Rome 1300: On The Path of the Pilgrim
Herbert L. Kessler and Johanna Zacharias
Number of quotes: 29
Book ID: 189 Page: 2
Section: 2E4
Origins of the Christian JubileeThough new in Christian vocabulary in the thirteenth century, the concept of the Jubilee, like Christianity itself, had ancient roots in Judaism.
Quote ID: 4171
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 2
Section: 2E4
For Pope Boniface, whose papacy spanned the turn of a new century, a one-hundred-year period (that is, twice fifty) seemed fitting for a Christian Jubilee cycle. The pontiff, once he recognized the opportunity that was presenting itself to him, therefore decreed that Jubilees would be celebrated at the start of each new century. (Later, it was noted that the ninety-nine-year span between Jubilees, being far longer than practically anyone could expect to live, would deprive a great many Christians of the opportunity to seek a Jubilee year’s plenary absolution in Rome and would thus consign most Christians to an afterlife of agony. The cycle was therefore shortened to the original fifty years of the Jewish Jubilee. Later still, it was halved again, to occur every quarter-century, which timetable the Vatican continues to follow today.)
Quote ID: 4172
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 3
Section: 2C
These were governed by the bishop of Rome, called by the Latin word for “father,” papa, or “pope.” For centuries, popes had taken the title Pontifex Maximus, Supreme Pontiff, the ancient epithet of the city’s chief pagan priest,
Quote ID: 4173
Time Periods: 34567
Book ID: 189 Page: 3
Section: 3A3A
With the removal of the imperial residence to Constantinople, moreover, the popes had assumed powers over Rome and its surroundings that previously the emperors alone had exercised, and steadily they also assumed the accoutrements of secular rulers and the lavish surroundings of royal courts.
Quote ID: 4174
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 189 Page: 9
Section: 3A1
During the several decades immediately preceding the first Jubilee, moreover, Rome has been the object of many popes’ urges to beautify their city and its holy places. As Rome’s governors, the popes bear the responsibility once carried by the pagan emperors for civic functions and edifices. In contrast to their imperial predecessors’ patronage of public works, the popes’ attention has been intended not merely to earn a place in the hearts of Rome’s citizens and histories but to secure entrance into heaven as well.
Quote ID: 4175
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 14
Section: 3A1,3A3B
When, in 324, he founded Constantinople – a “new Rome” at the site of the Greek city of Byzantium on the Bosphorus – Constantine left a vacuum of temporal governance in the old city that popes gradually filled. Since the departure of the imperial court, the bishops of Rome have acquired not only the property but also, increasingly, the attributes and responsibilities that had been prerogatives of the city’s pagan rulers. By the sixth century, they had begun to act as chief city administrators.
Quote ID: 4176
Time Periods: 46
Book ID: 189 Page: 15/16
Section: 3A1
In the Basilica Constantiniana, the bishop’s throne was installed in the semicircular exedra where, in earlier structures, the emperor’s official seat had commonly been placed, and an altar was built before it,
Quote ID: 4178
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 189 Page: 21
Section: 2E6
According to the Donation of Constantine, the white horse he rides on such occasions follows a custom begun with Constantine’s conferring of imperial power and properties upon Pope Sylvester (although, in fact, it is only a medieval custom introduced to assert the pope’s status as secular ruler).
Quote ID: 4179
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 189 Page: 21
Section: 3A1
It is here, too, that the pope returns, acclaimed by his cardinals singing the Laudes (praises), until he pauses on an enormous porphyry disk at the foot of the main portal of the palace and ascends the grand staircase, also in imitation of imperial rite.
Quote ID: 4180
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 21
Section: 2E1,3A1
Though disparate in subject, scale, and material, everything in this odd array shares two features: all of the objects refer in one way or another to the imperial might of ancient Rome, and none has ever been buried. Reasons to preserve and display these prizes from Rome’s patrimony have always been found.One group bears on the meting out of justice, a papal responsibility, that often takes place outside the Patriarchium. Signs of this function are difficult to overlook – a thief’s severed hand is tacked up on a wall, and an executed murderer’s charred corpse is visible in a corner of the square. The bronze she-wolf (fig. 14) set in the portico is emblematic of the pope’s juridical authority. In ancient times, the sculpture was revered as representing Lupa, who nurtured the legendary founders of Rome, the brothers Romulus and Remus.
Quote ID: 4182
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 189 Page: 22
Section: 2E1
*John’s Note: Use this picture (bronze sculpture of the she-wolf)*
Quote ID: 4183
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 189 Page: 28
Section: 2E1,3A1
The most explicit emblems of temporal authority are the three papal thrones. Two of these – the second-century imperial thrones made of porphyry that are installed before the chapel of St. Sylvester within the Patriarchium – are not in public view, but a more modest, though still impressive, ancient white marble throne is to be seen in front of the basilica (fig. 24). Used during papal coronations, the inherited seats symbolize the new pontiff’s worldly power.
Quote ID: 4184
Time Periods: 27
Book ID: 189 Page: 33
Section: 2E1,3A1
But the painting modifies one important detail: the papal canopy is rendered as a flat awning supported by two porphyry and two green serpentine marble columns. This form was taken not from the actual cusped structure in which the pope appears but from ancient images of the emperor appearing in public, surrounded by court officials. As such, it is intended to signal Boniface’s earthly sovereignty.
Quote ID: 4185
Time Periods: 17
Book ID: 189 Page: 33
Section: 2E1,3A1
A striped parasol, which is another borrowing from imperial emblems and the ultimate sign of Boniface’s temporal authority.
Quote ID: 4186
Time Periods: 17
Book ID: 189 Page: 39
Section: 2E1,2A3
The idea of constructing a Holy of Holies at the Lateran was particularly appropriate because the Lateran church of St. John had long been compared to Sinai, where Moses received the laws, or despairingly, to the synagogue. This comparison originated in part because the basilica’s altar enshrined not only relics of Christ and the two saints John but also the Temple implements captured by Vespasian and Titus in 70 C.E.: Aaron’s rod, the seven-branched candlestick, the altar of incense, the jar of manna, and the shew-bread table.
Quote ID: 4187
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 40/41
Section: 2E1
The inscription lists a fragment of the True Cross, Christ’s umbilicus and foreskin as well as his sandals, Mary’s hair, some of her milk, and her veil. (Because both Christ and his mother had ascended bodily into heaven, they left only dispensable remains behind). There is also a bit of the bread from the Last Supper, John the Baptist’s coat, St. Matthew’s shoulder, and Bartholomew’s chin. And most impressive, the Sancta Sanctorum preserves the heads of SS. Peter, Paul, Agnes, and Euphemia.
Quote ID: 4188
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 189 Page: 45
Section: 2E3
Picture - Although the inscription above the apse, NON EST IN TOTO SANCTIOR ORBE LOCUS (there is no holier place in all the world), was introduced only during the sixteenth-century renovations, it expresses the medieval belief, as well, that the Sancta Sanctorum was Christianity’s most sacred building.
Quote ID: 4189
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 57
Section: 2A3
Pope Paschal had also provided a second reliquary box, and it, too, is preserved among the Sancta Sanctorum’s treasures within the cypress box inside the altar (fig. 52). This one was made to hold a still order cross reliquary of heavy gold and set with sixty-eight pearls and seventeen semiprecious stones (fig. 53). Within a capsule at the intersection of the cross are the two most precious relics of Christ, his umbilicus and foreskin, the only bodily remains left on earth when he ascended to heaven.Pastor John notes: John’s note: 2 relics - disappeared after WWII
Quote ID: 4190
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 63
Section: 1B
Following the ancient ceremony of parading a portrait of the Roman emperor through the city, however, the Acheropita has, throughout its existence, also been removed from the pope’s inner sanctum once a year and carried in procession through the streets of Rome on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin.
Quote ID: 4191
Time Periods: 17
Book ID: 189 Page: 65
Section: 2E1,3A1
It is a solemn moment when the Acheropita, the Christ icon residing in the Sancta Santorum, is carried into the campus Lateranensis to the throng of pilgrims waiting there. Borne before Lupa, the great bronze equestrian, and the other trophies of the ancient empire assembled at the papal palace, the Acheropita vividly reminds the faithful that Christ is now ruler of Rome and that his vicar, the pope, governs a capital city made sacred by the Savior’s presence.
Quote ID: 4192
Time Periods: 017
Book ID: 189 Page: 82
Section: 2E1
The second and third lines refer to three relics preserved within the body of Christ depicted above in the mosaic itself, a piece of the True Cross and teeth of St. James the Apostle and St. Ignatius: “The remains of the Cross of wood and of James and Ignatius/rest above this inscription in the body of Christ.”
Quote ID: 4193
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 107
Section: 2A3
This is the basilica dedicated to St. Praxedes (Sta. Prassede), one of two daughters of the Roman senator Pudens, on whose ancient property the building stands. (Her head is now one of the principal relics in the Sancta Sanctorum.)
Quote ID: 4194
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 115
Section: 2E3
The Heavenly Jerusalem, then, is Rome, where the martyred saints are honored. The church that harbors their earthly remains, “decorated with gold and silver, in honor of the saintly Praxedes,” as the apse inscription declaims, is the city’s image. A hymn to Rome, the Urbs Beata Hierusalem, when sung during the Mass, reminds the faithful of this relationship:Urbs beata Hierusalem, dicta pacis visio,
Quae construitur in caelis vivis ex lapidu,
Plateae et muri eius ex auro purissimo;
Portae nitent margaritas.
(Blessed city, you holy Salem, named the place of peace, which is erected of living
stones in heaven. . . your walls are built of the purest gold. Pearls shine on your
doors.)
Quote ID: 4195
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 126
Section: 2E1
The great basilica is called by various names: Liveriana, for its original papal patron, Pope Liverius (352-66); Sancta Maria ad Praesepem, for its most cherished relic, the crib (presepio) in which the newborn Christ Child had lain; and Sancta Maria Maior (Sta. Maria Maggiore) for its place in the ecclesiastic hierarchy of Rome.
Quote ID: 4196
Time Periods: 567
Book ID: 189 Page: 135
Section: 2A3
Although most basilicas founded by Constantine and his immediate successors served to mark the graves of saints or to house precious relics, Sta. Maria Maggiore was not built with that purpose. The reason is simple. According to doctrine, the Virgin Mary, after her death, was assumed, body intact, into heaven, and so left no essential physical remains behind on earth.
Quote ID: 4197
Time Periods: 4567
Book ID: 189 Page: 136
Section: 2A3
Over the centuries, Sta. Maria Maggiore has acquired numerous secondary relics, including some of the Virgin’s milk, hair, and garments, the bones of SS. Matthew and Jerome, and the arm and skull of St. Thomas Becket. One of the most famous of the church’s sacred vestiges is Christ’s crib (praesepe). It has been kept in a special oratory perhaps since it was brought to Rome by Pope Theodore (642-49) shortly after Jerusalem fell to the Muslims in 638.
Quote ID: 4198
Time Periods: 567
Book ID: 189 Page: 138
Section: 2E1
Today awaiting the arrival of her son in the form of the Acheropita, the Regina caeli sheds its allegorical and historical meanings; the image is the Virgin herself and, as such, the Church of Rome.
Quote ID: 4199
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 189 Page: 178
Section: 2E1
Saint Paul’s Outside the Walls, apse, detail. The section of the mosaic depicting the two donors flanking the “holy innocents” is also largely original. Relics of the children massacred in Pilate’s hunt for Christ were preserved directly beneath the aspe;
Quote ID: 4200
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 189 Page: 189
Section: 2E3
Obelisk. A trophy set up along the spine of the spine of the hippodrome of Gaius and Nero, this Egyptian obelisk remained in place even after the racetrack was demolished for the construction of St. Peter’s. In 1586, it was moved to a few meters north, into the piazza before today’s St. Peter’s.
Quote ID: 4201
Time Periods: 17
End of quotes