Pagan and Christian Rome Part 7

[41] Pliny, _N. H._, x. 29, 41.

[42] A copy of this celebrated picture, dating from the second century B. C., has been found in a tomb on the Esquiline. It was published in facsimile and ill.u.s.trated by Visconti in the _Bullettino Comunale_, 1889, p. 340, tav. xi.-xii.

[43] See the _Annali dell' Inst.i.tuto_, 1854, p. 28.

[44] The convent and its garden occupy the sites of the house of Augustus, the temples of Vesta and Apollo, the Greek and Latin libraries, and the Portico of the Danaids, described in _Ancient Rome_, ch. v., p. 109. The estate has been owned successively by the Mattei, Spada, and Ronconi families, and by Charles Mills. Its finest ornament is a portico built by the Matteis in the sixteenth century from the designs of Raffaellino del Colle. This pupil of Raphael was also the painter of the exquisite frescoes representing Venus and Cupid, Jupiter and Antiope, Hermaphrodite and Salmace, and other subjects engraved by Marcantonio and Agostino Veneziano. These frescoes, greatly injured by age and neglect, were restored in 1824, by Camuccini, at the expense of Mr. Charles Mills.

[45] See Lanciani: _L' itinerario di Einsiedlen_, in the _Monumenti antichi pubblicati dalla Accademia dei Lincei._ 1891.

[46] This inscription is of such exceptional interest that it is given, as edited by Mommsen, at the close of this volume.

[47] _Codex Vatic._ 7,721, f. 67.

[48] See Rycquius: _De Capitolio romano_. Leyden, 1669.--Bunsen: _Beschreibung der Stadt Rom_, iii. A, p. 14.--Hirt: _Der capitolinische Jupitertempel_, in the _Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie_, 1813.--Dureau de la Malle: _Memoire sur la position de la roche tarpeienne_, in the _Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions_, 1819.--Niebuhr: _Romische Geschichte_, i. 5,588.--Mommsen: _Bullettino dell' Inst.i.tuto_, 1845, p. 119.--Lanciani: _Il tempio di Giove Ottimo Ma.s.simo_, in the _Bullettino comunale_, 1875, p. 165, tav.

xvi.--Jordan: _Osservazioni sul_ _tempio di Giove Capitolino_. Lettera al sig. cav. R. Lanciani, Roma, 1876.--Hulsen: _Osservazioni sull'

architettura del tempio di Giove Capitolino_, in the _Mittheilungen des deutschen archaologischen Inst.i.tuts, romische Abtheilung_, 1888, p. 150.--Audollent: _Dessin inedit d'un fronton du temple de Jupiter Capitolin_, in the _Melanges de l'Ecole francaise_, 1889, Juin.

[49] See _Bullettino Comunale_, 1886, p. 403; 1887, p. 14, 124, 251; 1888, p. 138.--Mommsen: _Zeitschrift fur Numismatik_, xv. p. 207-219.

[50] The same ill.u.s.tration has been selected by Middleton: _The Remains of Ancient Rome_, vol. i. p. 363.--The reliefs of the pediment are also well shown in a sketch by Pierre Jacques, dated 1576, and published by Audollent in the _Melanges_, 1889, planche ii.

[51] See Clemente Cardinati: _Diplomi imperiali di privilegi_.

Velletri, 1835.--Joseph Arneth: _Zwolf romische Militardiplome_, Wien, 1843.--Mommsen: _Bullettino dell' Inst.i.tuto_, 1845, p. 119; _Annali dell' Inst.i.tuto_, 1858, p. 198; _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, vol.

iii. part ii. p. 843.--Leon Renier: _Recueil des diplomes militaires_, premiere livraison, Paris, 1876.

[52] _Die Flotte einer agyptischen Konigin aus dem siebzehnten Jahrhundert_.

[53] See Flavius Josephus, _Ant. Ind._, xviii. 4.

[54] See Morel: _Revue Archeologique_, 1868.--De Rossi: _Bullettino di archeologia cristiana_, 1868.

[55] See Parker's _Forum Romanum_, London, 1876, plates xxiii. and xxiv.

[56] It has since been published by Middleton himself in his _Remains of Ancient Rome_, vol. i. p. 275, fig. 35, from a heliogravure of the original.

[57] In the _Cod. Vat._, 3,439, f. 46.

[58] See Dressel: _Bullettino dell' Inst.i.tuto_, 1881, p.

38.--Lanciani: _Bullettino Comunale_, 1881, p. 4.--Visconti: _Un simulacro di Semo Sancus_, Roma, 1881.--Preller: _Romische Mythologie_, p. 637.

[59] _Apolog._ 26.

CHAPTER III.

CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.

The large number of churches in Rome.--The six cla.s.ses of the earliest of these.--I. Private oratories.--The houses of Pudens and Prisca.--The evolution of the church from the private house.--II. Scholae.--The memorial services and banquets of the pagans.--Two extant specimens of early Christian scholae.--That in the Cemetery of Callixtus.--III. Oratories and churches built over the tombs of martyrs and confessors.--How they came to be built.--These the originals of the greatest sanctuaries of modern Rome.--S. Peter's.--The origin of the church.--The question of S.

Peter's residence and execution in Rome.--The place of his execution and burial.--The remarkable discovery of graves under the _baldacchino_ of Urban VIII.--The basilica erected by Constantine.--Some of its monuments.--The chair and statue of S.

Peter.--The destruction of the old basilica and the building of the new.--The vast dimensions of the latter.--Is S. Peter's body really still under the church?--The basilica of S. Paul's outside the walls.--The obstacles to its construction.--The fortified settlement of Johannipolis which grew up around it.--The grave of S. Paul.--IV. Houses of confessors and martyrs.--The discoveries of padre Germano on the Caelian.--The house of the martyrs John and Paul.--V. Pagan monuments converted into churches.--Every pagan building capable of holding a congregation was thus transformed at one time or another.--Examples of these in and near the Coliseum.--VI. Memorials of historical events.--The chapel erected to commemorate the victory of Constantine over Maxentius.--That of Santa Croce a Monte Mario.

Rome, according to an old saying, contains as many churches as there are days in the year. This statement is too modest; the "great catalogue" published by cardinal Mai[60] mentions over a thousand places of wors.h.i.+p, while nine hundred and eighteen are registered in Professor Armellini's "Chiese di Roma." A great many have disappeared since the first inst.i.tution, and are known only from ruins, or inscriptions and chronicles. Others have been disfigured by "restorations." Without denying the fact that our sacred buildings excel in quant.i.ty rather than quality, there is no doubt that as a whole they form the best artistic and historic collection in the world. Every age, from the apostolic to the present, every school, every style has its representatives in the churches of Rome.

The a.s.sertion that the works of mediaeval architects have been destroyed or modernized to such an extent as to leave a wide gap between the cla.s.sic and Renaissance periods, must have been made by persons unacquainted with Rome; the churches and the cloisters of S.

Saba on the Aventine, of SS. Quattro Coronati on the Caelian, of S.

Giovanni a Porta Latina, of SS. Vincenzo e Anastasio alle Tre Fontane, of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, are excellent specimens of mediaeval architecture. Let students, archaeologists, and architects provide themselves with a chronological table of our sacred buildings, and select the best specimens for every quarter of a century, beginning with the oratory of Aquila and Prisca, mentioned in the Epistles, and ending with the latest contemporary creations; they cannot find a better subject for their education in art and history.

From the point of view of their origin and structure, the churches of Rome of the first six centuries may be divided into six cla.s.ses:--

I. Rooms of private houses where the first prayer-meetings were held.

II. Scholae (memorial or banqueting halls in public cemeteries), transformed into places of wors.h.i.+p.

III. Oratories and churches built over the tombs of martyrs and confessors.

IV. Houses of confessors and martyrs.

V. Pagan monuments, especially temples, converted into churches.

VI. Memorials of historical events.

In treating this subject we must bear in mind that early Christian edifices in Rome were never named from a t.i.tular saint, but from their founder, or from the owner of the property on which they were established. The same rule applies to the suburban cemeteries, which were always named from the owner of the ground above them, not from the martyrs buried within. The statement is simple; but we are so accustomed to calling the Lateran basilica "S. Giovanni," or the oratory of Pudens "S. Pudentiana," that their original names (Basilica Salvatoris, and Ecclesia Pudentiana) have almost fallen into oblivion.

I shall select from each of the six cla.s.ses such specimens as I believe will convey an impression of its type to the mind of the reader.

I. PRIVATE ORATORIES. "In the familiar record of the first days of the Christian church we read how the men of Galilee, who returned to Jerusalem after the ascension, 'went up into the upper chamber,' which was at once their dwelling-place and their house of prayer and of a.s.sembly. There, at the first common meal, the bread was broken and the cup pa.s.sed around in remembrance of the last occasion on which they had sat at table with Christ. There too they a.s.sembled for their first act of church government, the election of a successor to the apostate Judas. All is simple and domestic, yet we have here the beginnings of what became in time the most wide-reaching and highly organized of human systems. An elaborate hierarchy, a complicated theology were to arise out of the informal conclave, the memorial meal; and in like manner, out of the homely meeting-place of the disciples would be developed the costly and beautiful forms of the Christian temple."[61]

Rome possesses authentic remains of the "houses of prayer" in which the gospel was first announced in apostolic times. Five names are mentioned in connection with the visit of Peter and Paul to the capital of the empire, and two houses are mentioned as those in which they found hospitality, and were able to preach the new doctrine. One of these, belonging to Pudens and his daughters Pudentiana and Praxedes, stands halfway up the Vicus Patricius (Via del Bambin Gesu) on the southern slope of the Viminal; the other, belonging to Aquila and Prisca (or Priscilla), on the spur of the Aventine which overlooks the Circus Maximus. Both have been represented through the course of centuries, and are represented now, by a church, named from the owner the _t.i.tulus Pudentis_, and the _t.i.tulus Priscae_. Archaeologists have tried to trace the genealogy of Pudens, the friend of the apostles; but, although it seems probable that he belonged to the n.o.ble race of the Cornelii aemilii, the fact has not yet been clearly proved. Equally doubtful are the origin and social condition of Aquila and his wife Prisca, whose names appear both in the Acts and in the Epistles. We know from these doc.u.ments that, in consequence of the decree of banishment which was issued against the Jews by the emperor Claudius, Aquila and Prisca were compelled to leave Rome for a while, and that on their return they were able to open a small oratory--_ecclesiam domesticam_--in their house. This oratory, one of the first opened to divine wors.h.i.+p in Rome, these walls which, in all probability, have echoed with the sound of S. Peter's voice, were discovered in 1776 close to the modern church of S. Prisca; but no attention was paid to the discovery, in spite of its unrivalled importance. The only memorandum of it is a sc.r.a.p of paper in Codex 9697 of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, in which a man named Carrara speaks of having found a subterranean chapel near S. Prisca, decorated with paintings of the fourth century, representing the apostles. A copy of the frescoes seems to have been made at the time, but no trace of it has been found. I cannot understand how, in an age like ours, so enthusiastically devoted to archaeological, historical, and religious research, no attempt has since been made to bring this venerable oratory to light.

In the same excavations of 1776 was found a bronze tablet, which had been offered to Gaius Marius Pudens Cornelia.n.u.s, by the people of Clunia (near Palencia, Spain) as a token of grat.i.tude for the services which he had rendered them during his governors.h.i.+p of the province of Tarragona. The tablet, dated April 9, A. D. 222, proves that the house owned by Aquila and Prisca in apostolic times had subsequently pa.s.sed into the hands of a Cornelius Pudens; in other words, that the relations formed between the two families during the sojourn of the apostles in Rome had been faithfully maintained by their descendants.

Their intimate connection is also proved by the fact that Pudens, Pudentiana, Praxedes, and Prisca were all buried in the Cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria.[62]

A very old tradition, confirmed by the "Liber Pontificalis," describes the modern church of S. Pudentiana as having been once the private house of the same Pudens who was baptized by the apostles, and who is mentioned in the epistles of S. Paul.[63] Here the first converts met for prayers; here Pudentiana, Praxedes and Timotheus, daughters and son of Pudens, obtained from Pius I. the inst.i.tution of a regular parish-a.s.sembly (_t.i.tulus_), provided with a baptismal font; and here, for a long time, were preserved some pieces of household furniture which had been used by S. Peter. The tradition deserves attention because it was openly accepted at the beginning of the fourth century.

The name of the church at that time was simply Ecclesia Pudentiana, which means "the church of Pudens," its owner and founder. An inscription discovered by Lelio Pasqualini speaks of a Leopardus, _lector de Pudentiana_, in the year 384; and in the mosaic of the apse the Redeemer holds a book, on the open page of which is written: "The Lord, defender of the church of Pudens." In course of time the ignorant people changed the word Pudentiana, a possessive adjective, into the name of a saint; and the name Sancta Pudentiana usurped the place of the genuine one. It appears for the first time in a doc.u.ment of the year 745.

The connection of the house with the apostolate of SS. Peter and Paul made it very popular from the beginning. Laymen and clergymen alike contributed to transform it into a handsome church. Pope Siricius (384-397), his acolytes Leopardus, Maximus and Ilicius, and Valerius Messalla, prefect of the city (396-403), ornamented it with mosaics, colonnades, and marble screens, and built on the west side of the Vicus Patricius a portico more than a thousand feet long, which led from the Subura to the vestibule of the church.

In 1588 Cardinal Enrico Caetani disfigured the building with unfortunate restorations. He laid his hands even on the mosaics of the apse, considered by Poussin the best in Rome, as they are the oldest (A. D. 398), and mutilated the figures of two apostles, a portion of the foreground and the historical inscription. His architect, Francesco Ricciarelli da Volterra, while excavating the foundations for one of the pilasters of the new dome, made a discovery, which is described by Gaspare Celio[64] in the following words:--

"While Francesco Volterra was restoring the church of S. Pudentiana, and building the foundations of the dome, the masons discovered a marble group of the Laoc.o.o.n, broken into many pieces. Whether from ill will or from laziness, they left the beautiful work of art at the bottom of the trench, and brought to the surface only a leg, without the foot, and a wrist. It was given to me, and I used to show it with pride to my artist friends, until some one stole it. It was a replica of the Belvedere group, considerably larger, and so beautiful that many believe it to be the original described by Pliny (xxvi. 5). The ancients, like the moderns, were fond of reproducing masterpieces. If the replica of the Pieta of Michelangelo, which we admire in the church of S. Maria dell' Anima, had been found under the ground, would we not consider it a better work than the original in S. Peter's?

Francesco Volterra complained to me many times about the slovenliness of the masons; he says that, working by contract (_a cottimo_), they were afraid they should get no reward for the trouble of bringing the group to the surface."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Remains of the House of Pudens, discovered in 1870.]