BASILICA AND CIRCLE

feb162011

Skrivet av Timothy Verdon

Debatt

altOne of the distinctive characteristics of Western Christianity is the desire to build great churches: still today, in a Europe that does not want to recognize its Christian roots officially, the most imposing historical buildings of the cities are cathedrals, monastic churches, or shrines. How did this tradition emerge?

The Christian idea of the place of worship underwent a first fundamental transformation in Italy, and specifically in Rome, beginning at the time of Constantine.

Previously, as we learn from the letters of Saint Paul, in Rome and in other evangelized cities the Church was structured in small communities identifiable on the basis of the private homes in which the members gathered. In his letter to the Romans, for example, greeting his friends Aquila and Priscilla, Paul also greeted "the community that meets in their home" (Romans 16:3-5).

But the homes used in Rome in the 1st century also included the patrician "domus" and perhaps even the imperial "palatium": writing from Rome to the believers of Philippi between the years 61 and 63, Saint Paul would say: "All the holy ones send you their greetings, especially those of Caesar's household" (Philippians 4:22).

With the conversion to the new faith on the part of the highest ranks of society between the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th century, some of the "homes" that were permanently dedicated to the service of the "ecclesia" were grand and luxurious: these included an audience hall of the residence of the mother empress Helena, the Palazzo Sessoriano, which later became the basilica of The Holy Cross in Jerusalem. 

It would be above all Helena's son, the emperor Constantine, who would give official dignity to this tendency, exalting the new faith through the construction of a real and proper network of great churches on the architectural model of the public halls or royal residences of the empire: the basilicas.

Just as for three hundred years the Christian communities had celebrated their rites in ordinary rooms, in private homes and in the "insulae" of the Greco-Roman cities, without feeling a particular need to distinguish their places of worship from the world around them, so also, even after the Church's rise through society, the grandiose structures built by the imperial government were inserted into the existing architectural fabric of the cities in which they found themselves.

The Constantinian foundations and those of the 5th century were many, and very large: Saint John Lateran, possibly begun as early as 312-13, was of titanic dimensions: 98 by 56 meters; the cemetery basilica of Saint Sebastian, on the Appian Way, was 75 meters long; the original basilica of Saint Lawrence on the Via Tiburtina was 98 meters long.

There was a basilica on the Via Labicana, next to the "martirion" of saints Marcellinus and Peter, containing the mausoleum of the empress Helena, and there was another on the Via Nomentana, near the memorial of Saint Agnes, where Constantine's daughter, Costanza, had had her mausoleum built, the present-day church of Saint Costanza.

Above all, the ancient basilica of Saint Peter was colossal, with a facade about 64 meters wide and a portico 12 meters deep. The naves, excluding the sanctuary, were 90 meters long, and the central one was 23.5 meters wide, with a height of 32.5, while the lateral aisles were respectively 18 and 14.8 meters high.

In the setting of the imperial court, a step was then taken that was full of significance for the history of Christian architecture: the adaptation for liturgical purposes of the circular or cylindrical building typical of the mausoleums of illustrious figures in late antiquity.

For the Greco-Roman sensibility, in fact, the cylindrical-closed form suggested the mystery of death; precisely this configuration had been used in the 4th century in Jerusalem for the Constantinian structure of the "Anastasis," containing the empty tomb of Christ. The same form was then used by Constantine's daughter for her own mausoleum on the Via Nomentana, next to the ancient cemetery basilica of Saint Agnes.

Such circular structures have a particular symbolism. While the more common longitudinal basilicas imply a journey - from the entrance to the altar - the circular form, without beginning and without end, speaks of the infinite: arriving at its center connotes the end of the search, the arrival at the greatly desired port.

At the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, where one first passed through a longitudinal basilica to then - across a courtyard - enter the circular structure, the overall spatial experience was almost a metaphor of search and discovery: of the journey of faith and of the certitude with which God puts an end to man's searching, admitting him into the infinite light.

In the 5th century, the largest Roman church with central symmetry, Saint Stephen in the Round, would propose a new experience. The longitudinal basilica becomes an immense rectangular courtyard around the circular element, which in turn becomes a concentric labyrinth with multiple entrances. From the chapels one then passes into the penultimate ring, higher and more luminous than the outer ones, which finally gives access to the highest cylindrical central space, a well of light in the heart of the building.

This means that at Saint Stephen in the Round, the meaning of the Christian journey was articulated in terms of mystagogy, of initiation into the mystery: no longer as a linear movement, nor as a simple arrival, but in the experience of a penetration by degrees: from the outside toward the center, from the shadows toward the light, this perhaps being a metaphor for the life of a Church that had found the reason for its communion not only in the historical roots of a shared "romanitas," but also in the convergence toward Him who is the light of men.

It is evocative, in fact, to place the circular plan of this church beside a contemporaneous image of Christ who ascends in the circular "clipeus" symbolizing the light, in one of the wooden panels of the doors of the basilica of Saint Sabina, on the Aventine hill.

It is the Christ of Revelation, the Alpha and the Omega of human history, presented among the symbols of the four evangelists, with - below him - saints Peter and Paul, who are lifting a wreath onto the head of a woman. She, with her arms raised in prayer, symbolizes the Church herself, who yearns for her Bridegroom.

In Rome, for the first time, the Church is identified by extension with Him who, immolated, is now "worthy to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing" (Revelation 5:12). It spontaneously occupied, transforming them, the architectural and conceptual spaces of the ancient empire, convinced that God, in addition to manifesting himself in the moral greatness of Israel, had also manifested himself in the material splendor of Rome. The marble magnificence of the once pagan city was interpreted as a foreshadowing of the city of Revelation, the heavenly Jerusalem whose walls will be covered with rare and precious stones.

Rome is, in fact, the city of the Apocalypse - of the unveiling of the hidden meaning of history - and from the 5th century onward, the messages communicated in the iconographic layout of the most important Roman churches have been "apocalyptic."

Christ dressed in the golden toga as "Dominus dominantium," Lord of lords, seated on the throne or standing with the inscription of his divine power in hand and, in front of him, the twenty-four elders who worship him day and night, wafting incense that symbolizes the prayers of the saints: these are the images realized in the sanctuaries of the great new basilicas.

In a number of these churches, moreover, the scenes revelatory of eternity completed grandiose historical cycles on the side walls, with episodes from the Old and New Testament, thus insisting on heavenly glory as the resolution of earthly events.

At Saint Peter's on the Vatican hill, this message was already anticipated on the outside, with a monumental mosaic that covered the upper part of the facade of the basilica (drawn in an 11th century codex originally from Farfa and now kept at Eton College near Windsor), placing before the eyes of faithful and pilgrims the Lamb, the elders, and the countless multitude of those who stand "before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes" (Revelation 7:9).

This characteristic of life in the ancient capital, the multitude, would also take on apocalyptic connotations in Christian Rome. The city whose theaters and amphiteaters had received immense crowds would become the papal Rome that regularly receives men and women "of every nation, race, people, and tongue" (Revelation 7:9). This phenomenon explains the creation - first at the Lateran, and then at the Vatican - of spaces sufficient for the crowds of pilgrims from all over the world, spaces that express continuity with the ancient empire: Saint Peter's basilica and the square in front of it, in fact, stand on the site of a circus built in the 1st century by the emperors Caligula and Nero.

The gigantic theaters and amphitheaters of the City, which still today testify to the empire's capacity to channel oceanic crowds toward one point, are part of the experience of the primitive Church of Rome. Even if the converts to the new faith must not have been assiduous patrons of the theater and the circus, they certainly could not have ignored the attraction that such places exercised on their contemporaries.

This means that not only the idea of magnificent spaces of collective life, but also that of spectacle - of gatherings to see together events that create unity through the emotion shared by hundreds of thousands of people - were part of the cultural and human climate of the primitive Roman Church.

One of the distinctive characteristics of Western Christianity is the desire to build great churches: still today, in a Europe that does not want to recognize its Christian roots officially, the most imposing historical buildings of the cities are cathedrals, monastic churches, or shrines. How did this tradition emerge?

The Christian idea of the place of worship underwent a first fundamental transformation in Italy, and specifically in Rome, beginning at the time of Constantine.

Previously, as we learn from the letters of Saint Paul, in Rome and in other evangelized cities the Church was structured in small communities identifiable on the basis of the private homes in which the members gathered. In his letter to the Romans, for example, greeting his friends Aquila and Priscilla, Paul also greeted "the community that meets in their home" (Romans 16:3-5).

But the homes used in Rome in the 1st century also included the patrician "domus" and perhaps even the imperial "palatium": writing from Rome to the believers of Philippi between the years 61 and 63, Saint Paul would say: "All the holy ones send you their greetings, especially those of Caesar's household" (Philippians 4:22).

With the conversion to the new faith on the part of the highest ranks of society between the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th century, some of the "homes" that were permanently dedicated to the service of the "ecclesia" were grand and luxurious: these included an audience hall of the residence of the mother empress Helena, the Palazzo Sessoriano, which later became the basilica of The Holy Cross in Jerusalem. 

It would be above all Helena's son, the emperor Constantine, who would give official dignity to this tendency, exalting the new faith through the construction of a real and proper network of great churches on the architectural model of the public halls or royal residences of the empire: the basilicas.

Just as for three hundred years the Christian communities had celebrated their rites in ordinary rooms, in private homes and in the "insulae" of the Greco-Roman cities, without feeling a particular need to distinguish their places of worship from the world around them, so also, even after the Church's rise through society, the grandiose structures built by the imperial government were inserted into the existing architectural fabric of the cities in which they found themselves.

The Constantinian foundations and those of the 5th century were many, and very large: Saint John Lateran, possibly begun as early as 312-13, was of titanic dimensions: 98 by 56 meters; the cemetery basilica of Saint Sebastian, on the Appian Way, was 75 meters long; the original basilica of Saint Lawrence on the Via Tiburtina was 98 meters long.

There was a basilica on the Via Labicana, next to the "martirion" of saints Marcellinus and Peter, containing the mausoleum of the empress Helena, and there was another on the Via Nomentana, near the memorial of Saint Agnes, where Constantine's daughter, Costanza, had had her mausoleum built, the present-day church of Saint Costanza.

Above all, the ancient basilica of Saint Peter was colossal, with a facade about 64 meters wide and a portico 12 meters deep. The naves, excluding the sanctuary, were 90 meters long, and the central one was 23.5 meters wide, with a height of 32.5, while the lateral aisles were respectively 18 and 14.8 meters high.

In the setting of the imperial court, a step was then taken that was full of significance for the history of Christian architecture: the adaptation for liturgical purposes of the circular or cylindrical building typical of the mausoleums of illustrious figures in late antiquity.

For the Greco-Roman sensibility, in fact, the cylindrical-closed form suggested the mystery of death; precisely this configuration had been used in the 4th century in Jerusalem for the Constantinian structure of the "Anastasis," containing the empty tomb of Christ. The same form was then used by Constantine's daughter for her own mausoleum on the Via Nomentana, next to the ancient cemetery basilica of Saint Agnes.

Such circular structures have a particular symbolism. While the more common longitudinal basilicas imply a journey - from the entrance to the altar - the circular form, without beginning and without end, speaks of the infinite: arriving at its center connotes the end of the search, the arrival at the greatly desired port.

At the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, where one first passed through a longitudinal basilica to then - across a courtyard - enter the circular structure, the overall spatial experience was almost a metaphor of search and discovery: of the journey of faith and of the certitude with which God puts an end to man's searching, admitting him into the infinite light.

In the 5th century, the largest Roman church with central symmetry, Saint Stephen in the Round, would propose a new experience. The longitudinal basilica becomes an immense rectangular courtyard around the circular element, which in turn becomes a concentric labyrinth with multiple entrances. From the chapels one then passes into the penultimate ring, higher and more luminous than the outer ones, which finally gives access to the highest cylindrical central space, a well of light in the heart of the building.

This means that at Saint Stephen in the Round, the meaning of the Christian journey was articulated in terms of mystagogy, of initiation into the mystery: no longer as a linear movement, nor as a simple arrival, but in the experience of a penetration by degrees: from the outside toward the center, from the shadows toward the light, this perhaps being a metaphor for the life of a Church that had found the reason for its communion not only in the historical roots of a shared "romanitas," but also in the convergence toward Him who is the light of men.

It is evocative, in fact, to place the circular plan of this church beside a contemporaneous image of Christ who ascends in the circular "clipeus" symbolizing the light, in one of the wooden panels of the doors of the basilica of Saint Sabina, on the Aventine hill.

It is the Christ of Revelation, the Alpha and the Omega of human history, presented among the symbols of the four evangelists, with - below him - saints Peter and Paul, who are lifting a wreath onto the head of a woman. She, with her arms raised in prayer, symbolizes the Church herself, who yearns for her Bridegroom.

In Rome, for the first time, the Church is identified by extension with Him who, immolated, is now "worthy to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and blessing" (Revelation 5:12). It spontaneously occupied, transforming them, the architectural and conceptual spaces of the ancient empire, convinced that God, in addition to manifesting himself in the moral greatness of Israel, had also manifested himself in the material splendor of Rome. The marble magnificence of the once pagan city was interpreted as a foreshadowing of the city of Revelation, the heavenly Jerusalem whose walls will be covered with rare and precious stones.

Rome is, in fact, the city of the Apocalypse - of the unveiling of the hidden meaning of history - and from the 5th century onward, the messages communicated in the iconographic layout of the most important Roman churches have been "apocalyptic."

Christ dressed in the golden toga as "Dominus dominantium," Lord of lords, seated on the throne or standing with the inscription of his divine power in hand and, in front of him, the twenty-four elders who worship him day and night, wafting incense that symbolizes the prayers of the saints: these are the images realized in the sanctuaries of the great new basilicas.

In a number of these churches, moreover, the scenes revelatory of eternity completed grandiose historical cycles on the side walls, with episodes from the Old and New Testament, thus insisting on heavenly glory as the resolution of earthly events.

At Saint Peter's on the Vatican hill, this message was already anticipated on the outside, with a monumental mosaic that covered the upper part of the facade of the basilica (drawn in an 11th century codex originally from Farfa and now kept at Eton College near Windsor), placing before the eyes of faithful and pilgrims the Lamb, the elders, and the countless multitude of those who stand "before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes" (Revelation 7:9).

This characteristic of life in the ancient capital, the multitude, would also take on apocalyptic connotations in Christian Rome. The city whose theaters and amphiteaters had received immense crowds would become the papal Rome that regularly receives men and women "of every nation, race, people, and tongue" (Revelation 7:9). This phenomenon explains the creation - first at the Lateran, and then at the Vatican - of spaces sufficient for the crowds of pilgrims from all over the world, spaces that express continuity with the ancient empire: Saint Peter's basilica and the square in front of it, in fact, stand on the site of a circus built in the 1st century by the emperors Caligula and Nero.

The gigantic theaters and amphitheaters of the City, which still today testify to the empire's capacity to channel oceanic crowds toward one point, are part of the experience of the primitive Church of Rome. Even if the converts to the new faith must not have been assiduous patrons of the theater and the circus, they certainly could not have ignored the attraction that such places exercised on their contemporaries.

This means that not only the idea of magnificent spaces of collective life, but also that of spectacle - of gatherings to see together events that create unity through the emotion shared by hundreds of thousands of people - were part of the cultural and human climate of the primitive Roman Church.

Timothy Verdon