St. Peter’s in the Vatican and the recovery of early Christian Antiquity in seventeenth-century Rome
In early seventeenth-century Rome, the interest of historic and antiquarian studies was turned to the Christian past. Parallel to the examination of the texts of the early Church, the physical remains of the first centuries of its history achieved new status as non-literary historical evidence. In this cultural climate, the still standing part of the Early Christian Basilica of St. Peter’s acquired renewed political and symbolic meaning as a piece of tangible evidence for the antiquity of the Roman Church and for the validity of Papal supremacy.
Nevertheless, in September 1605 Paul V Borghese decided to demolish the ancient Constantinian nave, which was in a precarious state, and to conclude the construction of the Renaissance church by erecting a new arm toward the east.
The subject of the research project is the completion of New St. Peter’s between 1605 and 1621, i.e. during the pontificate of Paul V Borghese.
The question is whether the project of Carlo Maderno for the basilica actually included an explicit intention to recover, physically and-or symbolically, the memory of the old church, and, in that case, in which forms a recovery was expressed and realized. Some of the specific problems I intend to address in my investigation are the building and decoration of the new portico, the ciborium and the high altar, the confessio and the grottoes
Anna Bortolozzi, arthistory, Stockholm university
St. Peter's in the Vatican and the recovery of early Christian Antiquity in seventeenth-century Rome
2008-2012
The subject of my research project is the completion of New St. Peter's between 1605 and 1621, i.e. during the pontificate of Paul V Borghese, with a special focus on the preservation and re-use of the remains of the surviving part of the old Constantinian basilica.
As set out in the project description I presented to RJ, my investigation focused in particular on the building and the decoration of two spaces of the new church of St. Peter's: the front portico and the Vatican grottos. The outstanding feature of these spaces is the large number of spolia originating from the Constantinian basilica and deliberately re-used in their decoration. Origin, material, iconography and form of display of these spolia have been at the core of my investigation.
During my research, I have proceeded on parallel tracks with the study of the front portico and the Vatican Grottos. The reason is that the two spaces were completed and decorated in the same years, between 1615 and 1618. The works involved the architect Carlo Maderno, the painter Giovan Battista Ricci and a few leading figures of cardinals, all highly educated art amateurs and members of the governing body of the Fabbrica: Benedetto Giustiniani, Scipione Borghese, Maffeo Barberini and Francesco Maria Del Monte. The contribution of each of those cardinals in the plans for the decoration of St. Peter's is still a matter to investigate, but certainly the visibility given to the remains of the old church (columns, marble slabs, inscriptions, bas-reliefs, pieces of sculpture, sarcophagi, fresco paintings, mosaics) was a result of the gradually increasing interest in the antiquarian studies related to Christian antiquity. Indeed, as the development of my research has revealed, in the earlier phases of the works for the completing new St. Peter's, Paul V gave instructions to record "by writing and painting" the remains of the old church, but there was no express intention on the part of the Pope to re-instate them in the new building. Until 1615-'16, when the plans for the decoration of the portico and the Grottos took shape, the ancient remains lay in different storage rooms of the Fabbrica, with no specific intention. Some pieces of antiquities from old St. Peter's had been given away as gifts or sold and subsequently placed in private chapels or private collections, side by side with relics, paintings and other objects. In the last phase of my research I began to trace those missing spolie and their location. The understanding of the value - historical, devotional, and artistic - given by private collectors to the remains of old St. Peter's could, in my view, further clarify the meaning of their use in the decoration of new St. Peter's.
In my study of the building and furnishing of the Vatican Grottos I regarded them as an early example of a Christian museum, attempting a reconstruction of the original form of display. Around 1940 the exhibition was radically altered, but with the aid of a large collection of old photos, preserved in the Fototeca of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, I came to a closer understanding of the original setting. At a first glance, the items displayed in the Grottos in the early seventeenth century appeared to have been placed against the walls with no apparent relationship or purpose, except the shape of the spaces and the pursuit of a satisfactory aesthetic result. The ancient monuments were taken apart and the pieces re-assembled in arbitrary compositions. But when I looked at the exhibition in the Vatican Grottos with the eyes of the contemporaries, I understood that it was consistent with the taste of the early seventeenth century. Indeed, the creation of palimpsests from fragments or reworked parts was common practice for the sculptors of that period. Thus, my work investigated the comparison between the Vatican Grottos and the contemporary Roman collections of antiquities, with particular attention to the exhibition of sculpture on the facades of Villa Borghese, supervised between 1616 and 1623 by Giovanni Vasanzio, and those on the walls of the courtyards of the Mattei and Lancellotti palaces, directed by Carlo Maderno in the same years.
Seminars, lectures, publications and other forms of interaction with the community
The specific focus on the form of the display in the Vatican Grottos is probably the major development of my research away from the original project. The new research generated questions about exhibition strategies, the associations between objects, the experience of the visitor, relating the Vatican Grottos to the history of collections and the history of museums.
This approach also allowed me to develop a closer exchange with my colleagues in the Department of Art History of Stockholm University and to create a group of discussion. One consequence has been the organization of a study-day, arranged by myself in collaboration with Associate Professor Mårten Snickare on 22nd April 2010 at Spökslottet. The study-day intended to present the research in progress at the Department under the title "Collecting, Displaying and Consuming Art in Early Modern Europe". Papers by Peter Gillgren (Professor), Mårten Snickare (Assoc. Prof.), Lisa Skogh, Roussina Roussinova, Sonya Petersson (Ph. D. candidates) and myself were presented. My paper, "Restored memory: the Vatican Grottos as Christian Museum", was specifically devoted to the Vatican Grottos. The talks were open to colleagues from other universities and art museums and attracted a large audience. The papers presented at the study-day have been published in a special issue of the peer-reviewed journal Konsthistorisk Tidskrift / Journal of Art History, vol. 80, n. 2, 2011. The final title of my contribution is "Recovered memory: The exhibition of the remains of old St. Peter's in the Vatican Grottos", pp. 90-107.
The second publication generated from the project is an article that appeared in one of the most authoritative peer-reviewed art history journals, The Burlington Magazine: "Two drawings by Giovan Battista Ricci da Novara for the decoration of the portico of new St Peter's", The Burlington Magazine, vol. CLIII, n. 1236, March 2011, pp. 163-167. During the phase of its decoration (1618-1620), the role of the portico as a symbolic space of passage between the interior and the exterior of the basilica was further emphasized. The continuity between the old and the new basilica - of the greatest importance as the manifestation of the temporal power given by Constantine to the Papacy - was guaranteed by the material presence of numerous spolia from the old building (doors, inscriptions, marble pieces, etc.) and by the symbolic meaning of the decoration of the vault. My article focuses on the genesis of the design for the decoration of the vault, taking for the first time into consideration two drawings preserved in the Nationamuseum of Stockholm, one of which unknown.
My relationship with the colleagues of the Department of Art History of Stockholm University has not been limited to the experience of the mentioned study-day. During fall 2010 I have been involved in a new undergraduate course, called "Picture, Place and Action in Early Modern Cultures". Here I used my specific knowledge of St. Peter's and the results of my ongoing research, giving two lectures and two seminars in which I confronted the architectural monument with different and complementary methodological approaches.
In December 2010 I presented in Rome the results of my ongoing research during the meeting of Barockakademien devoted "Baroque and antiquity" (Barockakademien is a interdisciplinary academic network established in 2000 and supported by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond). The title of my paper was "Christian antiquity and antiquarian studies in seventeenth-century Rome. The completion of new St. Peter's and the memory of the old basilica". Within the program of the seminar I also arranged a special visit to the Vatican Grottos for the participants.
On this occasion I was also asked to give an interview on my research project for the radio program: Vetenskapsradion, Programmet om humanistisk och samhällsvetenskaplig forskning: "I Vatikanens grottor" (Monday 11 January 2011).
In 2011, during one of my research sojourn in Rome I presented my research in a seminar for the fellows of the Swedish Institute in Rome. During the same year I was also invited to present my research in a seminar at the Forskarskola för Kulturhistoria (Stockholm University) and by the association "Romvännerna Lund" to a larger audience of non-specialists.
Publications
- "Recovered memory: The exhibition of the remains of old St. Peter's in the Vatican Grottos", Konsthistorisk tidskrift / Journal of Art History, vol. 80, n. 2, 2011, pp. 90-107
- "Two drawings by Giovan Battista Ricci da Novara for the decoration of the portico of new St Peter's", The Burlington Magazine, vol. CLIII, n. 1236, March 2011, pp. 163-167