from the individual cities and all the estates, whether public or belonging to monasteries; and so it was done’.34 These ‘estates’ (massae) presumably included the domuscultae, the large agricultural collectives established by Popes Zacharias and Hadrian I in the eighth century in order to supply the Roman Church with produce;35 and this is confirmed by two additional inscriptions, both of which survive although they now are set into the arch spanning the Via 28

29 30

31

32 33

34 35

non modicas argenti libras (LP 105.69, ed. Duchesne II: 123; English translation from Davis 1995: 140). Annales Bertiniani, ed. Waitz: 43. De Rossi 1857–88 II: 324–6; LP, ed. Duchesne II: 138 n. 49; Carmina varia, ed. Dümmler, 664. For English translations, see Davis 1995: 141–2 n. 108. De Rossi 1857–88 II: 325, line 9. The phrase aurea Roma has various classical antecedents, for example Ovid, Ars amatoria 3.113. Prandi 1951. Hoc siquidem novum miraculum sanctissimi quarti Leonis papae temporibus et invictissimi domini Lotharii imperatoris semper Augusti Dominus fecit (Vegio, De rebus antiquis memorabilibus basilicae S. Petri Romae, II.3.65; trans. Smith and O’Connor 2019: 165; for the original Latin, see also LP, ed. Duchesne II: 138 n. 49). LP 105.70, ed. Duchesne II: 123; English translation from Davis 1995: 140. For the origins and function of the domuscultae, see Marazzi 1998: 235–61; Marazzi 2001–2; Davis 2007: 30–3; and De Francesco 2017: 44–9.

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di Porta Angelica at the entrance to the Piazza San Pietro, where they are all but impossible to read. One records the construction of a section of the curtain wall (pagina) and a tower by the militia from the domusculta of Capracorum, situated to the north of the city, while the second documents two towers and a stretch of wall built by that of the otherwise unrecorded estate of Saltisina.36 The latter also proudly displays the name by which this new addition to the city’s urban geography was known: CIVITAS LEONIANA. In addition to these gangs of workmen, labour was also required from the Muslim raiders who had been captured at Ostia in 849. Most of the prisoners had been summarily hanged, but the lives of some were spared precisely for this and similar purposes.37 Despite the best intentions and efforts of all involved, however, in terms of the quality of the construction the new wall appears to have been ‘appallingly badly built’, perhaps due at least in part to the necessary haste which drove the project to rapid completion.38 The ‘Leonine City’ was not Leo IV’s only project involving fortifications. Another lengthy passage in the Liber pontificalis documents the substantial repairs made to the existing Aurelian walls, including the replacement of fifteen towers which had fallen into a state of disrepair, and the renewal of many of the wooden gates, with all these activities apparently being supervised personally by the pope himself. Special attention was given to two towers on the south side of the city, immediately adjacent to the Tiber bank, where a chain could be stretched across the river to prevent enemy ships from entering.39 Even more substantial work was undertaken outside the city to the north-west, where the ancient port and castrum of Centumcelle (modern Civitavecchia) had been abandoned, and the population dispersed into the adjacent countryside, following the first North African attack on the Italian coast some forty years earlier. Leo IV determined to provide the displaced population with a new fortified site, and we are told that he surveyed various possibilities in person before selecting a location ‘at the twelfth mile’ to the north, a place now known as Cencelle (south-east of Tarquinia). Here a new ‘city’ (civitas) was constructed, consecrated on 15 August 854 and named Leopolis in the pope’s honour, with walls and gates; he also made numerous gifts to its two churches, San Pietro and San 36

37 39

For the texts of the inscriptions, LP, ed. Duchesne I: 518 n. 52, and II: 137 n. 47. See also Silvagni 1943, I: pl. XV.9–10. For Capracorum, see Osborne 2020: 213–17. LP 105.54, ed. Duchesne II: 119. 38 Gibson and Ward-Perkins 1983: 238. LP 105.38–40, ed. Duchesne II: 115. For the possible identification of some of the rebuilt towers, see Coates-Stephens 1995. See also Dey 2011: 64–7.

Santi Quattro Coronati and Santa Maria Nova

Leo.40 Long since abandoned, the Leopolis site has been excavated since 1994 in a series of campaigns undertaken by the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’,41 and archaeological evidence suggests that there had been some occupation of this hilltop from the Etruscan period onwards. Some of the sculptural finds appear to date from an earlier period, and thus were probably reused.42 Fragments also survive of what would have been a substantial dedication inscription, presumably placed originally above one of the gates, along with the papal monogram.43 Elsewhere in the hinterland north of Rome, repairs were made to the walls, and new gates installed, at both Orte and Amelia.44

Santi Quattro Coronati and Santa Maria Nova Papal building activities were not confined to fortifications, although the Liber pontificalis is much less informative concerning other architectural projects.45 Many seem to have been repairs required to restore various structures and internal spaces to functionality. At the Lateran palace, for example, Leo IV replaced the wooden ‘veranda’ (solarium) dating from the renovations of Leo III, added marble sedilia at the entrance, and returned the triclinium to use through gifts of ‘adornments and dining equipment’ (ornamenta sive alimenta) to replace those that had been lost.46 At Santa Maria in Trastevere he restored the apse, which ‘through its great age was on the point of collapse’; and at Saint Peter’s, repairs were made to the ‘porticoes on the left side [. . .] [which] had fallen through extreme age’, and new roof beams were ‘raised up with defiant craftsmanship’.47 Monasteries seem to have attracted special attention, perhaps because Leo himself had been raised in the monastery of St Martin attached to Saint Peter’s. This structure, ‘about to collapse through long old age’, was restored ‘with wondrous buildings of houses, and he adorned it to better honour than it was before’.48 At San Lorenzo fuori le mura, the monastery of Sts Stephen and Cassian, previously ‘reduced to abandonment’, was returned to service and a new community installed comprising ‘many 40

41 43 44 46 47 48

LP 105.99–105, ed. Duchesne II: 131–2. See also Marazzi 1994: 266–8; Herbers 1996: 152–6; Dey 2021: 125; and Delogu 2022: 343–7. Stasolla 2012; Gentili, Somma and Stasolla 2017; and Stasolla 2019. 42 Stasolla 2018. Silvagni 1943, I: pl. XV.5 a–c; and Gray 1948: 102 no. 81. LP 105.82, ed. Duchesne II: 127. 45 Surveyed by Herbers 1996: 162–8. LP 105.11, 16, ed. Duchesne II: 108, 109; English translations from Davis 1995: 115, 117. LP 105.60, 84, ed. Duchesne II: 120, 127; English translations from Davis 1995: 136, 148. LP 105.108, ed. Duchesne II: 133; English translation from Davis 1995: 156.

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monks of Greek race’; and his own family residence, inherited from his parents, was converted into a convent for nuns, dedicated to Sts Symmetrius and Caesarius.49 On the other hand, notices regarding the construction of new churches are conspicuous by their almost total absence. One is mentioned only in passing, in the context of a gift of luxury textiles: a Santa Maria, ‘newly constructed from the ground over the Schola Saxonum’.50 This is undoubtedly Santa Maria in Sassia, which by tradition had been founded in the year 727 by King Ine of Wessex during his Roman sojourn.51 Presumably the original structure had perished in the great fire which ravaged the vicus of the Saxons earlier in Leo’s reign,52 and the fact that he is not credited with its reconstruction may imply that this work was undertaken by the schola Saxonum itself rather than the pope. The most substantial church project to be mentioned is the basilica of the Santi Quattro Coronati (‘Four Crowned Saints’), located on the Caelian hill in close proximity to the Lateran.53 This was the titulus assigned to Leo upon his elevation to the priesthood,54 and it was from here that he had been dragged ‘by force and against his will’ by the Roman populace who wished to make him pope following Sergius II’s death.55 Not surprisingly, therefore, it features very prominently in the records of his largesse, beginning with a substantial donation of silver utensils and silk textiles in the immediate aftermath of his election.56 Santi Quattro Coronati had begun its architectural life as the apsed hall of a Roman domus, converted into a church probably in the fifth century, at which time it also gained an adjacent baptistery. But Leo IV would rebuild it from its foundations as an aisled basilica, and substantial portions of the ninth-century structure still survive, subsequently incorporated into an early twelfth-century remodelling undertaken by Pope Paschal II (1099– 1118). Deemed by Peter Partner to be ‘the last great church of the ninth century’,57 it was an enormous edifice, some 42 metres in length, with sixteen columns separating the nave from the aisles on each side; and the 49 50 51

52 53

54 55 56

LP 105.30, 58, ed. Duchesne II: 113, 120; English translations from Davis 1995: 123, 135. LP 105.86, ed. Duchesne II: 128; English translation from Davis 1995: 148. Coates-Stephens 1997: 190–1. It would later be replaced by the current church of Santo Spirito in Sassia. LP 105.20, ed. Duchesne II: 110–11. For the blending of the legend of four Pannonian stone sculptors with that of four similarly named Roman soldiers to create the ‘Four Crowned Saints’, see Maskarinec 2018: 118–21. LP 105.4, ed. Duchesne II: 106. LP 105.6, ed. Duchesne II: 107; English translation from Davis 1995: 113. LP 105.10, ed. Duchesne II: 108. 57 Partner 1972: 53.

Santi Quattro Coronati and Santa Maria Nova

twelfth-century version would be considerably reduced in size, blocking off the side aisles and utilizing only the western portion of the original nave. The church was entered through a portico opening onto an atrium, the whole constructed with large tufa blocks supporting brick walls, with the building materials once again apparently salvaged for reuse from other structures.58 Various bits of the ninth-century church still survive, including sections of a polychrome marble floor pavement in what was originally the north aisle,59 and various fragments of sculpture from liturgical furnishings, including panels which probably belonged to a screen defining the space reserved for the clergy.60 Intended as a shrine for the four titular saints, along with many others, it featured a semi-annular crypt for the veneration of relics,61 and the Liber pontificalis provides a lengthy list of those saints whose bodies, or portions thereof, were translated here at papal behest. Some forty-six individuals are identified by name, but the passage adds that there were ‘many others whose names are known to God’.62 In many respects the architectural model seems to have been Paschal I’s church of Santa Prassede, including the addition of protruding chapels at the mid-point of each side aisle. One of these, perhaps dedicated originally to St Barbara and now entered through the cloister, survives largely intact, along with a few fragments of its original sculptural and mural decorations.63 The most significant difference from earlier ecclesiastical structures was the presence of a substantial tower above the central opening in the entrance portico. Its precise purpose remains unknown, although we can surmise that it may well have been intended for the defence of the complex, situated at a site that enjoyed natural defences on its other three sides, and a similar entrance tower has been identified at one of the churches at Leopolis.64 58 59

60 61

62

63

64

Pensabene 2015: 464–84. CBCR IV: 1–34; Guidobaldi and Guiglia Guidobaldi 1983: 418–35; Barelli 2002; Barelli 2009: 15–17; and Guidobaldi 2019a. Melucco Vaccaro 1974: 187–204 (cat. nos. 154–70, pls. LV–LIX). The specific patterns on the fictive vela in the crypt may suggest that it belongs to an earlier architectural intervention (Barelli 2018), but their dating is far from certain. LP 105.41, ed. Duchesne II: 116; English translation from Davis 1995: 128. The names of the ‘four crowned saints’ have been the subject of considerable confusion; see Davis 1995: 127–8 n. 62. For their medieval passio, see Maskarinec 2017: 347–50. For the architecture and painting, see Thunø 1996. For the sculpture, see Guiglia Guidobaldi and Flaminio 2012. A chapel dedicated to Barbara is mentioned in the Liber pontificalis as having received various papal gifts (LP 105.42, ed. Duchesne II: 116), but its identification with the existing structure is modern, and not based on any archaeological evidence; see Barelli 2009: 64–6. Gentili, Somma and Stasolla 2017: 389.

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It is exceptionally odd, and not a little perplexing, that we know of at least one other very substantial building project undertaken by Leo IV that is nevertheless completely absent from his official papal biography: Santa Maria Nova, now better known as Santa Francesca Romana. In the vita of his successor, Benedict III (855–8), we are twice told of gifts of textiles made to a church described variously as ‘God’s holy mother’s basilica called Antiqua, which pope Leo had constructed close to the Via Sacra’ and ‘God’s holy mother’s basilica formerly called Antiqua but now located close to the Via Sacra’; and then more specific information is provided in the life of Nicholas I (858–67): ‘As for God’s mother the ever-virgin Mary’s church originally called Antiqua, but now called Nova, which lord pope Leo IV had constructed from its foundations but had not given it any pictorial adornment, this blessed prelate had it depicted in beautiful and varying colours, increasing its splendour, and with pure heart he decorated it with many species.’65 What should we make of this? The church of Santa Maria Antiqua is the single most important site for our knowledge of painting in early medieval Rome. Situated at the foot of the Palatine hill, in what was earlier almost certainly some sort of formal entrance vestibule for the imperial palace situated above, and connected to the latter by a wide ramp, it boasts numerous campaigns of mural painting, dating from the sixth century onwards, including the portraits with ‘square halo’ of at least four eighth-century popes: John VII (705–7), Zacharias (741–52), Paul I (757–67) and Hadrian I (772–95).66 Among other possible functions, it served as one of the diaconiae established to minister to the alimentary and sanitary needs of the urban population. The last level of painting in the apse has been plausibly assigned to the early ninth century, after which the trail goes cold.67 Clearly something happened, presumably rendering the interior of the church unfit for further use, although in the tenth and eleventh centuries new murals were added to its atrium, probably then known under a different dedication, to the hermit St Anthony.68 The entire site was buried over the course of the Middle Ages and early modern era, and with the exception of a brief moment of rediscovery in 1702 it was only fully revealed in the excavations initiated by the archaeologist Giacomo Boni in the year 1900. Santa Maria Nova, on the other hand, still remains a functioning church, standing a few hundred metres away in the vicinity of the Arch of Titus, 65

66 67

LP 106.22, 24, 107.37, ed. Duchesne II: 145, 158; English translations from Davis 1995: 178, 181, 221. Osborne 2020: 36–63 (John VII), 95–136 (Zacharias), 185–93 (Paul I), 194–7 (Hadrian I). Bordi 2021: 416 (phase X). 68 Osborne 1987: 200–15.

Santi Quattro Coronati and Santa Maria Nova

and sitting partially on the ancient Via Sacra and partially on the podium of the Temple of Venus and Rome. Its current appellation, Santa Francesca Romana, is post-medieval, named for a local saint, Francesca Buzzi (1384– 1440), canonized in 1608, whose relics repose in the crypt. Large parts of the original structure still survive; and despite an accumulation of subsequent additions and restorations, its dating to the mid ninth century is uncontested, confirmed by the materials and construction technique, which closely resemble those of the ‘Civitas Leoniana’.69 Also characteristic of the ninth century is the use of double brick voussoirs around the windows.70 Uncharacteristically, however, the ground plan and construction also present some odd features. For example, unlike in earlier churches of the ninth century, the side aisles are of uneven width, and their sum does not equal that of the central nave. Nor are the windows and columns aligned, leading Richard Krautheimer to speak of an element of ‘carelessness’, and implying a decline in standards which he saw as marking the end of an era.71 But we should be cautious in reading too much into these details, and other factors may have played a role, possibly including the speed of construction and the need to take account of earlier structures. It seems evident from the Liber pontificalis passages that Santa Maria Nova was built by Leo IV to replace the functions of Santa Maria Antiqua, presumably at a moment when the latter structure could no longer be used, and the current consensus attributes this development to damage caused by the strong earthquake that shook Rome in the early months of Leo’s pontificate, a tremor of sufficient strength to merit a rare comment in the Liber pontificalis: ‘In this blessed prelate’s time an earthquake occurred in Rome in the 10th indiction, so that everyone saw all the elements shaken.’72 This suggestion, first presented by Gordon Rushforth, is certainly plausible, but although commonly cited as an 69

70

71 72

CBCR I: 220–43. See also Davis 1995: 178, nn. 50, 51; Cecalupo 2019; and Barelli 2020a: 228, 229 n. 3. Krautheimer (CBCR I: 242) refers to this feature as a ‘hallmark’ of ninth-century construction in Rome. CBCR I: 243. LP 105.12, ed. Duchesne II: 108; English translation from Davis 1995: 115. The tenth indiction ran from 1 September 846 to 31 August 847. Sergius II died in January 847, and Leo IV was consecrated as his successor on 10 April, so the earthquake must have occurred in the spring or summer of that year. Recent excavations in the Piazza Venezia have revealed the remains of a number of buildings that suffered extensive earthquake damage in the mid ninth century, rendering them subsequently uninhabitable, see Serlorenzi 2010: 156.

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established fact it remains unsupported by any shred of actual evidence, as Henry Hurst has recently reminded us.73 Why this significant building project receives no mention in the Liber pontificalis is indeed a mystery, and one to which there is no obvious answer, although perhaps some explanation may be sought in its apparently unfinished state at the time of Leo’s death. We must lament the loss of its original apse mosaic, perhaps one of the last great works in this medium to have been undertaken in Rome in the ninth century. The existing mosaic belongs to the mid twelfth century, and there is little evidence to support James Snyder’s intriguing suggestion that its iconography copies the original.74

Gifts to Roman Churches Much of Leo’s Liber pontificalis biography is devoted to the enumeration of his lavish gifts to Roman churches, and as was the case with earlier papal vitae, his various activities are organized by indiction year.75 Financial resources were apparently still in plentiful supply, permitting the conspicuous ostentation of excess wealth. Most of this largesse followed the traditional pattern of textiles and metalwork (icons, altar panels, crosses, crowns, lamps, bowls, chalices, censers, etc.),76 often decorated with precious gems, although there are occasional glimpses of even more elaborate confections, for example the ‘silver lily with crystal melons and a buttercup’ (gilium de argento, habentem mela de cristallo et rannunculum) suspended from the pergola preceding the high altar in the church of the Santi Quattro Coronati.77 Even more exotic is what appears to be the first western European reference to the display of ostrich eggs (sturzicamelorum ova), two of which were presented to the church of San Pietro at Leopolis.78 Unsurprisingly, his first recorded gift was to Saint Peter’s, albeit a very modest one in comparison to what would follow: a silver crown weighing 73

74 75

76

77 78

Rushforth 1902: 8–9; and Hurst 2021: 167. For the suggestion that the earthquake was also responsible for the final abandonment and subsequent spoliation of the Forum of Trajan, see Meneghini 2021: 6, 155. Snyder 1974. For the twelfth-century mosaic, see Romano and Enckell Julliard 2006. See Herbers 1996: 25, 468–73. At one point the text makes reference to ‘the current 12th indiction’ (LP 105.47, ed. Duchesne II: 117; English translation from Davis 1995: 131), presumably implying that the list was updated annually. Summarized by Herbers 1996: 169–77, 474–88. Paolo Delogu’s analysis suggests a dramatic increase in the importation of silk textiles during Leo’s reign; see Delogu 1998: 124–6. LP 105.57, ed. Duchesne II: 120; English translation from Davis 1995: 135. LP 105.104, ed. Duchesne II: 132.

Gifts to Roman Churches

24 pounds, two bowls, seven vela (veils) and a curtain ‘of wondrous beauty representing peacocks carrying men on top, and a similar representation of eagles and wheels and birds with trees’;79 and this church continued to be the most prominent recipient in each subsequent year. This predilection was apparently a conscious decision, as stated by his Liber pontificalis biographer: ‘But although the pontiff with kind intention bestowed various ornaments with enormous desire, both before and subsequently, on the generality of churches, he was always concerned to present to St Peter something excellent and more beautiful.’80 The sheer scale of the gifts to the shrine of Peter is astounding. One consisted of no fewer than 135 vela, with a detailed account of where precisely in the basilica they were placed: ‘25 gold-interwoven veils, beautiful ones which hang in the area around the holy altar; 10 veils representing lions, which can be seen hanging in front of the vestibule of the sacred confessio; 46 other gold-interwoven veils which gleam between this venerable basilica’s columns to right and left; 33 gold-interwoven veils which hang in the arches for the decoration and adornment of the presbyterium; and 18 other gold-interwoven veils which this bountiful pope arranged to hang in various parts of this basilica; and 3 other veils which hang in front of the sacred basilica’s doors’.81 Leo IV’s vita is also remarkable for the detailed description of textile types, although some of the Latin technical vocabulary still occasions challenges in translation.82 If anything, the gifts of metalwork were even more lavish, and in almost every instance reference is made to the losses incurred during the 846 sack and the pope’s consequent desire to restore the shrines of Rome’s foremost saintly patrons to their former glory. An early entry in Leo IV’s biography reads: ‘After the slaughter and plunder which the savage race of the Agareni carried out in the holy apostles’ churches, this blessed pontiff every day stretched his mind to their restoration, that he might replace all that their ungodly hands had stolen, hoping to enjoy an eternal reward in recompense.’83 And many more would follow of a similar tenor. The other church that had been looted in 846, San Paolo fuori le mura, did receive one spectacular gift, a silver altar canopy supported by silver columns, weighing some 946 pounds,84 but the replacement of the silver 79 80 81 82 83 84

LP 105.9, ed. Duchesne II: 107; English translation from Davis 1995: 114. LP 105.96, ed. Duchesne II: 130; English translation from Davis 1995: 152. LP 105.13, ed. Duchesne II: 109; English translation from Davis 1995: 116. For a detailed analysis of the Latin terminology, see Delogu 1998. LP 105.13, ed. Duchesne II: 108; English translation from Davis 1995: 115–16. LP 105.96, ed. Duchesne II: 130. The late placement of this gift in the vita suggests that it came only towards the end of Leo’s reign, probably in 853. See also Camerlenghi 2018: 133–4.

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panels on the apostle’s tomb would have to await the pontificate of Benedict III.85 Leo IV’s activity was clearly focused most directly on Saint Peter’s. The list of donations is too lengthy to warrant a complete recitation here, but included an altar canopy on columns (1606 lb.), silver railings in front of the confessio (580 lb.), the latter specifically intended to replace those taken by the ‘Saracens’, and two silver crucifixes, the larger of which was gilded and inset with jewels (62.5 lb. and 77 lb.).86 There were also some hundreds of crosses, chalices and other objects, mostly items intended for liturgical use. Perhaps the most intriguing entries relate to gifts of metalwork and textiles, which included representations of contemporaneous figures, notably the pope and the emperor. One gift to Saint Peter’s, for example, comprised gold panels intended to decorate the high altar, totalling some 216 pounds in weight. These bore images, at least one narrative, depicting the ‘Resurrection’ (presumably the Anastasis), but for the most part iconic – the faces of Sts Peter, Paul and Andrew are specified – and also, lest anyone forget who was responsible for this spectacular donation, images ‘of the holy prelate Leo IV and of his spiritual son the Lord emperor Lothar, for their memorial and reward in time to come’.87 While these have not survived, we can perhaps get a sense of their appearance from the gold repoussé panels, depicting scenes from the lives of Christ and St Ambrose, which Archbishop Angilbert of Milan (824–59) presented to the church of Sant’Ambrogio in that city in order to decorate its high altar. Remarkably, these are not only extant but still remain in situ.88 The pope’s image also appeared on various textiles, including altar cloths presented to both Saint Peter’s and the attached monastery of San Martino, and two sets of four silk veils for the basilica’s high altar. In two instances we are told explicitly that Leo was shown presenting a model of his city, following the traditional iconography for donor images.89 Running a close second to Saint Peter’s as an exceptionally frequent recipient of Leo IV’s munificence was the church of the Santi Quattro Coronati, where he had earlier served as the titular priest, a circumstance of which we are reminded by his biographer in the account of his first gift: various silver liturgical objects, including a hand basin and an incense 85 86 87

88 89

LP 106.22, ed. Duchesne II: 145. LP 105.46, 61, 67, 89, ed. Duchesne II: 117, 121, 122, 128–9. LP 105.33–4, ed. Duchesne II: 113–14; English translation from Davis 1995: 124. See also Ladner 1941–84 I: 148–50; and Schäpers 2018: 506–9. For the most recent discussion and a full set of colour images, see Foletti 2018: 107–60. LP 105.21, 87, 95, ed. Duchesne II: 111, 128, 130. See also Ladner 1941–84 I: 150–2.

Gifts to Roman Churches

burner, and no fewer than eighty-seven vela.90 The latter are described in some detail, and included one ‘needlework veil with the effigy of a man sitting on a peacock’, a most unusual image, but one also encountered in the description of the curtain presented to Saint Peter’s. The particular significance of this iconography remains a mystery, and of course it is possible that Leo’s biographer misinterpreted whatever was depicted. One set of thirty-four white silk veils (vela sirica alba XXXIIII) was presumably intended to adorn the colonnades separating the nave from the side aisles of the church, where the sixteen columns created some seventeen intercolumniations. Many more gifts would follow, including a gilded silver ciborium for the altar, weighing some 313.5 pounds and inset with jewels; and there is also mention of a textile featuring the four titular saints along with the pontiff’s own image (habentem istoriam ipsorum sanctorum martyrum et effigiem ipsius magni praesulis).91 Clearly the financial situation permitted significant demonstrations of largesse, and we can surmise that Lothar, Louis II and other Frankish notables may have been making regular gifts to the Roman Church. But what was the source of so many high-value items? Unfortunately, the Liber pontificalis provides almost no information on this topic. The metal objects and images were presumably sourced locally, at least for the most part, and there is no reason to believe that there had been any substantial discontinuity in the ability of Roman craftsmen to work in gold and silver. Although there is very little archaeological evidence for the locations of production, there is certainly some suggestion that specialized metal workshops continued to flourish, perhaps in connection with monasteries, for example in Rome at the Crypta Balbi (San Lorenzo in Pallacinis), and south of the city at San Vincenzo al Volturno.92 Silk textiles, however, were another matter, and as noted previously there is no evidence for silk production in the city, either in the ninth century or indeed at any other moment in the early Middle Ages. Thus the silks must have been imported, and this in turn suggests some continuity in Mediterranean trade in luxury goods through to at least the middle of the century. An Arabic source from about the year 800 refers specifically to the existence of a textile market in the city.93 Images that may be described as 90 91 93

LP 105.10, ed. Duchesne II: 108; English translation from Davis 1995: 114–15. LP 105. 22 (textile), 42 (ciborium), ed. Duchesne II: 111, 116. 92 Augenti 2016: 239–43. McCormick 2001: 622–4. For the Mediterranean trade in silks, along with other exotic substances such as the ingredients for incense and medicines, see ibid., 708–28. He positions Italy as the primary conduit for the substantial importation of Eastern silks into the Frankish world. For incense and medicinal ingredients, see also Burridge 2020.

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‘local content’, including the pope and specifically Roman saints, would then have been added to the imported fabrics in some form of embroidery or needlework.94 The survival rate for the sumptuous products of the early Middle Ages is, unfortunately, infinitesimal. Textiles disintegrate over time, unless very carefully conserved, and the intrinsic value of metal objects resulted almost invariably in their being melted down for reuse in later ages. For example, the smaller of the silver crucifixes that Leo IV presented to Saint Peter’s remained in the church until 1550, when it was finally sacrificed to meet the financial needs of the impoverished canons.95 Some objects disappeared much more rapidly, however, and among Leo’s projects was a replacement for the gold cross adorned with jewels, carried prominently in the litany processions through the city, which Charlemagne had presented to the Lateran in the time of Leo III. One night during the pontificate of Pope Paschal I, it had been stolen ‘at the devil’s suggestion and instigation [of] evil men’.96 Of all the objects enumerated by the Liber pontificalis in Leo’s vita, only one is known to survive today, and, perhaps significantly, it can be demonstrated that this was a reused object and not one newly manufactured during his pontificate. As we have seen, following the reconstruction of the church of Santi Quattro Coronati the pope emulated the action of Pope Paschal I at Santa Prassede in translating a very large number of relics and placing them under the high altar; and while the individuals in question are listed at length, it is possibly significant to observe that, in contrast to most earlier records of this type, there is no claim that these were all brought directly from the suburban cemeteries.97 While this may perhaps be implied by the reference to bringing bodies previously unvenerated (inculta) inside the walls, it would seem that at least some relics were also brought from other churches. The list singles out six head relics, those of Sts Protus, Cecilia, Alexander, Sixtus, Sebastian and Praxed, and the provenance of at least one of these can be determined. A generation earlier, Gregory IV had brought the relics of Sebastian from the Via Appia to his newly constructed chapel in the south aisle of Saint Peter’s, dedicated to Pope Gregory I, whose tomb was moved inside the basilica to this spot.98 Sebastian’s head was placed in a covered silver bowl (20.5 centimetres in diameter), decorated with 94 95 96 97

See Osborne 1992: 319–20; Delogu 1998: 138–9; and Miller 2014b. LP, ed. Duchesne II: 138 n. 54. LP 105.17, ed. Duchesne II: 110; English translation from Davis 1995: 117. LP 105.41, ed. Duchesne II: 116. 98 LP 103.6, ed. Duchesne II: 74.

San Clemente

a pattern of acanthus leaves and palmettes, to the base of which the pope added a niello inscription: AD DECORE(M) CAPITIS BEATI SEBASTIANI GREG(ORIUS) IIII EPIS(COPUS) OP(US) F(ECIT) (‘For the decorum of the head of the blessed Sebastian, Bishop Gregory IV undertook [this] work’). This reliquary bowl apparently survived the 846 sack, and was then removed by Leo IV to the new location, where it remained until its rediscovery in the early seventeenth century. It is now in the collection of the Vatican Museums.99

San Clemente Leo IV’s actions to defend the city of Rome and to make good the losses of 846 were certainly assiduous. Modesty, however, seems not to have been among his numerous virtues. In addition to an apparent penchant for seeing his name immortalized in stone – witness the inscriptions gracing the walls of both the Leonine City and Leopolis – his biography in the Liber pontificalis contains numerous references to the inclusion of his name and portrait on his various gifts. Only one portrait of the pontiff is known to survive (Fig. 1.1),100 perhaps ironically, in a context to which he seems to have had no direct connection: the church of San Clemente – not the structure that stands today, constructed at the beginning of the twelfth century, but rather the Early Christian basilica that preceded it, whose existence was first revealed through archaeological excavations undertaken by the Dominican prior of San Clemente, Joseph Mullooly, in the years 1858–70.101 This constitutes a useful illustration of the limitation of relying solely on the text of the Liber pontificalis as a source for artistic activity, and especially for projects not undertaken by the reigning pontiff. The earlier church was somewhat wider than its later replacement, and thus when Mullooly began to dig outside the right wall of the present 99

100 101

Liebaert 1913; and Frazer 1982. I have followed the transcription of the inscription preferred by Frazer, although it should be noted that Liebaert (485) insisted that the last letter was a ‘T’, and thus read it as optulit not opus fecit. The bowl itself pre-dates Gregory IV, who simply adapted an existing precious object for use as a reliquary. Following the 1624 rediscovery, the relic was placed in a new altar in the left aisle; see Carbonara Pompei and Papi 2012. Ladner 1941–84 I: 146–7. For the Early Christian basilica or ‘lower church’, see CBCR I: 117–36; Barclay Lloyd 1989: 114–16; Guidobaldi 1992: 123–235; and Guidobaldi 2019c. For the archaeology, see Mullooly 1869; Mullooly 1873; Boyle 1977: 171–208; and Guidobaldi 1992: 19–35. The excavations at the site still continue!

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structure he broke into the space of the right aisle of the earlier basilica, situated beneath. Among his first discoveries was a niche with murals depicting the figure of Mary, shown wearing an imperial crown, holding her infant son in her lap, and flanked by two female saints. This image is now generally dated to the second half of the eighth century, when the iconography of Maria regina was particularly in vogue.102 The ‘lower church’, as it has come to be known, had been abandoned and filled in, in order to create a platform for the construction of the new twelfth-century structure, and until this moment of rediscovery its existence had remained unsuspected. Clearing the space posed various technical issues. Among other obstacles, it was necessary to construct a new vault in order to prevent the collapse of the standing church situated overhead, but in the course of the following decade this was accomplished, and in the process numerous other early medieval mural paintings were revealed. There were few archaeological finds, and it is presumed that anything portable had been salvaged and removed when the earlier church was abandoned, including its sixth-century marble enclosure for the clergy, bearing the monogram of Pope John II (533–5). As we have seen, this was redeployed in the new basilica, where it remains; but the pigments applied directly to the plaster surfaces of the walls were of course not removable, nor indeed of any intrinsic value, and thus were abandoned in place. The original church had received a broad range of mural decorations over the course of the early Middle Ages, although few of these can be very precisely dated, since none contain images of known historical figures – with two very significant exceptions, both from the middle years of the ninth century, the first of which will concern us here. In the original structure, the narthex of the basilica was separated from the nave by an open colonnade comprising four columns, two on each side of the central axial entrance, rather than a solid wall; but at one point in its history the space between the left corner pier and the first column was bricked in,103 and the nave face of this new wall was painted, along with the adjoining pier itself, creating an area of special veneration, presumably an ‘oratory’ or chapel. The addition of subsidiary altars, creating such spaces, has its origins in Late Antiquity, but received a considerable impetus from the eighth century onwards, when the relics of Rome’s saints began to be translated into the city from the suburban cemeteries. Saint Peter’s, for example, is known to have had some twelve secondary altars by the time of 102 103

Osborne 1981a; Osborne 2020: 198–200; and Lidova 2020: 146–7. This alteration can be dated to the ninth century, see Bertelli, Guiglia Guidobaldi and Spagnoletti 1976–77: 156–7; and Guidobaldi 1992: 205–6.

San Clemente

Leo IV.104 His vita contains numerous references to churches with multiple oratories, a number of which received gifts of a single altar cloth (vestis). For example, the church of Santa Maria at the extramural shrine of St Lawrence on the Via Tiburtina had at least three such chapels, dedicated to Sts Barbara, Nicholas and Eugenia respectively, each of which received a ‘gold-interwoven cloth’ (vestem de fundato).105 The murals brought to light by Mullooly’s team in November 1862 are today in exceptionally poor condition, especially on the pier faces, but enough remains that, when combined with descriptions and early photographs, we can easily piece together the original programme.106 The largest painting, and now the only one that remains substantially legible, occupies the entire width of the newly constructed wall and depicts Christ’s Ascension (Fig. 6.2).107 An important record of its lower section is provided by a photograph in the British School at Rome’s John Henry Parker collection (jhp-1268), probably taken c. 1869 (Fig. 6.3). Seated in an almondshaped vesicle, or mandorla, Jesus is borne upwards into heaven by four angels. Mary, depicted with arms outstretched in the position of prayer, and the twelve apostles stand beneath, the latter making gestures of surprise, fear and amazement. Only two, Peter and Paul, are individually identifiable from their standard portrait types.108 In addition, there are two much larger figures, unrelated to this Biblical narrative, shown standing at the painting’s extremities; and the tonsured figure on the left, dressed in the garments of a pope, sporting a ‘square halo’ indicating a portrait, surmounted by a small cross, and holding a jewelled codex, is identified by an inscription flanking his head, painted in white letters (Fig. 6.4). This reads SANCTISSIMUS DOM(INUS) LEO Q(UA)RT(US) P(A)P(A) ROMANUS, thus permitting a very secure dating to the years of Leo IV’s pontificate. Given the continuing discussion of the ‘double-line fold system’ for the rendition of drapery folds, 104

105 106

107 108

For the development of secondary altars and chapels, see Braun 1924, I: 368–78; de Blaauw 1994: 566–76; Bauer 1999: 398–417; and Bauer 2000:114–16. LP 105.27, ed. Duchesne II: 112; English translation from Davis 1995: 122. Osborne 1984: 24–106; and Guidobaldi 1992: 205–8. For a useful computer-generated reconstruction of the space in question, see Bordi 2006: 182. The watercoloured photographs published by Joseph Wilpert in 1916 remain a vital resource. Wilpert 1916: pl. 210. For the context of early medieval Ascension iconography, see Osborne 1984: 43–53. A parallel for the gesticulating apostles may be found in the decorations of the Carolingian monastic church of St John at Müstair, dating from the last quarter of the eighth century; see their most recent description by Kirsten Ataoguz (2013): 95–6. But this should not be regarded as a specifically ‘Carolingian’ phenomenon, given the detailed discussion of the various apostolic gestures included in a twenty-four-line epigram attributed to the seventh-century pope Honorius I (625–38): De apostolis in Christi ad coelos Ascensione obtupescentibus (PL 80: 483).

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Fig. 6.2 San Clemente: Ascension mural.

Fig. 6.3 San Clemente: Ascension mural (BSR, John Henry Parker collection 1268).

San Clemente

Fig. 6.4 San Clemente: Ascension mural, detail of Pope Leo IV.

the prominent use of this practice should be noted on the pope’s right thigh, above the knee. His counterpart on the right, a haloed saint shown holding a cross, is similarly identified by a painted inscription as S(AN)C(TUS)S VITUS. His precise identity remains undetermined.109 A third inscription, naming the donor of the mural, runs horizontally at the bottom, again written in white letters: QUOD HAEC PRAECUCNTIS SPLENDET PICTURA DECORE COMPONERE STUDUIT PRAESBYTER ECCE LEO (‘In order that this picture may outshine the others in beauty, behold the priest Leo worked to compose it’.) When rediscovered in 1862, parts of the inscription were almost illegible, and the last three letters of the word PICTURA along with the first letter of DECORE had been lost entirely, 109

Osborne 1984: 53–4.

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as documented in the Parker photograph. At some moment subsequently, these have been repainted. The letters themselves are simple capitals, with no unusual or distinguishing characteristics, and in this last example without employing any abbreviations. Analysis in the early 1980s revealed the presence in this mural of the pigment known as ‘Egyptian blue’ (calcium copper tetrasilicate), a synthetically manufactured colour with a long pedigree of use across the Mediterranean world, dating back to c. 3000 BCE.110 At the time, Egyptian blue was not known to have been used beyond Late Antiquity, so the discovery generated considerable interest. But in more recent years, with the increased testing of medieval pigments, we now have a better sense of its remarkable longevity. It has also been found, for example, in late eleventh-century murals in San Clemente, as well as in some early medieval manuscripts.111 The Liber pontificalis records some small gifts presented by Leo IV to San Clemente on three occasions: six silver bowls, together weighing 4 pounds; a gold crown to hang over the high altar, within which was a gold cross with glass jewels both inset and hanging as pendants; and a pair of silver aquamanilia, used for ritual handwashing.112 But he seems not to have been the patron of the murals. That honour belonged to a priest, somewhat confusingly also named Leo. There is no precedent for a pope referring to himself in a dedication inscription, however modestly, by the inferior ecclesiastical rank of presbyter, so clearly it is not the pontiff who is intended here, and his presence in the composition is presumably intended as a sign of deference to higher authority. But for our purposes it also serves to situate the mural chronologically, as it did in at least two eighth-century examples in Roman churches: the figure of Pope Constantine in the narthex of Santa Sabina, and that of Pope Zacharias in the Theodotus Chapel in Santa Maria Antiqua, where similarly the popes appear at the far left of the composition, despite the presence of inscriptions making it clear that neither was the patron.113 The priest Leo may perhaps be the LEO INDIGNUS PR(ES)B(YTER) recorded in a graffito scratched on the ochre border to the left of the pope.114 In addition to the Ascension wall, three sides of the adjacent L-shaped pier were also decorated in the same campaign, and these feature a series of additional episodes from the life of Christ, all painted on a smaller scale 110 111 112 114

Lazzarini 1982. Santopadre, Tamanti, Bianchetti and Sidoti 2011; and Panayotova 2020: 141–2. LP 105.66, 76, 97, ed. Duchesne II: 122, 125, 131. 113 Osborne 2020: 104–6. Osborne 1984: 30, 41–3. Puzzlingly, however, while three priests of this name subscribed to the Roman synod of 853, the priest of San Clemente in that year was named Sergius: see Sacrorum conciliorum, ed. Mansi XIV: 1021.

San Clemente

Fig. 6.5 San Clemente: Crucifixion and other scenes from the life of Christ (BSR, John Henry Parker collection 1269).

and now compromised by a significant loss of plaster. The pier face immediately adjacent featured a Crucifixion in its upper zone, now barely visible but recorded in descriptions made at the time of its discovery, and additionally in a photograph taken a few years later for the antiquarian scholar John Henry Parker (Fig. 6.5).115 Christ is depicted on the cross, flanked as usual by his mother and St John the Evangelist, with a rocky landscape rising up in the background on both sides. In contrast to the eighth-century Crucifixion in the Chapel of Theodotus in Santa Maria Antiqua, where Christ is dressed in the long sleeveless tunic known as a colobium, here he is clad only in a loincloth.116 A second scene, situated directly beneath, had already been lost when the lower church was excavated, apart from the depiction of a small building in its upper left corner. The subject matter must remain unidentified, although both the Raising of Lazarus and the Last Supper have been proposed.117 115

116

117

The British School at Rome, John Henry Parker collection (jhp-1269), dating c. 1869. See also Wilpert 1916: pl. 209.2. While both iconographic types can be documented through the mid ninth century, the colobium version would thereafter disappear; see Osborne 1984: 54–61. Osborne 1984: 61.

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The next face of the pier, at a right angle to the Ascension and Crucifixion, featured three additional narrative scenes, of varying size and all now in rather poor condition: from top to bottom, the visit of the Holy Women to Christ’s tomb on Easter Sunday, the Anastasis (Harrowing of Hell) and the Miracle at Cana.118 There is no obvious rationale for this selection, especially of the lowermost episode, which alone falls outside the scope of a potential ‘Passion’ cycle. But there can be no doubt regarding its identification, as described in detail by observers at the time of the excavation, and captured for posterity in the Parker photograph. The subject matter is also confirmed by the documented inclusion of a figure identified by inscription as the ARCHITRICLINUS, the ‘master of ceremonies’, the Greek term employed in the relevant New Testament passage (John 2:11).119 And finally, the face of the pier between the nave and the left aisle featured the figure of a standing saint apparently identified as St Prosper, although no inscription now remains visible. Opinion is divided on whether this was Prosper of Reggio Emilia or Prosper of Aquitaine.120 Apart from the fact that this is the only portrait of Pope Leo IV known to survive, as well as being the last image of any pope remaining from ninthcentury Rome, what makes this archaeological discovery of more than passing interest is that enough evidence remains to permit a reconstruction of at least part of the physical setting. The largest and most important mural was clearly the Ascension, for which a wall was intentionally constructed; built into this brick wall, and thus clearly intended from the outset, is a large block of marble with a carved oval cavity in its centre, located between the groups of gesticulating apostles (Fig. 6.6). There is no possibility that this was inserted somehow at a later date, since the plaster of the mural overlaps the stone on all sides. Thus it must have been envisaged from the outset. This block serves to displace the figure of Mary, normally depicted in Ascension scenes in that central position, upwards to a higher level, which in turn has given rise to speculation that the mural depicts her Assumption, and not Christ’s Ascension.121 Such a view is perhaps not unreasonable, given Leo IV’s known devotion to that particular Marian feast,122 and in light of the growing interest in her transitus as revealed in homilies composed by Ambrosius Autpertus and 118

119 121 122

Wilpert 1916: pl. 209.3. For the development of the iconography of this non-Biblical event, see Kartsonis 1986; and Labatt 2019: 35–97. Osborne 1984: 61–8. 120 Wilpert 1916: pl. 208.1; Osborne 1984: 69–70. Osborne 1984: 43–51. The Liber pontificalis notes his introduction to the Roman liturgy of the feast of the octave of the Assumption which ‘had never before been kept at Rome’; LP 105.26, ed. Duchesne II: 112; English translation from Davis 1995: 121.

San Clemente

Fig. 6.6 San Clemente: marble block with oval cavity.

others, which stressed that the ability of Christ’s mother to function as an intercessor for human souls depended directly on her physical presence in heaven. This was a hot topic for discussion in the ninth century123 and, although comparatively uncommon, images of the Assumption certainly existed in ninth-century Rome, for example the altar cloth habentem historiam Adsumptionis eiusdem Dei genetricis presented by Leo IV’s successor, Benedict III (855–8), to the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere.124 But such an identification for the San Clemente mural is demonstrably erroneous.125 It is the mandorla with Christ that is being borne upwards by the angels, and the adjacent scenes, which serve to provide a larger contextual framework, are all episodes from his life, not hers. Another Ascension mural, in Sant’Adriano (the medieval church inserted into the Curia Senatus building in the Forum), commissioned by an otherwise unknown Sergius peccator consol et tabellio, may perhaps also be assigned

123 124 125

Dell’Acqua 2020: 241–304; and Dell’Acqua and Cerno 2020. LP 106.24, ed. Duchesne II: 145. A compelling case for an ‘Ascension’ was presented by Croquison (1964: 590–2) and is now broadly accepted: see for example Matthiae and Andaloro 1987: 179, 283; and Bordi 2006: 178. After summarizing the arguments for both sides, Herbers (1996: 264–70) diplomatically declines to offer an opinion.

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to the pontificate of Pope Leo IV, given the new reading of the painted inscription naming the pontiff proposed by Giulia Bordi.126 Mary’s displacement is necessitated by the presence of the marble block and whatever its cavity originally contained. Clearly something was once there, given the bits of plaster that still remain in place, and there can be little doubt that this object was of special importance, given that the entire project may have been undertaken to facilitate its display.127 But what was it? The most obvious response is that the cavity was intended to house and display some sort of venerated object or relic, related to the event depicted, and there is much merit in the suggestion, to the best of my knowledge first proposed in print in 1876 by Raffaele Garrucci, that it was a stone from the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem, the place recorded in the Acts of the Apostles as the site of the Ascension (Acts 1:12).128 Tangible ‘souvenirs’ of this sort, acquired from important sites in the Holy Land, were popular in the early Middle Ages, and the papacy is known to have had a substantial collection of at least fifty-nine such objects, from some fourteen sites, formerly preserved in the altar of the Sancta Sanctorum chapel in the Lateran palace. In the early Middle Ages these loca sancta relics outnumbered those of the saints; for example, no fewer than nine stones were identified as having come from Golgotha, the site of Christ’s Crucifixion.129 But those pieces are comparatively small, and the carved oval cavity is substantial (some 55.5 centimetres high, 37 centimetres wide and 5 centimetres deep). The object in San Clemente, whatever it may have been, was presumably rather sizeable, and we can speculate that it was removed when the ‘lower’ church was abandoned and filled in c. 1100. Its identity and ultimate fate both remain unknown. Perhaps significantly, however, John the Deacon’s twelfth-century account of the relics housed at the Lateran specifically mentions an object from the site of the Ascension.130 Could this be our missing piece? Unfortunately, we are likely never to know. Elsewhere in early medieval Rome, this display of an object or relic finds an intriguing parallel in the church of San Saba, where once again an early medieval structure was excavated beneath the standing church, this time in the year 1900. In the centre of the apse there was a cavity that also must 126 127

128 130

Bordi 2011: 427–9. The suggestion made by a number of authors, including Joseph Wilpert (1916: 528), that the oval cavity was simply intended iconographically to represent Christ’s empty tomb, does not explain its prominent inclusion in the construction of the wall, nor the traces of paste in the cavity. Garrucci 1872–81, III (1876): 85, n. 1. 129 Luchterhandt 2017. Est ibi de loco ascensionis Christi in caelum (John the Deacon, Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae 4, ed. Valentini and Zucchetti: 337).

San Clemente

once have held an object of veneration, and in a lecture delivered at the Istituto Massimo on 23 May 1901 Hartmann Grisar proposed that this too might possibly have been a stone from the Mount of Olives.131 The San Saba apse, of which only the lowermost zone survives, appears to have incorporated some elements of Ascension iconography within a more traditional Roman formula representing theophany, and has been dated by Giulia Bordi not just to the mid ninth century, but very specifically to the pontificate of Leo IV.132 Stones reported to have come from the site of the Ascension can also be documented elsewhere in this era; for example, at the Carolingian monastic church of Saint Peter at Petersberg outside Fulda, a crypt altar dedicated in the 830s bore an inscription documenting the relics that it contained, including one from the ‘place of the Ascension’ (de loco Ascensionis).133 Finally, it should perhaps be noted that in the first half of the ninth century there was at least one known link between Rome and the Latin monastery situated on the Mount of Olives, whose monks wrote to Pope Leo III seeking theological advice on the filioque controversy.134 In 806–8 the abbot of this monastery, George, and another monk, Felix, travelled to the West as envoys from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Thomas; and in 826 another abbot, Dominic, would visit the court of Louis the Pious.135 The physical evidence also implies that, originally, an altar was placed against the wall beneath the centre of the Ascension mural, and thus on the axis of the object in the oval cavity. The mural descended to the floor on both sides, creating a dado zone comprising two rectangular panels, and each is decorated with a plant or bush featuring red and orange buds or flowers. The space between them, however, is empty, and here we see only the bare surface of the brick wall. There is no evidence that this central area ever received either plaster or painted decoration, presumably because it was occupied by something else; and the most plausible suggestion is a small altar,136 perhaps one similar in size and shape to that which partially survives in the left aisle of Santa Maria Antiqua.137 Such an hypothesis is also supported by the copious graffiti scratched on the borders of the 131 132 134 135 136

137

Grisar 1901: 598–9. For the broader context of relics set into walls: Dietl 1997. Bordi 2008: 114–25. 133 Vescovi 2019: 154. PL 129: 1257–62. See also Borgolte 1980; and McKitterick 2005: 955–6. Borgolte 1976: 86–92; McCormick 2011: 77–81; and Ritter 2020: 91. Perhaps a variation on the early medieval ‘Blockaltar’ type, or else the pedestal of a ‘Tischaltar’ (Braun 1924, I: 153–4, 223–7). Rushforth 1902: 36; and Bauer 1999: 411–12, 413 fig. 14. It should be noted, however, that this may not have been its original location, since the fictive drapery on the dado of the wall behind continues uninterrupted; or else its addition to this space post-dates the murals.

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Ascension mural, almost all of which name priests.138 This parallels the situation in the Theodotus chapel in Santa Maria Antiqua, where the base of the altar still survives in place and a number of priests scratched their names into the adjacent plaster of the end wall.139 A physical reconstruction of the ‘architecture’ of the oratory has been attempted rather ambitiously by William Tronzo, who envisaged protruding parapets on both sides of the altar, and a marble ‘half-ciborium’ supported by columns serving to frame the Ascension scene above. While the details may require some revision, the overall concept is surely correct.140 Leo IV is the last of a line of popes who were responsible for substantial building activity in Rome, and none of his ninth-century successors would construct a major new church along the lines of Santi Quattro Coronati or Santa Maria Nova. But this does not mean that the patronage of material culture simply disappeared. Rather, as at San Clemente, it began to shift beyond the person of the reigning pontiff, coupled with a reduction in scale appropriate to the level of patronage. This new direction, and some of the factors which contributed to it, will be explored in the following three chapters. 138

139 140

Osborne 1984: 30–1. The presence of graffiti was first signalled by Muloolly (1869: 195), but his listing is incomplete and contains a number of transcription errors. De Grüneisen 1911: pl. XII. Tronzo 1987: 477–89. Guidobaldi (1992: 207) endorses the principle of an inserted oratory, while disputing the specifics of the proposed reconstruction. See also Bauer 1999: 415.

7

Benedict III, Nicholas I and Hadrian II, and the Continuing ‘Greek’ Presence in Rome

Following the death of Leo IV in July 855, the election of the next pope was once again marred by political controversy. The completely one-sided version of the ensuing events, set out by the Liber pontificalis in remarkable detail, a veritable blow by blow account,1 suggests that there were at least two serious contenders: Anastasius, priest of San Marcello and nephew of Arsenius, the influential Bishop of Orte;2 and Benedict, priest of the titulus sancti Calisti (Santa Maria in Trastevere). Anastasius, whom we shall encounter on numerous occasions in the pages to follow, was not then in Rome. He had experienced a serious falling out with Leo IV, for reasons which remain largely unknown, and consequently had sought self-imposed exile in northern Italy, where he was protected by the emperor, Louis II, from repeated demands that he be returned to Rome to face disciplinary charges.3 In December 850 he was excommunicated for his disobedience, a sentence reaffirmed by a series of councils convened in Rome and Ravenna in 853. The last of these, held in Saint Peter’s in December of that year, is the first mention of Anastasius in the Liber pontificalis; and in a study focusing on material culture it is worth noting that, as we later learn, the pope commissioned a mural recording the event, set ‘above the sanctuary doors’.4 This is an exceptionally rare mention of the depiction in this fashion of a contemporaneous event, and the disagreement must have been substantial to have warranted such an unusual action. The source of the conflict between Anastasius and Leo IV is nowhere specified, and the stated justification for removing him from his office, and indeed from the priesthood itself, was his absence from his titular church, and hence from his priestly duties, for a period exceeding five years.5 But there must have been a more cogent reason for the deep rift, and there 1 2 3 4 5

LP 106.4–20, ed. Duchesne II: 140–4. See discussion in Davis 1995: 169, n. 9. For the career of Anastasius: Arnaldi 1961; and Cò 2019. Herbers 1996: 214–24; and Cò 2019: 1–17. super sanctuarii ianuas (LP 106.12, ed. Duchesne II: 142). As recorded in both the Liber pontificalis (105.92. ed. Duchesne II: 129) and the record of the Roman synod of 853 (Sacrorum conciliorum, ed. Mansi XIV: 1017).

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seems no reason to disagree with Raymond Davis’ contention that ‘in view of Louis [II’s] efforts to have Anastasius made pope in 855, there can be little doubt that Anastasius was already leader of an imperial party in Rome’.6 We know that there was also a ‘Byzantine’ party, for want of a better word, present in the city. When the magister militum Daniel charged the superista Gratian with conspiring to eject the Franks and return Rome to the resurgent Byzantine empire, Louis II took the accusation so seriously that he hastened to the city himself in order to investigate. Gratian was exonerated in the subsequent trial, but the gravity afforded to the charge indicates that the possibility was considered plausible; and it is perhaps telling that when the tables were turned, and Daniel was himself found guilty of malicious prosecution, Louis intervened to ensure that he received no punishment.7 A desire in some quarters to restore ties with Constantinople is certainly possible in the aftermath of the definitive end of iconoclasm and the so-called ‘Triumph of Orthodoxy’ in 843, and the consequent renewal of formal diplomatic communications between Rome and Constantinople. Tom Brown has written about what he terms the ‘resilient Byzantinism’ latent in Roman society, with a particular focus on the continuing cultural habits of the local aristocracy, most of whom had hellenophone roots, however distant.8 ‘Greek’ culture continued to be regarded as prestigious, a view for which there is also evidence in transalpine Francia, where knowledge of Greek was ‘an automatic passport to success’.9 Initially, the choice of the Roman clergy and populace fell on Benedict, who was duly elected as the new pontiff. But shortly thereafter Anastasius reached the city, accompanied by imperial forces. They first occupied Saint Peter’s, where Anastasius is reported to have destroyed the image of the 853 Council, and then moved on to the Lateran, where Benedict was arrested and imprisoned. But we are told that the cardinal bishops refused to give way, and, perhaps remarkably, the Frankish envoys eventually conceded to the will of the populace and accepted defeat.10 Anastasius was removed from the Lateran palace, and Benedict restored. The Liber pontificalis specifies that a number of the secular nobility who held offices in the papal administration had chosen to support Anastasius, 6 7

8 10

Davis 1995: 105. LP 105.110–12, ed. Duchesne II: 134. See also Brezzi 1947: 58; Herbers 1996: 224–7; and von Falkenhausen 2020: 50. 9 Brown 1988: 36–42; see also Delogu 2022: 349–50. Wickham 1998: 248. Llewellyn 1993: 270–71; Davis 1995: 176, n. 45; Cò 2019: 17–30; and Delogu 2022: 351–2.

Domestic Housing

and moreover had left Rome to join him and the imperial legates mustering to the north of the city at Orte, where Anastasius’ uncle was bishop. These included Mercurius, Gregory and Christopher, all identified with the title magister militum and thus presumably military commanders.11 The papal biographies frequently refer to this group of magnates collectively as the ‘Senate’, and that word appears in the lives of numerous ninth-century popes – for example those of Valentine, Gregory IV, Sergius II, Benedict III and later Stephen V – occasionally as part of the time-honoured senatus populusque construction, and frequently in the context of accounts of papal elections.12 But as Paolo Delogu points out, it must be understood that this was no longer a technical term, designating an actual institution, but simply a convenient shorthand to indicate the city’s political and social elite, on other occasions also referred to as the proceres or optimates.13 And unlike the clergy, membership in this group was hereditary.

Domestic Housing Social historians have long been interested in where and how the Roman aristocracy resided in the early Middle Ages, but until recent years such studies were dependent almost entirely on the analysis of the descriptions contained in notarial documents, mostly recording perpetual or at least long-term rights of usage (emphyteusis), for which we have some surviving evidence beginning in the tenth century. In the earlier Middle Ages, such documents, as well as those issued by the papal chancery, were written exclusively on papyrus, a material of exceptional fragility. As a result, they have simply not survived the effects of time and wear, although in some cases their texts are preserved because these were recopied for preservation at a later date. The shift of use in Rome from papyrus to parchment was initiated in the tenth century, but did not become normative until the eleventh.14 11 12

13 14

LP 106.9, ed. Duchesne II: 141. LP 102.7, 102.8, 103.4, 104.18, 106.4, 108.3, 112.3, 112.6; ed. Duchesne, II: 72, 73, 91, 140, 173, 191, 192. Delogu 2015: 210–12. McCormick 2001: 705–7; Carbonetti Vendittelli 2011a: 37, 41–6; and McKitterick 2020a: 176–8. A single property document on papyrus, from the very end of the sixth century, is today preserved in the Vatican Library (BAV, Pap. Lat. XVI and IX), but such originals were already in very poor condition by the twelfth century, hence the necessity to re-copy them in cartularies. The next surviving original document recording a private transaction, written on parchment, dates only from the year 947. For the apparent continuity in the nature and use of property documents from Late Antiquity through to the central Middle Ages, see Carbonetti Vendittelli 2011b.

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Property documents have been preserved in the archives of churches in those areas of the city known to have had substantial residential populations, for example San Silvestro in Capite, Santa Maria in Via Lata and Santa Maria in Campo Marzio.15 A detailed study of urban space and habitation based on this material, published by Étienne Hubert in 1990, suggested that a significant change took place in aristocratic housing beginning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, leading to the formation of greater clusters of habitations, usually belonging to one extended family and their retainers, and with an increasing focus on defence in the form of fortified towers. Prior to that, however, although the documentation is admittedly rather sparse, the housing of the upper social classes appears to have been more diffuse in its geographic spread, and also very different in its appearance, primarily taking the form of a two-storey dwelling (domus solarata) with direct access to a street and set within a walled enclosure (curtis) that might also contain a well, a vegetable garden and perhaps some fruit trees.16 The upper floor, containing the residential quarters, was reached by an external staircase. The lower floor would have been used for commercial purposes, storage or stalls for animals. Such houses were often identified in the documents simply as ‘compounds’ (curtes). The extent of properties was generally defined by the notaries in terms of what was located immediately beside them, and rarely were such houses adjacent to more than one other dwelling.17 This should probably not come as a surprise. Following the dramatic population decline of the sixth and seventh centuries, much of the land inside the perimeter of the Aurelian walls had been left unoccupied, and thus there was no need to live in close proximity to one’s neighbours. Additionally, the adjacent spaces could be, and were, devoted to agriculture. Among the very earliest surviving descriptions, and perhaps fortuitously pertaining to an exceptionally elaborate such property, is that of the house purchased by Emperor Louis II in 868 from a certain Peter, consul et dux, for 800 pounds of silver. This also came with two additional components: a bath structure and a private chapel dedicated to St Blaise.18 15

16

17 18

For a useful introduction to the relevant sources, see Hubert 1990: 9–16; and Wickham 2015: 7–11. Hubert 1990: 169–84; and Hubert 2006: 175. See also Delogu 2022: 366–70. For some interesting reflections on what conclusions, if any, might be drawn about the nature of early medieval Roman society from the apparent non-defensive nature of ninth- and tenth-century housing, see Manacorda 2006. For the development of urban gardening in Rome, in areas like the Forum of Caesar, see Goodson 2021: 85–97, 108–9. Hubert 1990: 142. pro solario abitationis mee cum area in qua extat cum curte et sala seu capella est edificata in honore Sancti Blassi cum balneo et viridario. The record is preserved in the twelfth-century cartulary of the monastery of San Clemente in Casauria, a foundation of Louis II: Liber

Domestic Housing

Before the last decade of the twentieth century there was little archaeological confirmation of this model, apart from the occasional discovery of medieval wells.19 This changed dramatically with the discovery in 1995–6 of the remains of two domus solaratae in the very centre of Rome, more or less facing one another across a street that traversed the Forum of Nerva. Both are believed to date from approximately the middle of the ninth century.20 The first and betterpreserved structure, which employed the standing wall of the Forum for its own rear wall, occupied a space of 19 × 10.3 metres and was preserved to a maximum height of 2.6 metres (Fig. 7.1). It was constructed of opus quadratum, large blocks of volcanic peperino presumably robbed from the perimeter wall of the Forum, along with other reused materials.21 An exterior wooden staircase, long since lost, provided access to the upper floor. Entry to the street was through a portico with four arches, and the enclosure also included a well. The second house, brought to light only partially, was not quite as large (17 × 9 metres), but seems to have been better constructed, using smaller blocks now held together with mortar, although it lacked the arcaded portico. A small portion survived of the upper floor, revealing that it was built of reused brick, with marble employed for the exterior staircase of which the first two steps remained in place. In the light of this evidence, Riccardo Santangeli Valenzani has plausibly suggested that the remains of a medieval structure excavated in the Largo Argentina in the late 1920s, and demolished almost immediately afterwards without being documented, probably belonged to an even larger curtis of this type, incorporating within its perimeter the church later known as San Nicola de’ Calcarario.22 These

19

20

21

22

instrumentorum seu chronicorum monasterii casauriensis seu chronicon casauriense (Paris, BnF MS lat. 5411, fols. 74v–75r [5 April 868]); see Hubert 1990: 183, n. 53, and Goodson 2019: 426–31. It should be noted that the two-storeyed domus solarata was by no means unique to Rome; see Wickham 2005: 648–9. For example, the well discovered in 1879 adjacent to the Basilica of Maxentius; Hubert 1990: 161–2. Hendrik Dey (2021: 89) ascribes the lack of archaeological evidence in the period before the ninth century to the simple fact that very few new structures were needed in an urban setting that remained ‘chock full of hundreds of hectares’ worth of still-serviceable ancient buildings’. He may well be correct. For both the finds and the larger context of early medieval housing in Rome, see Coates-Stephens 1996; Santangeli Valenzani 1997; Santangeli Valenzani 2000; Santangeli Valenzani 2004a; Santangeli Valenzani 2004b; Augenti 2006: 73–6; Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani 2007: 130–7 (and fig. 137 for a reconstruction); Santangeli Valenzani 2008; Santangeli Valenzani 2011: 75–89; Dey 2021: 131–3; and Delogu 2022: 366–70. For the gradual spoliation of the various imperial fora in the early Middle Ages, the systematic dismantling of earlier structures, and the redeployment of robbed materials, see Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani 2007: 123–4; Meneghini 2015: 145–8; and Santangeli Valenzani 2015. The seventeenth-century version of this church, then known as San Nicola dei Cesarini, was demolished to facilitate the excavation of the Largo Argentina in the years 1926–9.

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Fig. 7.1 House in the Forum of Nerva.

buildings also attest to an apparent privatization of what would formerly have been considered ‘public’ space. And what of non-aristocratic Romans? Hubert’s analysis of the property documents also identified a more modest type of single-storey house, known as a domus terrinea,23 and once again this has been confirmed by recent archaeology. In the early Middle Ages the paving of the Forum of Caesar was removed, and the area given over to agriculture, with the palaeobotanical evidence suggesting both a vegetable garden and fruit trees, figs predominating; but the tenth century witnessed the addition of at least five small rectangular dwellings, the largest of which measured 10 × 4 metres and was divided internally into two rooms.24 It seems likely that this type of unpretentious structure, built primarily of clay although again incorporating reused materials, was once widespread across the city; but it was significantly more perishable, and hence is now much more difficult to identify.

23 24

Hubert 1990: 172–4. Santangeli Valenzani 2001: 273–80; Santangeli Valenzani 2004a: 54–5; Santangeli Valenzani 2004b: 45–7; Augenti 2006: 76–7; Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani 2007: 146–9; and Santangeli Valenzani 2011: 58–60.

Evidence for Material Culture in Other Media

Recent archaeology also suggests some fundamental changes to the functioning of the urban spaces in or about the middle of the ninth century, as the spoliation of walls and pavements for new building projects perhaps resulted in a shift from ‘public’ to ‘private’ ownership. The Forum of Caesar and Vespasian’s Forum of Peace, for example, were now given over to agriculture; buildings damaged by earthquakes were apparently not repaired, resulting in a rise in ground level; and the centuries-old street pattern would gradually be at least partially replaced by a new one, corresponding to the surviving areas of habitation and new needs.25

Evidence for Material Culture in Other Media Other archaeological evidence for the physical accompaniments to daily life has been exceptionally difficult to discover and identify, no doubt due in part to the inherent fragility of items such as clothing and furniture made of fabric, leather or wood.26 Objects in more durable materials, including pottery, glass and bone, suggest a significant level of continuity from the previous century. For example, the type of glazed ceramic (ceramica a vetrina pesante, also known as ‘Forum ware’) first introduced in the mid eighth century, probably from Byzantium, remained in general use through the ninth, when it became more widely diffused.27 But this is generally true of most parts of Italy, and was by no means unique to the city of Rome.28 Even papally sponsored architecture, so abundant in the first half of the century, seems to decline precipitously thereafter, at least in terms of both Liber pontificalis entries and surviving remains. Following the ambitious construction by Leo IV of Santa Maria Nova to replace Santa Maria Antiqua, there is no evidence for any substantial papal architectural projects in the later years of the century. The great age of the construction of imposing new churches, principally as urban shrines for the saints, and of their sumptuous decoration with glittering mosaics, was clearly coming to an end. There is no obvious explanation of this phenomenon, although by the 860s there can have been few ‘saintly bodies’ of any significance remaining in unprotected catacombs, thus eliminating the need for substantial additional translations of relics. 25 26

27

28

Santangeli Valenzani 2019; and Meneghini 2021: 155. For the scant archaeological evidence for production in wood in early medieval Italy, see Augenti 2016: 249–55. For a survey of finds in all these materials, see Augenti 2006: 83–94. For the persistence of ‘Forum ware’, see also Rascaglia and Russo 2015: 286–92. Arthur 2020: 17.

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Smaller and less ambitious papal projects did continue for at least another decade; but those recorded as having been undertaken by Benedict III, for example, are limited to repairs to roofs,29 and the rebuilding of the apse of Santa Maria in Trastevere where a new mosaic was provided, along with windows of coloured glass.30 At Santa Maria in Cosmedin his successor, Nicholas I (858–67), constructed a papal hospitium, a secretarium, a triclinium and a chapel dedicated to his name saint. In addition, he was responsible for additions to the Lateran patriarchate including a ‘very beautiful hall’ (domam pulcherrimam) with a chapel dedicated to Mary; for restorations to cemeteries with martyr shrines on the Via Portuensis and Via Appia, including that of St Sebastian in Catacumba where he installed a monastery; for repairs to two aqueducts, including the one serving Saint Peter’s; and for improving the fortifications of Gregoriopolis at Ostia.31 But the construction of large new basilicas had apparently run its course; and it may also be significant that Nicholas I was a deacon, not a priest, at the time of his election,32 and thus had no titular church on which to bestow special attention. Both Benedict III and Nicholas I continued the papal tradition of bestowing on various churches gifts of liturgical implements, lamps and other objects made of precious metals and decorated with jewels, as well as silk textiles, although the reports of such gifts also decline dramatically, and are increasingly confined to the major basilicas. Some are specifically identified as replacements for items lost in the Arab sack of 846, including the silver sheathing of the tomb of St Paul and a silver chandelier in Saint Peter’s.33 One very curious item is the ‘net of beautiful splendour, of wondrous workmanship, all with jewels and albaverae and gold pommels, and containing enclosed enamelled pieces of gold, that is 21 large ones and the same number of small ones, and also 11 gold almonds and 10 hanging gold-studded jewels’ which Benedict III commissioned to hang over the altar of San Paolo fuori le mura.34 This ‘net’ (rete) was 29

30

31

32 33 34

Primarily of Saint Peter’s, where the nave required the insertion of seven new beams, ‘raised up with defiant ingenuity’ (procacique artificio elevatus; trans. Davis 1995: 176), but also Santa Maria in Trastevere, the baptistery at Santa Maria Maggiore, Santi Pietro e Marcellino and the suburban church at the cemetery of St Mark foris porta Appia. See LP 106:21, 106.29, 106.30, ed. Duchesne II: 144, 146, 147. LP 106.30, ed. Duchesne II: 147. Curiously, much the same claim concerning the apse had been made earlier for Leo IV (see LP 105.60, ed. Duchesne II: 120). LP 107.16 (Aqua Iovia and hospice at Santa Maria in Cosmedin), 107.52 (secretarium, triclinium and oratory at Santa Maria in Cosmedin), 107.53 (suburban shrines), 107.66 (aqueduct at Saint Peter’s), 107.67 (Gregoriopolis), 107.81 (Lateran patriarchate); ed. Duchesne II: 154, 161, 164, 166. LP 107.4, ed. Duchesne II: 151. LP 106.22 (San Paolo), and 106.35 (Saint Peter’s); ed. Duchesne II, 145, 148. LP 106.31, ed. Duchesne II, 147; English translation from Davis 1995: 185.

Evidence for Material Culture in Other Media

apparently some sort of lattice structure, intended to provide lighting. The vita of Leo IV had described a similar if less opulent construction donated by the pope to Saint Peter’s, specified as being made of bronze and containing some seventeen silver lamps.35 The addition of jewels and objects made of gold was no doubt intended to create a visual display by means of multicoloured reflections. None of these objects survive, and once again it would have been useful to know whether they were manufactured locally or imported. Presumably at least some were produced in Rome itself at papal command, but the Liber pontificalis also records a number of items received by these two popes as gifts. Donors included an unspecified Saxon king (rex Saxorum), quite possibly Æthelwulf, King of Wessex (r. 839–58), who made a year-long pilgrimage in Rome in 855–6;36 Emperor Louis II (twice); his uncle, Charles the Bald; and ‘some of the race of the English’ (quidam de Anglorum gente) who offered a silver panel (tabulam argenteam) that was placed in the Chapel of St Gregory in the Lateran patriarchate.37 There are two references to a ‘Saxon bowl of fine silver’ (gabatham saxiscam de argento purissimo),38 probably indicating objects manufactured north of the Alps, although an earlier passage in the vita of Leo IV implies that this refers to a style of chased decoration, applied to the exterior surface, rather than necessarily a place of origin: ‘6 fine silver bowls, [. . .] and one chased, or Saxon’.39 Richard Gem has presented a persuasive argument that the term is meant to describe the incised ornament.40 That said, if a style was identified with a particular ethnic group or geographic location, it was no doubt because it originated there. Some of the gifts to the papacy were passed on to Roman churches, for example a gold crown, inset with jewels and weighing 8 pounds and 4 ounces, given by an unspecified donor to Nicholas I, who in turn presented it to Saint Peter’s, where it was suspended 35 36

37

38

39

40

rete aeneum cum canistris agenteis XVII (LP 105.13, ed. Duchesne II: 108). Davis 1995: 186, n. 84. For the larger context of pilgrimage to Rome by English, Irish and Welsh monarchs, see most recently Thomas 2020. This practice goes back to the late seventh century, when Cædwalla of Wessex abdicated and undertook a journey to Rome. Following his baptism by Pope Sergius I in April 689, he died and was buried in Saint Peter’s. LP 106.34, 107.9, 107.43, 107.52, 107.54, ed. Duchesne II: 148, 152, 159, 161, 161–2; English translation from Davis 1995: 232. LP 106.24 and 107.11, ed. Duchesne II: 145, 153. Gabata were employed as lamps; see Davis 1995: 309. gabatas de argento purissimo numero VI, [. . .] et unam interrasilem, quae est saxisca (LP 105.66, ed. Duchesne II: 122; English translation from Davis 1995: 138). At the end of the previous century, Pope Leo III had donated Saxon bowls decorated with gilded griffins to the church of Santa Susanna: gabathas argenteas saxisca, habentem grifos deauratos (LP 98.9, ed. Duchesne II: 3). Gem 2013.

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by a chain over the main altar.41 But normal practice seems to have been to sell gifts received for cash, a custom singled out for termination by the next pope, Hadrian II (867–72), who deemed it unseemly.42 No construction projects or gifts are mentioned in the vita of Hadrian II, although a reference is made to his decoration of Nicholas I’s Lateran palace basilica with pictures.43 Instead, the focus shifts entirely to political matters, but the account breaks off rather abruptly and is clearly incomplete.44 That said, however, there are no known architectural or archaeological remains that can assist us to fill in this gap, and the same may also be said of work on the Aurelian circuit. As Hendrik Dey has observed, there is no record of any repairs being undertaken to the city’s walls between the time of Leo IV and the mid twelfth century, something he attributes very plausibly to the growing power of the urban nobility, the consequent decline of central authority and hence the growing papal inability to command the necessary materials and human resources.45 This is not to say that there were no new ecclesiastical foundations in the second half of the century, but these were not papal projects, and all seem to have been not only modest in size but also to have made at least partial use of existing structures, just as Santa Maria Nova had utilized the podium of the Temple of Venus and Rome and its standing apse. Examples of this group include Santa Maria Domine Rose, installed into the remnants of the Crypta Balbi,46 and, as we shall see in Chapter 8, Santa Maria de Secundicerio, which made use of the well-preserved structure of the Temple of Portunus. In either the late ninth or the tenth century the small monastery of San Basilio in Scala Mortuorum would be constructed on the podium of the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus,47 and this pattern would in fact continue through to the revival of large-scale ecclesiastical architecture about the year 1100. What conclusions, if any, may be drawn from this? Quite possibly none at all. On the one hand, a perusal of the Liber pontificalis might suggest that the resources required for lavish building projects were in increasingly short supply, since mentions of large new churches simply disappear 41 43 44

45 46

47

LP 107.14, ed. Duchesne II: 153. 42 LP 108.11, ed. Duchesne II: 175. LP 108.14, ed. Duchesne II: 176. Reasons for the discontinuation c. 870 are explored by Bougard 2009: 131–4. See also Herbers 2009: 114–19. Dey 2011: 274–5. Rebuilt in the sixteenth century and now known as Santa Caterina dei Funari; see Coates-Stephens 1997: 208–9. Coates-Stephens 1997: 217–18; Meneghini and Santangeli Valenzani 2007: 139–42; and Schuddeboom 2017: 174–5. For a reconstruction, see Meneghini 2015, fig. 8.

The Photian Schism and the Bulgarian Question

from that text, as well as from the corpus of surviving or excavated buildings; but this must be balanced by the observation that Rome must already have possessed more than enough churches to meet the needs of its much reduced population, so there was no practical reason for the construction of new basilicas or diaconiae, and especially of large ones, other than to provide greater protection for the relics of the city’s saints, while at the same time ensuring a path to heaven for the papal donor. The Roman stational liturgy was by now well established, and had no requirement for additional stopping places. And thus it is perfectly logical that subsequent new foundations, intended either to serve small monastic communities, for example the group of monks from Farfa who sought refuge in Rome in 898,48 or as pious acts to aid and abet the salvation of specific (and increasingly lay) donors, would be of a modest size appropriate to their function, and that they would make use of the remnants of existing structures wherever feasible, just as had been the case for domestic architecture.49 If nothing else, it was simply a case of practicality in the use of resources.

The Photian Schism and the Bulgarian Question Although Nicholas I is perhaps remembered primarily for his engagement in Carolingian political debates, ecclesiastical appointments and royal divorce requests,50 much of his attention was also devoted to the eastern Mediterranean. Despite the formal political rupture in the second half of the eighth century, relations between ‘Old Rome’ and ‘New Rome’ (Constantinople) had never been cut entirely, and the return to theological ‘orthodoxy’ in Byzantium in 843 opened the door to the restoration of more formal diplomatic contacts, including official visits by delegations who often facilitated artistic interchange through the exchange of gifts.51 Paolo Delogu has also usefully reminded us that although Rome had broken politically with Constantinople in the mid eighth century, the sentiment was not necessarily mutual. The emperors of Byzantium 48

49

50 51

For their church of Santa Maria cella Farfae, built into the ruins of a bath complex on the site of the present-day San Luigi dei Francesi, see Coates-Stephens 1997: 212. See the cogent albeit brief discussion by Coates-Stephens (1997: 215–16), who also suggests that ancient structures may additionally have embodied some element of prestige. Noble 2016. For diplomatic missions in the years 843–882, see Lounghis 1980: 187–95. For a comprehensive overview of Mediterranean travellers in the early Middle Ages, see McCormick 2001: 123–277. For the transmission of cultural ideas, see Brubaker 2004.

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‘persisted in regarding the Roman church as an essential member of the imperial church [. . .] and still considered the popes as high ecclesiastical functionaries of the empire’.52 The Liber pontificalis life of Benedict III provides a very detailed account of the embassy sent to Rome in 855 or 856 by Emperor Michael III. Among the many gifts presented were a Gospels manuscript, covered in gold and adorned with precious stones (de auro purissmo [. . .] cum diversis lapidibus pretiosis); a chalice of the same materials; and a wide variety of silks, including an altarcloth dyed with ‘imperial purple’ (vestem de purpura imperiale). Perhaps even more remarkably, and it clearly attracted the attention of Pope Benedict’s biographer, the delegation was led by a famous Byzantine icon painter, the monk Lazarus.53 A few years later, probably in 860, Pope Nicholas I also received an embassy from Michael III, this time led by a number of highranking bishops and the imperial protospatharios Arsabir, and once again we are provided with very detailed descriptions of some of the many gifts. These included a paten and chalice, both of gold and inset with jewels; and an altar cloth ‘of wondrous size and beautiful splendour’ (mire magnitudine et pulchritudine decore) depicting Christ, Peter and Paul, and other apostles, and bearing an inscription naming the emperor.54 It would be interesting to know what the popes might have sent back to Constantinople in return, but unfortunately this information is nowhere recorded. These formal occasions must have provided an excellent opportunity for the continued transmission of artistic objects and ideas, in both directions. Michael III’s embassies were much more than neighbourly social calls; they had a specific purpose, namely to obtain papal approval for a series of contentious depositions and appointments in the Byzantine church, most notably including the selection of the patriarch of Constantinople, known collectively as the ‘Photian Schism’.55 Naturally, the popes were more than happy to become involved, since this constituted significant recognition of their authority within the larger Christian world. But the practice of involving the church of Rome in ecclesiastical disputes in Byzantium was by no means new in the mid ninth century. There were numerous precedents, for example the contacts made some decades earlier by Theodore, abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople, with popes Leo III and Paschal I, seeking their support.56 52 54 55

56

Delogu 2000: 212. 53 LP 106.33, ed. Duchesne II: 147–8; for Lazarus, see ODB: 1197–8. LP 107:18, ed. Duchesne II: 154. The most detailed survey remains Dvornik 1970a. See also Jenkins 1969: 168–82; Anastos 2001: 35–43; Chrysos 2018; and Chrysos 2019a. Gill 1966; Patlagean 1988; and Hatlie 1995.

The Photian Schism and the Bulgarian Question

Methodius, the patriarch of Constantinople who had presided over the return to orthodoxy in 843, had died some four years later,57 and was replaced by Ignatius, a cleric from an aristocratic background. As a boy, he had been castrated and taken the tonsure on the abdication of his father, Emperor Michael I (r. 811–13).58 Francis Dvornik has characterized the two opposing factions in Byzantine religious politics as the ‘moderates’ and the ‘extremists’, based on their approach to clergy who had previously supported the policy of iconoclasm. The ‘moderates’ preferred a path of forgiveness and accommodation, but the ‘extremists’, associated with the Studios monastery in Constantinople, were much less tolerant. Ignatius was associated with the latter group, and he soon began to purge the ‘moderates’ in the clergy, most notably Gregory Asbestas, Archbishop of Syracuse and a close follower of Methodius. Asbestas then appealed his dismissal to Rome, igniting a period of papal intervention that would last for some three decades. In response, Leo IV invited Ignatius to explain his actions, and this was the purpose of the mission, led by Lazarus, which arrived in Rome in 855–6 shortly after the election of Benedict III. But further events in Constantinople pre-empted any immediate papal decision. In 858 Ignatius fell out of imperial favour, having excommunicated the emperor’s uncle, Bardas, who wielded de facto political authority. The patriarch was dismissed from office, and banished from the capital to a monastery on an island in the Sea of Marmora. In his place Michael III installed an ‘independent’ belonging to neither faction, although apparently a close friend of Asbestas: Photios, also from a noble family and a man of extraordinary scholarship and learning who held the position of protasekretis at the head of the imperial chancery.59 But Photius had not previously held any ecclesiastical rank, and thus in a single week in December 858 he passed through a succession of daily ordinations culminating in that of patriarch; and it was in an attempt to explain these developments that the emperor sent his second delegation to Rome, seeking papal approval. Despite the gifts documented in the Liber pontificalis, the pope, now Nicholas I, responded that no such action should have been taken without his consent, and furthermore that Photios had been a layman 57 59

ODB: 1355 (‘Methodios’); 2122–3 (‘Triumph of Orthodoxy’). 58 ODB: 983–4 (‘Ignatios’). ODB: 1669–70. For Photios’ scholarship, see Dvornik 1959/1974; and Lemerle 1986: 205–35. Among the texts to have survived from this era is his remarkable Bibliotheca, containing summaries of 279 books which he had read. These included Pope Zacharias’ Greek translation of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I, providing evidence of its considerable diffusion; see Photios, Bibliothèque, ed. and trans. Henry, VII: 207–9 (no. 252), and Photios: the Bibliotheca, trans. Wilson, 228–9.

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when appointed, contravening canon law. A papal mission was despatched to Constantinople to investigate the matter, led by Radoald, Bishop of Porto, and Zacharias, Bishop of Anagni. There, in May 861, they participated in a synod which declared in favour of Photios; but Nicholas afterwards claimed that they had exceeded their authority and acted without his approval, and consequently he rejected that outcome. The Liber pontificalis maintains that the envoys had been bribed.60 In 863 a Roman synod declared Photios deposed and Ignatius reinstated.61 Of course Nicholas had no ability to enforce that decision, but Rome soon became a gathering place for Ignatius’ supporters in exile, and the entire issue grew to become a serious impediment to good relations between Rome and Constantinople. Nicholas I was an undaunted champion of the primacy of Rome over the entire Christian world, but he met his match in Photios, an intellectual giant of his age. The situation was no doubt further exacerbated by the increasingly undiplomatic language used in the correspondence between the two parties, including Michael III’s apparent dismissal of the Latin tongue as ‘barbaric and Scythian’.62 The ‘Photian Schism’ would continue to roil the Byzantine and Roman churches for some years to come. Following the assassination of Michael III in 867, and the usurpation of power by the new emperor, Basil I (r. 867–86), it was Photios’ turn to be dismissed from office. Ignatius was brought back from exile, a decision confirmed by the Council of Constantinople in 869– 70, to which the Roman Church sent a delegation. But even then the matter was not finished. Over the following years Basil I began increasingly to favour the ‘moderates’, and when Ignatius died in 877 he decided to reinstate Photios. As we shall see in Chapter 8, the pope at that time, John VIII, remained opposed, but rather desperately required Byzantine assistance for the defence of Rome and thus in the end had little choice but to acquiesce. After Basil’s death in 886, and the succession of his son, Leo VI (r. 886–912), Photios would once again be shown the door, and he died shortly thereafter. More or less simultaneously, a second issue arose that also prompted severe disagreement between the pope and the patriarch: the conversion of the Slavs to Christianity. Organized missionary activity aimed at converting the pagan peoples who inhabited central and eastern Europe began in the aftermath of the Frankish destruction of the Avar empire at the end of the eighth century, urged on by Alcuin and others in Charlemagne’s inner 60 62

LP 107.20, 39–41, ed. Duchesne II: 155, 158–9. 61 LP 107.42, ed. Duchesne II: 159. The words are recorded in the papal response dated 28 September 865: Nicholas I, Epistolae 88, ed. Perels, 459. For the linguistic context, see Chrysos 2019b.

The Tomb of Constantine-Cyril in San Clemente

circle, and it was not long before the emperors in Constantinople also realized the political advantages that this could convey. Byzantium’s primary foes lay to the south and east, in the Muslim world, but they could not ignore the dangers lurking at their back door, and this threat had become all too apparent in July 811 when Emperor Nicephorus I had been defeated and killed in battle with the Bulgarians. Christian neighbours posed much less of a threat, and a significant result was achieved in 864 when the Bulgarian khan, Boris, converted to Christianity, taking the name Michael after the emperor who had sponsored his baptism. Boris-Michael expressed the desire for the Bulgarian church to have its own independent archbishop, and he was astute enough to realize that both Rome and Constantinople could be usefully engaged in a sort of ‘bidding war’ in that regard. The Liber pontificalis describes at length the Bulgarian embassy that arrived in Rome in 866, apparently laden with gifts, although on this occasion few details are provided, and Nicholas I’s response was both immediate and positive.63 The pope organized a mission to assist the khan in the conversion of his people, and this was led by Formosus, who had replaced the disgraced Radoald as bishop of Porto. We shall return to this future pope in a subsequent chapter. But Rome’s apparent dithering regarding the appointment of a senior prelate eventually led Boris to choose Byzantium,64 and this jurisdiction was confirmed at the Council held in Constantinople in 869–70. The Liber pontificalis provides a detailed transcript of the debate and the conclusion, to which the Roman delegates who were present objected strenuously.65

The Tomb of Constantine-Cyril in San Clemente The Bulgarians were not the only recipients of Byzantine efforts to bring greater security to their northern border. In or about the year 860 a diplomatic mission was sent to the Khazars, a people who occupied the territory to the north of the Black Sea, led by two brothers from Thessaloniki, Constantine and Methodius. Constantine, apparently an academic who taught at the newly refounded University of Constantinople located in the Magnaura Hall adjacent to the imperial palace, is better known today as Cyril, the name he would later adopt when he became a monk.66 Although 63

64 66

LP 107.68–75, ed. Duchesne II: 164–5. See also the lengthy letter of 23 October 867 addressed to Hincmar of Reims and the senior Carolingian clergy in Nicholas I, Epistolae 100, ed. Perels: 600–9. LP 108.61–64, ed. Duchesne II: 185. 65 LP 108.46–58, ed. Duchesne II: 182–4. ODB: 507 (‘Constantine the Philosopher’).

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rather little is known about their work in Khazaria, the brothers were an obvious choice when a few years later, in 863, Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia requested missionaries from Michael III, probably in an attempt to assert his political independence and counter the growing influence of the Latin clergy pushing eastwards from Carolingian Francia. Constantine-Cyril and Methodius would spend a number of years on this ‘Moravian mission’, and are renowned for their efforts to deviate from previous practice by translating the Christian liturgy into the Slavic language, now generally known as Old Church Slavonic, along with parts of the Bible, including the Gospels and the Psalms. In order to produce the written texts necessary for use in celebrations of the liturgy, they were also required to invent a new alphabet, today known as Glagolitic. This was the forerunner of the subsequent Slavic alphabet, based in part on existing Greek letters and still in use today for languages such as Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian and Bulgarian, and named after one of the brothers who is credited with its creation: Cyrillic.67 In 868 Constantine and Methodius travelled to Rome, bringing with them the relics of one of the earliest popes, Clement, a successor to St Peter at the end of the first century.68 The written sources for their visit and subsequent events are varied and at times difficult to assess. For example, one primary and very important witness is an Old Slavonic ‘Life of Constantine’ (generally referred to by a Latin title, the Vita Constantini),69 but it is not known precisely when, where or by whom it was composed, and the earliest extant copies date from many centuries later. Additionally, there are Latin sources, including a Vita Constantini-Cyrilli cum translatione S. Clementis (often referred to as the Legenda italica), composed at the beginning of the twelfth century by Leo of Ostia, an author better known for his chronicle of the abbey of Monte Cassino.70 This incorporated material from an earlier Latin account of the translation of Clement’s relics to Rome, known to have been composed in the 870s by Gauderic, Bishop of Velletri, who dedicated it to pope John VIII (872–82).71 Unfortunately, only a fragment of the latter text 67

68 69 70

71

For overviews of the Moravian mission, see Obolensky 1963; Dvornik 1970b: 105–30; Vlasto 1970: 26–79; McCormick 2001: 181–97; Betti 2013; and Vavrinek 2017. Scholars continue to debate the precise location in the Danube basin of ‘Great Moravia’, a subject whose historiography has been conditioned by modern political issues; see discussion in Betti 2013: 14–38. For an overview of the Roman visit, see Dvornik 1970b: 131–59; and McCormick 2001: 190–2. Dvornik 1969: 349–80; English translation in Kantor 1983: 23–96. BHL I: 312, no. 2073. The Latin text, based on a manuscript copy in the Vatican Library (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 9668), was published as an appendix to Meyvaert and Devos 1955: 455–61. For Leo’s authorship, and his sources, see Meyvaert and Devos 1955; Meyvaert and Devos 1956; and Boyle 1958/1978: 195–9. For a recent plea for greater caution in using otherwise unverified details of the Legenda italica, see Lienhard 2020.

The Tomb of Constantine-Cyril in San Clemente

survives, in a single manuscript preserved at Monte Cassino (Cod. 234). There are also relevant references in the contemporaneous correspondence of the papal librarian, Anastasius Bibliothecarius, who had known Constantine-Cyril and later reminisced about their discussions.72 Rather puzzling, however, is the absence of any mention of the visit in the Liber pontificalis itself.73 The translation of the liturgy into Old Slavonic was certainly controversial, and the Vita Constantini and the other sources relate that Pope Nicholas invited the brothers to Rome in order to defend this action. We are told that they arrived to discover that Nicholas had died (11 November 867), but the new pontiff, Hadrian II, subsequently approved the Slavonic liturgy and arranged for it to be sung in Santa Maria Maggiore and other Roman churches. Anastasius Bibliothecarius makes no mention of this, however. His focus is on other matters, notably the gift to Rome of the relics of Pope Clement. Clement’s hagiographic legend narrates that in the time of Emperor Trajan he had been exiled to Cherson in the Crimea, the farthest outpost of the Roman Empire and hence frequently employed as a location for exile,74 where he had been martyred by being tied to an anchor and cast into the Black Sea. The two brothers had rediscovered Clement’s remains at Cherson in January 861, in the course of their Khazar mission, and had used these as the spiritual focus for their subsequent work in central Europe.75 While in Rome, Constantine fell ill, and he died on 14 February 869, having entered a monastery some fifty days earlier and taken the name Cyril. Following a brief disagreement between Methodius and Pope Hadrian II regarding an appropriate place for his burial, a compromise was agreed upon: the basilica of San Clemente, adjacent to the main altar in which the relics of the titular saint now reposed. And again, both the Old Slavonic Vita Constantini and the Latin Legenda italica provide some details. The latter reads: ‘they placed [the body of Cyril], together with the marble sarcophagus in which the aforementioned pope had originally 72 73

74

75

Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Epistolae 13 and 15, ed. Perels and Lähr, 430–4, 435–8. For a comprehensive analysis of all the relevant sources, including a speculative attempt to explain the silence of the Liber pontificalis, see Betti 2013: 41–107. Pope Martin I, arrested and sent to Constantinople for trial in 653, was similarly exiled to Cherson, where he died in 655. It should perhaps be noted that the modern city of Kherson (Ukraine) is on a different site. See Duthilleul 1958. The story of a miracle related to Clement’s tomb at Cherson, and the ninth-century translation of his relics to Rome, were both depicted in late-eleventh-century murals in the narthex of San Clemente; see Osborne 1997a; and Filippini 1999: 125–216. The return of the pope’s relics to Rome may explain the dedication of San Clemente in Casauria, a monastery founded by Louis II in 871 following his release from captivity in Benevento.

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laid him, in a monument prepared for that purpose in the church of St Clement at the right hand side of his altar, with hymns and praises of thanksgiving to God’.76 The Vita Constantini specifies the same location to the right of the altar, and adds one additional and very important detail, that Constantine-Cyril’s image was painted over his tomb.77 Methodius would subsequently return to central Europe, where he continued his work until his death in April 885. Significantly, his principal disciple took the name Clement (St Clement of Ohrid). The desire to find Constantine-Cyril’s tomb was one of the primary factors that in 1857–8, in the lead-up to the millennium celebration of the landmark Moravian mission, had prompted the discovery and subsequent excavation of the Early Christian basilica of San Clemente beneath the standing twelfth-century church, the project undertaken by Father Joseph Mullooly and the Irish Dominicans; and Mullooly used this prospect as a means to solicit funds to pay for the archaeology.78 That quest was only partially successful, however. No definitive identification of the site of the tomb was ever made, although in subsequent years a number of possibilities have been suggested.79 The wall at the sanctuary end of the left aisle was decorated with a number of narrative hagiographic scenes, mostly fragmentary and unidentifiable, but including a depiction of the martyrdom of St Peter, and one of these included a kneeling figure with a fragmentary inscription including the letter sequence A CIRIL.80 Giovanni de Rossi, the papal archaeologist who monitored the excavations, interpreted this as a reference to Cyril, and identified the adjacent base of a rectangular masonry structure as the site of the saint’s tomb.81 It continues to be venerated officially there today, in particular by those eastern European churches who view the missionary brothers as their spiritual founders; and 76

77 79 80

81

simul cum locello marmoreo in quo pridem illum predictus papa condiderat, posuerunt in monumento ad id preparato in basilica beati Clementis ad dexteram partem altaris ipsius cum ympnis et laudibus maximis gratias agentes Deo (Meyvaert and Devos 1955: 461). Dvornik 1969: 380; and Kantor 1983: 81. 78 Boyle 1977: 188. Summary in Boyle 1988. Mullooly 1869: 150–3. Given the first letter, presumably terminating the honorific title S[an] C[t]A, the kneeling figure identified by the inscription seems more likely to have been a woman, perhaps the Roman martyr Cirilla; see Osborne 1984: 150–1. For her passio, see Delehaye 1933: 96–8. De Rossi (1863) explained away the issue of this being on the left side of the church, not the right, by claiming that the direction would have been based on the position of a priest saying mass, standing behind the altar and facing the congregation. But this is not consistent with other similar references in this era, for example the marble inscription in Santa Prassede (discussed in Chapter 3), which specifies the location of the San Zeno chapel as manu dextra.

The Tomb of Constantine-Cyril in San Clemente

as a result, the space is now festooned with a variety of plaques and images, including a large mosaic portrait of Cyril presented by the government of Bulgaria.82 De Rossi’s suggestion did not receive universal acceptance. In the early twentieth century the German Jesuit scholar Joseph Wilpert proposed a different location, in the narthex of the basilica beneath a mural depicting Christ enthroned between the archangels Michael and Gabriel, Sts Clement and Andrew, and two kneeling figures whom he identified as ConstantineCyril and Methodius. But his view was not supported by the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, which in June 1929 established a formal committee to investigate the possibility; and there can be no doubt that the narthex mural in question belongs to a later era, probably the eleventh century.83 There is also a third, and in my view much more likely, possibility, related to a substantial mural depicting the Anastasis (Harrowing of Hell), situated immediately to the right of the altar as specified in our sources.84 This was discovered only in the spring of 1868, at the very end of Mullooly’s excavation and after the first edition of his book on the church was already in production. As a result, he was able to insert only a brief mention of it, but no image.85 At the head of the colonnade dividing the nave from the right aisle, there is a short stretch of wall belonging to the original Roman structure that occupied this site, converted into a basilica church in the late years of the fourth century CE. The Anastasis mural, painted on the side of this wall facing the nave, and with a white border line clearly defining its semicircular or ‘lunette’ shape, is almost entirely intact and remains reasonably well preserved (Figs. 7.2 and 7.3).86 Christ is shown moving from left to right, and his right hand reaches out to grasp the wrist of Adam, while his left crosses beneath the right arm to hold a long cross. Originally, the figure of Eve was also present at the far right of the composition, but today all that remains of her are three fingers of one hand, still visible on Adam’s sleeve. At the bottom, a small black demon with flaming red hair, presumably the personification of Hades, is shown gazing upwards. He grips Adam’s ankle 82 83 84

85

86

Boyle 1977: 192–3. Wilpert 1906: 271–82; Wilpert et al. 1929; Osborne 1981b; and Osborne 1984: 158–69. Osborne 1981c; Osborne 1984: 170–205. For the location and a three-dimensional visualization, see Bordi 2006: 186. Mullooly 1869: 215–16. Possibly the first mention of the mural is a notice entitled ‘The last fresco in St Clemente’, published in the British Catholic weekly newspaper The Tablet on 20 June 1868. See also Boyle 1977: 202. See also Wilpert 1916: 892–3, and pl. 229.2.

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Fig. 7.2 San Clemente: Anastasis (tomb of St Cyril).

Fig. 7.3 San Clemente: Anastasis. Watercoloured photograph, from Wilpert 1916, pl. 229.2.

firmly, despite being trodden down beneath Christ’s feet. To the left of Christ, and partially obscured by his billowing garment, there is a column with spiral fluting, around which a cloth is tied at the top. This serves to

The Tomb of Constantine-Cyril in San Clemente

separate the narrative scene from the half-length figure of a bearded male, ‘a venerable ecclesiastic of oriental type’ in the words of Mullooly, dressed in blue with a white hood decorated with geometric designs drawn in red. His right hand is raised, palm outwards, in a gesture of supplication, and his left holds a large jewelled codex. A ‘square halo’ frames his head, indicating that this image was intended as a portrait.87 The meaning of this painting is indicated by both its shape and the subject matter. There is only one primary context in which murals take a ‘lunette’ shape where this is not pre-determined by the architectural setting, and the same is true of depictions of the Anastasis that are divorced from more comprehensive narrative cycles of the life of Christ. That context is funerary monuments. Examples of constructed tombs are rare in the early Middle Ages, an age when most burials were either in the ground or in loculi cut into walls, with ‘privileged’ burials on occasion reusing sarcophagi from an earlier era. But such evidence as does exist suggests that there was at least some continuation of the Early Christian arcosolium tomb type, known from many dozens of examples found in the catacombs at Rome and Naples, now translated above ground into a monument comprising a sarcophagus surmounted by an arch, the latter framing a visual representation that most often included a portrait of the deceased. Among the earliest examples of this type to survive more or less intact is the tomb of the papal camerarius (chamberlain) Alfanus in the porch of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, dating from the early twelfth century; and this form of tomb would enjoy considerable popularity in the later Middle Ages.88 But earlier examples are known to have existed, often from the evidence of the painted lunettes, and these suggest that there was a continuity of such practice, in other words a ‘survival’ from Antiquity and not a deliberate ‘revival’ in later centuries. A fragmentary mural in the monastery church at Farfa, north-east of Rome, displaying an identical semi-circular contour, with the image of the deceased raising his hands in prayer, palms turned outwards in an identical fashion to the right hand of the San Clemente figure, and with his head also 87

88

This is clearly a ‘square halo’, and not a portal into the underworld as has been suggested by Annie Labatt (2019: 51). The graphic rendition of this device changes over the course of the early Middle Ages, from a simple square in the earliest known Roman examples from time of Pope John VII, to the addition of side panels in the portraits of Pope Paschal I, to an even greater attempt to suggest three-dimensionality in the second half of the ninth century; for discussion of this transformation see Gandolfo 2007. For this type of funerary monument and its Early Christian antecedents, see Osborne 1982b; and Herklotz 1985: 143–61. For the tomb of Alfanus, see also Osborne 1983.

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framed by a ‘square halo’ signifying a portrait, has been identified by Charles McClendon as the tomb of Abbot Altbertus (who died c. 790), although the first letter of the name is more likely to be an ‘L’, and thus an identification as ‘Laurentius’ seems more likely.89 Another lunette-shaped mural was documented in the seventeenth century as forming part of the tomb monument of Pope John XIII (965–72) in San Paolo fuori le mura. Although the tomb itself no longer survives, apart from the marble inscription originally placed beneath the arcosolium, the copy of the painting made by Antonio Eclissi for Cardinal Francesco Barberini records the half figure of the pontiff, shown blessing and holding a book, flanked by the figures of Sts Peter and Paul. And once again his head is framed by a ‘square halo’.90 A second papal tomb employing this same format, also formerly in San Paolo, may have been that of John XVIII (1004–9).91 There are also descriptions of early medieval tombs, as varied as those of Pope Gregory III (731–41) in Saint Peter’s and Charlemagne at Aachen, which similarly record monuments in which an arch was set above a sarcophagus.92 In Naples, Archbishop John IV (842–9) is recorded as having placed each of the bodies of his predecessors in an arcosolium tomb (arcuatum tumulum), above which were painted their portraits (ac desuper eorum effigies depinxit).93 The Anastasis was of course a particularly appropriate subject for a funerary monument, since it demonstrated both the ability and willingness of Christ to save just souls from the fires of hell; for example, as we have already seen, in the mosaic decorations of the San Zeno chapel in Santa Prassede, where it features prominently among the mosaics decorating the tomb of Paschal I’s mother, Theodora episcopa. Both the appearance and the dress of the figure on the left side of the mural suggest that this is a depiction of a ‘Greek’ monk; and as first observed by Joseph Wilpert, the proximity of the grave to the high altar marks him as someone of particular importance.94 A useful precedent is provided by the tombs of Theodore the Studite and his brother Joseph, 89 90

91 92

93 94

McClendon 1983; and Gibson, Gilkes and Mitchell 2017: 144–6. Vatican City, BAV, Barb. lat. 4406, fol. 141r. See also Ladner 1941–84, I: 168–70; Waetzoldt 1964: 56, no. 588 and fig. 326; Herklotz 1985: 149–51; and Camerlenghi 2018: 137 and fig. 4.14 (reconstruction). Ladner 1941–84, I: 171; Waetzoldt 1964: 56, no. 589. Tomb of Gregory III in St. Peter’s: Petrus Mallius, Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae, 8, CT III: 388 (arcus, optimo musibo depictus). Tomb of Charlemagne: Einhard, Vita Karoli, 31, ed. HolderEgger, 35 (arcusque supra tumulum deaurata cum imagine et titulo exstructus). John the Deacon, Gesta episcoporum Neapolitanorum, 59; ed. Waitz, 432. Wilpert 1916: 892–3. See also Belting 1968: 239, n. 24; Osborne 1981c: 266–9; and Osborne 1984: 179–82.

The Tomb of Constantine-Cyril in San Clemente

whose remains were transferred to the Studios monastery at Constantinople in 844, which Theodore’s biographer records as featuring their portraits.95 Iconographic variants in the manner in which Christ’s hands are depicted in the Anastasis, and the fact that he holds a cross and not a scroll, as well as the precise form of the ‘square halo’, combine to indicate an approximate date in the second half of the ninth century;96 and, as will be discussed in Chapter 8, other minor decorative details suggest that the mural was executed by the same artistic workshop also responsible for the murals in the Roman church of Santa Maria de Secundicerio, painted in the years 873–5. Is this the portrait of Cyril that the Vita Constantini states was painted over his tomb? All the evidence adduced thus far points in that direction, and it is certainly in the right location. However, while absolute proof remains lacking – there is no identifying inscription, for example – this view is now largely accepted.97 There can be little doubt that the body of Constantine-Cyril would have been removed when the original ‘lower church’ was abandoned and filled in at the beginning of the twelfth century; and the new basilica included a chapel with this dedication, where in the mid fifteenth century the English author John Capgrave recorded that the saint’s relics worked ‘many miracles’.98 Whatever survived of Cyril’s remains was removed during the short-lived Roman republic of 1798–9, and apparently never returned; but Leonard Boyle discovered a reliquary labelled ex ossibus S. Cyrilli in the possession of the Antici-Mattei family at Recanati, and this was restored to San Clemente in November 1963.99 And one final technical observation. An analysis undertaken in conjunction with a 2005 conservation of the mural revealed the use of ‘ultramarine’ blue, in other words lazurite (lapis lazuli), for which the only known premodern source was in central Asia, in the Badakhshan region of what is now northeastern Afghanistan.100 First detected in Rome in the early eighth century, in murals in the churches of Santa Sabina and San Saba,101 its trade across the Mediterranean clearly continued. This also suggests a different artistic workshop from that which painted the Ascension and other Christological scenes in the time of Pope Leo IV, where the pigment used was the more traditional 95 97

98 100

101

96 Mango 1972: 184. Osborne 1981c: 264–5, 269–71; and Osborne 1984: 177–8, 182–3. For example, Guidobaldi 1992: 208–16, and pl. XIX (hypothetical reconstruction of the tomb monument); and Guidobaldi 1998. 99 Capgrave, Ye Solace of Pilgrims, ed. Mills: 107. Boyle 1964/1978. Santopadre, Tamanti, Bianchetti and Sidoti 2011: 92. For ultramarine, see also Panayotova 2020: 138–9. Osborne 2020: 73, 77.

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‘Egyptian blue’. But that would be no great surprise, given that the two projects were undertaken some two decades apart.

The Continuing Greek Presence in Rome ‘Greek’ culture in mid-ninth-century Rome appears to have coalesced around three primary nodes: the residual aristocracy, who were the descendants of the hellenophone military, administrative and clerical families who had settled in Rome in the seventh century;102 the continuing presence and activity of the Greek monasteries, one of which presumably became the new home of Constantine-Cyril in the months prior to his death; and the schola Graecorum.103 These groups were of course not entirely mutually exclusive. But have they left a footprint in the city’s material culture? The answer, as we shall see, is a qualified affirmative. The establishment of Greek-speaking monastic communities in Rome dates from at least the middle of the seventh century, when an expatriate group of monks from the monastery of Mar Saba near Jerusalem, fleeing the Arab invasion of Palestine, arrived in the city and settled on the little Aventine hill. Their house, San Saba, became prominent in religious politics from the Lateran Council of 649 onwards, and excavations beneath the standing church have revealed its early medieval predecessor, decorated in the first half of the eighth century with an extensive Christological cycle complete with identifying inscriptions in Greek.104 As has been thoroughly documented by Jean-Marie Sansterre, many other hellenophone communities would follow,105 and it is tempting to view those installed in papal foundations of the mid eighth and early ninth centuries as a new stream of ‘refugees’, now fleeing Byzantine iconoclasm. In addition to San Silvestro in Capite, founded by Paul I (757–67) in his family home,106 and the previously discussed Santa Prassede, another possible candidate is the monastery of San Cesareo in Palatio, situated in part of the former imperial palace on the Palatine hill. Mentioned by name as the recipient of a gift of textiles 102

103

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105 106

For the ‘Greek’ origins of the early medieval Roman aristocracy, see Osborne 2020: 9–11, 131; and Winterhager 2020a. For their possible ‘nostalgia’ for Byzantine rule, see Brown 1988. For the most recent overview of the considerable and varied evidence for the Greek community in ninth-century Rome, see von Falkenhausen 2020. Ferrari 1957: 281–90; Sansterre 1983, I: 22–9; Bordi 2008; and Osborne 2020: 73–8. The bestpreserved scene depicts one of Christ’s miracles, the Healing of the Paralytic. Sansterre 1983, I: 9–51; Sansterre 1988. LP 95.5, ed. Duchesne, I: 465. A ninth-century inscription naming its abbot, Benedict, uses the Greek term higumenos, albeit transliterated into Latin letters; see Tedeschi 2009: 586–9.

The Continuing Greek Presence in Rome

from Pope Leo IV,107 it is likely to have housed the Greek community cited by Einhard a few decades earlier as the place where a certain Basil, who had come to Rome from Constantinople along with four disciples, was in residence; and it was certainly Greek-speaking later in the century, when it features in the life of St Blaise of Amorium, who lived there for some eighteen years.108 The restoration of images in 843 does not seem to have stemmed the flow, although the precise origin of the new arrivals cannot be determined with any certainty. Southern Italy and Sicily must be considered likely candidates, given the increasing raids emanating from Muslim North Africa, but both sides in the Photian schism were also sending delegations to Rome in order to lobby the popes on behalf of their preferred candidate. Nicholas I’s lengthy letter of September 865, addressed to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III, mentions the ‘innumerable men’ (innumeros homines) who had come to Rome from Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople and the area of Mount Olympus, the last group almost certainly monks;109 and in 868 Hadrian II would convene a banquet for ‘certain of God’s servants, Greeks and other races’, apparently the supporters of Patriarch Ignatius, who were then in Rome.110 Leo IV’s biographer reports that this pontiff installed ‘many monks of Greek race’ (plures Greco constituit monachos genere) in the restored monastery of Sts Stephen and Cassian serving San Lorenzo fuori le mura;111 and an inscription recording Arsenius higoumenos (abbot), who constructed a new presbyterium, was reused in a later medieval pulpit in that church.112 The community who founded San Basilio in Scala Mortuorum in the Forum of Augustus, on the podium of the Temple of Mars Ultor, are first recorded in a papal document of Pope Agapetus II, dated to the year 955,113 but they may have arrived a century earlier. A sizeable quantity of early medieval sculpture is preserved from the site, now displayed in the ‘Sala Bizantina’ of the 107

108

109 110 111 112 113

LP 105.35, ed. Duchesne II: 114. An oratory with this dedication had existed within the imperial palace on the Palatine at an earlier date, but may not have survived the eighth-century abandonment; see Augenti 1996: 41–2, 50–5. Its absence from the extensive Donation List of Leo III may suggest a refounding sometime after 807 (Geertman 1975: 119). A possible location within the Domus Augustana complex was identified by Alfonso Bartoli (Bartoli 1907). For the most recent discussion, see Spera 2017. in monte Palatino apud alios Graecos (Einhard, Translatio et miracula sanctorum Marcellini et Petri, ed. Waitz, 242). See also Ferrari 1957: 88–91; Sansterre 1974; Sansterre 1983, I: 38, 46–7, II: 92–3; and Maskarinec 2018: 70–3. Nicholas I, Epistolae 88, ed. Perels: 478. LP 108.16, ed. Duchesne II: 176. English translation from Davis 1995: 266. LP 105.30, ed. Duchesne II: 113. English translation from Davis 1995: 123. LP, ed. Duchesne II: 136, n. 20; D’Aiuto 2015: 578–83, figs. 11–15; and D’Aiuto 2020: 65. Hülsen 1927: 208–9; and Ferrari 1957: 62–4. See also footnote 47 in this chapter.

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adjacent House of the Knights of Rhodes, and this may suggest a possible ninth-century date for the foundation.114 The dedication to St Basil, an important founder of Eastern monasticism, indicates that they were almost certainly of Greek origin, and an image of this saint in a passage leading from the atrium of Santa Maria Antiqua, loosely datable to the tenth century, suggests that a similar group may have been located in the Roman Forum.115 Unlike the other communities of expatriates in Rome, who were clustered in the area around the church of Saint Peter’s,116 the schola Graecorum was situated by the city’s Tiber port, at the foot of the Aventine in the area around the Forum Boarium, and included the diaconiae of San Giorgio al Velabro and Santa Maria in Cosmedin.117 Presumably this ‘Greek’ community also included merchants, artisans and hellenophone families of long standing in the city, whereas the others would have been focused primarily on pilgrims and other travellers; and this may explain its conspicuous absence from the Liber pontificalis list of the scole peregrinorum who greeted Leo III at the Milvian Bridge on his return to Rome in November 799.118 The term schola Graecorum seems to have been applied not only to a social grouping but also to describe a geographical area within the city, although its precise origins and meaning are shrouded in mystery, and consequently have been the subject of much debate.119 The earliest mention occurs in the ‘Einsiedeln Itinerary’, a document of uncertain date but assignable to approximately the end of the eighth century.120 In the vita of Sergius II, mention is made of ‘other most learned Greeks of the militia’ (aliosque militiae edoctissimos Grecos) who were sent out to greet Louis II on his arrival in 844, and both Duchesne and Davis believe this to be 114

115

116

117

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119 120

Pani Ermini 1974b: 59–77 (cat. nos. 42–78, and pls. XX–XXXIII). The earlier date is discounted by Sansterre (1983, II: 94, n. 290), who does not, however, take the archaeological finds into account. Osborne 1987: 216–19. The decorations of the atrium itself include images of Sts Agnes and Cecilia (ninth century?), with identifying inscriptions in Greek, and also a tenth-century cycle depicting episodes from the life of St Anthony, the fourth-century Egyptian hermit (ibid., 193– 4, 200–5). For the origin and role of the scholae, which seem to have replaced less formally organized pilgrim and visitor hostels (xenodochiae) in the late eighth century, see Saxer 2001: 592–5; Bauer 2004: 176–7; Santangeli Valenzani 2014. For an introduction to the early medieval topography of this region, see Menghini 2004: 194– 200; Maskarinec 2018: 93–9; and Del Buono 2021. LP 98.19, ed. Duchesne II: 6. The list includes only the scholae of the Franks, Frisians, Saxons and Lombards. See the extended discussion by Sansterre 1983 II: 102–4, n. 388; and Maskarinec 2018: 96–9. CT II: 171. For this text, see Chapter 2, n. 93.

The Continuing Greek Presence in Rome

a reference to the schola, although it is certainly not explicit.121 There is less ambiguity about their participation in the greeting extended by the senatus Romanorum necnon Grecorum scola to Arnulf of Carinthia when he came to Rome for his imperial coronation in 896.122 Here they are the only schola to be mentioned, which if nothing else attests to their longevity. The church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin had been completely reconstructed in the late eighth century by Pope Hadrian I, on the site of an earlier diaconia. The epithet ‘in Cosmedin’ is thought to derive from a suburban district of the city of Constantinople, the ‘Kosmidion’, itself named for a shrine church and attached monastery dedicated to the healing saints Cosmas and Damian; and the Roman structure’s additional affiliation to the ecclesiastical architecture of the eastern Mediterranean is revealed by the presence of three apses, a most unusual feature in early medieval Rome.123 San Giorgio al Velabro’s origins are not known.124 The earliest secure reference comes in the eighth-century vita of Pope Zacharias (741–52), who presented the church with a ‘great treasure’ (magnum thesaurum): the head of its saintly patron, which he had rediscovered in the Lateran patriarchate. Thereafter, we are told, this relic began to work ‘enormous miracles and benefits’ (immensa miracula et beneficia).125 Under Gregory IV, as we have seen, San Giorgio had been substantially rebuilt and redecorated.126 That this church continued to serve a Greek-speaking community well into the tenth century is demonstrated by the existence of two substantial albeit fragmentary funerary inscriptions, written entirely in Greek, which were subsequently preserved through their reuse in a later pavement.127 Both epitaphs are composed in twelve-syllable verse, with the name of the deceased appearing as a vertical acrostic formed by the initial letters of each line.128 One records an archipresbyter named John, born during the pontificate of John VIII (872–82), while the second constitutes the tomb inscription of an otherwise unrecorded Theopemptos, 121 122 123

124 125 127

128

LP 104.9, ed. Duchesne II: 88, and 101, n. 6; English translation from Davis 1995: 78. Annales Fuldenses, ed. Kurze, 128. For discussion and earlier bibliography, see Osborne 2020: 204–6; and most recently Winterhager 2020b. Coates-Stephens 1997: 184–6; and most recently Del Buono 2021: 171–82. LP 93.24, ed. Duchesne I: 434. 126 LP 103.14, ed. Duchesne II: 76. See also CBCR I: 246. Battifol 1887; Muñoz 1926: 15, 20; Guillou 1996: 124–8 (nos. 115–16), 129–30 (no. 118); D’Aiuto 2015: 565, 588–606, figs. 6, 17–19; Maskarinec 2018: 98–9; and D’Aiuto 2020: 61–3. D’Aiuto (2015: 586) also notes a similar funerary inscription from the church of Santi Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea. Acrostics seems to have been particularly popular in the Greek culture of early medieval Rome, witness the preface to Pope Zacharias’ eighth-century Greek translation of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I; see Mercati 1919.

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presumably a layman. Neither bears a precise date, so their chronology is necessarily imprecise, but both are generally assigned to the late ninth or the early tenth century. Francesco D’Aiuto, who describes the epigraphy as being of the highest quality, suggests that Theopemptos probably belonged to the city’s secular elite, di origine e cultura greca.129

The Vatican Job (BAV, Vat. gr. 749) In addition to inscriptions, the principal contribution of the Greekspeaking communities in Rome to the city’s material culture in the mid ninth century may perhaps be found in the realm of manuscript production.130 Scriptoria were certainly present in at least some of the Greek monasteries; for example, Methodius, the future patriarch of Constantinople who would preside over the return to orthodoxy in 843, is known to have spent the early years of his previous exile (c. 815–21) in Rome, at or near Saint Peter’s, where he copied manuscripts. Although these have not survived, subsequent copies of his autographs have preserved an original annotation stating his name and the place of production: for example, a late-ninth-century hagiographic collection now in Paris (BnF, MS gr. 1470 + 1476), and a volume of the works of PseudoDionysius the Areopagite now in London (BL, MS Add. 36821).131 There is no doubt that Greek texts were composed in early medieval Rome, for example the translation of Gregory I’s Dialogues undertaken by Pope Zacharias, for the benefit, as we are told in the Liber pontificalis, of ‘the many who do not know Latin’ (plures qui Latinam ignorant).132 The earliest extant manuscript of this translation (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. gr. 1666) is dated by a colophon to precisely the year 800, and is widely considered to have been written in Rome.133 The codex entered the Vatican Library in the early seventeenth century. Previously it had been in the library of the Greek monastery at Grottaferrata, just to the south of the city, and before that in Calabria. Was it, one wonders, among the

129 130

131 132

133

D’Aiuto 2015: 605. For overviews of the production of Greek books in early medieval Rome, see Agati 1994; and D’Agostino 2013. Canart 1979; and Krausmüller 2020. For Methodius, see ODB: 1355. LP 93.29, ed. Duchesne I: 435. For a survey of translation activity in early medieval Rome, see Chiesa 2002. Battifol 1888; Mercati 1919; Grabar 1972: 30–1; Spatharakis 1981: 6; Sansterre 1983, I: 170; Brubaker and Haldon 2001: 40–1.

The Vatican Job (BAV, Vat. gr. 749)

manuscripts obtained in Rome by St Nilus of Rossano at the end of the tenth century?134 This book is particularly important as the earliest Greek manuscript known to have employed enlarged and decorated initials; and this in turn has prompted speculation that the concept of enhanced coloured initials employing a variety of human, animal, vegetal and geometric forms, which first appear in Latin manuscripts from north-western Europe, passed to Byzantine culture through the intermediary of Greek-language scriptoria in Rome.135 Each of the four books of the Dialogues begins with an initial, and while the first three are comparatively modest, employing stylized fish to replace strokes of the letters mu (fol. 3r.), alpha (fol. 42v.) and epsilon (fol. 83r.), the very much larger mu at the start of Book Four (fol. 136v.) is created by the curved body of a two-headed dragon, set between vertical stems featuring a design of interlocking circles. Each dragon’s head bites a snake, and these in turn are shown swallowing a fish; and acanthus leaves extend from the base of each stem. These initials, and particularly the last, have no known earlier precedent in any Byzantine book. The other Greek manuscript with perhaps the best claim to have been written in Rome in the ninth century, or at least the most adherents to that suggestion, is a profusely illustrated copy of the Book of Job (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. gr. 749), written on good-quality parchment and now bound as two separate volumes, the first containing folia 1–108, and the second folia 109–250.136 It is generally dated to the middle or second half of the ninth century, on the basis of its script and the style of the images. In a format used in Byzantine manuscripts of this era for scholarly editions of both religious and secular texts, the inner central zone of each folio is used for the words of the primary Biblical text, here written in a sloping pointed uncial hand (maiuscola ogivale inclinata), while the peripheral areas at the top, the bottom and the lateral outer margin contain a catena (chain) of subsequent patristic commentary on the passages in question, distinguishable both by the smaller size and more erect form of the letters used (maiuscola ogivale diritta).137 Among the approximately 134 135 136

137

Life of Saint Neilos of Rossano 19.2, ed. and trans. Capra, Murzaku and Milewski, 66–7. Osborne 1990: 77–80; Brubaker 1991; Brubaker 2004: 183–9; and Osborne 2020: 235–8. The copious bibliography includes: Weitzmann 1935: 77–80; Garrison 1953–62, IV: 192–4; Grabar 1972: 15–20; Belting 1974: 8–13; Cavallo 1982: 507; Cavallo 1988: 505–6; Agati 1994: 156–7; Brubaker and Haldon 2001: 52; Oretskaia 2002–3: 14–17; Bernabò 2003; Bernabò 2004: 146–54; Bernabò 2005; Osborne 2011: 231–4; and Pace 2015: 495–8. The two volumes are available in digital reproduction at: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.749.pt.1 and https:// digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.749.pt.2 (accessed 8 May 2023). For the origins and diffusion of these uncial scripts, see Cavallo 1977; and Crisci 1985.

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twenty authors whose works are cited, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom appear the most frequently, and each quotation commences with the author’s name, usually rubricated. This sophisticated organization of the surface of the page required an initial preparation of each folio with a rather intricate ruling pattern, guided by a series of prick marks on both the horizontal and vertical edges. It is worth noting that the same ‘text with catena’ format may be found in another early illustrated Job manuscript preserved in the Monastery of St John the Theologian on the Aegean island of Patmos (cod. Patmiacus 171), of roughly similar date but again of unknown provenance, and this suggests a larger context for such annotated texts.138 In addition to the words, Vat. gr. 749 contains some fifty-five coloured illuminations, some full- or half-page in size, and others very much smaller, these last invariably placed at the bottom of the page.139 Numerous folia have spaces that remain blank, albeit with no gap in the written text, suggesting that additional images were planned but never executed. The illuminations are concentrated in the Prologue (Chapters 1–2), but continue throughout, and often mark the divisions between chapters. Some are enclosed within formal frames of coloured lines, but many are not. After five folia of unillustrated prefatory material, the text itself begins with a lavish introductory page on fol. 6r (Fig. 7.4). This features a large initial alpha, painted in gold, beginning the word anthropos (man),140 followed by the first few words of the first verse, down to the name ‘Job’; and then beneath, a half-page miniature in which Job and his wife are shown seated on thrones and conversing, set against an elaborate architectural backdrop. The decorated initial, featuring three dragons, one being ridden by a naked putto, is quite unprecedented in Byzantine book culture, and goes well beyond the much simpler initials of Vat. gr. 1666. But it is a unique occurrence, and no other painted initials are included elsewhere in the manuscript. The last miniature, on fol. 249v, depicts Job enthroned in a doorway, flanked by his seven sons and three daughters (illustrating Job 42:13). 138

139 140

Of the two Job manuscripts, Patmiacus 171 was considered by Weitzmann (1935: 49–51) to be both earlier and closer to the common archetype. Little can be said about its place of origin, although later notations demonstrate that it was in Constantinople in the mid tenth century. See also Grabar 1972: 24–5; and Brubaker and Haldon 2001: 50–1. For the origins of the practice of employing marginal commentaries, see discussion by Corrigan 1992: 108–13. For the larger context of illustrated manuscripts of the Book of Job, see Andrews 2017. For a full catalogue of the illuminations, see Huber 1986: 94–123. For an interesting attempt to relate the design of the initial to the text it introduces, see Evangelatou 2009.

The Vatican Job (BAV, Vat. gr. 749)

Fig. 7.4 Vatican City, BAV, Vat. gr. 749, fol. 6r.

Apart from the single decorated initial, usually regarded as a ‘Western’ feature, the case for an Italian, and specifically Roman, provenance has been grounded primarily in an analysis of the style of the figures. Complicating matters, there were three different illuminators involved in the production of the manuscript, and each had their own approach, distinct from the others. The first was responsible for the numerous miniatures in the Prologue, concluding with the full-page image

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on fol. 30r of Job, his body covered with sores, contemplated by his friends (Job 2:11–13); the second for a sparser set of images beginning on fol. 38r; and the third artist for the illuminations from fol. 119r through to the end of the book, including the full-page depiction of God conversing with Job on fol. 241r. The figure style employed by the first and third of the Vatican manuscript illuminators is notable for the use of a form of ‘shorthand’ to indicate drapery folds, particularly on the thigh: a pair of parallel diagonal lines. As mentioned earlier, this practice was first identified and studied by Kurt Weitzmann, who dubbed it the ‘double-line fold’ style. The first artist uses this convention only for garments coloured completely in gold (termed by Weitzmann as goldgewandeten Figuren), in which the use of gold foil precludes the possibility of shading or modelling, but in the figures of the third artist it is more broadly distributed. We have already encountered this ‘double-line fold’ formula on a number of occasions in the pictorial arts of ninth-century Rome, most notably in Pope Paschal I’s mosaic decorations for Santa Prassede and the murals in the lower church of San Clemente, including both the figure of Pope Leo IV flanking the scene of the Ascension, and also the figure of Christ from the Anastasis mural forming part of what is almost certainly the tomb of St Cyril. It will appear again in works to be discussed in Chapter 8, indicating a considerable longevity over multiple generations. Weitzmann, the first to suggest a Roman provenance for the Vatican Job, cited the similarities between the San Clemente Ascension mural and the oeuvre of the first artist in proposing a ninth-century dating,141 a comparison echoed by Edward Garrison.142 On the other hand, Grabar likened the images of the second and third illuminators to post-iconoclastic art in Byzantium, citing specifically the Ascension mosaic in the church of St Sophia in Thessaloniki.143 And both Weitzmann and Grabar also adduced comparisons to later Ottonian manuscript illuminations!144 Thus any attempt to ascribe a place of origin on the basis of stylistic analysis is fraught with difficulty, and ultimately bound to fail. There can be little doubt that there exist sufficient points of similarity to place both Vat. gr. 749 and the San Clemente murals within the same broad pictorial tradition. The question that must be posed is: was this tradition specifically ‘Roman’, or do both belong to a broader artistic and cultural milieu common to more than one part of the Christian Mediterranean? 141

142 144

Weitzmann 1935: 80. He also considered it earlier than a third Job manuscript, now in Venice (Bib. Marciana, MS gr. 538), dated by a colophon to the year 905. Garrison 1953–62, IV: 193. 143 Grabar 1972: 17. Weitzmann 1935: 79; Grabar 1972: 19.

The Vatican Job (BAV, Vat. gr. 749)

Unfortunately, this question must for the moment remain open, as there is simply insufficient surviving evidence to provide a definitive answer. My own inclination, however, leans towards the latter possibility, and the extensive artistic contacts between Rome and Constantinople render this at least plausible, if not in fact probable. But others have used these comparisons to assume a Roman origin for the Vatican Job, for example Massimo Bernabò, who recently asserted that ‘The set of illuminations can be confidently assigned to Rome, ca. 820.’145 Christoph Eggenberger goes even further, making a specific claim for its production at the Greek monastery of San Saba.146 However, such assertions are surely an unwarranted overreach, as our understanding of ‘style’ in the pictorial arts of early medieval Europe and Byzantium is still much too inadequate to permit conclusions of this sort. It is simply not possible to localize any particular figure style with such specificity. Furthermore, given what is known about scribal mobility in the ninth century, there may be no correlation between a manuscript’s place of origin and the style of its illuminations; and an instructive example is provided by the career of Methodius, born at Syracuse in Sicily and active in both Rome and Constantinople before his appointment as patriarch in 843. Scribes and artists travelled, and their scripts and artistic practices travelled with them, quite possibly influencing others with whom they came into contact. As Cyril Mango has aptly observed, it is unlikely to be a coincidence that the shift from majuscule to minuscule scripts occurs in both Greek and Latin manuscripts at more or less the same time in the ninth century.147 A more productive approach to the determination of geographical origin might involve paying greater attention to non-stylistic technical aspects, for example the formation of quires and their ‘signatures’, ruling systems and ruling types, the nature and quality of the parchment, and other similar factors that can be summed up under the heading of ‘codicology’. These may prove to be more indicative of a particular scriptorium, as opposed to a particular scribe, although progress is certainly complicated by the dearth of examples with a colophon indicating date and place of origin, particularly for the period prior to the tenth century.148 145 146 147 148

Bernabò 2021: 683. Eggenberger 1980; see also Oretskaia 2002–3: 17; Bernabò 2005: 192; Pace 2015: 497–8. Mango 1977, who suggests that in this instance the transition was probably from West to East. For a preliminary exploration of the codicology of Greek manuscripts believed to have been produced in southern Italy, see Leroy 1978.

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Anastasius Bibliothecarius If nothing else, the Vatican Job demonstrates the continuing ties between the Greek and Latin worlds in the third quarter of the ninth century, and one of the individuals at the very centre of that nexus was the papal librarian (bibliothecarius) Anastasius (c. 810–c. 878), whom we have already encountered, both as the unsuccessful candidate of the proFrankish party in the papal election of 855 and for the information gleaned from his correspondence concerning the Roman sojourn of ConstantineCyril. The specifics of his background are not known, but the fact that his uncle and cousin also bore Greek names, Arsenius (Bishop of Orte) and Eleutherius respectively, may provide a clue,149 and there is little doubt that his extensive knowledge of Greek was unparalleled at the papal courts of Nicholas I, Hadrian II and John VIII, all of whom he seems to have served rather faithfully.150 Indeed, it may have been this ability to satisfy the papal need for translations of Greek texts and imperial correspondence that spared his life in 855, and then again in March 868 when Eleutherius kidnapped and subsequently murdered the wife and daughter of Pope Hadrian II.151 Apparently exonerated of complicity in that affair, or perhaps considered too valuable to be punished, in the following year Anastasius travelled to Constantinople as the legate of Louis II, in an attempt to arrange a dynastic marriage, and while there he participated in the Council that condemned Photios and restored Ignatius as patriarch. Following his return to Italy, he translated the acts of the Council into Latin, and Claudio Leonardi has made a compelling case for identifying his original working copy as a manuscript now in the Vatican Library (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 4965).152 This was but one of many translations for which Anastasius is remembered, undertaken for multiple patrons and encompassing a broad range of theological and especially hagiographic texts, the latter including lives of saints as varied as Basil of Caesarea, John the Calibite, Maximus the Confessor, Pope Martin I, Cyrus and John, Demetrius of Thessaloniki and Dionysius of Paris. In many instances the choice of subject can be seen as having relevance to 149 150

151 152

Cò 2019: 77; and von Falkenhausen 2020: 49. Lapôtre 1885; Arnaldi 1961; Chiesa 2002: 459–60, 467–72, 478–87. For the most recent assessments of his career, see Cò 2019; and Gantner 2021. For the events of 868, not mentioned in the Liber pontificalis, see Cò 2019: 30–40. Leonardi 1967; and Cò 2019: 113–14. For the mission to Constantinople, see Cò 2019: 59–69. For an English translation, see Price and Montinaro 2022.

Anastasius Bibliothecarius

contemporary politics, most often in support of the claim made by the Roman Church to be the defender of Christian orthodoxy.153 With his passing, the intellectual foundations at the heart of the papal court, and the close connection between Rome and Constantinople, entered a period of profound decline. 153

Leonardi 1988; Neil 2000; and Neil 2006.

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8

The Last Hurrah: John VIII (872–82)

The Aghlabid Threat to Italy Despite the renewed political and ecclesiastical engagement with Byzantium following the ‘Triumph of Orthodoxy’ in 843, in the middle years of the century the physical security of Rome continued to be severely threatened by a powerful external foe, the Aghlabids of Ifrīqiya; and although there were some minor successes, most notably the recapture of the strategic city of Bari in February 871, Emperor Louis II could only barely manage to stem the tide. Muslim raiders, based in strongholds such as Bari (847–71), or closer at hand in fortified encampments built into the ruins of the Roman amphitheatre at Capua or the Greek temples at Paestum, roamed the countryside more or less at will, seeking plunder and above all slaves.1 One eyewitness, the monk Bernard, who in the year 867 took passage from Taranto to Alexandria on his way to Jerusalem, records that the six ships leaving that port were carrying some 9,000 prisoners taken from the territory of Benevento, all intended for North African slave markets.2 No region of southern Italy was immune to their depredations. In 862, for example, ransoms were extorted from both of the major south Italian monasteries, Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo al Volturno, and a decade later only the timely arrival of the imperial forces prevented the fall of the city of Salerno.3 But with the death of Louis II in August 875 the resistance all but collapsed, leading the contemporary historian Andreas of Bergamo, the self-proclaimed ‘unworthy priest’ who wrote a continuation of Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, to lament that ‘After his [Louis II’s] 1 2

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3

Brezzi 1947: 73–5; and Kreutz 1991: 37–47, 53–4. Bernard the Monk, Journey to the Holy Places, trans. Wilkinson: 141; although it should be noted that McCormick (2001: 174) believes this figure to be ‘manifestly impossible’. For this text see also Halevi 1998. Many Italian cities also actively participated in the slave trade, and the presence of Venetian merchants at Rome’s slave market c. 750 is recorded in the Liber pontificalis life of Pope Zacharias (LP 93.22; ed. Duchesne: I, 433). Early medieval Rome also made extensive use of indentured agricultural labour (Osborne 2021a), and Muslim captives were, as we have seen, used in the construction of the ‘Civitas Leoniana’. Kreutz 1991: 38, 55–6.

The Aghlabid Threat to Italy

death a great tribulation descended on Italy.’4 Andreas comments that he participated himself in the procession taking the emperor’s body from Bergamo to Milan, where it would be buried in the church of Sant’Ambrogio, and this constitutes an important piece of evidence for dating his text. As Louis had died without a male heir, the imperial title was now contested by his uncles, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, both grandsons of Charlemagne. The papal choice fell on the former, and on 25 December Charles was crowned as the new emperor in Saint Peter’s by Pope John VIII (872–82); however, he had little interest in campaigning south of the Alps and soon returned northwards. The ensuing political vacuum opened the door to two developments. The first and most immediate was relatively unfettered access to central Italy for the raiders crossing from North Africa and Sicily, who a few years later would establish a permanent fortified base on the coast north of Naples, at the mouth of the Garigliano river in the ruins of the Roman city of Minturnae, just as they would in Provence at Fraxinetum, on the coast above Saint-Tropez. This colonia saracenica, in the words of Pietro Fedele, would survive for a generation, until the year 915.5 From this encampment armed bands roamed freely across Campania and Latium, with Benedict of Monte Soratte noting that for thirty years the ‘Hagarenes’ ruled the hinterland of Rome (regnaverunt Agarenis in Romano regno anni XXX), ranging northwards where the territories of cities such as Nepi, Orte and Narni were subjected to destruction.6 Their incursions also led to the capture, sack, destruction and temporary abandonment of the two most important monasteries of the region. The first to fall, on 10 October 881, was San Vincenzo al Volturno; and dramatic archaeological evidence for the attack was discovered in the course of Richard Hodges’ excavation in the 1980s, including twenty-one arrowheads thought to have been used to set parts of the monastery on fire.7 San Vincenzo would be refounded only in 916, after the Garigliano base 4

5

6 7

Post cuius obitum magna tribulatio in Italia advenit (Andreas of Bergamo, Historia, cap. 19; ed. Kurze: 229). The Garigliano base was established at the invitation of the Duke of Gaeta, who sought Saracen assistance against the encroachments of Capua; see Fedele 1899; and Kreutz 1991: 62, 76–9. Its eventual elimination required a large coalition of Christian forces supported by the Byzantine fleet. Benedict of Monte Soratte, Chronicon, ed. Zucchetti: 153. Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell 2011a; and Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell 2011b: 234–7 (cat. nos. 2.38–2.58). A number of the arrowheads were found in the charred remains of a wooden door to one of the monastery’s workshops.

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had been destroyed. Monte Cassino, the mother house of the Benedictines, followed only two years later, and Leo of Ostia’s history of the monastery reports that on 22 October 883 its abbot, Bertharius, was slain at the altar of St Martin.8 Those monks who survived the slaughter fled first to Teano, and then subsequently to Capua, returning to the original site only in 949. The destruction by fire of both houses, and the general devastation of the countryside, was also recorded by the monk of Monte Cassino, Erchempert, writing c. 888.9 Even the Sabine hills to the north-east of Rome were not immune, and in 897 the abbot of Farfa, Peter, having survived various raids over a period of seven years and realizing the inevitable, decided that discretion was the better part of valour and chose to abandon the site voluntarily, dispersing the monks in three groups, one to Rome, a second to Rieti and the third to the monastery of St Hippolytus near Fermo in the Marche. Subsequently, the monastery was itself burned.10 Rome was itself an obvious and presumably very tempting target. Although its walls protected the inhabitants from any casual incursion, much of the time and energy of Pope John VIII (872–82) was devoted to an attempt to counter this threat,11 and he was also among the first to couch the conflict in terms of a battle between two competing religions, Christianity and Islam.12 It is perhaps not a coincidence that he is also the first pontiff whose biography is missing completely from the Liber pontificalis, and thus we are dependent on other sources, and primarily his correspondence.13 A register containing summaries of the 314 letters from the last six indiction years of his reign (September 876–August 882), copied at Monte Cassino in the late eleventh century, is preserved in the Vatican Archives (Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Reg. Vat. I);14 and some additional letters from the earlier years of his pontificate are also known.

8

9

10

11

12 13

14

ipsum etiam sanctum ac venerabilem abbatem Bertharium iuxta altarium beati Martini gladio trucidaverunt (Leo of Ostia, Chronica, I, 44; ed. Hoffmann: 114). Erchempert, Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum 44, ed. Pertz and Waitz: 251. For this text and its author, see Pohl 2021. Destructio monasterii Farfensis, ed. Balzini: 31–2. See also Llewellyn 1993: 294–5; McClendon 1987: 9; and Costambeys 2007: 14. For overviews of the political situation, see Engreen 1945; Partner 1972: 67–74; Kreutz 1991: 57– 60; and Cariello 2001. For John VIII, see Lapôtre 1895; Brezzi 1947: 69–80; Sennis 2000; Cariello 2002; Arnold 2005; and Delogu 2022: 385–96. Whitten 2019: 271. John VIII, Epistolae, ed. Caspar, MGH Epistolae VII, 1–333. For an overview see Unger 2018a: 40–60. Lapôtre 1895: 2–15; Lohrmann 1968; and Arnold 2005: 27–45.

The Aghlabid Threat to Italy

The precarious situation in Rome is set out graphically, in particular in two letters written to Charles the Bald only a few days apart in February 877, imploring urgent Frankish assistance. The pope reports that the countryside had been devastated, the rural churches and their altars destroyed, and the clergy and monks carried off into captivity, leaving no person, field or animal untouched. Brazenly, at night the raiders lurked immediately outside the walls of the city (usque ad muros urbis), and had also used the Tiber river itself to gain access to the hinterland beyond Rome, and specifically to the area of the Sabina.15 Even assuming some degree of hyperbole intended to spur the emperor into immediate action, the situation must have been truly dire; and the following year the pope reported that he was being forced to pay an annual tribute of 25,000 gold mancusi.16 Another indication of the same conditions had been provided in the papal account of the flight from Rome to Spoleto of the leaders of the political faction around Formosus, Bishop of Porto, on the night preceding Easter Sunday 876. In a letter dated 21 April of that year, whose text was subsequently preserved in the acts of the Frankish synod convened at Ponthion, John VIII reports on their subsequent excommunication by a Roman council convened in the Pantheon. He laments that, in their haste to escape through the Porta San Pancrazio, a key to which they had feloniously purloined, the conspirators had left the gate open, thus leaving the city vulnerable to occupation.17 Papal demands to Pavia and Ravenna that the fugitives be returned for trial were brazenly rebuffed. The consequences were enormous, resulting, in the words of Fred Engreen, in ‘the actual collapse of the economy of Rome and the Papacy’.18 It is probably significant that Chris Wickham’s survey of the city’s economy in the central Middle Ages cites almost no evidence for activity prior to the eleventh century.19 Some production would of course have continued, but it must have been a far cry from what had existed before, and what would return subsequently. The anarchic conditions in the immediate hinterland of the city probably also led to the destruction, depopulation and ultimately the demise at 15

16 17

18

19

John VIII, Epistolae, ed. Caspar: 29–32, letters 31 (10 February) and 32 (13 February). See also the discussion in Spera 2011: 124–5. John VIII, Epistolae, ed. Caspar: 85–6, letter 89. See discussion in Gantner 2012: 409–10. John VIII, Epistolae, ed. Caspar: 327. See also Brezzi 1947: 71–3; Devos 1964; Llewellyn 1993: 281–2; and Betti 2020. Engreen 1945: 327. See also Partner 1972: 71; and Toubert 1973: 311–12, who speaks of the years between 870 and 910 as the ‘dark decades’ (décennies noires); and Delogu 2022: 365. Wickham 2015: 136–54.

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this time of the papal agricultural estates, the domuscultae, which had been established in the previous century to ensure an adequate supply of food for both the Roman clergy and the larger population.20 All mention of them now simply disappears from both the written sources and the archaeological record. For example, the excavation of the sites of Santa Cornelia and Mola di Monte Gelato, both centres of the domusculta of Capracorum, revealed a demonstrable break in the evidence for occupation from the mid ninth until their refounding in the late tenth or early eleventh century.21 The last recorded document to mention Capracorum is the inscription recording the participation of its militia in the construction of the Leonine wall protecting the church of Saint Peter’s.22 When life in the Roman campagna re-emerges from obscurity in the tenth century, it is organized primarily around fortified centres (castra) rather than unprotected rural estates.23 A similar break has been observed in the occupation of the former imperial villa at Villamagna, situated to the south of Rome near Segni. Here both sculpture and ceramics attest to renewed occupation in the first half of the ninth century, but then there is a significant gap in the archaeological evidence before the monastery of San Pietro is founded on the site in 976 by Hildebrand and three of his companions from Anagni.24 Additionally, two less tangible and more ‘ideological’ consequences of the political situation have been explored cogently by Clemens Gantner. He argues that John VIII envisaged a unity among the various Christian polities and city states of central and southern Italy, united against a common foe, as revealed in the papal correspondence; but perhaps more significant for the longer term was the change in thinking about homicide during warfare, an action previously regarded as a sin but now seen as justified in some circumstances, most notably when committed in defence of the faith.25 Two centuries later this view would be amplified and extended into the moral justification for the Crusades.

20

21 22 23

24 25

Partner 1966: 70. For the establishment of the domuscultae in the eighth century by popes Zacharias and Hadrian I, see Osborne 2020: 118, 124–5, 213–17. Christie and Daniels 1991: 186–8; and Potter and King 1997: 426. Gray 1948: 112–13, no. 96C; and Gibson and Ward-Perkins 1979: 32–3. See also Chapter 6. For the process known as incastellamento, see Toubert 1973: 303–68; and Wickham 2015: 42–52. Fentress, Goodson and Maiuro 2016: 265–84. Gantner 2012. For John VIII’s relations with the various southern Italian polities, see Unger 2018b.

Byzantium

Byzantium The second major development of the 860s was the resumption of active engagement in Italy on the part of the emperors of Constantinople. Byzantium had never withdrawn entirely from the central Mediterranean, and in the first half of the ninth century it had employed diplomacy, including gifts of imperial titles and saintly relics, to secure the continuing loyalty of various cities in the Adriatic, most notably Venice;26 but its primary attention was necessarily devoted to more immediate threats elsewhere. In the decade of the 860s the empire’s physical security improved dramatically through a combination of events: the conversion to Christianity of the Bulgarian khan, Boris I; the waning power of the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad; and above all the emergence in Constantinople of a new and powerful emperor, Basil I (r. 867–86), founder of the ‘Macedonian’ dynasty. Despite the eventual loss of Sicily, naval power was re-established in the Adriatic, and significant parts of southern Italy (primarily Apulia and Calabria) were returned to imperial control.27 Bari, for example, was taken from the Lombards in 876, and would remain in Byzantine hands until lost in turn to the Normans in 1071; and attempts were made to bring the southern Lombard polities into the Byzantine orbit through the time-honoured practice of bestowing imperial titles and dignities.28 The return of powerful imperial fleets to the central Mediterranean did not escape the notice of the papacy. Following the death of Charles the Bald in 877, the imperial throne had remained temporarily vacant as there was no one leader in the Frankish homeland with sufficient power and authority to undertake a major military campaign south of the Alps. By the end of the 870s John VIII was growing increasingly desperate, and his correspondence is again instructive. In 879, having received news of the Byzantine naval victory over the Saracens at Naples, the pope wrote to the imperial commanders, Gregory spatharios, Theophylact turmarch and Diogenes comes, seeking their urgent assistance against the ‘despicable [lit. incestuous] Hagarenes’ (nefandos Agarenos).29 His plea was successful. The Byzantine fleet sailed north to the mouth of the Tiber where it again won a victory, and in a subsequent letter, dated 13 August 880, John wrote 26 27

28

Osborne 1999. Gay 1904: 109–14; von Falkenhausen 1978: 20–3; and Kreutz 1991: 62–6. For the ninth-century creation of the Byzantine theme of Dalmatia, see Ferluga 1978: 165–89, although there remain some uncertainties about the precise date (see Vedriš 2021). For an overview, see Martin 2021. 29 John VIII, Epistolae, 245; ed. Caspar: 214.

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to Basil I to record his grateful thanks. But there was a considerable price to be paid, namely the recognition of Photios as the legitimate patriarch of Constantinople, and the relinquishing of any claim to jurisdiction over the church in Bulgaria.30 Historians continue to debate whether John VIII seriously contemplated returning Rome to the Byzantine fold following more than a century of political ties to the Franks. Jules Gay flatly rejected such a possibility, noting that in the following year the pope travelled north to meet with Charles the Fat, son of Louis the German and thus one of Charlemagne’s greatgrandsons, who was crowned emperor as Charles III in February 881.31 In a similar manner, Peter Partner deemed it ‘out of the question’.32 But the situation is far from clear, and is additionally obscured by the absence of a Liber pontificalis entry. Raymond Davis contends that the series of papal biographies was discontinued after Life 108 (Hadrian II), itself incomplete, noting that three of the four manuscripts which include this Life continue without a break to the fragment for Stephen V (885–891). Thus there is no evidence that something was written and then subsequently lost.33 It is easy to imagine that John would have welcomed an alliance with any political ruler who was willing and able to protect Rome from its enemies. The papal administration may itself have been divided on this question. In December 882 John died in uncertain circumstances, with one Frankish chronicle reporting that he had been murdered by members of his own household, who reportedly employed a hammer for this purpose when an initial attempt to poison him appeared to be having no effect.34 The choice of the bishop of Caere, Marinus I, as the next pope led to factional violence in which the superista Gregory was killed in the atrium of Saint Peter’s. His body was then dragged through the church, staining the floor pavement with his blood.35 In any event, Charles the Fat proved incapable of 30

31 34

35

John VIII, Epistolae, 259; ed. Caspar: 228–30. For the context, see Gay 1904: 123–4; and Engreen 1945: 323–4. Gay 1904: 121–2. 32 Partner 1972: 72. 33 Davis 1995: 295–6. Igitur Romae praesul apostolice sedis nomine Iohannes prius de propinquo suo veneno potatus, deinde, cum ab illo simulque aliis suae iniquitatis consortibus longius victurus putatus est, quam eorum satisfactio esset cupiditati, quia tam thesaurum suum quam culmen episcopatus rapere anhelabant, malleolo, dum usque in cerebro constabant, percussus expiravit (Annales Fuldenses, continuatio Ratisbonensis, ed. Kurze, 109). Quidam Gregorius nomine, quam Romani superistam vocitabant, dives valde, in paradiso sancti Petri a suo collega occisus est, et pavimentum aecclesiae, per quam trahebatur, totum sanguine illius infectum (Annales Fuldenses, ed. Kurze, 99). Francis Dvornik (1958/1974: 40–2) viewed the election of Marinus I as a victory for the ‘anti-Byzantine party in Rome’, and that of his successor in 884, Hadrian III, as representing the subsequent ascendancy of the ‘pro-Byzantine party’. For the intriguing career of Marinus, see McCormick 2001: 143–7.

Vikings and Slavs

providing military assistance, and a few years later another pope, Stephen V, once again wrote to Constantinople with a plea for help.36 In a much longer version of this letter, preserved in a manuscript in the Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai, Stephen V also complains about those who had fled ‘like mice’ to Constantinople, presumably after the death of John VIII, and were spreading evil rumours about the anti-Byzantine views of the papacy. He requests that Basil either put them in prison or send them back to Rome.37

Vikings and Slavs While the most significant physical threat to Italy came from Sicily and North Africa, it was not the only source of immediate danger. The last decade of the eighth century had witnessed the beginning of armed raids on Britain and western Europe from the Vikings of Scandinavia, resulting in the sack and eventual abandonment of the Northumbrian monastery of Lindisfarne in 793. As the years passed, these attacks increased, affecting not only the coasts, but also cities situated well inland on navigable rivers such as the Rhine, Seine and Loire. Ninth-century Frankish annals are replete with references to the devastations inflicted by the Nordmanni, who sought both booty and captives. For example, the multi-authored Annales Bertiniani, named for the manuscript copy preserved at the abbey of SaintBertin,38 covering the period from 830 to 882, records incursions in most years. Paris was a frequent target, most notably in 845 and 861.39 The cities of Trier and Cologne were both captured in 882, and the neighbouring countryside laid waste including the imperial palace at Aachen, which was burned, with the Annales of Fulda recording that the inhabitants of Trier who didn’t manage to flee were slaughtered.40 And just as the North Africans had first conquered and then settled in Sicily, so too would the Vikings eventually colonize areas of their own conquests, including Yorkshire in England and the region of northern France around the mouth of the Seine to which they would give their name: Normandy. As a result, the Franks were much too busy dealing with the immediate threat 36 37 38

39 40

Epistolae ad res orientales spectantes, 1; ed. Caspar and Laehr: 372–4, at 374, lines 29–31. Grumel 1953: 146–7. For the context, see Dvornik 1958/1974: 40–2. Now Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque de l’Agglomération, MS 706. The Annales have been called ‘the most substantial piece of contemporary historical writing of their time’ (Nelson 1991: 1). Annales Bertiniani, ed. Waitz: 32, 54. Annales Bertiniani, ed. Waitz: 153; Annales Fuldenses, ed. Kurze: 97.

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to their heartland, not to mention internal civil strife as the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Charlemagne squabbled over their inheritance, to contemplate significant and sustained interventions in events taking place in more remote regions much farther south. Remarkably, the Vikings are even recorded as having entered the Mediterranean. In 859 one intrepid party of ‘Danish pirates’ (pyratae Danorum) ventured far enough south to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar, establishing a winter base on the ‘island’ of the Camargue at the mouth of the Rhône. In the following year (860) they devastated the valley of that river as far north as Valence, and also captured the Italian city of Pisa.41 It is possibly this event which, a century and a half later, gave rise to the account of a Viking attack on the city of Luni, on the Ligurian coast just to the north of Pisa, related by the historian Dudo of Saint-Quentin. In his telling, the city was occupied following an ingenious stratagem, with the attackers apparently believing that they had captured Rome itself, along with the person of the pope.42 And just to cap matters off, a third menace came from the Slavs in the Balkans. Although they were never likely to invade Italy from the northeast, something that would happen only when the Magyars crossed into Friuli in 899, the Slavs posed a significant threat to maritime traffic in the Adriatic, thus threatening trade and communication with Constantinople.43 In 840, Emperor Lothar had specified naval assistance against this threat in his treaty with Venice,44 but the situation continued to fester. Pope Hadrian II discovered this reality when his envoys to the 869 Council of Constantinople were intercepted on their return journey and held prisoner for many months, among the eventual losses being the official copy of the Council’s acts with all the appended signatures.45 Thus by the end of the third quarter of the century, the Carolingian ‘security umbrella’, which over the course of one hundred years had served with considerable success to protect the city of Rome against external threats, had finally disintegrated, and the popes were once again required both to consider the possibility of having to defend their city against armed assault and also to shoulder themselves the responsibility for dealing with it. 41 42

43 45

Annales Bertiniani, ed. Waitz: 51, 54; Nelson 1991: 90, 92–3. Dudo of Saint-Quentin, De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum, 1.5–7; ed. Lair: 132–5. Vedriš 2021: 137–8. 44 Pactum Hlotharii, 7; ed. Boretius and Krause: 132. LP 108.60; ed. Duchesne: II, 184.

Vikings and Slavs

Most vulnerable were the suburban churches, including the important shrine of the apostle Paul, San Paolo fuori le mura, with its attached monastery, which had already experienced one capture and sack in 846. Although the site lay too far outside the circuit of the Aurelian walls to be connected directly, John VIII did attempt to protect it by constructing a fortified enclosure, straddling the Via Ostiense, and he emulated earlier pontiffs like Gregory IV and Leo IV in giving it his own name, Johannipolis.46 This was recorded in an inscription, a substantial fragment of which still survives in the lapidarium of the adjacent monastery,47 although no traces of the defensive walls have been uncovered in modern archaeology. As Hendrik Dey has recently observed, Johannipolis would be ‘the last of the really enterprising public works attempted in early medieval Rome’.48 The final threat to the papacy in the second half of the ninth century came from within: the continuing struggles between disparate political factions linked to the ranks of the Roman nobility and the everinterfering regional magnates, primarily the dukes of Spoleto; and it is presumably in this context that Pope John VIII came to his sorry personal end. It seems that John was all too painfully aware of his failure to restore some semblance of order amidst the chaos. In one of his last surviving letters, sent in August 882 to Anselm, Archbishop of Milan, he laments having suffered the persecutions not only of the ‘pagans’ but also ‘malign Christians’, ‘beyond what words can express’, and goes on to cite as an example the extreme act of violence perpetrated at Narni by a subordinate of Guy of Spoleto, who had cut off the hands of some eighty-three men, many of whom subsequently died from their wounds.49 It was anything but an easy time, and the city’s many difficulties were encapsulated in a short poem of twenty-four lines, the Versus Romae, of uncertain origin and date but likely to have been written about the year 880, from which time also comes the earliest manuscript copy.50 Addressed directly to the city itself, the degradation of ‘old Rome’ (Roma vetusta) is 46 47 48 49

50

Belli Barsali 1976: 208–9; Marazzi 1994: 269–70; Spera 2011; and Camerlenghi 2018: 134–5. De Rossi 1857–88 II: 326; Gray 1948: 103 no. 84; Marazzi 1994: 277; and Spera 2011: 122, 277. Dey 2021: 125. Nos enim in hac terra tam paganorum quam malignantium Cristianorum tantas persecutiones patimur, ut hec verbis explicare non valemus. Inter innumeras rapinas depredationes et mala quamplurima ad augmentum doloris nostri quidam sceleratus Langobardus nomine, homo Uuidonis marchionis, octoginta tres homines manibus singulis detruncatis apud Narniensem civitatem, plures ex tali sunt incisione sine mora perempti (John VIII, Epistolae, ed. Caspar: 269, letter 310). Anonymous, Versus Romae, ed. Traube. See also Granier 2004.

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contrasted with the dazzling fortunes of Constantinople, and there is a possible allusion to the Saracen occupation of the hinterland in the reference to people from the farthest parts of the globe, slaves of slaves, now being the city’s masters. The Roman Empire has passed away, leaving only pride (superbia) in its memory. Even the reputation of its patrons, Peter and Paul, might not be sufficient to save it. The poem concludes with the probably all too accurate claim, given the activities of clerics like Deusdona earlier in the century, that the bodies of other saints had been dismembered so that their bones might be sold, and predicts that the grip of the earth on those now being buried will result in future possibilities for the ‘sale of false relics’ (falsas vendere reliquias).

Papal Court Culture Despite these numerous tribulations, there is evidence to suggest that both literary and artistic activities continued to thrive, at least in the early years of John VIII’s reign. One of the last great moments of the early medieval papal court must have been the pomp and ceremony associated with 14 December 875–5 January 876 visit to Rome of the Frankish king, Charles the Bald, who was crowned as the next ‘Emperor of the Romans’ in Saint Peter’s on Christmas day, precisely seventy-five years after his grandfather, Charlemagne, had been the first Frankish monarch to receive that honour and title. Among the entertainments enjoyed by Charles and his papal host during this period was a recitation of the satiric Cena Cypriani, a parody of the practice of exegesis attributed in the Middle Ages to Cyprian, the third-century bishop of Carthage, in which various Biblical characters attend a wedding banquet at Cana. Some months later, the Roman deacon John Hymmonides would produce his own version of the Cena in rhythmical verse, with a prologue, epilogue and dedication to John VIII, and these additions record the great mirth generated on that occasion. Steeped in references to the best-known authors of the ancient world, this text also comments on the erudite intellectual companions of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, including Gauderic, Bishop of Velletri, who is said to have ‘fallen over laughing’ (ridens cadit Gaudericus), and Zacharias, Bishop of Anagni, as well as Anastasius himself.51 In the words of Arthur Lapôtre, the French Jesuit 51

Lapôtre 1901; Arnaldi 1956: 75–9; Devos 1964; Bayless 1996: 40–4; Bertini 2001; and Delogu 2022: 375–7. For the text: John the Deacon, ‘Versiculi de Cena Cypriani’, ed. Strecker.

Papal Court Culture

who was among the first to study this ‘poème burlesque’, it reveals how the circle around John VIII undertook to amuse themselves,52 but also the depth of their collective learning. In the epilogue, for example, the flight of the Formosan party in April 876 is likened to that of the last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus.53 Presumably John’s audience would have possessed sufficient knowledge of Roman history to grasp the allusion. John Hymmonides is thought to have belonged to a wealthy family, possibly of Greek extraction, which owned a house in the Suburra district that incorporated an oratory dedicated to St Demetrios of Thessaloniki.54 He is perhaps better known for his vita of Pope Gregory I (590–604), written between 873 and 875 at papal request; taken together, these two texts aptly demonstrate the broad range of the considerable literary output produced in the early years of John VIII’s pontificate.55 Indeed, Girolamo Arnaldi has argued eloquently for the importance of the circle of Anastasius, John Hymmonides and Gauderic, with a focus on their international connections, and in particular the close ties to political and religious affairs in Constantinople.56 In terms of cultural sophistication and achievement, however, this would prove to be the last hurrah of the papal court for some time to come. John Hymmonides is last mentioned in June 876; and Anastasius himself is believed to have died in or about the year 878.57 They seem not to have had immediate intellectual successors. The remarkable advancements in artistic elegance achieved by the late years of the Carolingian Empire were also on full display in the sumptuous gifts presented to the pope by Charles the Bald on the occasion of his imperial coronation,58 and there are two surviving objects believed possibly to have been brought to Rome for this purpose, both of which include Charles’ own image as ruler. One is the most lavishly illustrated of all extant Carolingian Bible manuscripts, known as the ‘Bible of San Paolo fuori le mura’ because it has been in the library of that monastery since at least the 52

53 55

56 58

Lapôtre 1901: 305: ‘Le “souper” de Jean Diacre nous dira comment on s’amusait à Rome dans l’entourage du pape Jean VIII’. Devos 1964. 54 Arnaldi 1956: 48. For the possible political motivation underlying the Vita Gregorii, see Leonardi 1976, who describes the intellectual activity of this circle as the most notable in Rome of the entire ninth century (p. 382); and Leyser 2003, who also suggests (p. 214) that John VIII’s register of letters may have been directly inspired by the Gregorian model. Lapôtre (1901: 369–81) contended that John Hymmonides was also responsible for the Liber pontificalis life of Pope Hadrian II, a view echoed by Arnaldi (1956: 49) and more cautiously by Davis (1995: 189, 249). Clearly a prolific author, he may also have compiled the life of Nicholas I (see Bougard 2008), although the most recent ‘stylometric’ analysis leaves that question open (see Bon and Bougard 2020). Arnaldi 1997. 57 Devos 1962: 114. Annales Bertiniani, ed. Waitz: 127 (multa et pretiosa munera).

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late eleventh century. Written by the scribe Ingobertus, probably at Reims, and perhaps intended from the outset as a gift for the pope, its 334 surviving folia include twenty-four surviving full-page illuminations, primarily frontispieces but also a dedication page depicting the enthroned figure of the Frankish king (now fol. 1r).59 And the second object frequently associated with the events of December 875 is the wooden throne inlaid with ivory plaques related stylistically to the carving of the Metz School, their subject matter comprised mainly of acanthus and vine scrolls, and other ornamental motifs, but also including a set of classicizing panels illustrating the Labours of Hercules, and a depiction of Charles’ coronation. This was later enclosed in Gianlorenzo Bernini’s ‘Throne of Saint Peter’ (cathedra Petri) of 1657–66, but was removed for examination and study in November 1968.60 As Larry Nees has observed, the link to Charles’ 875 visit to Rome remains unproven but is ‘overwhelmingly likely’.61 If these gifts had any effect on the artists working in Rome it has not left any evident trace, but perhaps one indication of their appreciation by the papal court is the simple fact that efforts were made, both at the time and subsequently, to ensure their survival.

Santa Maria de Secundicerio Our primary surviving witnesses to the state of the pictorial arts in Rome in the decade of the 870s are the fragmentary remnants of the decorative programme that survives on the walls of a small rectangular temple of the late Republican era, situated immediately adjacent to the Tiber River in the area of the ancient cattle market (the Forum Boarium), opposite the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Long known as the Temple of ‘Fortuna Virilis’, this structure has been more properly identified as the Temple of Portunus (Aedes Portuni), the proprietary deity of harbours, and thus a most appropriate dedication given its location. It is thought to have been constructed in its present form c. 80–70 BCE. A flight of steps at the north end leads to the original pronaos, a portico supported by four freestanding Ionic columns, from which a doorway gives access to the

59

60 61

Jemolo and Morelli 1981; Diebold 1994; and Amendola 2022. For an interpretation of this image as an expression of ‘Romanness’, see Mainoldi 2020. Weitzmann 1973; Nees 1990; and Nees 1991: 147–98, who surveys earlier bibliography. Nees 1990: 347.

Santa Maria de Secundicerio

Fig. 8.1 Temple of Portunus/Church of Santa Maria de Secundicerio.

enclosed cella behind; and a remarkable amount of the original edifice still survives despite its subsequent transformations (Fig. 8.1).62 Like many other stone structures from the ancient city, of which the best known example is undoubtedly the Pantheon, the Temple of Portunus was much too good a building to simply be left abandoned, and thus at some point in the Middle Ages it was repurposed as a Christian church. Such conversions were not simply ‘triumphalist’, but rather based primarily on pragmatism at sites of topographical significance. Although no longer in use as such after the fourth century, temples nevertheless continued to be regarded as sacred (res sacrae) and consequently remained under imperial protection. Thus most such conversions in Rome must post-date the passing of political authority from emperor to pope.63 Over the centuries this structure became encased in a cluster of later accretions, to the point that the original temple almost disappeared from view, and a Piranesi engraving indicates that by the eighteenth century the 62

63

For the temple and its identification, see Marchetti-Longhi 1925; Adam 1994; Coates-Stephens 1997: 216–17; Buzzetti 1999; Del Buono 2009; and Del Buono 2021: 101–6. Schuddeboom 2017.

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ground level had risen considerably, more or less to the height of the podium. In 1566 Pope Pius V granted the church, then known as Santa Maria Egiziaca after the penitent Egyptian prostitute whose story circulated widely in the Middle Ages,64 to the members of the Armenian community in Rome, who had been displaced from their former neighbourhood by the creation of the nearby Ghetto, and they would retain possession until the early years of the twentieth century.65 The Armenians subsequently initiated a campaign of renovations, sponsored by their cardinal-protector, Giulio Antonio Santori (1532–1602), who in 1570 also became CardinalPriest of the church of San Bartolomeo all’Isola on the adjacent Tiber island. This work included a complete redecoration of the interior space, with new murals by the artist Andrea Lilio; and as in often the case in such circumstances, the existing medieval decorations were obliterated – except where they would now be completely hidden from view, since there was little point in expending time, effort and resources in such circumstances. The church was deconsecrated in 1916, and its ownership subsequently passed to the Italian state. A few years thereafter, in a campaign undertaken by Antonio Muñoz between 1921 and 1925, and intended to restore the building’s original appearance, the post-classical structural modifications and additions were all stripped away, revealing the aspect that remains today.66 The sixteenth-century renovations had included the installation of four interior pilasters, running from floor to ceiling, two adjacent to the end wall of the church, and two at approximately the middle point of the side walls, from which arches spanned the width of the structure. When these were removed, Muñoz discovered that substantial portions of the original medieval programme of painting survived in vertical strips on the walls beneath (Fig. 8.2).67 The Belgian art historian Jacqueline Lafontaine, whose 1959 monograph constitutes the first comprehensive study of these murals, documented some twenty-five fragments, twenty-two belonging to the four vertical strips which Muñoz had exposed, and three more located in the upper regions of the end wall. For the most part the paintings were in exceptionally poor physical condition, with the result that they have subsequently required conservation treatments on multiple occasions. In the mid 1960s the fragments were detached from the walls, and provided with their own supports 64 65 66

67

Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, trans. Ryan I: 227–9. For the Armenian hospice, see Santus 2019. Muñoz 1925. The work began on 5 April 1921 with the demolition of three houses which abutted the temple structure (ibid., 27). Muñoz 1925: 37; Adam 1994, figs. 26, 27, 29; and Del Buono 2010, fig. 3.

Santa Maria de Secundicerio

Fig. 8.2 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: mural fragments in vertical strip.

before being returned to their original positions.68 The most recent campaign of conservation was undertaken between 2006 and 2008, sponsored by the World Monuments Fund. Fortunately, enough has remained to determine that the decorative programme comprised six horizontal registers on the side walls, at least five of which included figures. The church was apparently decorated only once – but when? Here we have a clear answer, because there is documentary evidence for a dedication inscription, written in hexameters. Two substantial marble fragments were discovered c. 1580 at the time of the renovations to the interior, and although these have long since been lost, copies were made and placed in the church’s archive. Subsequently, the text was published by a number of antiquarian scholars, principally Francesco Maria Torrigio in 1635, and in the following century by Gregorio Giacomo Terribilini. The larger fragment read in part: 68

Trimarchi 1978: 677; and Del Buono 2010: 523–4.

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Virginis in variis radiat domus alta figura Quae Dominum castis visceribus tenuit, Cuius amore pius Stephanus cum coniuge fretus Cum genitisque pium quod nitet auxit opus. Nobilis, ingenuus, doctissimus, integer, almus, Aethereum est et erit culmen is Ausoniae, Praesulis octavi nunc tempore iure Ioannis.69

These verses record that the ‘lofty house’ (domus alta) was dedicated to Mary, that the donor of the decorations was named Stephen, that he was assisted in the enterprise by his wife and children, and, perhaps most importantly, that the work was undertaken during the pontificate of John VIII (872–82). The second, smaller fragment also names Stephen, and identifies him as a iudex, in other words a senior official in the papal administration.70 This indication of patronage is significant, as it marks the first securely documented decoration of a Roman church undertaken in the ninth century by someone other than the pope or another member of the clergy; and it is worth noting that a second example of lay patronage from the time of John VIII may be found in the church of Santa Maria Domine Rose (also known as Santa Maria in Castro Aureo), rebuilt as Santa Caterina dei Funari in 1560–4, whose foundation was attributed to four members of the nobility: Gratian, Gregory, Rosa and Imilla.71 With the advantage of hindsight, we can perhaps see this as marking the beginning of a shift towards secular patronage of the arts generally, and church sponsorship and decoration more specifically, which would become normative in the century to follow. The principal earlier precedent in Rome for lay artistic patronage of this sort is provided by the Theodotus Chapel in Santa Maria Antiqua, decorated by a primicerius of that name in the time of Pope Zacharias (741–52);72 but there are a few other possibilities, mostly not precisely dated, including the depiction of lay donor figures elsewhere in Santa Maria Antiqua,73 and also in Sant’Adriano.74 In the tenth century, 69

70

71

72

Muñoz 1925: 12; Hülsen 1927: 337; and Lafontaine 1959: 12. For a comprehensive discussion of the inscription, very minor variations in its transcription, and its subsequent publication and analysis, see Del Buono 2010: 515–22. The iudices comprised seven papal officials who adjudicated legal disputes: the primicerius, secundicerius, protoscriniarius, arcarius, saccelarius, primus defensorum and nomenclator; see Wickham 2000: 152. For an overview of the nature and development of the papal administration, see Noble 1984: 218–41. The names of the founders, two men and two women, are recorded in an October 1192 bull of Pope Celestine III; see Hülsen 1927: 331; and Coates-Stephens 1997: 208–9. Osborne 2020: 95–136. 73 Osborne 1987: 197–8. 74 Bordi 2011.

Santa Maria de Secundicerio

patronage of church foundations by members of the Roman elite, for example the family of Theophylact, would become the standard practice. The precise medieval dedication was initially the subject of debate. From the early modern period onwards the church had been known under the name of a different Mary, the third-century saint known as ‘St Mary the Egyptian’, but the identification of the structure as Santa Maria Egiziaca is first attested only in the year 1492,75 and presumably stemmed from the scenes from her life still clearly visible on the side walls in the fourth register. The donor inscription leaves no doubt that the original dedication had been to the Virgin Mary, Christ’s mother, but later medieval catalogues identified two such churches in this immediate vicinity: Santa Maria de Secundicerio (in other words ‘of the secundicerius’, that being the second most important position in the papal administration, after the primicerius),76 and Santa Maria de Gradellis (in other words, ‘of the little steps’). In both his edition of the Liber pontificalis and a separate study, Louis Duchesne had proposed the former,77 a view supported subsequently by Marchetti-Longhi and Trimarchi, among others.78 The alternative was preferred by Muñoz himself, Hülsen and Lafontaine.79 In an earlier study I observed that the secundicerius in the early years of John VIII was in fact named Stephen,80 as documented in Pierluigi Galletti’s classic study of this administrative position,81 and that this might lend some weight to Duchesne’s view, now generally accepted. And if that is indeed the case, then we can also narrow down the range of possible dates even further. The secundicerius Stephen belonged to the socalled ‘Formosan party’ in the politics of the Roman church, the group of the Roman nobility led by his brother, the nomenclator Gregory, who opposed John VIII and who for their safety fled from Rome on the night before Easter Sunday in April 876 – apparently leaving the Porta San Pancrazio open in their haste, and thus exposing the city to Saracen infestation, as John VIII was quick to lament. If this identification of the Stephen in question is accepted, then there is a fixed terminus ante quem for 75

76

77 78 79

80 81

Hülsen 1926: 66, n. 1; Hülsen 1927: 338. For the full text of the 1492 catalogue of Roman churches, see Hülsen 1927: 69–79. For the position of secundicerius, see Galletti 1776: 89–107. The title first appears in the Liber pontificalis in the life of Pope Constantine (708–15), who was accompanied by the secundicerius George on his visit to Constantinople (LP 90.3, ed. Duchesne I: 389). LP, ed. Duchesne II: 320, n. 26; and Duchesne 1890: 137. Marchetti–Longhi 1927; and Trimarchi 1978: 654. Muñoz 1925: 13–14; Hülsen 1926: 57–69; Hülsen 1927: 336–8; and Lafontaine 1959: 9. For this debate, see also Del Buono 2010: 516. Osborne 1988. Galletti 1776: 99–100. See also Santifaller 1940: 58–9; and Del Buono 2010: 537–42.

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the date of the murals. John VIII was elected on 14 December 872, so the decorations are likely to have been executed between the years 873 and 875, and certainly no later than the spring of 876.82 There was also another Stephen secundicerius at the end of the ninth century, one apparently not known to Galletti, who can be documented in Rome for the period c. 886–917, when his name is found as a witness on a number of papal charters and other documents.83 Although it is perhaps tempting to view this later Stephen as the donor of the murals, as has been proposed by Giulio Del Buono,84 based on the apparent longevity of his tenure in the office, there is no evidence that he held the position as early as the pontificate of John VIII. Furthermore, as will be seen later in this chapter, there is a very strong possibility that the same workshop of painters can be identified in the church of San Clemente, where they were responsible for the mural over the tomb of Constantine-Cyril, datable quite precisely to the year 869, and this lends additional weight to a date early in John’s papacy. It should be noted that the date of the murals does not necessarily imply that the temple was converted to a church only at this time. It may have happened earlier. Muñoz interpreted the inscription as possibly implying a redecoration rather than the initial dedication, and this view has been seconded by Trimarchi, who accepted a sixth-century date for some of the numerous fragments of early medieval sculpture discovered in the building.85 In contrast, Marchetti-Longhi believed that some decoration would have been required implicitly in the transformation process, and observed that there was no evidence of an earlier Christian presence.86 If Marchetti-Longhi is correct, this then begs the question of what use was made of the structure in the years prior to the ninth century, as it seems unlikely that it would simply have been left derelict; and there is evidence that the paintings covered holes cut into the walls to support wooden beams, perhaps implying the division of the spacious interior into two 82

83

84 85

86

It is perhaps ironic that John VIII refers to Stephen as a ‘looter of churches’ (qui diversas ecclesias spolians); see John VIII, Epistolae, ed. Caspar: 328. Halphen 1907: 109 (who apparently believes that all references are to a single individual); Santifaller 1940: 67–8; and Del Buono 2010: 543–5. Del Buono 2010: 545–6. Muñoz 1925: 13; Trimarchi 1978: 654, citing Kautzsch 1939: 5, 24, while allowing for the possibility of reuse. In addition to numerous other pieces, Muñoz discovered two large panels of a choir screen which had been reused in the floor pavement as tombstones for members of the Armenian community; see Muñoz 1925: 42 For a full catalogue of the sculptural fragments, mostly assignable to the beginning or middle of the ninth century, although with some possibly even earlier, see Melucco Vaccaro 1974: 223–43. Marchetti-Longhi 1927: 100–4.

Santa Maria de Secundicerio

separate floors.87 Was it used as a residence, or perhaps as a storehouse, adjacent to the city’s riverside port? No definitive answer to that question is immediately apparent, but the presence of sculptural fragments perhaps dating from an earlier period certainly strengthens Muñoz’s view. What we can say with reasonable certainty is that by the mid 870s, at the latest, the temple structure functioned as a Christian church, and that its walls were painted for the first time at the behest of a papal official named Stephen, very likely the secundicerius of this name who occupied the position in the early years of the pontificate of John VIII. The uppermost of the six registers was devoted to the infancy and life of Mary, beginning with the narrative of her parents, Anna and Joachim.88 The story of Mary’s miraculous conception and infancy was related in two non-canonical but highly popular texts: the Protoevangelium of James, written in Greek, probably in the second century CE;89 and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, written in Latin, probably in the seventh century, which draws heavily on the Protoevangelium in addition to other sources.90 Both texts were widely disseminated in the Middle Ages, and prompted pictorial cycles in the visual arts, of which the best known examples are probably two belonging to the early fourteenth century: Giotto’s murals in the Arena Chapel in Padua and the mosaics in the Church of Christ in the Chora (Kariye Djami) in Istanbul. In Rome, the earliest known appearance of Anna and Joachim occurs in the eighth century, first in the Greek monastery of San Saba,91 and then later on the wall of the right aisle of Santa Maria Antiqua,92 the latter generally assigned to the pontificate of Paul I (757–67). At an earlier date the Protoevangelium had also been the source for specific details in the representation of Christ’s Nativity in John VII’s funerary chapel in Saint Peter’s, for example the episode of the midwife Salome.93 At Santa Maria de Secundicerio, portions of some six scenes may be discerned. The two in the best condition, both located on the right (west) wall, depict (1) Joachim shown addressing a group of three youthful shepherds, following the refusal of his offerings in the Temple (Protoevangelium of James 1:4; Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 3:5) (Fig. 8.3); and (2) Anna, shown reclining on a bed, speaking with her servant Judith 87 88 89

90

91 92

Adam 1994: 29, 37; Coates-Stephens 1997: 216, n. 20. Lafontaine 1959: 20–8; and Trimarchi 1978: 657–64. Elliott 1993: 48–67. In addition to being the earliest source for the names of Mary’s parents, this text also introduced theological concepts such as Mary’s perpetual virginity. Elliott 1993: 84–99; and Hawk 2019: 13–20 (relationship to Protoevangelium of James), 25–6 (dating), 46–54 (narrative of Anna and Joachim). Wilpert 1916: 923, and fig. 437; and Bordi 2008: 101–2, and fig. 180. Gianandrea 2021: 340. 93 Osborne 2020: 30.

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Fig. 8.3 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: Joachim and the shepherds.

(Protoevangelium of James 2:2–3; Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 2:5). The identification of the principal figures was assisted by the inclusion of Latin inscriptions, still partially legible. Also of interest is a poorly preserved scene, but one whose subject is clearly identified by a painted inscription beginning with the word Hic (‘Here’), depicting Mary and five virgin companions on their journey from the Temple to Joseph’s house.94 The city at the far right is identified by an inscription as Bethlehem. This last episode is based on a passage unique to the Gospel 94

Lafontaine 1959: 27 and pl. VI. It is worth noting that in earlier narrative cycles in Rome in which scenes were identified by painted captions, for example the cycle of saints Quiricus and Julitta in Santa Maria Antiqua, the inscription invariably began with the word ubi (‘where’); see Osborne 1982a: 184.

Santa Maria de Secundicerio

of Pseudo-Matthew (8:4–5), suggesting that this comparatively recent Latin text was the immediate source for the murals. The Marian theme continues in the second register, but the narrative now shifts to the events at the end of her life, once again derived from apocryphal texts.95 The best-preserved scenes are those on the vertical strips in the middle of the wall, and these depict (1) Christ engaged in conversation with his mother prior to her ‘dormition’ (Fig. 8.4);96 and (2) John greeting Peter (the latter identified by his attribute, a key) and the other apostles at the door of Mary’s house (Fig. 8.5). The third register, as we shall see, is possibly the most interesting from the point of view of its links to a larger artistic milieu, and its decorations may be divided into two groups. In the vertical strips adjacent to the altar wall are two narrative moments from the life of the influential fourth-century Cappadocian theologian Basil of Caesarea.97 The mural on the left (east) wall is particularly well preserved (Fig. 8.6). As first identified by Guillaume de Jerphanion, it depicts the episode in which a repentant woman approaches Basil seeking forgiveness for her sins. The saint is shown standing, his body framed by an elaborately decorated arch, with the figure of the supplicant depicted in the act of proskynesis at his feet. The painted inscription reads: HIC MULIER DEPRECANS S(AN)C(TU)M BASILIUM UT PRO EIUS CRIMINA D(OMI)N(U)M EXORARET (‘Here a woman asks St Basil to intercede with the Lord on behalf of her sins’). By contrast, the corresponding panel on the opposite wall is severely damaged, but enough survived to suggest to Lafontaine that it depicted a subsequent moment in the same story, when the woman receives remission of her last sin by tossing the paper on which it is written onto the body of Basil at his funeral. Opened afterwards, it is found to be blank. Trimarchi, however, suggests another possibility, one that perhaps accords more plausibly with the surviving fragment: a miracle story related to Basil and his brother Peter. Both episodes figure prominently in the Greek life of Basil claimed to have been written by his disciple Amphilocius, Bishop of Iconium (modern Konya), and it is likely not a coincidence that an abbreviated version of this text is known to have been translated

95 96

97

Lafontaine 1959: 28–35; and Trimarchi 1978: 664–7. Lafontaine identified the scene as the ‘Annunciation of Mary’s Death’, but as noted by Trimarchi (1978: 666), all the narrative accounts assign that task to the archangel Gabriel. De Jerphanion 1931; Lafontaine 1959: 35–43; and Trimarchi 1978: 668–70. For the larger context of early medieval and Byzantine depictions of Basil, see Brubaker 1992.

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Fig. 8.4 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: Christ speaks to his mother.

into Latin by the papal librarian and master translator, Anastasius, a few years earlier in the time of Pope Nicholas I.98 As noted by de Jerphanion and others, at first it might seem strange to find scenes from the life of a Greek theologian in a Roman church dedicated to Mary, but the Latin translation suggests that interest in Basil was ‘à la mode’ in the city at this time.99 It should be stressed, however, that there is no obvious or irrefutable connection between the mural cycle and this specific Latin text, and an episode from Basil’s vita has been identified by Giulia Bordi among the eighth-century decorations of the church of Sant’Adriano in the 98 99

PL 73, cols 293–312. The episode of the repentant sinner is related in Chapter 10 (cols. 307–9). De Jerphanion 1931: 551.

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Fig. 8.5 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: John greets Peter and the other apostles at the door of Mary’s house.

Roman Forum.100 He is also included in a group of standing saints in the left aisle of Santa Maria Antiqua, again from the eighth century.101 Thus while the Santa Maria de Secundicerio murals constitute important evidence for interest in Basil in the third quarter of the ninth century, that interest was not entirely unprecedented in a Roman context. It is worth noting that the figure in the 100

101

Now in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Crypta Balbi. See Bordi 2000; Bordi 2001: 481; and Osborne 2020: 206–8. Basil also appears in the row of standing saints in the short passageway opening from the atrium of Santa Maria Antiqua, perhaps dating from the tenth century; see Osborne 1989, fig. 2. The earliest Basil episodes to have survived in the arts of Byzantium occur in the tenth-century mural decorations of churches in Cappadocia; see Walter 1978: 243–50. Grafova 2021: 364.

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Fig. 8.6 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: Basil and the repentant sinner.

mural follows a standardized facial type for Basil, with narrow head and dark pointed beard, developed in Byzantium by at least the seventh century.102 The Basil cycle seems not to have been extensive. Much of the space of this register was occupied by an existing marble cornice, carved with an acanthus leaf design, two fragments of which survive in place (Fig. 8.7).103 In the reduced pictorial fields of the two middle pilasters we find the busts of saints, situated above the cornice and set in square frames with elaborate interlace borders, two on each wall, and all four 102

103

ODB: 269. See also Buchthal 1963: 81–6, who notes the similarity in depictions of Basil in both Rome and post-iconoclastic Byzantium; and Brubaker 1992: 75. Muñoz 1925: 38; Melucco Vaccaro 1974: 240–1 (cat. 256–7); and Del Buono 2010: 535–6. Although the dating of the cornice remains the subject of discussion and debate, its insertion appears to precede the addition of the murals.

Santa Maria de Secundicerio

Fig. 8.7 Santa Maria de Secundicerio: fragment of marble cornice.

identified by inscriptions still visible at the time of Muñoz’ restoration. The two males on the right wall are ‘Eastern’, Pantaleon (also known as Pantaleimon) of Nicomedia and Tuthael of Edessa, the latter an exceptionally obscure Syrian stylite saint; and the two women on the left side ‘Roman’, Rufina and Prisca. There is no obvious rationale for this strangely unusual choice; unfortunately, we lack the full selection, and hence the larger context which might explain it. Only Pantaleon is known to have been depicted elsewhere in early medieval Rome. As a ‘medical’ saint, his image was included in the ‘Chapel of the Holy Physicians’ in Santa Maria Antiqua, dating from the time of Pope John VII;104 his name also appears in the inscription of the year 755 recording the relics deposited in the diaconia of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria by the primicerius Theodotus.105 His vita relates that he was exposed in the arena, but the wild beasts refused to harm him; and this may explain the apparent increase in his popularity in Byzantium during and after the period of iconoclasm, when his image was linked in Psalter 104

Nordhagen 1968: 59–60.

105

Maskarinec 2018: 182 (line 19).

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manuscripts to Psalm 124:6 (‘Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth.’).106 Descending further, the fourth register was apparently devoted to scenes taken from hagiographic narratives, of which the two most readily identifiable relate to St Mary the Egyptian and her encounter in the desert with the priest Zosimus.107 If this identification is correct, and there are no surviving inscriptions to assist in that process, then it would be the earliest known depiction of this saint in Christian art, with the imagery possibly derived from one of the two known ninth-century Latin translations of her Greek life, the first by the papal librarian Anastasius, and the second undertaken by Paul, a deacon of the church at Naples.108 It has been suggested, very plausibly, that these murals may be the source for the early modern appellation of the church.109 The fifth register was devoted to the standing figures of saints, both individuals (for example, Callixtus, Alexander and Mark, identified by inscriptions), and at least one group (perhaps the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste).110 Of these, little now survives, and there is no trace whatsoever of the decorations in the lowest zone, the dado, but it may perhaps be assumed that it would have contained fictive vela, similar to those found in most other Roman churches of the early Middle Ages. Faint traces of such a decoration were recorded by Muñoz, both inside the cella and in the pronaos on the façade wall.111 In general, the decoration follows the same pattern as may be observed in other Roman churches, for example Santa Maria Antiqua or Sant’Adriano, in which narrative scenes are placed at the top, with images of saints at a lower level. The apparent emphasis on ‘Eastern’ saints, including Basil, Mary the Egyptian, Pantaleon and others, accords well with the intellectual climate in the early 870s and in particular the circle associated with Anastasius Bibliothecarius who were heavily engaged in the translation of Greek hagiographical texts. Whichever Stephen secundicerius was the patron, he too was apparently keenly interested in ‘Eastern’ saints, and thus is almost certainly to be identified with the Stephen sancte Romane sedis secundicerio who is recorded as having commissioned Latin translations of the Passio Abbibi and Miraculum of Euphemia, two texts dealing with a group of martyrs from Edessa, from a Leo humilis interpres Latinorum et 106 107 108 109 110

Walter 1987: 210. De Jerphanion 1931: 549; Lafontaine 1959: 43–5; and Trimarchi 1978: 671. See discussion by Del Buono 2010: 558–60. For Paul’s translation, see PL 73, cols. 671–90. De Jerphanion 1931: 542–3; and Lafontaine 1959: 45. De Jerphanion 1931: 549; and Lafontaine 1959: 46–8. 111 Muñoz 1925: 42.

Santa Maria de Secundicerio

Ellinicorum.112 In this context the presence in the mural programme of Tuthael is perhaps less puzzling, although one wonders what could possibly have sparked Stephen’s interest in saints from this particular city (modern Urfa, in Turkey). Finally, on the end wall three fragments remained of a theophanic vision: Christ seated on a throne, enclosed in a mandorla, his right hand raised in a gesture of blessing and his left holding a book, flanked by two multi-winged cherubim and the symbols of the four evangelists.113 The presence of candlesticks also indicates the source of the iconography in John’s Apocalypse, and this theme has numerous thematic parallels elsewhere in Rome, for example in the mosaics on the arches above the apses of Santi Cosma e Damiano and Santa Prassede, to name but two. Perhaps the most strikingly novel aspect of the Santa Maria de Secundicerio murals is the decoration of the borders, both horizontal and vertical, which separate the individual registers as well as the scenes within them.114 The design comprises bands of white dots forming an interlaced pattern of alternating large medallions and small circles, and the medallions are additionally decorated with an alternation of human heads, all male and sometimes bearded, and seen either frontally or in three-quarter view, and floral motifs, comprising either a rosette of eight petals, or four petals arranged to form a sort of cross.115 This same pattern may be observed in each of the top three registers, although the surviving evidence does not permit a determination of whether it continued into the lower zone of the wall. De Jerphanion was the first to observe that this usage has absolutely no precedent in the decorations of any other Roman church.116 Almost without exception, previous practice in the city had been to leave the borders in narrative cycles completely devoid of enhancement: for example, in the hagiographic cycle depicting Sts Quiricus and Julitta in the Theodotus Chapel of Santa Maria Antiqua (c. 750), the Genesis cycle on the left aisle wall of the same church (c. 760), the hagiographic scenes in the transept of Santa Prassede (c. 820) and the Christological cycle in San Clemente (c. 850). The one significant exception occurs at the beginning of the eighth 112

113 114 115 116

The circumstances of the translation are reported in a letter (BHL 7477c) attached to the texts, preserved in a single manuscript of the early twelfth century: Vatican City, BAV, Arch. S. Petr. A 5; see Chiesa 1991. Lafontaine 1959: 48–50; and Trimarchi 1978: 673–4. Lafontaine (1959: 51) deems them ‘l’un des traits les plus frappants’. For a detailed description, see Lafontaine 1959: 53. De Jerphanion 1931: 549, ‘Pareil encadrement ne se retrouve en aucune autre peinture romaine de la même époque.’

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century, when a decorative pattern of overlapping circles was employed to enhance borders on at least two occasions: in the murals of John VII in Santa Maria Antiqua and the Christological cycle in San Saba.117 It can be no coincidence that both those latter commissions are likely to have been undertaken by artists from the eastern Mediterranean, as indicated by the iconography and technique.118 As we have seen, there are ornamental borders in the mosaic decorations of the churches of Paschal I, but that context is different, as is the medium employed.119 Nor do they function as scene or register dividers. So this marks a very significant departure from known previous practice in Rome. How can we explain it? Ornamental borders, for the most part employing the decorative vocabulary of the arts of Late Antiquity, can be documented as having continued to be employed into the early Middle Ages, for example in the murals preserved at two sites in Egypt: the monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawît120 and the Red Monastery near Sohag.121 They emerge again in the post-iconoclastic paintings of Byzantium, for example in the rock-cut churches of Cappadocia, dating from the tenth century – and this prompted both de Jerphanion and Lafontaine to view the eastern Mediterranean in general, and Coptic art in particular, as the probable source of inspiration for Santa Maria de Secundicerio. The comparisons to the borders with busts in linked medallions found in tenth-century murals in Cappadocia are also notable.122 A direct link between a Roman church and the earlier Egyptian monasteries seems most improbable at this date; but artistic contact with contemporary Byzantium can be more readily documented, and Lafontaine’s suggestion that textiles or manuscripts may have been the mechanism of transmission thus appears very sensible.123 In that regard it is worth noting that a somewhat similar pattern, comprising an alternation of interlocking beaded medallions and smaller circles, may 117

118 119

120

121 122

123

For an overview, see Osborne 1997b. For Santa Maria Antiqua, see Wilpert 1916: pl. 178; and Nordhagen 1968: 68–9, pl. XCa. For the pattern, see Balmelle and Prudhomme 1985: pl. 44 d–e. For San Saba, see Bordi 2008: 95, and fig. 169. Osborne 2020: 62–3, 76–7. For an examination of the sources of the decorative vocabulary used by Paschal I’s mosaicists, see Mackie 1995. A border in which busts in medallions alternate with birds enclosed in diamond shapes may be found in Chapel 18 (Clédat 1904–16: I, fasc. 1, pls LXVI–LXXIV), but the closest comparison for the pattern occurs in Chapel 37 (Clédat 1904–16: I, fasc. 2, pl. XVII). For an overview of the range of geometric and floral decoration in the Bawît borders, see Lucchesi-Palli 1990. Bolman 2016. For example, Chapel 1 (El Nazar) at Göreme; see Restle 1967: figs. 6–9, 12–15, 18. For this church, see most recently Bordi 2018. Lafontaine 1959: 53. De Jerphanion (1931: 551) believed that the Roman painter must have been either a Byzantine or Byzantine-trained artist.

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found in the tenth and last level of painting identified by Giulia Bordi in the apse of the church of Santa Maria Antiqua, in the expanse of painted vela now barely visible at the bottom of the wall. It can be assigned to a date in the first half of the ninth century.124 But the closest comparison may be observed in the fragmentary murals discovered following the 1980 earthquake in the church of San Benedetto in Capua, perhaps to be dated to the tenth century. Here a portion of a painted frieze, about 3 metres in length and set immediately above the dado, contains a similar scheme of alternating large and small medallions, with the former containing the cowled heads of monks. Some medallions also bear inscriptions, identifying the figures as portraits of the abbots of the monastery. Lucinia Speciale has plausibly suggested that this arrangement may reflect the lost decoration of the church of the Benedictine mother house at nearby Monte Cassino, itself frequently cited as having been influenced by the contemporaneous arts of Byzantium.125 There is one other Roman monument, introduced in Chapter 7, which must be included in this discussion: the wall-painting depicting the theme of the Anastasis in the excavated lower church of San Clemente, thought to be the only surviving remnant of the original tomb of Constantine-Cyril, who died in Rome on 14 February 869. The stylistic parallels between the San Clemente mural and those in Santa Maria de Secundicerio are striking.126 For example, both feature figures with large solid faces, heavily accented eyes with large pupils, unnaturally elongated fingers and a hairstyle of long plaited braids. At San Clemente these characteristics are readily apparent in the figure of Adam at the far right of the composition, and at Santa Maria in the figure of Christ in the scene in which he speaks with his mother (Fig. 8.4), as well as the numerous heads in the decorated borders. The similarity also extends to the representation of drapery, which appears to be primarily decorative in nature. Some common aspects are more generally characteristic of the arts of ninth-century Rome, for example the long sweeping curve used to indicate the upper leg from the knee to the hip, enhanced by a prominent diagonal ‘double-line’ fold (Christ in the Anastasis; St Basil), a ‘shorthand’ device that we have seen in the figures of popes Paschal I in Santa Prassede and Leo IV elsewhere in San Clemente; but others are confined only to these two examples, for example the manner in which the drapery folds spill out 124 125 126

Bordi 2021: 416. I am grateful to Giulia Bordi for drawing this comparison to my attention. Speciale and Torriero Nardone 1995: 96–100 and fig. 10; and Schulte-Umberg 2021. The discussion that follows was first set out in Osborne 1981c: 275–9; and Osborne 1984: 187–90.

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Fig. 8.8 San Clemente: Anastasis, detail of St Cyril’s hood.

from behind St John as he greets the other disciples, drawn in a more or less identical fashion to those behind the figure of Christ in the San Clemente ‘Harrowing of Hell’. Another similarity is the cloth tied around the column used as a scene divider in San Clemente and the curtain similarly tied around a column in the scene of Basil and the repentant sinner, as well as the unusual designs on the columns themselves. In both instances the fluting is interrupted in the middle by a decorative design comprising two intersecting diagonal lines set between horizontal borders. Once again, some of these elements have broader parallels; for example, the vela tied around columns, a motif derived from the arts of Late Antiquity, may be found in a range of contemporaneous Carolingian and Byzantine manuscripts, from the early ninth-century Stuttgart Psalter (Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Bibl. fol. 23) to the mid tenth-century Leo Bible (Vatican City, BAV, Reg. gr. 1). But both these details appear to be otherwise unknown in Roman mural painting of this era. There is one final parallel that is unique to the two monuments in question. The portrait of Constantine-Cyril on the left side of the Anastasis depicts him as wearing a close-fitting hood, to which a series of designs have been added to the top and sides in red paint (Fig. 8.8). As discussed previously, early medieval depictions of Byzantine monks depict

Parisinus Graecus 923

them wearing hoods, usually with a cross at the apex. But the geometric designs on the two sides of the hood are unusual and puzzling, and as far as can be determined, these have no specific symbolism but are simply products of the artist’s imagination. What makes this both interesting and relevant is the observation that their precise nature – cross-hatching, circles divided by two dots, zig-zag lines with a dot in each segment thus created – are paralleled exactly at Santa Maria de Secundicerio in the episode in which Christ speaks with his mother before her death, in the designs used to decorate the bed, presumably meant to identify it as fabric, and best observed immediately above Mary’s outstretched legs (Fig. 8.4). This provides very strong evidence that the two murals are not only likely to be very close in date, but indeed probably also the products of the same artistic workshop, one which made use of these idiosyncratic designs in appropriate contexts.

Parisinus Graecus 923 The predominantly ‘Byzantine’ nature of the subject matter depicted on the walls of Santa Maria de Secundicerio, and the apparent links to contemporary Roman interest in translations of Greek hagiographical texts, has been noted by all those who have studied the decorations in this church.127 In turn, this has led some art historians to a search for parallel imagery in contemporary Byzantine art. Before continuing, I shall pause here to observe that, given the looseness with which the adjective ‘Byzantine’ is used in much modern scholarship, for the purposes of this discussion I do not intend the very narrow definition of something related to the physical territory ruled in the late ninth century by the emperors of Constantinople, but rather what Catherine Holmes has recently referred to as ‘a much more fluid set of political and cultural practices shared by a series of polities and peoples within what has sometimes been referred to as the Byzantine Commonwealth’.128 In other words, it is a convenient shorthand for the eastern Christian world, broadly conceived. In addition to the notable use of the signature ‘double-line fold’ on the right thigh of the figure of St Basil in the scene of his encounter with the repentant sinner, a device for which we have already encountered a wide variety of examples, the most frequent comparisons have been made to 127 128

Trimarchi (1978: 677), for example, speaks of ‘una ispirazione artistica grecizzante’. Holmes 2021: 178–9.

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miniatures in a profusely illustrated Greek manuscript now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, containing portions of a text known in Greek as the Hiera, but more popularly in modern literature by the Latin title Sacra Parallela (Paris, BnF MS gr. 923).129 Written in an inclined uncial script very close to that of the Vatican Job, this book constitutes a florilegium of passages on theological and moral topics, drawn primarily from Biblical texts and patristic authors. Its compilation is traditionally assigned to the eighth-century monk and iconophile theologian, John of Damascus (c. 675–c. 750), whose image appears frequently.130 The Paris manuscript is not only the earliest surviving copy of this text but also the only one to be accompanied by extensive marginal images, for the most part portraits of the authors being cited;131 but unfortunately it is incomplete, for example missing its first two gatherings, and thus we have lost the title page and possibly the original dedication with details concerning the circumstances of its production. It is characterized by the extensive use of gold leaf for both the images (especially figures and architecture) and the titles, a practice deemed by Weitzmann to be its ‘most striking stylistic feature’.132 First explored in detail by Lafontaine, and then further amplified by André Grabar, the similarities between the Santa Maria de Secundicerio murals and the Paris. gr. 923 miniatures are both numerous and remarkable, including the manner of depicting architectural elements, for example doors, and the figure style and details of gestures and clothing, extending to the use of the colour ochre/gold for garments.133 A number of scholars have made a comparison between the figure of St Basil in the Roman mural and the figure of John of Damascus in the margin of fol. 208r of the Paris 129

130

131

132 133

For this MS, see Grabar 1972: 21–4; Weitzmann 1979; Brubaker and Haldon 2001: 49–50; and Evangelatou 2017. For an introduction to the text and the issue of authorship, see Weitzmann 1979: 8–11. See also Cormack 1997: 145–9. Weitzmann (1979: 11) counted 1,658 ‘pictorial units’, comprising 402 scenes and 1,256 portraits, but there would originally have been more as some folia have clearly been lost. For the exegetical or ‘interpretative’, as opposed to ‘illustrative’, function of the narrative images, see Evangelatou 2008. Weitzmann 1979: 14. Lafontaine 1959: 56–72 (discussion of clothing colour, 67); and Grabar 1972: 22–3. For doors and windows decorated with discs of concentric circles, found in the scene of John greeting Peter and the other apostles outside the Virgin’s house, and in many of the images in Paris. gr. 923, for example the story of David watching Bathsheba (fol. 282v = Weitzmann 1979, fig. 131), see in particular Grabar 1972: 23, and figs. 28–9; Trimarchi 1978: 666, who invokes ‘common Greek prototypes’; and Evangelatou 2008: 177. The observation of similarities between the Santa Maria de Secundicerio murals and the Sacra Parallela miniatures seems to have commenced following the manuscript’s public exhibition in Paris in 1958–9 (Bertelli 1959: 90).

Parisinus Graecus 923

Fig. 8.9 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 923 (Sacra Parallela), fol. 208r.

manuscript, whose head is similarly framed (Fig. 8.9). Both arches are decorated with the same guilloche pattern.134 It should be noted, however, that this is likely to have been a common decorative device in the eastern 134

Grabar 1972: 22, and figs. 24–5. This image introduces the chapter containing topics beginning with the Greek letter iota. Maria Evangelatou (2008: 122) has noted that the same design, which she calls a ‘twisted rope motif’, also decorates many of the enlarged initial letters used to introduce the chapters.

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Mediterranean vocabulary of architectural ornament, and an almost identically decorated arch may be found in the Red Monastery near Sohag in Upper Egypt, possibly dating from as early as the sixth century.135 Complicating any analysis, the precise date and place of origin of the Sacra Parallela manuscript has been, and indeed remains, highly controversial. Based on the stylistic similarities to monuments in Italy, and in particular to the murals in Santa Maria de Secundicerio, in 1972 André Grabar argued that it too was produced in Italy. But a very different view was taken by Kurt Weitzmann in his monographic study of the miniatures in the Paris codex. Initially, Weitzmann had also proposed an Italian provenance, but in the early 1950s he began to change his mind, subsequently preferring an origin in Palestine, probably at the monastery of Mar Saba (St Sabas) in the Kidron Valley near Jerusalem. This view was based almost entirely on his assessment of the figure style, including similarities to icons in the collection of the Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai, although he claimed that it was also consistent with other considerations, including the nature of the parchment used.136 And the close stylistic similarities to the mosaics of Paschal I in Rome, in particular the use throughout of the ‘double-line fold’ motif, led him to propose a date in the first half of the ninth century, while observing that this feature ‘provides no clue to locale, but must be understood as a general reflection on the style of the time.’137 This chronology relied heavily on Weitzmann’s view that the date of an ivory depicting the coronation by Mary of a Byzantine emperor named Leo, now in Berlin, an object which also reveals the same characteristic indication of drapery folds, depicts Emperor Leo V (813–20);138 but others, most notably Kathleen Corrigan, have argued convincingly that the emperor is actually Leo VI (886–912), placing the ivory much later in the century.139 Thus, the ‘double-line fold’ may be a poor indication of a precise date, just as it is of a precise location, and Weitzmann’s general reliance on figure style appears to ignore factors such as differences in medium or in the practice of individual artists or workshops. We must be wary of over-interpretation, unless there are very specific and non-subjective points of comparison, as we have seen for the Anastasis mural in San Clemente. As Hans Belting has observed, ‘The clue to the location of our manuscripts [. . .] must be sought in elements of book 135 136 138 139

Bolman 2016: 12 (fig. 2.2), 105 (fig. 8.10). Weitzmann 1972: 74–7; and Weitzmann 1979: 20–3. 137 Weitzmann 1979: 18. Ibid., 23–5. For the dating of the ivory to the reign of Leo V, see Weitzmann 1971: 11. Corrigan 1978.

Parisinus Graecus 923

ornament and of iconography, namely in features which are marginal to the evaluation of the style proper.’140 My own preference is very strongly for an origin of the Sacra Parallela in Constantinople, with a dating in the second half of the ninth century, and certainly after the end of iconoclasm in 843. This view is based primarily on four factors: palaeography, provenance, patronage and iconography. While far from being an exact science, palaeography can often provide useful clues about a manuscript’s date and origin. The sloping uncial script (maiuscola ogivale inclinata) employed in Paris. gr. 923 links it to a group of Greek manuscripts either believed or known with some certainty to have been written in Constantinople. These include one of the oldest manuscripts containing the writings of Gregory of Nyssa (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. gr. 2066), and a homiliarium in the Escorial in Spain (MS Φ.III.20). In a detailed study of their scripts, including the form of the initials, Werner Jaeger concluded that the Paris manuscript belonged to the same group, and the consistent presence of accents and breathings suggested a date well advanced into the ninth century.141 The script has also been examined by Guglielmo Cavallo, who observed that the angle of the inclination of the letters was closer to manuscripts securely attributed to Constantinople than to those from Greek scriptoria in southern Italy.142 What do we know of the provenance of this copy of the Sacra Parallela? As indicated by both Jaeger and Weitzmann, the manuscript was acquired for the Royal Library of France in 1729, during the course of a collecting visit to Constantinople by Abbé Sevin. Previously it had been in the collection of the hospodar of Wallachia, a region which at that time formed part of the Ottoman Empire.143 A Roman or Italian origin would thus require a significant journey from west to east at some date before the eighteenth century; and while that is of course not entirely impossible, the logistical requirements for such a putative journey render it exceptionally unlikely. Jaeger’s conclusion, that ‘Paris. Gr. 923 never saw Italy or western Europe before the Abbé Sevin brought it to Paris from Constantinople’, thus seems compelling; and the same conclusion was reached by Cyril Mango.144 140 141

142

143 144

Belting 1974: 10. Jaeger 1947: 101; although the Constantinopolitan origin of Vat. gr. 2066 has been questioned by Cavallo 1977: 101, n. 28. A Palestinian origin can also be dismissed on the basis of palaeography; see D’Agostino 2013: 46–7. Cavallo 1977: 101–2, while still leaving open the possibility of an origin in a Greek monastery in Rome. Jaeger 1947: 101–2; and Weitzmann 1979: 3. Mango 1973: 719, n. 151: ‘Cette circonstance rend une origine italienne assez invraisemblable’.

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The specific circumstances that led to the production of the manuscript remain entirely unknown, but a few observations may prove to be useful. Robin Cormack has called attention to what he deems the ‘excessive illustration [. . .] beyond all considerations of economy’, believing that this was not some ‘random activity’, but rather that the book ‘parades the iconophile victory’ through its celebration of John of Damascus, the reputed and frequently depicted author.145 He is undoubtedly correct that this manuscript was not produced for the utilitarian consultation of its written words. Despite being demonstrably incomplete, it nonetheless comprises some 394 large folia (35.6 × 26.5 centimetres), and thus its production required the skins of a great many animals, not to mention copious quantities of gold leaf. It was anything but an inexpensive project, and seems to have been created to make a powerful visual impression, in other words the sort of manuscript possibly intended as a gift to a special person, someone of significant status who would be more interested in the book as an object of value, and perhaps in the images rather than the words, along the lines of the well-known Vienna Dioscurides of the early sixth century (Vienna, ÖstNB cod. med. gr. 1), which was produced as a token of gratitude suitable for Anicia Juliana, a powerful member of one of the late Roman Empire’s foremost families. If we consider possible ninth-century recipients of a deluxe Greek manuscript of this sort, no one in Rome or Palestine comes even remotely to mind, and there is no suggestion in either location of any tradition of sumptuous book production of this kind. The same train of thought also renders a potential origin in a monastic milieu such as Mar Saba outside Jerusalem, as proposed by Weitzmann, most improbable.146 The situation in Constantinople, however, was very different, and there we do have evidence for the production of luxury codices as prestigious gifts to Emperor Basil I (867–886); for example, the illustrated copy of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Paris, BnF MS gr. 510), containing portraits of the imperial family that permit a dating to the years 879– 82.147 José Declerck has recently proposed a precisely similar case for the Sacra Parallela, contending that the omission of certain passages from the text was deliberate, intended not to arouse the emperor’s ire.148 This proposed scenario does seem highly plausible, and both manuscripts 145

146

147

Cormack 1997: 149. For the critical role of John of Damascus in the defence of images, see Noble 1987. Complicating Weitzmann’s suggestion for place and date, the monastery of Mar Saba was sacked and temporarily abandoned in 809; see Mango 1982: 162–3. Maria Evangelatou (2017: 426) also contends that the presence of nudity and some sexually explicit illustrations probably preclude a monastic origin. Der Nersessian 1962; Spatharakis 1974; and Brubaker 1999: 5–7. 148 Declerck 2017.

Parisinus Graecus 923

share the practice of using gold to colour initials in the text, a practice described by Leslie Brubaker as ‘a novelty of the post-iconoclast period’.149 Finally, one iconographical detail may also point to a location in Constantinople and a date after the middle of the ninth century: the depiction of one of the authors whose work is cited in the florilegium, Methodius, a fourth-century bishop of Olympus in Lycia. Two of his three marginal portraits show him with a white bandage or hood wrapped tightly around his head, a detail that Weitzmann believed ‘can only be explained as an error’.150 But it was often the case in Byzantine art that individuals sharing the same name would be depicted with the same recognizable portrait type, a practice described by Christopher Walter as ‘deliberate and intended to call attention to their common qualities’.151 In this instance the illuminator appears to have taken as a model the depiction of another and much better known Methodius, the patriarch of Constantinople (843–7) who oversaw the end of Iconoclasm and the return of the Byzantine church to orthodoxy. Previously, in the time of the iconoclast emperor Theophilos, he had been tortured as a punishment for his pro-image pronouncements: his teeth were extracted and his jaw dislocated, thereafter necessitating a bandage to hold it physically in place. This is how he is depicted in two mosaics in the church of Saint Sophia in Istanbul, both datable to the second half of the ninth century.152 The practice of portraying Methodius in this fashion may thus suggest a further link to the milieu of post-iconoclastic Constantinople. In sum, despite the absence of a dedication page or colophon, various bits of circumstantial evidence combine to point towards a probable origin for the Paris Sacra Parallela manuscript in Constantinople in the second half of the ninth century, perhaps in the years c. 867–86, and thus in the same period as the murals in Santa Maria de Secundicerio. This view is now shared by many of the scholars who work on Byzantine manuscripts of this period,153 although it is evident that some uncertainty will always remain. There are those who still evince a preference for a scriptorium in Rome,154 although this should perhaps be regarded as wishful thinking on their part. 149 151 152

153

154

Brubaker 1999: 36. 150 Weitzmann 1979: 249 and figs. 727–8; and Osborne 1981d. Walter 1982: 107. The first formerly situated in the north tympanum, no longer extant but recorded in a drawing by the Swiss architects, Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati, who restored the church in the years 1847–9 (Mango 1962, 52–3, and figs 61, 66–8); and a second which does survive in part in the room over the south-west vestibule (Cormack and Hawkins 1977, 227 and fig. 40). For example: Mango 1973: 719, n. 151; Mango 1982: 163; Cormack 1986: 635, n. 39; Brubaker 1999: 25; Brubaker and Haldon 2001: 49–50; and Pace 2015: 493–5. For example: Oretskaia 2002–3; and D’Agostino 2013: 48.

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At least one has concluded, perhaps wisely, that no definitive decision is possible on the existing evidence.155 Does it matter where Paris. gr. 923 was written? In my view, not hugely, although of course that knowledge would be exceptionally interesting to have, and also very useful in terms of developing a better understanding of the diffusion of the ‘double-line fold’ style and artistic connections between western Europe and Byzantium. Whatever its place of origin, it is a remarkable tribute to the state of Greek book culture in the second half of the ninth century; and perhaps more importantly for the purposes of the present study, the evident similarities to the murals in Santa Maria de Secundicerio demonstrate the substantial continuing affinity between the pictorial arts in Rome and the larger world of Mediterranean Christendom. Rome was not isolated artistically from Byzantium, nor had it become overly influenced by the pictorial culture of the Frankish heartland. Can we go further and interpret these murals as evidence for an emerging notion of a potential political realignment with Constantinople, paralleling the military assistance being offered to Rome by the Byzantine fleet? Michele Trimarchi clearly thought so,156 but this seems an unrealistic stretch, and evidence to support such a hypothesis remains tantalizingly elusive. There is no doubt that pro-Byzantine and pro-Frankish sentiments both remained present at the papal court through the course of the ninth century, on occasion rising to the surface as alliances shifted and different aristocratic factions competed for ascendancy. But in the end no political faction was completely successful in achieving its goals. In terms of material culture, however, we can state with assurance that Roman links to the world of eastern Christianity remained both continual and vibrant, although there is no evidence for embedded political overtones. Consequently, it is difficult to understand the recent contention that ‘Art historians have been increasingly aware of [. . .] the impact of Frankish ideas, iconography, and building techniques in the city.’157 To the contrary, the evidence would seem to point very markedly in a rather different compass direction. 155

Agati 1994: 162.

156

Trimarchi 1978: 678.

157

West-Harling 2020: 29.

9

‘Not with a Bang but a Whimper’

Stephen V The last two decades of the ninth century constitute an exceptionally low point in the history of the papacy, and of the city of Rome more generally,1 perhaps due at least in part to the scarcity of reliable written sources, coupled with the comparative absence of significant evidence from the realm of material culture. Only one Liber pontificalis biography survives for the period after Hadrian II (Life 108), namely that of Stephen V (885–91), generally designated as Life 112 to indicate that those of the three intervening popes (John VIII, Marinus I and Hadrian III) are missing; and even that vita is an incomplete fragment, known from a scant three manuscripts. Of these, only one (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 3764), written in central Italy (Rome or Farfa?) in the late eleventh century, continues as far as chapter 21, at which point it breaks off in mid-sentence. Complicating matters, even the portion of the text that has come down to us contains obvious gaps, and doesn’t appear to continue the narrative beyond the first year or so of Stephen’s pontificate. As Raymond Davis has observed, there is no evidence to suggest that other biographies were in fact written and then lost, and subsequent attempts to recover information about the popes of this era, including that undertaken in Rome itself by the West Frankish chronicler Flodoard of Reims in the late 930s, all apparently drew a blank.2 This fact alone signals that all was not well in terms of the smooth functioning of the papal scrinium and vestiarium, and that view is readily confirmed by the details provided in what does survive of Stephen’s vita. These offer a useful snapshot of the state of life in the city at precisely the moment when the Carolingian Empire was in the process of fragmenting, following the deposition, and subsequent death in January 888, of the reigning emperor, 1

2

The title of this chapter is taken from the final line of T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Hollow Men’ (1925). For an historical overview of the period 880–900, see Brezzi 1947: 83–96; and Delogu 2022: 396–402. Davis 1995: 295–6; Herbers 2009: 119–22; and Herbers 2011. François Bougard (2009: 131–4) has proposed a link between the discontinuation of the Liber pontificalis and the death in or shortly after 876 of John Hymmonides. Alternatively, Herbers (2009: 123) suggests that the office of the vestiarium ceased to function about 870.

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Charles the Fat, the last of the legitimate descendants of Charlemagne in the male line.3 The western European world had changed substantially since the coronation of his great-grandfather by Pope Leo III in 800. Stephen V came from the ranks of the Roman nobility, the son of a certain Hadrian.4 The family was resident in the Via Lata district, Rome’s ‘aristocratic quarter’ in the words of Louis Duchesne;5 and this region had already produced a number of popes, including Stephen II (752–7), Paul I (757–67), Hadrian I (772–95) and Valentine (827). It would do so again in the tenth century. Another family member, Zacharias, previously the bishop of Anagni, had become the papal librarian c. 878, presumably after the death of Anastasius. His name, and the fact that he had been selected to serve as one of the two representatives of the Roman Church sent by Pope Nicholas I to participate in the 861 Council in Constantinople, may suggest that he spoke Greek, and consequently that the family’s ultimate origins, like those of many others in the early medieval Roman aristocracy, lay somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean, albeit many generations earlier.6 Stephen had entered papal service as a subdeacon in the time of Hadrian II, who assigned him to work in the Lateran patriarchate, although his precise duties there remain unrecorded. Under Pope Marinus (882–4) he was ordained a priest, and appointed to the recently reconstructed church of the Santi Quattro Coronati, conveniently situated very close to the papal residence. But he would not remain there for long. In the summer of 885 Pope Hadrian III (884–5) had died in northern Italy on his way to meet the emperor in Frankfurt, and he was buried at the abbey of Nonantola in the Po valley. The city of Rome was in a perilous state, afflicted by severe famine resulting from a combination of two major factors, a prolonged drought and a plague of locusts, and the Liber pontificalis characterizes Stephen as a very reluctant candidate for the papacy, as indeed it does for most of the popes. But he is claimed to have been the unanimous choice of the Roman clergy and people, who, we are told, broke down the doors of the Quattro Coronati and removed him physically to the Lateran palace. We are also informed that this action coincided with a dramatic shower of rain, which was interpreted as a miracle signifying divine approval. At least as importantly in the short term, the imperial legate, John, Bishop of Pavia, provided his blessing to the selection, and the following Sunday Stephen was consecrated as pope in Saint Peter’s.7 3 6 7

MacLean 2003. 4 For his biography, see Capo 2019. 5 LP, ed. Duchesne II: 196, n. 1. For the career of Zacharias, see LP, ed. Duchesne II: 196–7, n. 2. LP 112.3–5, ed. Duchesne II: 191–2.

Stephen V

No doubt exacerbated by the continuing presence of the ‘Saracens’, who controlled much of the countryside outside the fortified cities, there were two serious issues facing the new pontiff: the raging famine, and the desire to ransom captives. Both challenges required money, but an inventory quickly revealed that the papal treasury was bare. To make matters worse, when news of the death of Hadrian III had reached Rome the Lateran palace and many of the churches had been looted of their valuables, including ‘most of the gold altarcloths with the other precious ornaments’.8 One loss in particular is singled out for specific mention: the ‘famous golden cross’ (crux [. . .] aurea illa famosissima) that had been donated by the patricius Belisarius at the time of the sixth-century Byzantine reconquest of Italy from the Ostrogoths.9 Stephen’s biographer relates that the pope was reduced to approaching his own father in order to request family resources for these purposes, yet another telling indication of the passage of wealth from the institution of the Roman Church into private hands. And in this he was successful. Eliminating the locusts proved to be more difficult, however. We are told that he offered a bounty of five or six denarii for each sextarius of locusts brought to him; and when this wasn’t sufficiently effective he ordered the sprinkling of holy water on affected areas, including vineyards. Apparently this proved to be very successful in resolving the problem.10 Like many of the earlier papal biographies, much of what survives of Stephen V’s vita is devoted to an enumeration of his gifts to Rome’s churches, but the contrast with previous donation lists could not be more stark. Perhaps because he had only very limited resources at his disposal, only a few Roman churches are recorded as having received papal gifts, and these fall for the most part into two general categories: the major patriarchal basilicas (Saint Peter’s, the Lateran, San Paolo fuori le mura, Santa Maria Maggiore), and churches to which Stephen had some personal connection, for example Santi Quattro Coronati, Santi Apostoli, San Marcello and the monastery of Sant’Andrea de Biberatica. The last three formed a geographic cluster in the Via Lata district, and were presumably close to the pope’s family home, and hence to his personal interest. Santi 8 9

10

LP 112.6, ed. Duchesne II: 192; English trans. from Davis 1995: 300. Inset with jewels, the cross had been fashioned from the spoils of Belisarius’ conquest of Vandal North Africa, and is said to have weighed 100 pounds; see LP 61.2, ed. Duchesne I: 296. Given the frequent struggles for control of the Lateran patriarchate, it is perhaps remarkable that it had survived intact even this long. LP 112.19–21, ed. Duchesne II: 196. A sextarius was a Roman unit of measure, one-sixth of a congius, and roughly equivalent to 60 centilitres. It is usually translated as a ‘pint’. As Davis observes (1995: 307, n. 52), it is puzzling why some were paid 5 denarii and some 6.

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Apostoli is also the only church said to have received structural repairs: ‘He renewed from its foundation SS James and Philip the apostles’ church, which consumed by great age was close to falling’;11 but no actual specifics are provided. The same church was apparently also singled out to receive a gift of relics in January 886: those of Diodorus, Marianus and other martyrs.12 A few gifts were directed to churches in northern Italy, notably in Ravenna, Imola and Bologna, all described as being restorations to replace losses due to thefts.13 In a lawless and largely anarchic age, churches were easy prey. The list of donations is not lengthy, but usefully it is remarkably detailed, and includes a few precious objects, perhaps intended similarly to replace items which had been stolen. Saint Peter’s, for example, received a ‘gold incense-boat, with precious pearls and jewels and enamel, with a peg for hanging’, in addition to a gold crown with pearls and, perhaps somewhat oddly, a sword with a sheath of gold and jewels and a sword belt.14 Objects required to facilitate the liturgy are invariably prominent, although there was clearly a pecking order in terms of the materials used. Gifts to Saint Peter’s were made of gold, but the chalice and paten donated to Santi Apostoli were merely ‘gilded’ (calice et patena exaurata), while an incense burner for the monastery of Sant’Andrea, to the north of the city at Monte Soratte, was silver (thimiamaterium de argento), and the four candlesticks for Santi Quattro Coronati were only silver-covered (cereostata vestita de argento paria duo).15 A similar distinction may be observed with regard to textiles. The vela presented to the major basilicas are generally few in number but wholly or partly silk, while those for San Marcello are more numerous but made of linen, as was the curtain (cortina) for the same church and also that given to Santi Apostoli. The vast quantity of disposable wealth revealed in Leo III’s comprehensive donation list of the year 807 was now a distant memory. Stephen V’s vita is a very useful document for a variety of reasons. In terms of liturgical practice, for example, it is an important testament to a renewed interest in the use of incense, which we are told had declined until this pope’s efforts to revive it.16 And in the field of material culture, 11

12 14

15 16

aecclesiam beatorum apostolorum Iacobi et Philippi quae nimio senio consumpta ruinae proxima inerat a fundamento renovavit (LP 112.14, ed. Duchesne II: 195; English translation from Davis 1995: 305). Capo 2019: 122. 13 LP 112.10–18, ed. Duchesne II: 194–6. cantram aueam I, cum pretiosis margaritis et gemmis ac smalto, cum perpendaculo ad pendendum (LP 112.10, ed. Duchesne II: 194; English translation Davis 1995: 303). LP 112.14, 15, 17, ed. Duchesne II: 195. For the importance of incense to the liturgy in the Carolingian period, its additional use in medicine, a survey of surviving recipes for its production, and a discussion of the sources for the

Stephen V

the references to two objects in which gold, jewels and enamels were combined – the incense burner in Saint Peter’s and a gold cross set above the altar of Santi Quattro Coronati – not only call to mind some of the metalwork produced earlier in the century (for example, objects such as Paschal I’s enamel reliquary cross from the Sancta Sanctorum chapel discussed previously), but also look ahead to the sumptuous concoctions composed of precisely these same three materials which are known to have been produced in Constantinople in the period of roughly the tenth through twelfth centuries. A number of these were explicitly intended for export to patrons in western Europe, often as diplomatic gifts, for example the Holy Crown of Hungary;17 but some were also actual commissions from workshops in the Byzantine capital, for example the antependium commissioned by Abbot Desiderius for the new abbey church of Monte Cassino, consecrated in 1071,18 or the Pala d’Oro of San Marco in Venice, commissioned by Doge Ordelaffo Falier in 1105.19 Closer in time to Stephen V’s gifts is the circlet with enamel medallions depicting six apostles and a Byzantine emperor named Leo, generally identified as Leo VI (886– 912), which was later reused in the so-called ‘Grotto of the Virgin’ in the treasury of San Marco in Venice.20 With regard to that broader context it would be exceptionally useful to know if the objects presented to the Roman churches had in fact been made in Rome, or whether they were imports from elsewhere, perhaps the eastern Mediterranean, and also whether they were newly fashioned, or older objects which happened to come into the pope’s possession. Were the enamels figural, and if so, what did they depict? Unfortunately, as they no longer survive, these details are simply not retrievable. The Liber pontificalis provides the only record of their former existence. Roman examples of enamel work would be very useful as evidence in attempts to understand the larger context of the transmission of artistic ideas and techniques.

17

18

19

20

required ingredients, many of which were imported from Asia, see McCormick 2001: 716–19; and Burridge 2020. For the Crown of Hungary, the lower circlet of which was made in Constantinople c. 1075, during the reign of Emperor Michael VII Doukas, see Déer 1966; and Hilsdale 2008. Leo of Ostia, Chronica monasterii Casinensis III, 32, ed. Hoffmann: 403. In this instance we are told that Desiderius sent one of the ‘brothers’ to Constantinople with 36 pounds of gold for the purpose. The enamels, presumably commissioned to order, included depictions of episodes in the life of St Benedict. It is thought that the antependium was lost when the treasury of Monte Cassino was sacked by Roger II of Sicily in 1143; see Willard 1976: 63–4. See Buckton and Osborne 2000 for a summary of previous bibliography. This replaced an earlier altarpiece also made in Constantinople, commissioned by Doge Pietro I Orseolo (976–8). See Gerevini 2014: 198–201 for the most recent discussion.

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As mentioned earlier, rather little is known about Byzantine enamel in the ninth century, and its relationship with contemporaneous western European production remains problematic. David Buckton has proposed that the technique of cloisonné enamel was first revived in western Europe before being imported into Byzantium.21 Early medieval enamel reused earlier Roman glass as its raw material,22 in which case the city of Rome may well have been a place of both its supply and its manufacture. Elsewhere in central Italy, one fragment of enamel, possibly from a reliquary, has been discovered in the excavations of the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, and assigned a ninth-century date.23 But the combination of precious elements in Stephen V’s objects may suggest a different place of origin. Despite its truncation, arguably the most important information provided by Stephen V’s biography concerns his preoccupation with the provision of books, a category infrequently mentioned in the Liber pontificalis.24 Gifts of books feature prominently, some nineteen in total, divided among ten recipient institutions, and the contents of each volume are specified, albeit in very generic terms. Many comprised sections of the Old Testament, for example the Heptateuch (first seven books) presented to the Choir School at Saint Peter’s, or the ‘Solomon’ manuscripts given to the churches of Santi Quattro Coronati and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.25 There were no complete Bibles, as these were large, unwieldy, impractical for quotidian use and hence quite rare in the early Middle Ages. Also prominent are ‘histories’, possibly the lives of saints intended for reading at the night office,26 or perhaps the books of Jewish history in the Old Testament, and also sermon books. In that latter category, two authors are specified by name. Saint Peter’s received a book containing forty homilies of Pope Gregory I, presumably those on the interpretation of passages in the four Gospels,27 although San Marcello’s only had twenty,28 and that given to Santi Quattro Coronati contained sermons written by the 21 24 25

26 27

28

Buckton 1988. 22 Buckton 1985. 23 Mitchell 1985. As noted by Herbers 2011: 144. LP 112.15 (Santi Quattro Coronati), and 112.17 (Santa Croce); ed. Duchesne II: 195. These would have contained the ‘Wisdom’ books attributed to Solomon, including Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. Herbers 2011: 144–5. omelias beati Gregorii numero XL (LP 112.11, ed. Duchesne II: 194). For the text: Gregory I, Homiliae XL in Evangelia (PL 76: cols. 1075–1312; CCSL 141). omelias sancti Gregorii numero XX (LP 112.16, ed. Duchesne II: 195). Gregory’s text was divided into two libri, each of twenty homilies, so this was likely to have been a common division. A parallel may be found in a Carolingian manuscript now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Clm 14379 (CLA IX, no. 1296), written c. 800, possibly at Murbach in Alsace, which contains only Homilies I–XX.

Stephen V

Byzantine theologian John Chrysostom.29 Were the latter, one wonders, in a Latin translation or the original Greek? As indicated previously, the pope’s family may have had hellenophone roots, and in that regard it is worth noting that the liturgical vessels presented to Santi Apostoli are specified as having borne a bilingual inscription,30 a rare reference to the continued use of Greek at Rome in the late years of the ninth century. Pastoral care was apparently a significant concern, and readers of the biography are provided with what seems to be the complete text of one of Stephen’s own sermons, dealing with the proper behaviour of the laity in church and the importance of abjuring sorcery and other practices.31 All churches required books for the performance of the liturgy, and the same practice of creating manuscripts of individual Biblical books, or groups of books, may be observed in the list of the manuscripts, also including a ‘Solomon’, donated to the church of San Clemente in the mid eighth century by its priest, Gregory.32 Similarly, among the very few earlier ninth-century mentions of such gifts the Liber pontificalis documents two such presentations made by Pope Leo IV to churches in the hinterland of Rome: four books to a church dedicated to Mary at Vicus Sardorum, and seven to the church of St Leo in his new foundation of Leopolis.33 Again their contents are specified, and comprised sections of the Bible including a Psalter and a ‘Solomon’, as well as practical service books such as an antiphonary, a sacramentary and a homiliary. A few years later, Benedict III is recorded as having presented silver Gospels books to Santa Balbina and San Ciriaco, and he also commissioned a new lectionary to replace one whose silver cover had been lost or stolen.34 The recipient of the lectionary is not indicated beyond a generic reference to the ‘holy Roman Church’, although the passage follows immediately after an account of gifts made to San Paolo fuori le mura. We are additionally told that Benedict specified the addition of the readings for the Saturdays preceding Easter and Pentecost in both Greek and Latin. 29

30 31

32

33 34

codicem I beati Iohannis Chrisostomi (LP 112.16, ed. Duchesne II: 195). John Chrysostom (literally ‘of the golden mouth’), appointed archbishop of Constantinople at the end of the fourth century, was the author of many hundreds of extant homilies, mostly exegetical but some also dealing with more contemporary religious and moral issues. grecis latinisque litteris inscripta (LP 112.14, ed. Duchesne II: 195). LP 112.8, ed. Duchesne II: 192–3. This may be the earliest record of papal interest in engaging with the laity on matters related to behaviour, an issue that would become much more prominent by the eleventh century. Recorded in a carved inscription, which survives; see Smiraglia 1989; and Osborne 2020: 140. For a succinct introduction to the development of the liturgy in early medieval Rome, see Jeffery 2013. LP 105.86, 105.105, ed. Duchesne II: 128, 132. LP 106.25, 106.29, 106.32, ed. Duchesne II: 145–7.

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Book Culture in Ninth-century Rome Rather little is known with any certainty about book culture in early medieval Rome, although there is no doubt that the city was an important centre for both the production of books and their subsequent distribution. Bede, for example, relates that when Abbot Mellitus was sent to Britain by Gregory I in 601, he took with him ‘very many books’ (codices plurimos),35 in addition to liturgical vessels, clerical vestments and relics. These may have included the well-known ‘Gospels of St Augustine’ now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (CLA II, no. 126). In subsequent years, the acquisition of books was viewed as an essential component of pilgrimages to Rome by Anglo-Saxon churchmen such as Benedict Biscop, Ceolfrith and Wilfrid.36 Alcuin records a similar motive for the continental travels of Ælbehrt, master of the cathedral school at York and later that city’s archbishop (767–80).37 We also know, for instance, that in the mid eighth century Pope Paul I (757–67) sent Greek books on a range of subjects, including grammar and orthography, to Pippin III, King of the Franks;38 that in the ninth century the future patriarch of Constantinople Methodius spent time in Rome engaged in copying manuscripts;39 and that in the tenth century individuals as varied as Gerbert of Aurillac (the future Pope Sylvester II) and Nilos of Rossano came to the city in search of both Greek and Latin books that were presumably unobtainable elsewhere, or at least not easily so.40 Rome was clearly regarded as a place where books could be acquired; and this should not be surprising, as the city had numerous monasteries and other institutions with sufficient resources to support scriptoria. A papal library existed from at least the time of Pope Hilarus (461–8); in fact, as we are told, there were two libraries, presumably one for Greek and one for Latin books.41 Moreover, the collection was sufficiently large to warrant the eventual creation of the post of papal librarian. The first librarian to be known by name was the future Pope Gregory 35 36 37 38

39 40

41

Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum I, 29; ed. Colgrave and Mynors: 104. Dumville 1995: 103–10. Alcuin, De pontificibus et sanctis ecclesiae Eboracensis, ed. Migne: 841. Codex epistolaris Carolinus 24, ed. Gundlach: 529. For these books, see discussion in McKitterick, van Espelo, Pollard and Price 2021: 246, n. 291. Canart 1979; and Krausmüller 2020. Gerbert of Aurillac, Epistolae 44 (PL 139: 214); and Life of Saint Neilos of Rossano 19.2, ed. and trans. Capra, Murzaku and Milewski: 66–7. LP 48.12, ed. Duchesne I: 245. This is the first occurrence of the word bibliotheca in the Liber pontificalis.

Book Culture in Ninth-century Rome

II,42 although it is not clear whether the position was separate from his other administrative duties as sacellarius. The title of ‘librarian’ (bibliothecarius) certainly existed formally by the ninth century, when its most famous holder was Anastasius, whom we have already met; he was succeeded in this capacity by Zacharias, the kinsman of Pope Stephen V. But it was not simply the case of collecting copies of existing older texts. Rome was also a place where new works were composed. Pope Gregory I was a prolific author, and the earliest surviving copy of his Regula pastoralis (Troyes, Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac MS 504), a practical handbook for priests, is probably from Rome and contains corrections perhaps supplied by the author himself.43 Many books, including the Liber pontificalis itself, would probably have originated in the city, in this instance presumably in the Lateran patriarchate,44 although we know almost nothing about the actual working of the papal chancery (vestiarium) and archive (scrinium), nor whether there existed a scriptorium independent of those two offices. And, as we have seen, Rome was also an important site for the translation of Greek texts into Latin, and vice versa.45 Pope Hadrian I commissioned translations of the documents related to the Second Council of Nicaea (787), and we are told that these were deposited in sacra bibliotheca;46 and Pope Zacharias’ Greek translation of the Dialogues of Gregory I, undertaken for the ‘many who did not know Latin’ (plures qui Latinam ignorant), is singled out for mention in the Liber pontificalis presumably because it was a project undertaken by the pope himself.47 An eighth-century Roman compilation of canon law known as the Collectio Vaticana is represented by a number of surviving manuscripts from the late eighth and the ninth centuries, and a good case can be made that at least some of these were written in Rome.48 Thus, books must not only have been widely available, but were clearly also produced in the city, probably at multiple locations. The topic of ninth-century Greek books has already been addressed, along with the vexatious question of whether certain manuscripts, for example the Vatican Job or the Sacra Parallela in Paris, were written and illuminated in Rome or elsewhere. The situation for Latin manuscripts is remarkably similar. Despite the wealth of documentation attesting to the existence of books in the city, with only a few exceptions there is virtually 42 43 44 45 47

LP 91.1, ed. Duchesne I: 396. CLA VI, no. 838; Ricci and Petrucci 2005; and Bilotta 2011: 43–52. Bilotta 2011: 1–25; and McKitterick 2020a: 8–9. For an overview of translation activities, see Chiesa 2002. 46 LP 97.88, ed. Duchesne I: 512. LP 93.29, ed. Duchesne I: 435. 48 Vocino and West 2019: 93–6.

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no consensus among scholars that any surviving ninth-century manuscripts are Roman in origin.49 There are certainly a number of plausible candidates, including what seems almost certainly to have been the working copy of Anastasius Bibliothecarius’ Latin translation of the Acts of the 869–70 Council of Constantinople (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 4965),50 as well as a ninth-century copy of the Collectio Vaticana now in Florence (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Edili 82).51 And of course some books may well have been written on papyrus, the material of choice for the papal chancery well beyond the ninth century, in which case they would no longer survive.52 Given the appearance of three sermon books in Stephen V’s donation list, it is perhaps fitting that the one extant Latin manuscript universally accepted as having been written in Rome in the eighth century also belongs to that category. In fact, there are two codices, together comprising the Homiliarium Agimundi (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 3835 + 3836).53 This is a collection of sermons, by a wide variety of authors but primarily Augustine of Hippo and Pope Leo I, organized very pragmatically not by author but rather on the basis of the liturgical year; and as these cover only the latter two-thirds of the calendar, we can confidently surmise that originally there must have been a third volume, now lost. The script, characterized by Armando Petrucci as ‘an elegant even if contrived and stiff Roman uncial’, has come to define what is believed to be Roman writing of the first half of the eighth century,54 and Petrucci has plausibly proposed influences from contemporaneous Greek majuscule.55 The homiliary is named for Agimundus, who in a colophon on fol. 329r of Vat. lat. 3835 describes himself as ‘priest, sinner, and worthless scribe’ and invites the reader to pray that his ‘chains may be released’.56 Most importantly, however, we are provided with his location, also written in uncial 49

50

51 53

54

55 56

For the most recent discussions of the state of this question, see Ammirati 2020; and McKitterick forthcoming. I am grateful to Rosamond McKitterick for sharing a copy of this paper, her 2021 Gordon Rushforth lecture at the British School at Rome, prior to publication. Leonardi 1967; Supino Martini 1974/2012: 3–6; Schmid 2002: 23–36, 155–7; and Bilotta 2011: 64–8. Vocino and West 2019: 93–6. 52 McKitterick 2020a: 176–8. CLA I, no. 18a. See also Löw 1929; Grégoire 1968; Petrucci 1971: 117–18; Osborne 1990: 80–1; and Petrucci 1991. Both are available in digital format: https://digi.vatlib.it/mss/detail/Vat .lat.3835 and https://digi.vatlib.it/mss/detail/Vat.lat.3836 (accessed 8 May 2023). ‘un’elegante anche se artificiosa e rigida onciale romana’ (Petrucci 1991). For uncial, a majuscule script used in both Latin and Greek books in the early Middle Ages prior to the introduction of minuscule, see Bischoff 1990: 66–72. Petrucci 1971: 117. Qui legis obsecro ut oris pro scriptore ut per apostolorum principum solvatur vincula Agimundi presbyter peccatori sicut inutili scriptori deo caeli grates. Basilica apostolorum philippi et iacobi.

Book Culture in Ninth-century Rome

script, although in a slightly different ink: the basilica of the apostles Philip and James, in other words the church in the Via Lata district now known as Santi Apostoli. Agimundus’ homiliary is valuable for two additional reasons. The first concerns the introduction to Rome of elaborately decorated initials, an innovation in book production for which our earliest evidence appears dramatically in Britain and Francia in the eighth and very early ninth century, in manuscripts such as the Vespasian Psalter (London, BL Cotton Vespasian A I) and the Corbie Psalter (Amiens, Bibliothèque d’Amiens Métropole, MS 18).57 Each homily begins with an enlarged ink initial, many of them incorporating the simple rosette or fish designs that are typical of the products of Italian scriptoria. Only a few of these are coloured, in either green or red, including a ‘P’ in which the loop takes the form of an elongated fish (Vat. lat. 3836, fol. 110r), with a rosette suspended in its centre, and an ‘S’ comprising two curved fish joined at their heads, with rosettes placed in the bowls of the form that they create (Vat. lat. 3836, fol. 112v).58 Curiously, however, two quaternions (Vat. lat. 3836, fols. 55–62 and 63–70) were replaced at a slightly later moment, with Elias Avery Lowe suggesting a date at the end of the eighth century.59 Their scripts reveal that these are not the work of Agimundus, nor even of a single scribe. Each quaternion was written in a different hand, the first described by Lowe as ‘less expert’ and the second as ‘bold and not unpleasing, recalling good Merovingian models’.60 The two also differ in their inks and their rulings, although there is no break in the text. What makes them important, however, is the dramatic shift in the nature of the initials. The simplified fish and rosettes give way, particularly in the five initials included in the second quaternion, to a wider variety of human and animal forms, now much larger and painted in bright colours, with the stems of the letters additionally enhanced with patterns of interlace. For example, the large ‘P’ on fol. 64r, introducing the text Propter hoc vero sicut equalem, comprises a vertical stem decorated with an interlace pattern, and the bowl of the letter bears the bust of a woman, dressed in purple, undoubtedly meant to 57

58

59

60

The best introduction to the development of enlarged and decorated initials remains Nordenfalk 1970. The ‘S’ is illustrated in CLA I, no. 18a. The replacement of letter strokes with stylized fishes occurs at an early date in Italy, and represents what Nordenfalk (1970: 166–70) terms Ersatzornamente. CLA I, no. 18b; a view shared by Petrucci (1971: 120) and Bischoff (1994: 51; ‘about 800 if not later’). CLA I, no. 18b.

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represent Mary. This is appropriate, given that the initial introduces the third lectio of Antipater of Bostra’s homily for matins on the feast of Mary’s Assumption.61 A dragon’s head emerges from the stem at the upper left, and an acanthus leaf from its lower extremity. The Homiliarium Agimundi thus provides evidence for the arrival in Rome of new ideas about book decoration, including the notion that the decoration of the initial letter should relate thematically to the subject of the text being introduced. Some of these developments, presumably imported into Italy from beyond the Alps, would pass quickly to Greek scriptoria in the city, witness the four elaborately decorated initials introducing the four books of the earliest surviving manuscript of Pope Zacharias’ Greek translation of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. gr. 1666), dated by a colophon precisely to the year 800.62 Guglielmo Cavallo’s contention that there existed a vigorous interchange between Greek and Latin scriptoria in Rome seems amply proven by these decorated initials, and it is entirely plausible that Greek scriptoria in the city were eventually responsible for the introduction of this practice to Byzantium.63 The second useful aspect of the Homiliarium is Agimundus’ presumed indication of his location. Apart from the Lateran patriarchate itself, almost nothing is known about the placement of scriptoria in early medieval Rome, so this is an exceptionally valuable clue. It is often assumed that book production was undertaken in monasteries, and this may well have been the case. Santi Apostoli was not itself a monastery, but it was the most prominent church in an area of the city known to have been inhabited by members of the Roman nobility, and thus may have been sufficiently wealthy to function as a centre for the production of manuscripts. In that regard it is worth noting that in the tenth century it is specified as the location where the 972 dower charter of Otto II and Theophanu was produced.64 61 62

63

For this homily, see Grégoire 1970. For Vat. gr. 1666, previously in the library at Grottaferrata, see Battifol 1888; Grabar 1972: 30–1; Sansterre 1983: 169–70; and Osborne 1990: 77–9. I am not persuaded by Guglielmo Cavallo’s view (1979: 25–7) that the script of the first of the added quaternions in Vat. lat. 3836 reveals the influence of Greek letter forms, with comparisons made to Vat. gr. 1666, and consequently his contention that Lowe’s ‘less expert’ scribe was a Greek who could also write Latin; see Osborne 1990: 80–1. In support of such a hypothesis, however, are the examples of ‘betacism’, in which the sound expressed by the English letter ‘V’ is spelled with a ‘B’: for example, the word bitam on fol. 60r, with the first letter corrected to ‘V’ by a later hand. For this phenomenon see Osborne 2020: 83–4. Nordenfalk 1970: 210; and Brubaker 1991. 64 Osborne 2021b.

Book Culture in Ninth-century Rome

David Ganz has warned that all other attributions of Latin manuscripts to the city should be regarded as ‘tentative’, as it is more or less impossible to distinguish Roman books from those copied at other centres in northern and central Italy, at least on the basis of palaeography and codicology.65 As we have seen with the Vatican Job and the Sacra Parallela in Paris, precisely this same difficulty also applies to Greek manuscripts, albeit in the opposite geographical direction, and the jury is still out on whether they were written in Rome, or Constantinople or indeed somewhere else. On occasion, however, there is circumstantial evidence pointing in the direction of Rome.66 This is the case, for example, with the so-called Codex Juvenianus (Rome, Bib. Vallicelliana B 25II), generally considered to date from the first quarter of the ninth century, which contains the Acts of the Apostles, the seven nonPauline epistles, the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) and the first book of Bede’s Expositio Apocalypsis.67 Its ‘Roman uncial’ script is particularly close to that of the replacement quaternions in the Homiliarium Agimundi, for example in the forms of the letters ‘D’, ‘G’ and ‘M’, among others, which may suggest that the two are of approximately the same date. This manuscript derives its popular name from the full-page miniature on fol. 2r (Fig. 9.1), in which a tonsured cleric, quite possibly one of the scribes responsible for the book, is shown presenting the codex to the enthroned figure of St Lawrence. An inscription written above his head in white letters identifies him as + IUVENIANUS HUM(ILIS) SUB DIAC(ONUS). Lawrence was, of course, the saintly Roman deacon and martyr par excellence, and he is shown with his normal attribute: the cross-staff associated with his clerical rank. He is thus an appropriate recipient for Juvenianus’ effort, and this, along with the script, serves to establish a plausible Roman context. At the upper right, the hand and arm of God descend from the heavens, indicating divine approval. The Codex Juvenianus is comparatively rich in its imagery, leading both Florentine Mütherich and Carlo Bertelli to deem this book the prime surviving example of Roman manuscript illumination in this era.68 No argument on that from me, not that there is much else with which to compare it! A second 65

66

67

68

Ganz 2002: 608. This is the case, for example, of an eighth-century copy of the Pauline epistles (Vatican City, BAV, Reg. lat. 9), assigned to northern Italy by Lowe (CLA I, no. 100), but to Rome by Petrucci (1971: 119). For other plausible attributions to Roman scriptoria in the second half of the ninth century, see Supino Martini 1974/2012: 6–10. CLA IV, no. 430; Messerer 1961; Petrucci 1971: 120–1; Mütherich 1976: 80–2; Osborne 1990: 82–4; Curzi 1995; Zonghetti 2005; and Ammirati 2020: 106–7. The entire manuscript is available digitally at https://tinyurl.com/y4jalhcl (accessed 8 May 2023). Mütherich 1976: 80 (‘Hauptbeispiel der lateinischen römischen Buchmalerei’); and Bertelli 1984: 588 (‘capolavoro della miniatura romana nel primo venticinquennio del IX secolo’).

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Fig. 9.1 Codex Juvenianus, fol. 2r.

full-page miniature, placed at the very beginning of the book (on fol. 1v, with fol. 1r having been left blank), depicts the figure of Christ enthroned, flanked by the archangels Michael and Gabriel, with the twelve apostles beneath, looking upwards (Fig. 9.2). The two apostles in the centre raise their hands in gestures of acclamation, but only the one on the left bears a specific attribute: Peter, who holds a key. His companion to the right is undoubtedly Paul. Christ blesses with his right hand, and in his left holds an open codex on which are inscribed, very appropriately, the opening words of the Book of Acts. All the individual texts included in the codex begin with enlarged and decorated initials, and these, like the uncial script, once again reveal affinities to those in the replacement portion of the Agimundus Homiliary, including stems with interlace designs, and animal heads at the top, for

Book Culture in Ninth-century Rome

Fig. 9.2 Codex Juvenianus, fol. 1v.

example the ‘P’ introducing the Book of Acts on fol. 5r. Three initials have designs related iconographically to the texts they introduce: the ‘P’ introducing the First Epistle of Peter (fol. 51r), a large letter occupying the full height of the page, whose bowl contains a half figure of the author, again identified by a key; the ‘I’ that begins the preface to the Book of Revelation (fol. 66r), formed by a haloed eagle, John’s standard visual symbol, clutching a book in its claws; and the elaborate ‘A’ at the start of Bede’s Commentary (fol. 87v), in which the left-hand vertical again takes the form of an eagle.69 Overall, there is a much greater sense of inventiveness evident in these initials, and it is tempting, although perhaps dangerous, to 69

This last example is illustrated by Lowe in CLA IV, no. 430.

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read into that observation a further stage of development, and hence a slightly later date. Perhaps most inventive in this regard is the ‘Q’ at the start of the First Epistle of John (fol. 59r, Quod fuit ab initio quod audivimus). The anthropomorphic letter comprises a haloed author figure holding a large circular hoop in his left hand, while the right makes the usual gesture of speech. John thus stands in himself as the tail of the ‘Q’. It is also interesting to note the green background used for the phrase INCIPIT APOCALYPSIS (‘Beginning of the [Book of the] Apocalypse’) at the bottom of fol. 67r (Fig. 9.3), coupled with the red background for the first line of text overleaf (Fol. 67v). These recall the visual appearance of the inscription panels on Paschal I’s Sancta Sanctorum enamel cross, perhaps another indication of their approximate contemporaneity. The ingenuity of the design of these initials, and in particular the ‘Q’, is immediately apparent when one compares them to those in yet another uncial manuscript thought to have been written in Italy, perhaps at Rome, at or near the end of the eighth century: Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 7809, which contains books XI–XVI of Pope Gregory I’s Moralia in Job.70 Here there is a series of large initial ‘Q’s, formed by concentric circles partially enhanced with interlace patterning, to which a design of some kind has been added to represent the tail: a leaf on fol. 3v, a large fish on fol. 105v, and what appears to be a horseshoe on fol. 134v. A colophon on fol. 162r asks the reader to pray for the ‘unworthy subdeacon’ Anselm, presumably the scribe or commissioner, and it is interesting to discover once again the agency of someone holding this particular clerical rank.71 But the initial letters in Anselm’s codex seem quite pedestrian in comparison to those of Juvenianus. Although the evidence is once again exceptionally scanty, in contrast to the introduction of elaborately decorated initials Roman scriptoria seem to have been slow to adopt what was perhaps the major innovation characteristic of Carolingian books, the script known as Caroline minuscule, and instead continued to use uncial letter forms well into the ninth century.72 Among the most important of possible witnesses to this phenomenon is a book that, unfortunately, no longer survives: a manuscript of the Liber pontificalis of which a fragment comprising some eighty folia was seen and recorded in 1653 by the Vatican librarian Lucas Holste (1596–1661), who 70 71

72

CLA I, no. 55. Subdeacons were responsible for readings from the ambo during services (cf. LP 106.32), and thus literacy was a requirement. Might they additionally have taken some responsibility for the provision of the books themselves? Supino Martini and Petrucci 1978/2012: 58–60; Bischoff 1994: 51; and Bilotta 2011: 69.

Book Culture in Ninth-century Rome

Fig. 9.3 Codex Juvenianus, fol. 67r.

transcribed its variant readings.73 At that time, it was housed in the library of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. And just over half a century later the Farnesianus, as it has become known, was rediscovered by Francesco Bianchini (1662–1729) in the Farnese palace at Parma. Bianchini was 73

The discussion that follows is drawn almost entirely from Vircillo Franklin 2021. See also Liber pontificalis, ed. Duchesne I: cxcix–cc; and McKitterick forthcoming.

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particularly interested in its uncial script, and the second volume of his own edition of the Liber pontificalis, published in 1723, included a series of four engraved facsimile plates reproducing the original appearance of the manuscript folia as carefully as one could in an age that had not yet invented photography. These included the very short life of Pope Eugenius (654–7), occupying a single folio, and the first page of that of Paul I (757–67), each vita beginning with an enlarged and decorated initial. The Farnese library was dispersed in 1734, with much of it going to Naples, but this manuscript seems to have disappeared completely, and its present whereabouts is unknown – although it seems unlikely that it would still survive. Although incomplete, the Farnesianus can possibly be dated to approximately the middle of the ninth century, since the last life it is known with certainty to have contained was that of Sergius II (844–7), and it is of considerable interest for a variety of reasons. The first is its text, which is the earliest exemplar of Duchesne’s ‘E’ recension, otherwise known from only a few manuscripts including the eleventh-century Vat. lat. 3764, which as we have seen also has the fullest version of the life of Stephen V. Similarities and variants link the Farnesianus to ‘the same textual stream from which the E recension derives’,74 but at the same time it is closer than the later ‘E’ manuscripts to other older recensions. It also contains a much more detailed version of the life of Sergius II, including very precise topographic information and details of donations to Roman churches, as well as directing considerable blame towards the pope and his brother (Benedict, Bishop of Albano) for their failure to prevent the sack of Saint Peter’s in 846. Taken together, these suggest first-hand knowledge of the situation in Rome, and thus an origin in that city. This view may also be supported by the use of the uncial script, which had long since been replaced by minuscule in other locations. Only two manuscripts of the Liber pontificalis are known to have employed this older book hand (the other, from the late eighth century, is preserved at Lucca: Biblioteca capitolare feliniana 49075), and the script of the Farnesianus is very similar to the ‘Roman uncial’ of the manuscripts previously surveyed. It also reveals numerous examples of the phenomenon of ‘betacism’,76 again characteristic of writing in Rome in the eighth and first half of the ninth century. It should be noted, however, that Bianchini does not state explicitly that uncial script was used for the life of Sergius II, and he provides no facsimile for any portion of that vita. But neither does he observe that the 74 76

Vircillo Franklin 2021: 148. See n. 62 in this chapter.

75

See McKitterick 2020a: 190–2.

Formosus

writing style had changed. Nonetheless, the possibility remains open that this section was a later addition and perhaps written in a different script. But possibly of greatest interest, and constituting even more evidence to support a Roman origin, are the decorated initials, two of which were carefully copied, engraved and published by Bianchini: the ‘E’ beginning the life of Eugenius and the ‘P’ introducing that of Paul I.77 The latter in particular, featuring a bust of the pope filling the bowl of the letter, and acanthus leaf protrusions from the stem, is virtually identical in format to the ‘P’s we have observed in the Homiliarium Agimundi and the Juvenianus codex. Sadly, neither Holste nor Bianchini seem to have made notes on what we can presume to have been a great many other initials, as these images were presumably of little or no interest to them. As Carmela Vircillo Franklin has observed, ‘Their loss is incalculable.’78 Sparse as the evidence may be, there is more than enough to demonstrate that book culture remained alive and well in ninth-century Rome; and even in the last decade of the century Pope Stephen V was able to provide service books to churches which were in need of them, no small achievement. What seems to have changed was that the lavish donations of gold and silver documented for earlier decades were by contrast now rare, certainly not a surprise given the overall collapse of the city’s physical security and consequently of its economy, and this may have opened up space for information about manuscripts to become more prominent in Liber pontificalis accounts of papal largesse. By the second half of the century the Roman uncial script had finally given way to a form of minuscule known as carolina after its presumed ‘Carolingian’ origin, and a group of extant manuscripts broadly attributed to Roman scriptoria in these decades all reveal that shift, including Anastasius Bibliothecarius’ translation of the acts of the 869–70 Council held in Constantinople (Vat. lat. 4965).79 Over the next two centuries this would gradually evolve into the Roman script known as romanesca, which became prominent in a new flurry of book production in the second half of the eleventh century.

Formosus From the perspective of material culture, Stephen V’s successor, Formosus (891–6), was arguably the last ninth-century pope of any significance, 77 79

Vircillo Franklin 2021, figs 8.1 and 8.4. Schmid 2002; and Ammirati 2020: 104–5.

78

Vircillo Franklin 2021: 157.

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having enjoyed a long but chequered career in the service of the Roman Church.80 Born in 816, probably at Rome, he came to prominence in 864 when he was appointed Bishop of Portus by Nicholas I, replacing the incumbent, Rodoald, who had fallen out of papal favour because, on a mission to Constantinople with Zacharias of Anagni, he had failed to overturn the deposition of the patriarch Ignatius. As we have seen, when the Bulgarian khan Boris, newly converted to Christianity, approached the pope regarding the possible establishment of a new Bulgarian church with ties to Rome, Formosus was despatched on a mission intended to accomplish such an undertaking. But in the end Nicholas I’s decision not to appoint a Bulgarian archbishop led Boris to secure his ecclesiastical affiliation elsewhere, and the papal legate returned to Rome early in 868. In 872 Formosus was an unsuccessful candidate for the papacy, but he continued to serve in the papal administration under John VIII, and in 875 he participated in the Roman delegation that travelled to Francia to invite Charles the Bald to take the imperial throne. In the spring of the following year (876), as we have also seen, Formosus and other senior members of his political faction, fearful of imminent arrest, fled Rome during the night before Easter Sunday, resulting in their subsequent excommunication. This was followed by some years of exile north of the Alps before he was restored to his see by Marinus I in 883. Two years later he participated in the election of Stephen V, and in 891 he finally succeeded in obtaining the papal throne himself. As had been the case with so many of his predecessors, stretching back to the early decades of the eighth century, Formosus’ pontificate was largely devoted to an attempt to find a powerful secular ruler who could offer the papacy some measure of physical protection, but in this quest he would remain unsuccessful. In February 891 Stephen V had conferred the imperial crown on Guy (III), Duke of Spoleto, and the following year Guy compelled Formosus to crown his son, Lambert (II), as co-emperor. But the Spoletans were unable to resolve the anarchy plaguing the Roman countryside, and Formosus soon turned instead to Arnulf of Carinthia, the nephew of Charles the Fat, inviting him to invade Italy and take the imperial crown. Arnulf’s first attempt to do so ended in failure, but he returned to Italy in the autumn of 895, eventually overcoming the Spoletan resistance, and reached Rome. On 22 February 896 he was greeted at the 80

Arthur Lapôtre’s study of the career of Formosus, with a focus on relations with the see of Constantinople, was published only a half century after his death: Lapôtre 1978; see also Sansterre 1997. For the modern historiography regarding Formosus, with a special focus on the research of Lapôtre (1844–1927), see Peri 1982.

Formosus

Milvian Bridge by the Senate and the various scholae, and escorted to Saint Peter’s. There Formosus met him on the steps, and conducted him into the church where ‘according to the custom of his predecessors he placed the imperial coronation crown on his head and hailed him as Caesar Augustus’.81 But Arnulf soon became unwell, and returned to Bavaria. His authority in Italy immediately collapsed.82 Formosus himself died a scant six weeks after the coronation, on Easter Sunday, and his successor, Boniface VI, survived for only fifteen days before being ousted by the candidate of the Spoletan party, Stephen VI (896–7), who immediately began to wreak his revenge. In an act described by a contemporaneous Frankish chronicler as ‘unheard of’,83 and subsequently known as the ‘Cadaver Synod’, Formosus’ body was disinterred, and his corpse dressed in papal regalia and placed on public trial. He was charged with having violated canon law by moving from one bishopric (Portus) to another (Rome), and was convicted; his papal election was thus declared invalid, along with all his clerical ordinations; and his body was stripped and thrown unceremoniously into the Tiber, although it would later be recovered by his supporters.84 It was not long before the pendulum swung yet again. Following the imprisonment and death of Stephen VI, and the brief reign of Romanus, Pope Theodore II (who reigned for less than a month in December 897) convened a new synod, which overturned the decisions of the previous one. He reburied Formosus in Saint Peter’s, and restored those whom he had ordained to their former offices; but the struggles between the factions continued unabated, and this ‘Formosan question’ would dominate papal politics well into the following century.85 Formosus’ name is associated with three projects in Rome, and although none of these has survived, they nevertheless offer a glimpse of what was possible in the city in the waning years of the century. The first, dating from some point after his appointment as Bishop of Portus, was an episcopal residence situated on the Tiber Island. This site may have been selected in 81

82 83 84

85

et secundum morem antecessorum suorum imperialem consecrationem coronam capiti sibi inpotens cesarem augustum appelavit (Annales Fuldenses, ed. Kurze: 128). On this occasion Archbishop Hatto of Mainz, accompanying Arnulf, was given relics of St George, including his head, which he later deposited in the new church that he founded at Oberzell, on the island of Reichenau in Lake Constance; see Maskarinec 2018: 150–3. For an overview of the political events, see Brezzi 1947: 86–9. inaudito more (Annales Fuldenses, ed. Kurze: 129). For the events and the political context, see Brezzi 1947: 89–92; Llewellyn 1993: 292–3; Gnocchi 2002; Gatto 2004; Moore 2012; Jégou 2015; and Barritt 2022. Among the few Roman texts to survive from the early years of the tenth century is the anonymous pro-Formosan tract, Invectiva in Romam pro Formoso papa (PL 129, cols. 823–38). The issue prompted a lively debate; see Grabowsky 2021.

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part because the river permitted easy access to and from his episcopal seat downriver,86 but given that the church of Santa Maria de Secundicerio is located adjacent to the island, it may also have been the case that this district of the city was a stronghold of the so-called ‘Formosan party’ in Roman politics. Almost nothing is known about this undertaking, although it apparently involved a transfer of the remains of St Hippolytus and two other Portus martyrs, Taurinus and Herculianus, to the adjacent church of San Giovanni Calabita.87 When that church was rebuilt in the seventeenth century, these relics were rediscovered in a reused Early Christian sarcophagus bearing an inscription naming Formosus episcopus, and thus the translation was presumably undertaken during the years 864–76 or 883–91, when he was resident in Rome but before his election to the papacy.88 The most likely moment would seem to be immediately after Formosus’ return from Bulgaria in 868, as in that same year he is known to have commissioned a Latin translation of the life of St John Calybite, a fifth-century monk from Constantinople, from Anastasius Bibliothecarius.89 The second project was a small ‘Oratory’, built into the substructures of the Temple of the Deified Claudius (or Claudianum), the latter initiated by Agrippina following the emperor’s death in 54 CE, and completed and inaugurated in the time of Emperor Vespasian (r. 69–79 CE). This temple occupied an enormous platform on the Caelian hill, facing the Palatine, and along its east side were a series of large niches, alternating between rectangular and semi-circular, which formed part of a nymphaeum constructed in the time of Nero. Most of these outer structures were demolished for the creation in 1880 of the modern Via Claudia, although parts of the Claudianum’s platform may still be viewed beside that street.90 The existence of this chapel and the nature of its decorations are known only from the report of Giovanni Giustino Ciampini, who rediscovered it in 1689, as the Oratory is not otherwise mentioned in any known medieval document. Ciampini’s description and copy drawing (Fig. 9.4) are preserved in the Vatican Library (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 7849, fols. 1–20).91 He relates that it consisted 86 87 88

89

90 91

For early medieval Portus in the light of recent archaeology, see Paroli 2001. Del Buono 2021: 63–75. See also Carè 2020. The inscription concludes with the words FORMOSUS EP(ISCOPUS) CONDIDIT. See Marucchi 1902: 465; Silvagni 1943, I: pl. XVI.1; Gray 1948: 104 no. 85; and Testini 1975: 54, 57– 9, 121 and figs. 23–4. The sarcophagus is now in the Vatican Museum. Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Epistolae sive praefationes 4, ed. Perles and Lähr: 402. For the full text of this Latin translation, see Chiesa 2003. For the context, Chiesa, ibid., 46–9; and Cò 2019: 127–8. The chronological link to the church on the Isola Tiberina is also noted by Del Buono (2021: 74). Miele 2019 offers an excellent synthesis of all earlier literature regarding the location. Waetzoldt 1964: 54–5 and fig. 316.

Formosus

Fig. 9.4 Ciampini sketch of the Oratory of Formosus, Rome: BAV, Vat. lat. 7849, fol. 3v.

of a small rectangular space, decorated with a large mural on the west wall, facing the entrance. This depicted the standing figure of Christ, flanked on the left (Christ’s right) by Sts Peter and Lawrence, and on the right by Sts Paul and Hippolytus (principal patron saint of Porto). Peter and Paul are shown receiving scrolls, both partially unfurled, at least one of which originally contained a legible text. All four saints were identified by inscriptions, and these were apparently still intact in the late seventeenth century. Lawrence additionally holds a long processional cross, his standard attribute in medieval art. But what makes the mural of particular interest is the apparent presence of two additional figures shown kneeling at Christ’s feet. On the left there is an unidentified bearded man holding a long object, perhaps a sword. His counterpart on the right did not survive, but the identifying inscription did in part: FORMOSV, presumably Pope Formosus, as also suggested by the presence of St Hippolytus. Ciampini’s report and drawing, first published by Paolo Maria Paciudi in 1758, and then by Giovanni Battista de Rossi just over a century later,92 have subsequently generated a considerable debate among scholars, with archaeologists and art historians as varied as Mariano Armellini, Rodolfo Lanciani, Orazio Marucchi, Carlo Cecchelli and Giuseppe Lugli weighing 92

De Rossi 1868.

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in on the location of the oratory and the interpretation and date of its decorations. The iconography is a variation on one of the oldest themes in the arts of Christian Rome, the ‘delivery of the law’, or traditio legis. In the standard formula, Christ’s right hand is raised, and with his left he offers a scroll to Peter.93 But in the Oratory mural, most unusually, Christ is depicted offering the scroll of the law to Paul, not Peter. This bore a text, of which Ciampini recorded only five letters, presumably to be read as D[OMI]N[U]S [LE]G[E]M [DAT], the words often found in depictions of this subject.94 This discrepancy in figure placement can be explained if we consider the scene as depicting the conflation of the traditional traditio legis with a second important iconographic theme, and one closely linked to the Roman Church’s claim to ecclesiastical primacy, the traditio clavium (‘delivery of the keys’), in which the keys to heaven are presented to Peter in accordance with the text of Matthew 16:19. Unfortunately, nothing seems to have remained of the text on the object being offered by Christ in his right hand, although Ciampini’s drawing does depict it as an unfurled scroll, identical in shape to that being handed to Paul. But the absence of letters leaves open the possibility that the details did not survive well, and were consequently misunderstood. It may originally have depicted a key. In the traditional Early Christian traditio legis, Peter was placed on the viewer’s right, so that Christ’s own right hand could be shown raised in triumph. But now that both hands are depicted as offering objects, Peter has been moved to the viewer’s left side (Christ’s right), the position of greater honour, as is normal for depictions of the traditio clavium. This conflation of the two subjects became very popular in the Carolingian era. The earliest surviving example may be found in the painted decorations of the north apse of the monastery church of Saint John at Müstair, on the southern slopes of the Alps, dating c. 800; and this, like an Ottonian ivory book-cover from Magdeburg, now in Berlin (Staatsbibliothek, MS theol. lat. fol. 1), offers a useful parallel for the placement of the figures in our Roman mural. In both instances Peter clearly receives keys and not a scroll.95 It is also worth noting that even 93

94 95

This iconography, itself probably of Roman origin, has generated a vast literature. For its origin, development and continued use into the Middle Ages, see Schumacher 1959; Rasmussen 1999; Foletti and Quadri 2013; Couzin 2015; and Bergmeier 2017. The earliest surviving monumental example of the theme is a fourth-century mosaic in Santa Costanza at Rome, although its subsequent popularity and widespread diffusion in other media (including sarcophagi and gold-glass) suggest that this was probably not the first instance. For the possibility that it was the subject of the earliest apse mosaic in Saint Peter’s, see Moretti 2006a. For the theological underpinnings of this concept, see Schumacher 1959: 8–14. Couzin 2015: 65–6 and fig. 81; and Bergmeier 2017: 47–9 and fig. 14.

Formosus

some medieval viewers were puzzled by the different possible placements of the two princes of the apostles, witness the 1069 letter of Peter Damian to Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, which raises precisely this question.96 Most scholarly attention, however, has been reserved for the two kneeling figures, shown in a position usually reserved for patrons or supplicants, and hence probably contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous with the mural’s execution, although there is no evidence to suggest that either sported a ‘square halo’. On the basis of his dress, the one figure that survived has been universally identified as a secular ruler, although opinions vary on whether it is Boris-Michael, King of Bulgaria, his son Peter or one of the western emperors, perhaps Guy of Spoleto or Arnulf of Carinthia. Equally problematic is the precise date of the mural, although the consensus of opinion places it during the years of Formosus’ pontificate.97 Some have also viewed the disappearance of the pope’s image as a conscious act of damnatio memoriae undertaken after his death by Stephen VI or some other ‘anti-Formosan’ pontiff.98 Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that any of these questions can ever be resolved, but there is nothing in Ciampini’s copy that would contradict an origin in the second half of the ninth century. For example, the placement of a secular ruler and a pope at Christ’s feet has an obvious precedent in the mosaic decoration of the Triclinium of Leo III in the Lateran patriarchate, depicting the pope and Charlemagne, as well as the apse mosaic commissioned by the same pontiff for the church of Santa Susanna. The nature and placement of the inscriptions naming the four standing saints also appear to be authentic, and there may even be one possible chronological consideration. In all four instances their honorific title Sanctus is abbreviated by the three letters ‘SCS’. This is indeed a standard practice in early medieval Rome, through to at least the middle of the ninth century when it begins to give way to a shorter form employing the single letter ‘S’. Both usages are found in the decorations of Santa Maria de Secundicerio, for example, but by the tenth century the older practice had entirely disappeared. Accordingly, this may provide evidence, albeit very slender, in favour of a date in the decade of the 860s, rather than the 890s, but in such a case one might perhaps have expected the reigning pontiff to have been included somewhere in the composition.

96 97

98

Peter Damianus, Epistola 159, ed. Reindel 4: 90–9. See also Kessler 2007: 26–7. The identification of the kneeling figure is of course largely dependent on the issue of the date. See discussions by Ladner 1941–84 I: 155–8, and III: 35–6; Dujčev 1936; and Dujčev 1959–60. For example, Dujčev 1936: 150–1; and Moore 2012: 288–90.

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Even more puzzling is what function such a mural could have been intended to serve, not to mention the structure that housed it. Was it a celebration or record of Formosus’ mission to bring Christianity to Boris and the Bulgarians? If so, then the subject matter is particularly appropriate, and the very similar image of the traditio legis et clavium at Müstair has also been linked to the theme of apostolicity, and even more specifically to the mission to preach to the nations.99 But why was the oratory installed in such a seemingly odd location? There can be little doubt that Ciampini discovered an authentic mural dating from the latter half of the ninth century, but for the moment its precise circumstances remain a puzzling enigma. The final project involved a redecoration of the church of Saint Peter’s. A tenth-century chronicler, Benedict of Monte Soratte, records that Formosus’ pontificate witnessed a major restoration of its mural decorations,100 and while no additional clues are provided concerning the nature and extent of this undertaking, it is generally assumed that the reference is to the two registers of Biblical scenes, and perhaps the accompanying series of medallions bearing papal portraits which were displayed on the nave walls above the colonnade.101 The walls of Old Saint Peter’s did not survive the subsequent rebuilding of the structure, but before their final demolition in 1607 the apostolic notary Giacomo Grimaldi recorded what little still remained visible, also assigning the murals to the pontificate of Formosus; and his verbal description was accompanied by watercolour illustrations from the hand of Domenico Tasselli.102 The right wall depicted some forty-three scenes from the Old Testament, and Grimaldi was able to identify episodes relating to Noah, Abraham and Moses. The murals on the left wall, in a much poorer state of preservation, illustrated the New Testament narrative of the life of Christ, and he identified five subjects: the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan, the Raising of Lazarus, the Crucifixion, the Anastasis (Harrowing of Hell) and a scene depicting 99 100

101 102

Ataoguz 2013. Renovavit Formosus papa ecclesia principis apostolorum Petri pictura tota (Benedict of Monte Soratte, Chronicon, ed. Zucchetti: 156). From this derives the notice in the later medieval recension of the Liber pontificalis (ed. Duchesne, II: 227); and in the mid fifteenth century the attribution to Formosus was repeated in the De rebus antiquis memorabilibis basilicae S. Petri Romae of Maffeo Vegio, II.3.71 (Smith and O’Connor 2019: 168). See Pogliani 2006b: 24–5, and Viscontini 2006 for documentation and previous bibliography. Grimaldi’s description and the accompanying drawings are preserved in his ‘presentation copy’ made for Pope Paul V: Vatican City, BAV, Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 106, 108v–109r, 113v– 114r. The text was published by Müntz 1877: 247–9, and the accompanying images by Waetzoldt 1964: 69–71 (cat. nos. 931–4; figs. 484–5). For a three-dimensional visualization of the latter, see Pogliani 2006b: 32–4. For the series of papal portraits, see also Mann 1920: 163–5; Ladner 1941–84, I: 52–9; and Waetzoldt 1964: 71 (cat. nos. 935–40; figs. 486–8).

Formosus

Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearance to the eleven remaining disciples. Unusually, the Crucifixion was a substantially enlarged composition, occupying two panels on both registers, and consequently four times the size of the other scenes. Art historians have debated whether this was a complete repainting, or simply a restoration of the original Early Christian murals, with the most recent consensus tending towards the latter possibility. However, as Herbert Kessler has observed, the Anastasis, an event not included in the Biblical narrative, only entered Christian art about the year 700, so cannot have been present in the original programme; and the emphasized Crucifixion is also incompatible with an early date.103 It is not impossible that these were added during the restorations attributed to Formosus, although nothing is certain and there are also other possibilities. Kessler has himself proposed that the repainting may have been initiated some decades earlier, in the time of Leo IV, following the damage to the basilica during the sack of 846. A later medieval renovation campaign c. 1300 has also been suggested.104 Thus the evidence is tantalizing but elusive, and in the end no firm conclusions can be drawn.105 The political situation surrounding the ‘Formosan crisis’, the ‘last great shock of the Roman ninth century’ in the words of Pierre Toubert,106 was certainly not conducive to new projects in the spheres of art or architecture, and the political machinations resulting in a rapid succession of pontiffs must have limited any planning processes, even in the unlikely event that sufficient funds and materials were available. It was a far cry from the glory days of Leo III and Paschal I: not the result of a single crushing blow, but rather of a steady stream of small setbacks, as papal resources dwindled, and the city’s physical security declined both outside and inside the Aurelian walls. In other words, the century ended ‘not with a bang but a whimper’. As if to add insult to injury, Rome was also prone to earthquakes, and in the time of Stephen VI (896–7) one of these is reported to have brought down large parts of the Lateran basilica,107 with a later version of the Liber pontificalis specifying that it fell ‘from the altar to the doors’.108 How that 103 105 106 107

108

Kessler 1989: 49 (trans. 2002: 79–80). 104 Smith and O’Connor 2019: 244–6. For the most recent discussion, see Proverbio 2016: 92–5. ‘[la] dernière grande secousse du IXe siècle romain’ (Toubert 1973: 1214). Basilica in Lateranis maiore parte cecidit (Annales Alamannici, ed. Pertz, 53 [a. 896]); ruina magna concuti in ecclesia patriarchio Lateranensis Sancti Iohannis, qui appellatur Constantiniana, a fundamentis est rupta (Benedict of Monte Soratte, Chronicon, ed. Zucchetti: 154). Huius tempore ecclesia Lateranensis ab altare usque ad portas cecidit (LP 115, ed. Duchesne II: 229). See also Krautheimer, CBCR V: 11.

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was interpreted by the superstitious inhabitants of Rome is unfortunately not recorded, although modern archaeology suggests that the accounts of the collapse may have been slightly embellished.109 But there can be no doubt that significant repairs were required. In 898 Pope John IX (898– 900) requested the assistance of Emperor Lambert I in overcoming the obstacles impeding the acquisition of the wooden beams (trabeas) needed for re-roofing the nave,110 but it is not known when these were in fact procured. Credit for the restoration of the basilica was given in the early tenth century to Sergius III (904–11),111 and John the Deacon’s twelfthcentury Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae devotes a chapter to that pope’s various gifts to the church, although noting that by his time they had all been stolen.112 Sergius also added various inscriptions, none of which now survive, but their texts are preserved in an appendix to one of the manuscripts of John’s Descriptio.113 Robert Coates-Stephens has identified a section of repaired brickwork in the north aisle that may possibly date from this period,114 but there are still many unanswered questions about the nature and date of the medieval structure that predated Borromini’s seventeenth-century rebuilding,115 and thus once again no firm conclusions are possible. Perhaps the final nail in the proverbial coffin came in the year 899, when Italy was invaded for the first of many times by the Hungarians.116 Only in the tenth century, following the final elimination of the ‘Saracen’ threat to Latium, did political and economic conditions once again favour new undertakings; but by then the pattern of patronage had shifted from a still weakened papacy to the city’s resurgent lay aristocracy. 109 111

112

113

114 115 116

Bosman et al. 2020: 137. 110 MGH Leges 1: 564. qui mox apostolicus Sergius meliusque renovavit a fundamentis (Benedict of Monte Soratte, Chronicon, ed. Zucchetti: 154). LP 122, ed. Duchesne II: 236. John the Deacon, Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae 18, ed. Valentini-Zucchetti: 368–71. LP ed. Duchesne II: 236, n. 2; Valentini and Zucchetti 1940–53, III: 324; and Hoogewerff 1955: 303–4. Coates-Stephens 1997: 220. See Josi, Krautheimer and Corbett 1957; and Bosman et al. 2020. Ungari Italiam ingressi (Annales Alamannici, ed. Pertz: 53 [a. 899]).

d

Afterword

I am very conscious that the general picture presented in the preceding chapters tends at first glance to follow a historiographic tradition that views the arts of early ninth-century Rome as a ‘renaissance’, followed by a dramatic decline in the late decades, continuing into the tenth century that follows. In an insightful recent essay on this precise topic, Ivan Foletti and Sabina Rosenbergová have identified and explored the various elements that have combined to create this general understanding, one which either explicitly or implicitly underlies much recent scholarship.1 Many influential authors, notably including both Petrarch in the fourteenth century and Giorgio Vasari in the sixteenth, have viewed the Middle Ages as a ‘dark age’ separating ‘classical’ Antiquity from its revival in ‘the Renaissance’. In the twentieth century, a more nuanced view was developed by scholars such as Erwin Panofsky and Richard Krautheimer, who envisaged the early ninth century and the early twelfth century as two ‘renascences’, to use Panofsky’s term, which provided brief periods of light in the midst of the overall gloom,2 but the general paradigm has remained, reflected in book titles such as Peter Llewellyn’s Rome in the Dark Ages.3 The same model may be found in the work of church historians of both the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, who linked the fortunes of Rome very directly to those of the city’s bishops, the ‘papal narrative’ in the words of Chris Wickham. And thus even Cesare Baronio in his Annales Ecclesiastici would view what is sometimes now referred to as the ‘long tenth century’ as a ‘dark age’ (saeculum obscurum). But as Foletti and Rosenbergová observe, should we accept this model, with its implied judgements on the historical moments in question, or is it rather simply the result of the lack of survival of the evidence? From my 1 2

3

Foletti and Rosenbergová 2020. The notion of a series of classical revivals, or ‘renascences’, preceding ‘The Renaissance’ of the fifteenth century was articulated by Panofsky in a series of publications beginning in the 1930s. In his best-known book on this topic, he sets out the evidence for a Carolingian renovatio (1969: 42–54), followed by another in the twelfth century. Panofky’s paradigm is reflected in the attention given to these two periods in Krautheimer’s Rome: Profile of a City, but has its roots in his earlier writing (Krautheimer 1942). Llewellyn 1993.

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perspective, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. There is an enormous contrast in the city’s political and economic fortunes between the first five or six decades and what comes after. To borrow a well-known phrase from Charles Dickens, when we survey ninth-century Rome it really does seem to have been the best of times and the worst of times. But there can also be no question that much has been lost, particularly in terms of the smaller structures, often repurposing earlier buildings, which characterize the later ninth and tenth centuries, a moment when the physical resources required to build and decorate elaborate new basilicas like Santa Prassede or Santi Quattro Coronati were no longer available. Two political developments combined to undermine the power of the papacy in the second half of the ninth century, one internal and one external. The first was the chronic factional strife that surfaced at almost every papal election, and for good measure often in between those events as well. The level of public violence in the streets of Rome, whether attacks on the pope or the executions of senior administrators and other conspirators when these failed, was quite astounding. With a few exceptions, notably the vitae of Leo III and Leo IV, the Liber pontificalis is invariably reticent to provide any information on these struggles, presumably because it would serve to undermine papal self-fashioning as the ultimate authority for the Christian community in both western Europe and Byzantium; and thus we can only glean snippets of information, usually from authors not directly involved and writing elsewhere. Attempting to sort out the motivations and allegiances of the factions has been a source of considerable frustration for most historians of the early medieval papacy, most recently Giulia Cò,4 and as yet no one has managed to solve this puzzle successfully. Was the alignment one of lay aristocracy versus professional clergy? Or perhaps those whose sympathies lay with the Frankish emperors versus those who looked eastwards to Constantinople? At one time or another, both of these divisions were apparently in play, but perhaps never simultaneously. Nor were the distinctions always evident or predictable. Anastasius Bibliothecarius, for example, may well have belonged to an aristocratic family with Greek cultural roots, but his political allegiance seems to have been solidly to Louis II, for whom he acted as a personal envoy above and beyond any responsibilities to the Roman Church. The complexity of the situation is perhaps most evident in the list of participants in the ‘Formosan’ plot against John VIII in 876: almost all the alleged conspirators were non-clerics who held senior administrative offices, but at least some 4

Cò 2019: 40–7.

Afterword

were married to the daughters or nieces of senior churchmen.5 And many of the popes would themselves come from this same group of elite families. Was John VIII murdered because he had become dependent on the Byzantine navy, and thus overly acquiescent to the demands being made by Basil I, or for some other and entirely unrelated reason? We simply don’t know, and indeed may never do so. But clearly it was not a happy time. The external factor, not present in the first half of the century but of enormous significance in the second, was of course the combination of the decline of the Carolingian ‘security umbrella’ with the simultaneous devastation of much of central Italy, including the immediate environs of Rome itself, by invaders from North Africa and Sicily. As we have seen, this led to the destruction and temporary abandonment of the three major monasteries (San Vincenzo al Volturno, Monte Cassino, Farfa), and required what remained of the rural population of Latium to seek refuge in fortified settlements such as Leopolis. In the eighth century the papacy had established a series of agricultural estates, the domuscultae, in the hinterland of Rome, in order to meet the city’s need for food supplies, but these simply disappear from the archaeological record in the second half of the ninth century before activity begins to return in the tenth. While hard data simply doesn’t exist for the effects of this development on the Roman economy, it must have been enormous. The increased poverty of the papacy, for which the vita of Stephen V provides explicit testimony, also led to a shift in the patronage of material culture, with the foundation and decoration of new churches increasingly commissioned not by the pope himself, but by those members of the lay aristocracy and civic administration, or even the clergy, who had the means to do so, as well as by monastic communities with presumably modest needs. It was a priest of San Clemente who was responsible for the addition of the chapel with the Ascension mural, and the contemporaneous murals in Sant’Adriano have inscriptions bearing the names of lay donors.6 Nor is it a coincidence that Santa Maria de Secundicerio was the project of a papal official, Stephen, and we have also seen evidence of other similar foundations by secular patrons in the time of Pope John VIII. This shift would accelerate further in the tenth century,7 for example in the church and monastery of Santa Maria in Pallara, founded and decorated by a physician, Petrus medicus, or the eleventh-century murals in San Clemente donated by Beno de Rapiza and his wife Maria Macellaria. A return to the construction of papally sponsored grandiose new basilicas would have to await the 5

Wickham 2015: 21, 189.

6

Bordi 2011.

7

Coates-Stephens 1997: 204–22.

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return of a newly dominant and indeed ‘imperial’ papacy in the early twelfth century. From a strictly papal perspective, the ninth century closes at a low ebb; but while the evidence of material culture is perhaps more difficult to find in the decades after 870, and we lack Liber pontificalis biographies to provide guidance and pertinent details, enough remains to demonstrate that life and art did continue to flourish in the city of Rome, in many instances with close similarities to contemporaneous artistic production elsewhere in the Mediterranean Christian world. This general pattern of papal poverty leading to a shift in patronage would continue well into the tenth century, but that is a story for another occasion.

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Index

Anastasis iconography, 75, 156, 179 Anastasius Bibliothecarius, 161–162, 177, 194, 207, 222, 256, 264 Annales regni Francorum, 16, 48, 51, 109, 132 Basil I, emperor, 174, 201, 232 Benedict III, pope, 142, 146, 157, 162, 168, 172, 241 Carolingian Renaissance, 84 Chacón, Alonso, 24, 37, 65 Charlemagne, 2, 12–13, 16, 24, 26, 30, 32, 37, 48, 84, 97, 148, 182 Charles the Bald, emperor, 169, 197, 199, 206, 207, 254 cloisonné enamel, 105, 240 Constitutio Romana 824, 109, 126 deësis iconography, 76 domuscultae, 11, 14, 137, 200, 265 Donation List 807, 43–45 Donation of Constantine, 13, 17 double-line fold style, 79, 92, 95, 106, 151, 192, 225, 227, 230, 234 Egyptian blue (pigment), 154 Einhard, 16, 48, 58, 117, 185 ‘Einsiedeln Itinerary’, 33, 186 Eugenius II, pope, 57, 98, 109–111, 116 Farfa, 31, 171, 181, 198 Farnesianus manuscript, 127, 128, 251, 252 Formosus, pope, 175, 199, 253–261 gendered space in Roman churches, 99 Gregoriopolis, 126, 168 Gregory IV, pope, 32, 99, 116–126, 133, 148 Hadrian I, pope, 11, 14, 26, 30, 32, 49, 65, 87, 97, 125, 187, 243 Hadrian II, pope, 6, 170, 177, 185, 202, 204

Iconoclasm, 41, 77, 82, 90, 91, 117, 120, 162, 184 Johannipolis, 205 John Hymmonides, 206, 207 John VIII, pope, 79, 174, 176, 187, 197, 198–202, 205, 206, 212–214, 265 John IX, pope, 262 Krautheimer, Richard, 4, 8, 29, 35, 38, 39, 59, 82, 84, 87, 99, 118, 122, 128, 143, 263 Latin book culture in Rome, 242–253 lazurite (lapis lazuli), 183 Leo III, pope, 10, 14–16, 20, 24, 29, 33, 35, 41, 42, 43, 44, 49, 51, 65, 101, 111, 115, 132, 136, 159 Leo IV, pope, 4, 129, 134–151, 159–160, 161, 169, 185, 241 Leopolis, 138, 141, 144, 241, 265 Liber pontificalis, 1, 6, 16, 45, 235, 243, 250–253, 264 Lothar, emperor, 52, 53, 109, 127, 134, 136, 137, 146, 204 Louis II, emperor, 31, 126, 134, 162, 164, 169, 196 Louis the Pious, 13, 51, 109, 116, 159 manuscripts BAV, Vat. gr. 749 (Vatican Job), 189–193 BAV, Vat. gr. 1666, 188–189, 246 BAV, Vat. lat. 3835 + 3836, 244–246 BAV, Vat. lat. 4965, 194, 244, 253 BAV, Vat. lat. 7809, 250 BnF, Paris. gr. 923 (Sacra Parallela), 227–234 Rome, Bib. Vallicelliana B25II (Codex Juvenianus), 247–250 Michael III, emperor, 172, 174, 176, 185 Moduin of Autun, 50 mosaic technique, 60–61

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Nicholas I, pope, 6, 133, 168, 169, 172, 173, 175, 177, 185, 236, 254 Ordines Romani, 2, 32, 99, 114 pactum Ludowicianum, 13, 51, 109 Panvinio, Onofrio, 21, 23, 24, 27, 65 papal monograms, 64–65 Paschal I, pope, 13, 51–108, 148 Photian Schism, 172–174, 185 Roman economy in 800, 47–49 Rome diaconiae, 11, 45, 87 domestic housing, 163–166 domuscultae, 11, 14, 137, 138, 200, 265 Lateran patriarchium (patriarchate), 17, 18, 20–30, 101, 125, 139, 158, 168, 170, 236, 243 Leonine City, 134–138 Oratory of Formosus, 256–260 Saint Peter’s, 18–19, 30–32, 45, 47, 48, 59, 78, 82, 84, 93, 96–98, 117, 125, 133, 134, 136, 144–146, 148, 150, 161, 168, 169, 182, 202, 206, 236, 238, 240, 260 San Cesareo in Palatio, 184 San Clemente, 65, 149–160, 175–184, 192, 225–227 San Giorgio al Velabro, 121–123, 186, 187–188 San Giovanni Calabita, 256 San Giovanni in Laterano, 17, 30, 66, 114, 115, 127, 261 San Lorenzo fuori le mura, 33, 62, 91, 139, 185 San Marcello, 161, 237, 238, 240 San Marco, 118–121, 128 San Martino ai Monti, 91, 128–129 San Paolo fuori le mura, 34, 46, 67, 115, 133, 145, 168, 182, 205, 207, 241 San Pellegrino in Naumachia, 44 San Saba, 158, 183, 184, 193, 215, 224 San Silvestro in Capite, 15, 56, 78, 164, 184 Sant'Adriano, 157, 212, 218, 222, 265 Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, 92–96 Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, 240 Santa Maria de Secundicerio, 7, 208–227, 228, 230, 234, 256, 259

Santa Maria Domine Rose, 170, 212 Santa Maria in Cosmedin, 35, 87, 168, 181, 187 Santa Maria in Domnica, 86–92, 96, 103 Santa Maria in Trastevere, 99, 123–124, 139, 157, 161, 168 Santa Maria Maggiore, 30, 33, 34, 45, 63, 72, 82, 98–101, 106, 128 Santa Maria Nova, 142–144 Santa Passera, 107 Santa Prassede, 53–84, 223, 225 Santa Sabina, 33, 110–116 Santa Susanna, 15, 34–37, 87, 91 Santi Apostoli, 35, 237, 238, 241, 245, 246 Santi Cosma e Damiano, 29, 34, 36, 62, 65, 66, 67, 94 Santi Nereo ed Achilleo, 37–43 Santi Quattro Coronati, 118, 140–141, 144, 146, 148, 236, 238, 239, 240 schola Graecorum, 122, 184, 186 Sabbatina aqueduct, 125 saints’ relics, veneration at Rome, 54–58 San Vincenzo al Volturno, 41, 105, 147, 197, 240 Sancta Sanctorum treasure, 46, 101–107, 158 Sergius II, pope, 126–130, 133, 186, 252 Slavs, conversion to Christianity, 174 ‘square halo’ iconography, 24–26, 37, 63, 74, 88, 94, 119, 142, 151, 181, 182, 183 stational liturgy, 33, 114 Stephen IV, pope, 13, 51 Stephen V, pope, 6, 105, 202, 203, 235–241, 252, 253, 254, 265 textiles, papal gifts of, 45–47, 97, 101, 117, 121, 124, 130, 140, 142, 146, 147, 168, 184, 238 Theodora episcopa, 69, 74 Transfiguration iconography, 40–41, 72 Ugonio, Pompeo, 24, 27, 36, 37, 65, 111 Valentine, pope, 17, 116 Versus Romae, 205 Villamagna, 200