the cassandra pages

A Byzantine angel, and where she came from

Hosios Loukas Monastery

During the past two years, we've visited several very old Orthodox monasteries in Greece. The most famous of them all, Mt Athos, is closed to women, so that was not a possibility, but we went to the mind-blowing clifftop monasteries at Meteora, which I'll write about here someday, and the Vlatadon monastery in Thessaloniki, founded on the site where St. Paul is thought to have preached. During this past trip, we visited the abandoned Byzantine city of Mystras in the Peleponnese, near Sparta, which contains a number of no-longer-used churches and monasteries, and the still-viable 10th century walled monastery of Hosios Loukas, located not far from Delphi on a remote mountainside north of the Gulf of Corinth. Our interest is not only in Byzantine art, but the fact that much of it was made during a brief but extraordinary period of cross-cultural flowering, when Greeks, Arabs, Italians and Normans co-mingled in this part of the Mediterranean. Much of Greece feels like it is still looking east, toward Constantinople and the early seat of the Eastern Church. Arab craftsmen often built parts of these structures, and it's not unusual to see Arabic calligraphy alongside Christian mosaics, or eastern domes, vaults, and arches, pierced-stone windows and elaborate tilework in Christian sanctuaries.

That's Peter on the left, and Paul on the right. Where the mosaics come alive the most is in portraiture -- saints, apostles, martyrs, monks, abbots, and church benefactors are shown in roundels or full-length portraits, with unique faces: you can always identify Peter, or Paul, for instance. The most dramatic portrait in many churches is the immense Christ Pantocrator, usually in the central dome or the half-dome over the apse: a depiction of Christ "the All-powerful" in a particular gesture and attitude that, in the most compelling renditions, appears to be looking straight into your soul. This one is on a wall and seems less striking.

My Christmas print this year was inspired by a mosaic from this monastery. That mosaic (upper picture, top right) was golden and glittery, but I was taken by the archangel's hairstyle and the clever way the artist had fit the portrait into the circle, and thought it could be simplified for a linocut. I gave the angel a longer face and made her gender definitely female, changed the staff into more of a wand with stars, and added floral corner motifs inspired by another ceiling, shown below.

The amount of decoration in these Byzantine monasteries and churches defies description. Every surface is decorated in some way, giving the visitor and monk alike endless things to look at, but somehow a harmonious whole is often created. In this church we were intrigued by the amount of faux painting, imitating patterned marble blocks of alternating color -- maybe a Medieval cost-saving measure.

A mosaic floor.

More faux painting, with very free, almost calligraphic brushwork.

I've come to appreciate the tilework on the floors, the painted, inlaid, or carved decorations on walls and pillars, the stylized, often naive depictions of scenes from the Old Testament and the lives of Christ and the apostles, and the technical achievement of creating these stories in the medium of mosaic.

I was quite taken with the one above, showing Jesus being baptized by John in the Jordan River. Isn't the water great? The inscription above reads "H βαπτη", "the Baptist".

And here's Jesus washing Peter's feet at the Last Supper.

These churches are filled with the smell of beeswax from the long handmade tapers that are always burning, and available in graduated sizes for you to light and place in large bowls or trays of fine sand, and the scent of myrrh, the holiest of incenses, which is burned in copious amounts, but also said to exude from the bodies of buried martyrs and saints, or from the springs of water that flow near them. And the churches always have martyrs and founding saints buried in them, their skulls often removed and placed in silver reliquaries, and devout worshippers kneeling in prayer beside the tombs, or affectionately brushing them with their fingers as they pass by, crossing themselves. Ancient icons behind glass or plexi show the marks of thousands of kisses by the faithful, who make the rounds of each sanctuary, kissing and praying before each icon in turn, as a cantor intones hours of chant.

The tomb of the monastery's founder, Luke (not the evangelist), was originally in the crypt, but his bones now lie in the tiny glass-topped coffin shown above, in a passage between the two churches on the site. Luke, known as a great healer, levitator, and worker of miracles, died in February 953, and for centuries afterward, pilgrims came to be healed by "incubation," which meant that they slept in the main church building (katholikon) or in the crypt near his tomb, breathing the scent of the myrrh, being exposed to the oil from the lamp above, and experiencing dreams in which the saint would appear and tell them what they needed to do to be healed. I found this practice particularly fascinating, because earlier in the trip we had also been to the 5th century BC Shrine of Asclepias at Epidaurus, where pilgrims did pretty much the same thing -- sleeping in the katholikon, among holy snakes that slithered on the floor, and experiencing dreams whose healing instructions were interpreted by pagan priests.

Most of the monasteries are much quieter than the Orthodox churches in the cities; in order to stay viable, they are open a few days per week to tourists, but the monks stay mostly out of sight. It's possible to see into their lives a bit, though -- there are herb and vegetable gardens and pens where chickens cluck and peacocks cry; goats and other small animals like rabbits; fruit trees; grape arbors, and, of course, a large grove or even a hillside of olive trees. The monk's cells are located in a particular building, along with a refectory (dining area) that can sometimes be glimpsed and more often not. In a corridor or cloistered walkway, there is usually a rustic iron gong or bell that summons the monks to prayer. Here we entered a former stable (now an art gallery), saw the ancient cider- and wine-presses, and a cemetery with the tombs of recent abbots. In the small shop visitors can buy food products made by the monks as well as icons, candles, incense, local herbs and ointments.

And everywhere we went, there were cats. As Hosias Loukas, near the ancient cider press, these yellow feral cats hid under a pomegranate tree, but were curious enough to let me take their picture. I sometimes felt like the ever-present cats, which seems quite well-fed, contented, and used to humans, were stand-ins for the invisible monks, showing us that daily life continues among these ancient stones.

So Sad, So Grateful: rest in peace, dear Patrick

Patrick Wedd during the rehearsal with our choir for his final Evensong before retirement, in June, 2018.

Patrick Wedd, consummate musician, choral director, and my dear friend, died yesterday. I was extremely fortunate to sing under his direction at Christ Church Cathedral for the past eleven years, to hear such a master play the organ, and to perform music he had written as well as the huge repertoire of Anglican liturgical music that he brought to us, week after week. He was a mentor to all of us, but especially to the young organists who were our assistant organists and organ scholars, and it was a joy to watch them grow in confidence and ability under his eye.

Patrick and I worked together on a number of projects, including educational programs, fundraising concerts, and a CD of contemporary Canadian liturgical music sung by our choir and published by Phoenicia, and during his last year, on the process for the transition to his successor. I'm especially grateful for his close and steady friendship over all these years: he was supportive, enthusiastic, and interested, and sympathetic whenever there was a problem, and I hope I returned the same kind of friendship to him and to his husband Rob.

Many people are writing today about him; I feel more like being quiet, and letting music speak for me. Last night I sat down at the keyboard and played some Bach preludes and fugues, and then a few of Patrick's own hymns from the Canadian Anglican hymnal. His music will live on, through all of us, and the person he was will continue to influence me all my life. Patrick, I'm so grateful to have known you. May you rest in peace. 

An Open Lenten Letter to my Bishop

How should our diocese respond to the Anglican Communion's refusal to Invite same-sex spouses to Lambeth?

Dear Bishop Mary,

This week we observed the beginning of Lent together at the cathedral, with prayer, a solemn liturgy, beautiful music. During the Ash Wednesday service, and as you placed the ashes on my forehead, I found myself reflecting on a sermon sent to me earlier in the day by my sister-in-law.

The author, Fr. James Weiss of Boston College, wrote: "What to give up for Lent? The answer is simple: Anything that gets in the way of loving. Lent is not a negative, it is a positive. What do you need to give up in order to love better?" This simple but difficult suggestion encouraged me to think about personal answers, as I struggle with my own crankiness and emotional fatigue at the end of a long winter here in Montreal. But I also thought about what it means for us as a community. How can we love others -- especially the marginalized among us -- more fully and unconditionally? How can we, as a diocese, lead the way toward "loving better?" Where are the obstacles in our path, and what can we do to recognize and surmount them?

Bishop Gene Robinson preaching to a full church at the first OutMass held at Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, in July 2006

One issue where we, as a diocese, have made great progress, has been toward full acceptance of LGBTQ+ persons. Like you, I am a straight white woman who has been blessed with a lifelong marriage to the person I love, the right to which was never questioned by anyone. Because of my many privileges, I have always felt it was incumbent on me to fight for the right of all people to full equality, and especially the right to love and marry whomever they choose. As the author of the 2006 biography of Bishop Gene Robinson (who became my own bishop in New Hampshire) I was involved early in this debate within the Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church. After we moved from the U.S. to Montreal, I was proud of our cathedral, and later the diocese, for taking a strong leadership role in moving us forward toward openness, inclusion and acceptance, to the point where this is barely an issue anymore among us. So it was with dismay that I heard that that same-sex spouses will not be invited to the dicennial Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops in England in 2020. You will be attending as our representative. What should our response be? Can we send a message with you that conveys all the growth and love that has been shown over this past decade and more here at home -- that explains that we have given up the things that get in the way of loving?

I appreciated the statement by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town, calling on all bishops to attend regardless of their differences on sexuality: 'Whether you agree with where the communion is, whether you don't agree, come and express your difference in this beautiful space which is a gift from God. Don't just stay at home and say "I'm not going". Even so, some African bishops have said that they will not attend, presumably because they have disagreed with the ordinations of gay bishops and, in some cases, of women.

This letter is not a request for you or other Canadian bishops to boycott the conference, it is an appeal to you and to our Diocese to use this Lenten period as a time of reflection on how we feel, and prayerfully consider what our response should be. For my own part, I cannot call myself a follower of the Gospel, and then exclude anyone.

I hope that other members of this diocese will not just respond on social media, but write to you or communicate to their representatives on the Diocesan Council how they feel about this issue. I hope that a response can be crafted that is consistent with the message of love with which we are trying to shape our lives, and which we show to the world. And this last is important: the world we live in and represent has moved on, society has moved on. The Church should lead on moral and ethical issues, but instead it tends to lag behind, or to take positions which are widely seen as wishy-washy at best and hypocritical at worst. As attendance declines, and young people in particular look for role models and ways of engaging positively with a chaotic, confusing and destructive secular world, we must lead and do so publicly.

With thanks for your leadership, and very best wishes for a fruitful Lenten journey --

Elizabeth (Beth) Adams

 

A Byzantine Christmas

An Annunciation, second half of 16th C.

The Benaki Museum, in Athens, houses an immense personal collection of antiquities and Byzantine art, especially icons from the so-called Cretan School. Although I'm very interested in Byzantine art, I'm starting from a point of knowing very little about it -- it's our trips to Rome, Sicily, and now Greece that have made me want to learn. I apologize that the photographs aren't better - the combination of the lighting in the galleries and gold leaf on the icons made it really hard to avoid reflections and shine.

Annunciation, by Emmanuel Tzanfornaris, late 16th-early 17th C.

For today, though, I'm just going to post some of the icon paintings we saw at the Benaki that had an Advent or Christmas theme, and include a paraphrase of online articles about what this Cretan School actually was.

The Volpi Nativity, 1st quarter of 15th C. The baby is laid in a strange coffin-like box with a reclining Virgin and pensive Joseph -- but who are all those other characters?

Virgin and Child Enthroned, by Andreas Ritzos, one of the most famous Cretan painters. Second half of 15th C.

In Greece we repeatedly encountered bitter accounts and evidence of the destruction of Christian art, architecture, and artifacts that occurred when the cities of the Byzantine empire fell to the Ottoman Turks. After Constantinople was taken over by the Turks in 1453, a number of Byzantine scholars and artists fled, especially to Venice.

"The émigrés were grammarians, humanists, poets, writers, printers, lecturers, musicians, astronomers, architects, academics, artists, scribes, philosophers, scientists, politicians and theologians. They reintroduced the teaching of the Greek language to their western counterparts, and brought with them Classical texts that were printed on the first printing presses for Greek books in Venice in 1499. Orthodox Christians in other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean gave money to endow monasteries and allow them to continue their work. One major example was on the island of Crete, which was occupied by the Venetians from 1204 until 1669, and was one of the last Greek islands to have fallen to the Ottoman Turks. The Cretan School of icon-writing became the predominant force in Greek painting during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, and helped to supply the demand for Byzantine icons throughout Europe. The Cretan artists developed a particular style of painting under the influence of both Eastern and Western artistic traditions and movements; the most famous product of the school, El Greco, was the most successful of the many artists who tried to build a career in Western Europe, and also the one who left the Byzantine style farthest behind him in his later career.

By the late 15th century, Cretan artists had established a distinct icon-painting style, distinguished by "the precise outlines, the modelling of the flesh with dark brown underpaint and dense tiny highlights on the cheeks of the faces, the bright colours in the garments, the geometrical treatment of the drapery, and, finally the balanced articulation of the composition", "sharp contours, slim silhouettes, linear draperies and restrained movements". (Wikipedia:the Cretan School, and Patrick Comerford, The Cretan School of Icons and its Contribution to Western Art.)

With these beautiful, enigmatic images, I want to wish a Merry Christmas to all of you!

Adoration of the Magi, attributed to Ioannis Permeniatus, first half of 16th century

Vendredi saint / Good Friday

A day less, for me, about events of the past or personal hopes for the future, than about the immense injustice and suffering of the world, and my place in it.

Here are a few of the pieces we'll be singing during an hour of meditation before the afternoon's solemn Eucharist.

Tomas Luis de Victoria: Tenebrae reponsories, Eram quasi agnus

Cecilia McDowall: The Lord is Good

Jason Noble: Corpus Christi (text by Evelyn Underhill, composed in 2015 for Patrick Wedd and our choir. Jason, who is one of our tenors, successfully defended his doctoral thesis at McGill yesterday)

Gregorio Allegri: Miserere mei

--

Unlike some of the places we have visited, Mexico and Sicily in particular, where there are huge Holy Week processions and traditional observances, Quebec is mostly secular , and what I'll be doing today runs counter to life here. As I went down to the cathedral last night to rehearse for the Maundy Thursday service, I saw a huge poster in the metro with an image of Christ on the cross in chocolate -- very much in keeping with the anti-church sentiments that arose when the province was rejecting Roman Catholicism during the Quiet Revolution of the late 60s and 70s, following a history of abuse and oppressive clerical authority over most aspects of personal life.

And yet, most French Canadians in Quebec still consider themselves Catholic, and many are believers: they just don't go to church, and are quite comfortable with the sacrilegious curses, puns, and anti-religious images that are part of present-day Quebec society. Today, though, we'll see quite a few strangers walking through the doors of the cathedral to sit and reflect, listen to the music, light a candle, offer some prayers. It's a very personal day of atonement, and I think it means different things to almost everyone who has grown up in the Christian church. Even in the years when I was completely out of the Church, I went on Good Friday. For me, it's about all of us, and our responsibility toward one another. The central words that have come down to us from the cross are these: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

On Guns, Men, and Fear

7,000 pairs of shoes were placed on the U.S. Capitol lawn on Tuesday to symbolize the number of children killed by gun violence in the United States since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012.

This week I've read three loosely related articles that I wanted to recommend to others who may be thinking, as I am, about the continued and unabated rise in U.S. gun violence, the factors that drive white male rage, and the rise of far-right political ideologies in the western world. These are all thoughtful pieces, well worth your time. I'm trying to educate myself about where these trends can actually go, if unchecked, but also to understand the forces that attract people to guns, violence, and far-right ideologies in the first place. Not all gun violence is the same: many of the school shooters have been male loners who have targeted white children, and have not subscribed to a particular political ideology, while other mass killers have been politically motivated. Most, however, seem to have felt powerless in current society, and turned to guns as the ultimate means of expressing themselves.

Why are White Men Stockpiling Guns? Scientific American (thanks to Lorianne DiSabato at Hoarded Ordinaries for the link.)

According to a growing number of scientific studies, the kind of man who stockpiles weapons or applies for a concealed-carry license meets a very specific profile. These are men who are anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about their place in the job market, and beset by racial fears. They tend to be less educated. For the most part, they don’t appear to be religious—and, suggests one study, faith seems to reduce their attachment to guns. In fact, stockpiling guns seems to be a symptom of a much deeper crisis in meaning and purpose in their lives. Taken together, these studies describe a population that is struggling to find a new story—one in which they are once again the heroes.

White Supremacists are Increasingly Using Public Banners to Spread their Message New York Times

From May 20, 2017, through this Monday, the A.D.L.’s Center on Extremism found, there were 72 such episodes. Before that period, the A.D.L. had not documented any white supremacist banners since Dec. 11, 2016...Most of those documented in Thursday’s report were racist or anti-immigrant in nature, with messages ranging from “America first: End immigration” to “‘Diversity’ is a code word for white genocide.” Others were anti-Muslim (a banner displayed on an overpass near Dearborn, Mich., home to one of the largest mosques in North America, read “DANGER: Sharia city ahead”), anti-Semitic (“UNjew HUMANITY”) or misogynistic (“Feminists deserve the rope”).

The Fascist Movement that Has Brought Mussolini back to the Mainstream The Guardian

"CasaPound presented itself as the house of the ideologically homeless too. Iannone said it offered “a space of liberty, where anyone who has something to say and can’t say it elsewhere will always find political asylum”. It adopted a pose of being not a part of the debate, but the receptacle of it. It reminded some of Mussolini’s line that “fascism is the church of all the heresies”.

 

A friend from a while ago, now an Episcopal priest, had a mantra I've never forgotten: "All anger is fear; all fear is fear of loss." While it's an oversimplification, it holds a lot of truth -- as I've found when asking myself, at times, what is the source of my own anger. And of course I'm angry when I look at the news of the world and, especially, in my former home of America. When I look deeper, I can see that this anger has its roots in a profound sense of fear that the entire fabric of American life is unraveling, and that the principles on which the country was founded have been irrevocably undermined. There has also been fear for individual people I know and love, including members of my own family, and myself by extension.

Of course, for a fairly large number of other Americans, the exact opposite fear is evoked: they feel that America was founded for, and should be run by, white men like themselves, and that immigration and racial diversity, as well as equality between men and women, and open acceptance of gender diversity, are all grave threats to their country and their own safety, security, and identity. Many liberals seem to believe the pendulum is going to swing back to some sort of tolerable middle, if we could just get rid of the current administration.

I think that's incredibly naive. The cat is out of the proverbial bag, and growing into a hungry, noisy, muscled tiger that can't be domesticated. Perhaps it will always stay on the fringes, growling and occasionally coming into the village under cover of darkness to claim some victims. You can believe that if you want to; history has often showed us otherwise. When human beings are afraid, they resort to behaviors that always blame, demonize, and eventually dehumanize "the other", allowing unacceptable acts. Those range from the establishment of police states (which can be overt or subtle) that excuse and allow the breakdown of privacy laws, to covert and open wars and genocide, to deportations and incarceration of people on ethnic or religious grounds, to forced interrogations and torture, and the rise of fascist political movements that make formerly illegal actions not only legal, but accepted as necessary.

And, as the article about the resurgence of neo-fascism in Italy points out, the new alt-right is clever and astute, opening itself not just to a narrow political spectrum, but as a home for anyone who feels forgotten, voiceless, politically disenfranchised. The leaders are savvy about media and popular culture, using unlikely strategies to reach converts, as well as squishy messages -- drawn even from left-wing causes -- to popularize their groups and their message.

Canadians tend to look south across the border with a kind of well-meant, pitying bemusement, and we all tell ourselves, "that couldn't happen here." Maybe not - I certainly hope not - but there are far-right groups in Canada too. Until twenty years ago, I never thought I'd see what is happening in the U.S. happen there: I thought the people would never allow it. I was completely wrong. It's possible that #TurnThemOut will triumph in the U.S. mid-term election, but the power of groups like the NRA will continue, as will the spinelessness of most members of Congress who care more about being re-elected than about children's lives, and who refuse to stand up against hate crime, hate speech, privacy violations in the name of "security", and torture -- to name just a few of the actions that ought to be completely unacceptable and illegal in a modern democracy.

Regardless of what country we live in, we have to see clearly that western democracies are presently under a serious threat. This does not mean that those governments were formerly blameless, without major issues, blind spots, and ongoing grievous sins that that they have failed to address throughout their own histories. I think you know what I mean. But we have to open our eyes and stop fooling ourselves that the forces that threaten the very underling principles of freedom and equality will slink back into the darkness, as the world becomes more migrant and more brown: they won't.

We need to remember, over and over, that only pressure from the grassroots will ultimately change governmental policies. The far-right is, after all, a grassroots movement that has been emboldened by the likes of Trump and Bannon and the resurgence of neo-Nazi and fascist groups worldwide: they are angry and fearful people who are racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim, believe in white supremacy, and see their worldview threatened by immigration, black presidents, women in power, diversity in formerly white cities and towns that threatens to become diversity in one's own family. Why do progressives tend to trust in top-down solutions? Why do we think that a vote alone is enough to combat such an ideology? We had eight years of Obama's presidency and what we are seeing now is not an aberration, it is in part a backlash by people who absolutely hated seeing a black man in that office.

It's been proven that people who experience and live with diversity have the most positive attitudes toward those who are different from themselves. It's also true that we tend to form into groups and communities with those who are like us. This makes it obvious and imperative that diversity must be encouraged by individuals, and be brought by us to all our organizations and social structures -- families, churches, informal and formal civic groups, workplaces, institutions and organizations. Within these structures, we can bring awareness to the ways in which we ourselves fail to see with the eyes of the other. Some people have hidebound attitudes, but it is crucial to believe that fundamental changes of heart are possible -- the ability to change is one of humanity's greatest attributes. If talk doesn't get us anywhere, we must openly live within the spirit of our convictions, and by doing so, we can actually gradually effect lasting, long-term change: I've seen this over and over again in the greater acceptance of homosexuality and gender diversity over the past few decades.

So some questions for today are these: how many friends do you have who are of different religions, different ethnic origins, different genders or sexual orientations? How often are you in the position of being in the minority, of listening to and learning from others who are different from yourself? How do you bring your own changed and evolving views back to your family, your circle of friends, your workplace, and the organizations to which you belong?

Rome VI: St. Valentine

The Tiber Island, looking east: Trastevere would be on the right, and Rome on the left.

We often crossed the Tiber from Trastevere to Rome at the eastern end of its island via the Ponte Fabricio, the oldest surviving Roman bridge across the river, which was constructed in the year 62, when Cicero was consul of Rome. A Latin inscription on the bridge still reads "Lucius Fabricius, Son of Gaius, Superintendent of the roads, took care and likewise approved that it be built." From this bridge I always noticed the umbrella pines crowning the top of the Palatine Hill, in the distance, and closer, a tall medieval bell tower.

There are two Roman temples just beyond the end of the bridge, and beyond them on the corner, an old church beneath that bell tower. Every time we walked past, there was a line of tourists waiting to take a picture of themselves with their hand inside the mouth of a giant, circular, stone face in the church's portico - the Bocca della Verita, or Mouth of Truth - which, according to legend, will snap shut on the hand of a liar. Because of our aversion to the hoards of selfie-stick-toting tourists, we were well into our second week before we entered the church, at a time when the portico was closed.

There are so many churches in Rome, and almost all are so Baroque, that we became used to bracing ourselves for a visual onslaught. So it was impossible not to sigh when we entered the utterly simple interior of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, a Byzantine church built in the 8th century on top of an ancient temple of Hercules and decorated by Greek monks who were escaping the iconoclastic persecutions that were prevalent in the Eastern Church at that time. The church was badly damaged by the Norman invasion in 1084 and the medieval bell tower - the tallest in Rome - was added when restorations were made.

This is a portion of Santa Maria in Cosmedin's Cosmati pavement, a mosaic technique named after the Cosmati family who pioneered this style of work in Rome in the 12th century; it is similar to some kinds of Byzantine mosaic, but instead of using stones all the same size, Cosmati work uses varying sizes framed by white marble. This sort of inlay spread in Europe; the most northern example is the Cosmatesque pavement of the high altar at Westminster Abbey, unusual because the stones are set into a dark surrounding substrate. My quilter's eyes were dazzled by the variety of patterns here, and the colors of the stones, which art historians think were mostly sliced-up bits of broken, ruined Roman monuments scattered around the city, recycled into these floors during the middle ages.

 

Although the church is no longer used by a congregation, it felt holier than many of the others we visited. We returned several times to absorb its quiet atmosphere and sit for a while in the beauty of the plaster walls and astonishing floor.

 

There are few visitors: most of the tourists have followed their guidebook's list of Romans "must-see"s to the Bocca della Verite, and afterwards merely stick their heads in the church door, see nothing of interest, and then leave.

A recording of Orthodox chants plays at all times, contributing to the calm and quiet. The music carries faintly into the stone crypt below the main altar, hollowed out from volcanic blocks that formed the central podium of the much earlier Roman temple. In this crypt are a small marble altar and candle-lit niches that once held the relics of early Christians, removed from the catacombs by Pope Hadrian in the 8th century.

Inlaid wall decorations above the entrance to the crypt.

I was wandering around upstairs when I found myself in front of a chapel where a flower-crowned skull rested on the altar, and was rather shocked to see that it was labeled "St. Valentine."

Reliquary with St. Valentine's skull (Wikipedia)

There are conflicting hagiographies and several different martyrs by the name "Valentine," but the story I like best says that he was a Roman priest in the 3rd century; this Valentine secretly married couples, in defiance of Emperor Claudius, so that the husbands would be able to escape military service and going off to war. The priest was arrested. The Emperor met the prisoner and came to like him, but when Valentine tried to convert him to Christianity -- or, alternately, when Valentine refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods - Claudius changed his mind and had him beaten with clubs and then beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate, and buried in an unmarked grave, from which his followers later removed his body. Churches as widely separated as Dublin, Madrid, and Prague claim to house St. Valentine's burial site or relics, but I think I will just decide to believe that the skull of the patron saint of lovers, whose Feast Day is February 14, is this one.

Rome IV: Saint Cecilia

November 6

The bells we hear in our apartment, on the hours and before Mass, come from the church of Santa Cecilia, just a few rooftops away. This morning the tall ironwork gates were open when we arrived, and we walked through the courtyard with its Roman urn and still-blooming roses to the wide portico, where, as in many of the churches, Roman inscriptions and reliefs found on the site are embedded in the stuccoed walls. Santa Cecilia is built on the site of the home of an early Christian noblewoman who converted her husband, Valerian, to Christianity, and was martyred in AD 230 for her beliefs. According to the story, at first Cecilia was imprisoned in the steam bath of her own home for three days, but when the door was opened, she was not dead, but came out singing. After that they tried to behead her, but she hung on for three more days. Her body was interred in the catacombs, but discovered several centuries later by Pope Paschal I, and moved in 820 to the church that had been built above her family home.

I had expected the church to contain symbols or images of music -- after all, we choirs celebrate Saint Cecilia's Day on November 22, singing Odes that have been written by famous composers -- but there was only an elderly nun from the convent next door practicing the organ, rather badly, and the sculpture of Cecilia herself in white marble, lying on her side, beneath the altar. The sculptor, Stefano Maderno, was present when her tomb was opened in 1599, and he swore that her body was uncorrupted, and lying on its side, just as he depicted in his work. Cecilia has become known as the inventor of the organ and the patron saint of music, but actually there is little evidence that she was a musician. Nevertheless, we musicians are happy to have a patron saint, and I am especially pleased that she is a woman.

Above the altar is a mosaic by Pietro Cavallini, a painter and mosaic designer who was the major Roman artist of the late 13th century, who influenced his much more famous contemporary, Giotto. Though almost unknown today, Cavallini was a pioneer in breaking with the stiff Byzantine tradition; his figures have solidity, weight, and individuality.

The apse mosaic at Santa Cecilia has a frieze of lambs similar to those in Santa Maria of Trastevere, the major mosaic by the same artist. I puzzled over this smaller work, fascinated by the shimmering schools of red, green and blue fishes, the palm trees dripping with clusters of dates, the tiny head on the priest holding a model church on the far left, and curious about the identities of the two women pictured in the mosaic - who were they?

The exhaustive Blue Guide to Rome answered my question: on the right are the white-bearded St. Peter - holding keys; St. Valerian (Cecilia's husband); and Saint Agatha. On the left are St Paul, holding a book; St. Cecilia; and St. Paschal (Pope Paschal I), holding a model church, with a square "nimbus" around his head that indicates he was still alive at the time the mosaic was made. The palm trees represent the Garden of Eden. The twelve lambs below this scene are the twelve apostles coming from the holy cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, on either side of Christ, the Lamb of God; and the mosaic inscription describes the finding of St. Cecilia's relics by Pope Paschal and his work to restore the church.

But the church's secret treasure is the Cavallini fresco (c.1300) of the Last Judgement in an upstairs balcony, hidden behind the screen dividing the nun's chapel from the church below. I had read that access was only at certain hours, and only through the convent, so I went into the little bookstore at the back, where another elderly nun was bent over her crochet work, and inquired with my rudimentary Italian, holding a postcard that pictured a detail from the frescoes and pointing to my eyes. She smiled and gestured outside and to the left, and said something like "sonnere," miming a finger pushing a button, which I took to mean "sonnez" or "ring." I thanked her, paid for my postcard, and went to collect Jonathan.

This door behind a magnificent lantana, on the opposite side of the church, doesn't lead to the convent, but it's the same idea.

Outside, we found a wooden door in the building to the left of the church, with a small buzzer beside it.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked, looking dubious.

"That's what she told me," I said, and pushed the buzzer.

A young woman in street clothes answered the door and invited us to come in. Near an even tinier giftshop, with a few postcards, rosaries, and crochet work, a sign was pinned to the doorframe reading "Cavallini," with an arrow beneath it. I pointed to it and said "Cavallini?" She nodded, and replied, "Due." Two euros. I took the coins out of my purse and paid her. Then she said something to a black-clothed figure sitting in the gift shop, and a tiny nun arose and very slowly took the three or four steps out of the little room and moved away from us down a hallway. She was only four and half feet tall, stooped, and so old as to seem ancient; intelligent eyes shone in her face, which was as creased and crumpled as tissue paper, but behind them was a kind of unreadable darkness and immense fatigue. In one hand she held a rosary made of green beads, and when we hesitated, she raised the other hand slightly and with a small gesture of her fingers indicated we should follow her down the hallway.

At the end of the hall was an elevator; we entered. Slowly she pushed the button for the next floor, facing away from us. I glanced at Jonathan; he met my gaze, wide-eyed. When the elevator stopped, she gestured to us to go ahead of her, through a vestibule that connected the church to the convent, furnished simply and beautifully with a wooden bench, and a table beneath a window. A step up led to the unlit balcony at the back of the church, behind its grille. Here, behind the wooden benches for the nuns when they attended mass, were Cavallini's paintings, some very badly damaged, but in places bright and intact.

No photographs of Cavallini's frescoes were allowed. This is an image of the fresco I found on the internet; we certainly couldn't see it like this as there was little light and the figures, from shoulder height, are hidden behind wooden benches that are within a foot or so of the painted wall. Later, at Padua, Giotto would paint a Last Judgement with the apostles seated on thrones in a composition nearly identical to this one.

The nun took a seat to the side, and her fingers moved over her rosary as she watched us, carefully guarding the frescoes. "How old do you think she is? I whispered to J., as we moved across the room, peering at the painted wall over the backs of the benches.

"I don't know. 200!"

Another visitor, a young woman, came into the room, took a cursory glance around, and left.  We stayed for perhaps twenty minutes, looking carefully at the portraits of Jesus, apostles and saints on the plaster -- men, women, and angels -- and then nodded to the nun that we were ready to leave. I waited for her to get to her feet, and she again gestured for us to go ahead, but she saw our concern for her as we waited, and slowly glided past us into the elevator. Again she did not raise her head to look at us, until we were finally at the end of the corridor again and I bent down and said "grazie, grazie," with as much warmth in my voice as I could, and she gave me the smallest of smiles and nodded in acknowledgement. Then we opened the door and went out into the world, and she remained in the home where she had spent the past century.

(There will be more about this church and the nuns who care for it, toward the end of this journal)

 

Rome Journal III: Peter

Palazzo Corsini

November 6, 2016

The first two nights, exhausted, we slept nearly twelve hours. But today we felt the jetlag more than before, waking for a long time in the night and then rising late. We had breakfast/lunch at a cafe in Trastevere, standing up at the counter like the locals to drink our espresso and caffe latte and eat a pastry chosen from the glass shelves below. Then we walked over to Santa Cecelia but found the gates closed -- many of the churches are closed at midday -- so instead we walked west across Trastevere to the Palazzo Corsini, where there were only a few tourists in the huge family villa with its beautiful gardens and grounds, along with a stunning Caravaggio.

Caravaggio's controversial and erotic young St. John the Baptist, at the Palazzo Corsini

And a different image of St. John the Baptist, also at the Palazzo Corsini.

Then we walked up the Janiculum hill a second time -- we had been there the first day -- to visit the Tempietto del Bramante, on the supposed spot where St. Peter was crucified.

Climbing up the hill to San Pietro in Montorio

The tempietto is a very small temple built to honor St. Peter by the architect Donato Bramante on the orders of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain in 1502, to fulfill a vow made for the birth of their first son who had died a few years earlier. Now it is enclosed in a courtyard of a Spanish academy, through which you walk in order to reach the tempietto.

It was raining, and we were alone. I walked slowly around the beautiful little temple, and then entered it, standing in the dim circular interior, barely larger than my outstretched arms. I looked at the inlaid marble floor, the simple statues, the frieze depicting Peter's crucifixion, the empty crypt and inscription visible through a round hole in the floor -- and suddenly, unexpectedly, my eyes filled with tears. I stood for a while, blinked them back, went out beyond the ring of columns, and saw Jonathan raising his camera to capture me and the soft, beautiful light on the stones of grey and beige. I shook my head, no, and he lowered the lens, looked at me quizzically. I turned and went back inside.

Bramante's tempietto is considered to be the first example of a perfectly-proportioned, classically-inspired Renaissance building; it harkens back to small circular Roman temples like the Temple of Vesta and Temple of Hercules, but it is miniature, and now very nearly hidden. Located next to the 9th century church of San Pietro in Montorio, on the site where -- let's say, since we don't really know -- Peter died, on the side of an unmarked hill, it is only found by visitors willing to make a concerted effort to find the path and come at one of the few designated opening times. The circular hole in the floor marks the place where the cross stood. Peter's body was taken away, and is supposedly interred now in the grand center of Roman Catholicism, St. Peter's Basilica; this is, after all, the city of Peter, "on whose rock I will build my church." St. Peter's Basilica represents the Church triumphant, larger-than-life, the center of Catholicism, clearly competitive with Constantinople and Jerusalem. This was something entirely different: a martyrium, the silent place where one man met his death.

I have listened to the Gospels all my life: Peter, the most earnest disciple, always comes across as over-eager, talking too much, getting it wrong, insisting he'll be faithful and failing, but he was still the leader Jesus chose, perhaps because he was so quintessentially like all of us. I'm not sure I ever really connected with him before; instead I've seen him as a major character in an often-repeated story. But today, standing at the purported site of his awful death -- at his request head-down on a cross so as not to die the same way as Jesus -- I felt vividly present to the man, or perhaps he was present to me. It was more of a human encounter than a religious one -- but maybe more true for that. And I wonder if this place will always represent Rome to me, as much as anything else: a less-than-lifesize statue of a bearded man holding a set of keys, in the dim light filtering in from two small vertical openings, a pavement set in stones of white and red and green, an oculus opening not onto the sky but into the earth.

John Donne, Annunciation and Passion

"Departing Wings." Linocut by Elizabeth Adams from Annunciation, Phoenicia Publishing 2015

It's rare for the Feast of the Annunciation and Good Friday to occur on the same day. In the 21st century this only happened in 2005 and 2016 and won't occur again for a century. When this happens, the Church usually separates the observances; the nnunciation will be celebrated later in April. However, John Donne pondered the convergence of these events in 1608, as I did yesterday during the long, solemn services, my awareness of the Annunciation and of Mary herself - young naive girl, and sorrowing mother - having been sharpened this year by the book project I completed in December.  I always find it easier to read Donne's poetry out loud, and enjoyed doing that with this extraordinary poem that I had never read before, sent to me yesterday by a friend on Instagram.

Upon the Annunciation and
Passion Falling upon One Day.
John Donne, 1608

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away;
She sees Him nothing twice at once, who’s all;
She sees a Cedar plant itself and fall,
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive yet dead;
She sees at once the virgin mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty and at scarce fifteen;
At once a Son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she’s in orbity,
At once receiver and the legacy;
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
The abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one
(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)
Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,
Deals in some times and seldom joining these!
As by the self-fixed Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where the other is and which we say
(Because it strays not far) doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know
And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud, to one end both.
This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one:
Or ‘twas in Him the same humility
That He would be a man and leave to be:
Or as creation He had made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating Spouse would join in one
Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone:
Or as though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.

--