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A Blue Guides handbook to the wonders of Christian Rome:
"Writing guides to the Christian sites of Rome began in the fourth century. A.B. Barber has now produced the indispensable guide. Packed with practical information, historical details, and charming anecdotes Pilgrim's Rome will inform, entertain, and inspire."
Professor Thomas F.X. Noble, President, American Catholic Historical Association
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Some useful resources:
History of Rome: 10 top popes and a full list of all popes »
History of Rome: 20 key dates »
The St Agnes lambs
“St Agnes’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold…”
I have always loved Keats, and he is, of course, a poet with better claims than many others to a Roman association. But as a schoolchild, studying him, I disliked that poem. I sniggered at the line “Into her dream he melted.” I was irritated by the way, for the sake of a perfect jog-trot iambic pentameter, Keats writes “a-cold”, instead of just plain Anglo Saxon “cold”.
It was much later in life that I became acquainted with St Agnes herself, her legend and her beautiful basilica, on the Via Nomentana in Rome’s northeastern outskirts. On the eve of the saint’s feast day, January 21st, the Pope solemnly blesses two white lambs. But why?
The lambs of St Agnes and the pallium
Sigeric of Glastonbury, recently named Archbishop of Canterbury, journeyed to Rome in the year 989 to receive his stole of office, the pallium, from Pope John XV. During his time here, Sigeric visited three churches intimately connected with the manufacture of this vestment, a connection which is still maintained to this day.
Every year, two winter lambs are purchased from the Cistercian monks of Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio at Tre Fontane, south of the city centre (on the site of the martyrdom of St Paul). It is their wool that will be used to make the pallia. On the feast of St Agnes (21st January), the two lambs are taken to the basilica of Sant’Agnese fuori le Mura and solemnly blessed. The association of St Agnes with lambs comes from a play on the virgin martyr’s name (Agnes) and the Latin word for a lamb (agnus). If the pope is not personally present at the service, then the lambs are afterwards taken to the Vatican, decked in white roses, to receive his benediction. After this they are entrusted to the care of the Benedictine sisters of the convent of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, where they are raised with the utmost care until Holy Week, when they are shorn. The nuns weave their wool into the pallia which will be conferred on new metropolitan archbishops on the Feast of St Peter and St Paul (29th June). In the apse mosaic of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Pope Paschal I is shown wearing the pallium. His is pure white, adorned with two red crosses.
Each of these churches, SS Vincenzo e Anastasio, S. Agnese fuori le Mura with its attached catacomb, and S. Cecilia, is hugly rewarding to visit. You can read more about them in Pilgrim’s Rome: A Blue Guide Travel Monograph.
Slightly pixelated, but still recognisable: Pope Paschal I (left) wearing his pallium woven from the wool of St Agnes lambs (and with a square nimbus indicating that he was alive when this portrait was created), in the company of St Cecilia and St Paul. Detail of the apse mosaic in the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.
Hadrian, Antinoüs and the Christian Fathers
- Bust of Antinoüs, Centrale Montemartini
- Bust of Hadrian, Vatican Museums
Hadrian is one of the most interesting and enigmatic of all the pagan emperors. He was a man of contrasts, described in the Historia Augusta as: “in the same person austere and genial, dignified and playful, dilatory and quick to act, niggardly and generous, deceitful and straightforward, cruel and merciful, and always in all things changeable.” He was a very cultured man, interested in art and architecture. Unlike his predecessor Trajan, his interest was not in extending the boundaries of his empire but in consolidating what he had, making sure that its borders held firm. But this does not mean he was inward-looking. The Roman civilisation spread peace through uniformity. All over their empire they built semi-identical cities, each with its temples, its baths, its forum, its theatre and amphitheatre, its circus, its mosaics of Dionysus and the Four Seasons, its public latrines. But Hadrian was not a conformist. He was exceptionally well-travelled and he was interested in the diversity of the peoples he ruled. His own architectural designs flouted the rules; they were almost baroque. In fact, the things that Hadrian admired most lay outside Rome, in Greece and Egypt. At his enormous, sprawling villa near Tivoli he created a little microcosm of his empire, with miniature versions of its beauty spots, from Athens to Thessaly to the Nile Delta to Asia Minor. Some of the statuary recovered from his recreation of the canal which linked Alexandria to the city of Canopus is displayed in the Vatican’s Egyptian Museum.
Hadrian built his Tivoli villa on land that belonged to his wife, the empress Sabina. Their marriage was loveless and childless. Though Hadrian deified his wife after her death, he must have known that she detested him. It is probable that Hadrian was homosexual. The image of his favourite, the beautiful Bithynian youth Antinoüs, haunts the museums of the world like a flitting ghost, portrayed in many a portrait bust or full-length statue, with drooping head, pouting lips and downcast eyes. Antinoüs died in mysterious circumstances, drowned in the Nile in ad 130, at the age of nineteen. Immediately the disconsolate emperor deified him and founded the city of Antinoöpolis on the river’s east bank. Many theories exist about this famous death: few believe that it was an accident. Perhaps the boy was getting beyond the age when it could be seemly for him to belong to Hadrian’s entourage. Or perhaps it was a ritual suicide. The cult of Antinoüs continued well beyond Hadrian’s day. The early Church fathers were in no two minds about it: Tertullian, Origen, St Athanasius and St Jerome are united in their opinion that Antinoüs was merely a man and that his worship was not worship, but idolatry—though they differ in how they express themselves. For St Athanasius, Antinoüs is a lascivious wretch. For Tertullian he is a hapless victim, a person who perhaps had little choice. From this distance, and with our utterly different social outlook, we can have no true idea. The Vatican Egyptian collection exhibits a statue of Antinoüs in the guise of the god of the underworld, Osiris, reborn from the Nile waters. It is a most extraordinary piece, offering a small glimpse into one of the ways in which people have attempted to make sense of death and immortality.
Text © Blue Guides. Pilgrim’s Rome. All rights reserved.
St Chrysogonus and his church in Rome
Not much is known of St Chrysogonus. According to his legend—though it may well be the truth—he was a Roman official beheaded for his faith c.304 in the town of Aquileia, which lies on the Amber Road near the Bay of Trieste. His body was flung into the sea, was retrieved and thence taken to Zadar, from where it was looted by the Venetians in 1202, their first act of ignominy at the outset of the Fourth Crusade. From Venice, the relics made their way to Rome.
The Roman church that bears Chrysogonus’s name and houses the relics stands in the district of Trastevere. Its interior is a pool of tenebrous quiet, sealed off like a thermos flask from the noisy road and tramline outside. Underneath it, accessed from the sacristy and vestry, are the fascinating, suggestive remains of the original Early Christian basilica, dating mainly from the fifth century. Fragments of floor and wall revetment survive. The layout of the apse is clear, along with the frescoed access corridor to the martyr’s former shrine. The best of the surviving wall paintings is in what would once have been the south aisle. St Benedict is depicted healing a leper, whose affliction is indicated by large dark spots.
The remains of St Chrysogonus have been transferred to the upper church, where they are enclosed in the high altar. Above it is a mosaic of the Madonna and Child flanked by St Chrysogonus and St James. It dates from the thirteenth century and is attributed by some to the great Roman master Pietro Cavallini, whose other works in this part of Rome include frescoes at Santa Cecilia and mosaics at Santa Maria in Trastevere.
- Foundation myth of Aquileia: two bullocks plough the furrow that will mark the line of the colony's wall. Magistrates in togas accompany the procession. Stone tablet of the 1st century AD, in the archaeological museum of Aquileia
- St Benedict healing a leper. Fresco fragment from the lower church of San Crisogono
Lovers' tokens removed from Milvian Bridge
According to a report in Il Messaggero, the padlocks that encrust the Milvian Bridge like lovers’ barnacles were condemned to revmoval: to be precise, they were taken away on Monday 10th September at 11 am. Officials from the Ministry of Public Works said they lower the tone of the area and were not suited to the historic nature of the bridge, scene of the historic battle between Constantine and Maxentius (which incidentally will celebrate its 1700th anniversary on 28th October). But lovers need not despair. Their padlocks will not be destroyed—even if the love that drove them to fix them to the bridge has died in the meantime. The locks are to be taken to a museum.
A museum?! I, for one, find this a sad decision. Nutty customs such as this are part of what life is all about. I used to love to come to the Milvian Bridge, look at the rusting padlocks with their inscriptions in fading “indelible” marker proclaiming “Together Forever”, meditate on the thrashing of men and horses in the water below as Constantine drove his rival to a watery grave, muse upon the comings and goings of men upon the earth, all that kind of thing…. Eheu!
But all is not lost. Apparently the tradition has now transferred itself to the Trevi Fountain. Find a convenient railing on which to affix your padlock and--flick!--toss the key into the fountain's frothing waters. Amor vincit.
Or maybe not. Now that the padlocks are down, the city authorities are at a loss where to put them and have solicited suggestions to their Facebook page. "Naturally we will not take into consideration ideas that involve natural beauty spots or sites of artistic interest," they say. "The removal of the padlocks from the bridge was aimed at curing precisely those ills."
The column with the sudarium
The famous angels on Ponte Sant'Angelo, by Bernini and his assistants, all hold an instrument of the Passion and bear an accompanying inscription on the plinth. All except for the angel that holds the sudarium, or veil of Veronica, whose inscription is damaged and unreadable. At least, so it had always seemed to me. Grateful thanks to David Lown for pointing out that the inscription IS still there--just--but that most of it was blown away in 1870 by a cannon ball, fired during the struggle for dominion of Rome between papal and Italian forces. Attached is a picture (not very good, but the best I could find, until I go back to Rome again and take another one), demonstrating the mark left by the cannon ball and the remains of the inscription, which once read: "Respice faciem Christi tui" (Look upon the face of thine anointed).
Two fingers on the angel's right hand are damaged. The angel next to this one, the angel holding the nails, is missing three. The appealingly named Umberto Broccoli, from the Sovrintendenza, has an attractively romantic attitude to the problem of time's depredations. "One can do all in one's power to stop the damage happening," he says, 'but once it has occurred, there is little to be done. The fragments get lost. One cannot stick them back on. And we can only restore such artworks with original pieces, not with copies. The beauty of these statues cannot be everlasting." Dust to dust. I like this. Two of the angels are copies already, the once with the Crown of Thorns and the one with the Titulus. The originals are in the little-visited church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte. Let the others remain.
NB: Thanks to the Mellor family for the image. You can see photos of all the angels on their blog at: rome-wardbound.blogspot.hu/2009/11/ponte-santangelo.html. A series of lovely sepia photos of each angel can be found here: thebournechronicles.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/the-angels-of-ponte-santangelo/
Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus...
July 8th is the feast (in the Roman calendar) of Saints Aquila and Priscilla. Very little is known about these two characters, husband and wife and early converts to Christianity. They were friends of St Paul, most likely converted Jews like Paul himself, and—also like Paul—Aquila was by profession a tentmaker. We know that they were with Paul in Ephesus, and that Paul left them there to spread the word, which they did with diligence: “And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.” (Acts 18: 24–26). They are two of the earliest missionaries whose names we know.
It is clear that Paul valued them highly. After Ephesus, we find them in Rome. In his letter to the Romans, Paul says: “Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus: Who have for my life laid down their own necks…Likewise greet the church that is in their house.” It is unknown what heroic deed it was that they performed. It may have had something to do with the commotion raised in Ephesus by Demetrius the silversmith, whose little votive figurines of Diana Paul spoke out so vehemently against. This may also have been the reason why Aquila and Prisca went to Rome.
Their last scriptural appearance comes in Paul’s second letter to Timothy, where the Apostle writes: “Salute Prisca and Aquila”. Since Timothy at the time is thought to have been Bishop of Ephesus, it is probable that Prisca and Aquila had returned home.
There is a small church on Rome’s leafy Aventine Hill dedicated to Santa Prisca. For some time it was thought to stand on the site of Prisca and Aquila’s house, that very place mentioned by St Paul, where they had received the local Christian community for meetings and worship. The identification is unfortunately no longer accepted. We have no idea where the two lived while they were in the city. Nevertheless, the church merits a visit. It is dignified in its simplicity and underneath it are the remains of a Mithraic temple, dedicated to the cult that rivalled Christianity in popularity until Christianity became the official faith of the empire in the 4th century. (Mithraeum open by appointment on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month; T: +39 06 399 67700.) The superb inlaid head of Sol that was found here (pictured left) is on display in the Museo Nazionale Romano in Palazzo Massimo near the Baths of Diocletian (http://bit.ly/ObYu8K).
Earliest-known image of a martyrdom
Under the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo on the Caelian Hill are the excavations known as the Case Romane (‘Roman houses’; www.caseromane.it). What has been revealed is complex and fascinating and spans at least five centuries. Traces of a wealthy domus with a nymphaeum, a street and shops, an early Christian oratory. Many of the walls still preserve their painted decoration, some of it figurative, some in the form of faux marble cladding. The church takes its name from two mid-fourth-century courtiers of the emperor Constantine II. Under his successor Julian the Apostate, who attempted to reverse the Christianisation of the empire, Giovanni and Paolo were put to death for their faith. The so-called confessio, which is approached up an iron stairway, has a fragmentary fourth-century fresco showing three kneeling figures, apparently blindfolded and awaiting execution. They are identified as Saints Priscus, Priscillian and Benedicta, ‘priest, cleric and pious lady’, who are said to have attempted to locate the remains of Giovanni and Paolo and were arrested and executed, in about 362. According to tradition, they were beheaded. Their feast day in the Roman martyrology is January 4th. This is the earliest-known depiction of a martyrdom in Christian art.
Images of the Crucifixion: closed or open eyes?
Representations of the crucifixion, in the early days of Christianity, were symbolic rather than literal. A jewelled cross might be shown upon the hill of Golgotha, for example, but the cross did not have Christ fixed upon it. The shame and humiliation of this manner of execution, which the Romans reserved for slaves and traitors, carried a heavy social stigma, and artists shrank from representing the Son of God in such a way. The famous Alexamenos graffito, a second-century scrawl found on the Palatine Hill in Rome and now exhibited there in the Palatine Museum, makes fun of a Christian worshipping his ‘god’, who is depicted as a man with the head of a donkey.
Later, partly in response to the heresy of Arianism, which refused to accept the full divinity of Christ, literal images of the crucifixion began to emerge, with Christ shown triumphant over death: erect, often clad, and with his eyes open. Not a suffering human being, but a victorious divinity. The Volto Santo of Lucca, a cedarwood statuette of a robed Christ, is a famous example of the open-eyed type. According to legend, it was carved by Nicodemus himself. A memorable early 16th-century painting of the Volto Santo, by the eccentric Tuscan artist Piero di Cosimo, hangs in the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Budapest.
Later in the Middle Ages, after Arianism had been outlawed, crucifixion scenes began to concentrate on Christ’s humanity, emphasising his suffering and sacrifice. The former Roman town of Ferento, in Lazio, was destroyed by its powerful neighbour Viterbo in 1172, for harbouring an image of Christ on the cross with open eyes.
In Byzantine art, a different trend is seen. Christ crucified is shown in his agony, eyes closed, with mourners clustered around the cross. But alongside this, in deliberate juxtaposition, is placed a representation of Christ in Majesty. The example illustrated here, from the chapel of the Archangel Michael at Asomatos, Crete (note the soldiers quaintly dressed in 14th-century armour), shows the crucified Jesus with his eyes closed and the risen Jesus with his eyes wide open, emphasising the glorious victory of Christ the Lord after the suffering and death of Christ the man.
The earliest known image of the crucifixion in Western public art is on the wooden door of the basilica of Santa Sabina, on Rome’s Aventine Hill. It dates from around the year 430. Christ’s eyes are open.
The images at the top, from left to right, show: the Alexamenos graffito (2nd century); the crucifixion panel from the west door of Santa Sabina, Rome (5th century); Piero di Cosimo's Volto Santo (16th century, inspired by an 8th-century statue); wall-painting of the crucifixion from the Chapel of St Michael, Asomatos, with Christ in Majesty above (14th century); detail of the former, showing the closed eyes of the crucified Christ.
A memento of St Peter and St Paul and a superb museum: all under one roof
“We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.”
These words, from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto, published in 1909, are well known (Tr. James Joll). Marinetti issued a call to arms that was at once forward-looking and narrow-minded; iconoclastic, revolutionary, progressive; but misogynistic, splenetic and tub-thumping; radical but deeply nationalistic; daring and bombastic but intolerant, elitist and hatred-fuelled, intoxicating and at the same time just plain silly. In many ways, it is amazing that we are still talking about him. But then, plenty of things are amazing. Not least the small plot of ground at no 106 Viale Ostiense in Rome.
On the site of the present building there once stood a small chapel, known as the Chapel of the Separation. According to legend it was on this spot that St Peter and St Paul took leave of each other on the eve of their martyrdom. St Paul was taken further southeast, to Tre Fontane; St Paul northwest to the Vatican hill. A little plaque showing the two apostles in a fraternal embrace commemorates this event.
Inside the gates, you find yourself within the precincts of the former Montemartini electrical plant. Now decomissioned, its vast turbine halls, with machinery still intact, are host to an overflow of ancient sculpture from the collections of the Capitoline Museums. Displayed against the beautifully crafted behemoths of the machine age, the chiselled statues and portrait busts from the days of imperial Rome bring Marinetti powerfully to mind. He hated museums.
“We today are founding Futurism,” he boasted, “because we want to deliver Italy from its gangrene of professors, archaeologists, tourist guides and antiquaries. Italy has been too long the great second-hand market. We want to get rid of the innumerable museums which cover it with innumerable cemeteries.”
He was mistaken. There is nothing gangrenous here (most of the statues’ limbs have already been amputated). A museum such as the Centrale Montemartini is nothing like a cemetery. It is a place which conjures the age of marble and the age of cast iron into symbiotic life.
INDEX
To give a feel for the depth of information available in our books, we reproduce here in full the index pages of PILGRIM'S ROME.
Numbers in italics are picture references. References with a ‘c.’ afterwards denote information contained in a caption. Reference with an ‘n.’ indicate that the information appears in a footnote.
A
Abbazia delle Tre Fontane 42–44
Achilleus, St 24, 110, 173
Acts of Peter 15
Aesculapius 168
Agnes, St 154, 160–61; (relics of)
113, 162; (eulogy of) 163, 163
Agrippa, Roman general 219
Alaric, King of the Visigoths 199
Alberti, Leon Battista 76
Albertoni, Bl. Ludovica 147
Alexamenos graffito 97c., 97,
117–18
Alexander VI, pope 94
Alexis, St 120
Allegri, Gregorio 260
Alps 149, 149
Ambrose, St 152, 231
Anastasius IV, pope 188
Angelico, Fra’ 240;
(tomb of) 189
Anterus, pope 112
Antinoüs 243–44
Antoninus Pius, emperor 239, 239
Apollo Belvedere 245
Apostles’ Creed 100, 273
Apotheosis of emperors 187,
239, 239
Appian Way (see Via Appia)
Aquila, friend of St Paul 122, 123
Ara Pacis 205, 206
Arch of Constantine 202–03, 202
Arch of Gallienus 166
Arch of Septimius Severus 126
Arch of Titus 211, 211
Arians, Arianism 183, 198
Asclepius 168
Athanasius, St 244
Audiences, papal 235
Augustine of Canterbury, St 127
Augustine, St 164, 165, 199,
222, 227, 230–31
Augustus 184, 186, 187
Augustus of Prima Porta 245
Aurea, St 229
Aventine Hill 10, 116ff
Avignon, popes in 58, 61
Balbina, St 124
Bartholomew, apostle 170;
(relics of) 169
Basilicas, general 54, 54c.
Basilica of Junius Bassus 203
Basilicas, papal 55ff
St John Lateran 56–68
S. Maria Maggiore 86–91
S. Paolo fuori le Mura 45–53
St Peter’s 70–85
Baths of Caracalla 126, 170
Becket, St Thomas 120
Benedict XIV, pope 214c.
Benedict XVI, pope 55, 84
Bernard, St 43, 44
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo 71, 72,
80, 82, 84, 102, 147, 162, 185;
(tomb of) 91
Blessing, papal 84
Bocca della Verità 7, 157
Boniface VIII, pope 60, 60, 73,
74–75, 261
Bonnie Prince Charlie (see Stuart)
Borghese, Cardinal Scipione
102, 141
Borgia, Rodrigo (see Alexander VI)
Borgo 150
Borromini, Francesco 58, 161,
173
Botticelli, Sandro 250
Bramante, Donato 76
Burial practices 105
Buses 252; (bus tickets) 254
Byron, Lord 245
Caelian Hill 126ff
Caligula, Circus of
(see Circus of Nero)
Calixtus, deacon 112
Campo Verano 98
Canova, Antonio 168
Capgrave, John 46
Capitoline Museums 210
Cappella della Separazione 42
Caracalla, emperor 126;
(Baths of) 126, 170
Caravaggio 32, 53, 164
Castel Sant’Angelo 71, 77, 206,
235–36, 245
Castra Peregrina 129, 134
Castrum Praetorium 36, 36c.
Catacombs, general 104–10,
108, 111, 204n.
of Domitilla 110
of Mark and Marcellian 184
of Praetextatus 112
of Priscilla 113, 115
of S. Agnese 113
of S. Callisto 106, 111–12, 144
of S. Cyriaca 101
of S. Sebastiano 27, 110
of S. Valentino 153
Catherine of Siena, St 61, 189
Cavallini, Pietro 143, 146
Cavour, Camillo 16
Cecilia, St 112, 144, 145
Cellini, Benvenuto 235
Centrale Montemartini 42
Cestius, Caius 224
Chapel of St Sylvester 134
Chapel of St Zeno 191
Charlemagne, King of the Franks
69, 76
Chateaubriand, François-René,
vicomte de 208
Chiesa Nuova 172–73, 173
Chi Rho 108, 108
Christ (see Jesus)
Christian and pagan art 30, 177,
178c. 178, 192, 203–08, 205,
241–42
Christina, Queen of Sweden 83
Chrysogonus, St 141
Cilo, Lucius Fabius 126
Circular building design 131–33
Circus of Nero 29, 73
Claudius, emperor 14n., 212,
215292 pilgrim’s rome
Clemens (see Flavius Clemens)
Clement I, pope and saint 138,
139–40
Clement VII, pope 235, 236, 247
Clement X, pope 214c.
Clement XI, pope 168, 178c.
Clement XIV, pope, monument to 168
Colosseum 213–17, 214
Comunità di Sant’Egidio 171
Constans, son of Constantine 15
Constantia, daughter of Constantine 176;
(sarcophagus of)
178c., 178, 246
Constantine, emperor 195, 198, 210;
(and Battle of Milvian Bridge) 56, 200, 202;
(and labarum) 56, 69;
(arch of) 202–03, 202;
(building of basilicas) 15, 45, 55, 57, 64, 98;
(abolishes crucifixion) 97;
(baptism of) 57, 64, 135, 136c., 137;
(Donation of) 136c., 137
Constantinople 95
Constantius, son of Constantine 197
Consular roads (see Via Appia etc)
Conversion of St Paul (in art) 49, 53
Corso, Via del 8, 40
Cosmas, St 174
Counter-Reformation 180
Crown of Thorns 95
Crucifixion 96–97;
(early attitudes to) 117–18
Crucifixion of St Peter (in art)
32–33, 77
Curia, in Roman Forum 58,
199, 210
Cyprian, St 222
Dalmata, Giovanni 126
Damasus I, pope 86, 101, 106,
182, 183, 198, 233c.; (verse
eulogies of) 111, 112, 163, 163,
184
Damian, St 174
Dante 57
Day Lewis, Cecil 11
Deakin, Richard 216
Della Porta, Giacomo 180
Di Fausto, Florestano 94
Diocletian, emperor 44, 141, 160, 196
Dionysius I, pope 112
Divino Amore, sanctuary of 92
Domine Quo Vadis 24–26
Dominic, St 24, 117, 146, 147
Domitian, emperor 110
Domitilla (see Flavia Domitilla)
Domitilla, catacombs of 110
Domus Aurea 131, 212–13, 216
Domus ecclesiae 122
Donatello, sculptor 186
Donation of Constantine 136c., 137
Dürer, Albrecht 246
Eleutherius, pope 196
Enchiridion of Indulgences 262
English-language church services 257
Ephesus, Council of 86, 89c., 142
Epistles of Peter 14
Esquiline Gate 166
Esquiline Hill 16, 86, 131, 203
Eucharist 114–15
Eudocia, empress 21
Eudoxia, empress 21
Eutychianus, pope 112
Evangelists, symbols of 17c.
Fabian, pope 112
Fausta, wife of Constantine 57,
63, 64, 200
Faustina, empress 239, 239
Feast days 268
Felicianus, St 132, 133
Felicity, St 196
Felix I, pope 112
Felix IV, pope 174
Ferrata, Ercole 161
Filarete (Antonio Averlino) 76
Filocalus, Furius Dionysius 163c.
Flavia Domitilla 110, 173
Flavius Clemens 140
Fonseca, Gabriele 185
Forum 208–12
Fountain of the Four Rivers 162
Fourth Crusade 83, 95
Francis of Assisi, St 146, 147
Francis Xavier (see Xavier)
G
Gabinius, St 196
Gammadia 18, 52, 67, 174, 175, 179
Garibaldi, Giuseppe 103, 190
Genesius, St 196
Gesù, church of 179–82
Geta, brother of Caracalla 126
Ghetto, Jewish 38
Giardino degli Aranci 116
Giorgetti, Antonio 102
Giotto 60, 60, 240
Giovanni and Paolo, martyrs 128
Gladiatorial games 215–16
Golden House (see Domus Aurea)
Goths 199
Gratian, emperor 152
Gregorovius, Ferdinand 206
Gregory the Great, pope and
saint 127, 195, 236
Gregory XI, pope 61
Gregory XIII, pope 64
Hadrian, emperor 218, 219,
242–43; (mausoleum of) 71,
235, 245; (sarcophagus of) 77,
236; (villa of) 243
Haghia Sophia 197
Helen, St 80, 93, 94, 95;
(mausoleum of) 246;
(relics of) 188;
(sarcophagus of) 246
Helena, daughter of Constantine
177, 178c.
Hepburn, Audrey 7
Herod Agrippa 21
Hilarius, pope 66, 67
Holy doors 88, 89
Holy Years 74
Honorius I, pope 43, 134, 153,
163, 190
Honorius III, pope 117
Hopkins, Gerard Manley 135
Horologium Augusti 184
Iconoclasm 118–19
Iconography, Christian and
pagan 30, 177, 178c. 178, 192,
203–08, 205, 241–42
Ignatius of Loyola, St 181, 182
Incorruptibility 100
Indulgences 260–64
Ine, King of Wessex 150
Innocent II, pope 43
Innocent III, pope 115, 222
Innocent X, pope 162
Innocent XI, pope 79
Isaia da Pisa 189
Isola Tiberina 168–69
James the Less, apostle 166, 167
Janiculum Hill 189
Jerome, St 183, 244
Jesuits 180
Jesus (alleged footprints of) 26,
26, 102; (crib of) 90; (in vision
of Augustus) 186; (St Peter’s
vision of) 25
Jews, Jewish community in Rome
8, 14n., 36, 106, 141, 211, 212;
(cuisine) 255–56; (ghetto) 38
John the Baptist, head of 195
John Chrysostom, St 83
John IV, pope 67
John XV, pope 148, 158
John Paul II, pope 79, 83, 92,
104, 151, 171, 223
Jude, St 82
Jugurtha, King of Numidia 18
Julian the Apostate, emperor 128, 178c.
Julius Caesar 19, 37
Julius II, pope 226, 245, 247;
(tomb of) 22
Junius Bassus, basilica of 203
Junius Bassus, sarcophagus of 203
Keats, John 225
Keyhole (Priorato di Malta) 121, 121
Knights of Malta 121
Labarum (see Constantine)
Laocoön 246
Lateran Council, Fourth 115
Lateran Palace 58, 62, 68, 69,
158, 238
Lateran Treaty 58
Lawrence, St 24, 98, 101, 184;
(relics of) 99; (relic of gridiron
of) 184; (martyrdom of) 159
Le Gros, Pierre 181
Leo I, pope 21
Leo III, pope 69, 76
Leonardo da Vinci 240
Leo X, pope 129, 206, 236, 247,
261
Liberius, pope 86, 91, 114
Liber Spectaculorum 216
Loyola (see Ignatius)
Lucina, Roman matron 122, 184
Lucius I, pope 112
Lucius Verus, emperor 98
Ludus Magnus 215
Luke, evangelist 40, 52; (icons
painted by) 69, 91
Luther, Martin 261, 263
Maderno, Carlo 195
Maderno, Stefano 144, 145
Madonna della Clemenza, icon 143
Madonna del Perpetuo Soccorso 166
Mamertine Prison 18–21, 19
Maraini, Antonio 48
Marcellinus, pope 113
Marcellus I, pope 113
Marcellus II, pope 260n.
Marcus Aurelius, emperor 31
Mark, evangelist 14
Mark and Marcellian, catacombs of 184
Martial, poet 216
Martin V, pope 61, 62
Martyrdom, earliest illustration of 128, 128
Mary, cult of 142
Masolino da Panicale 139
Matthias, apostle 12, 90
Maxentius, rival of Constantine
173–74, 200, 202, 210
Medici, Ferdinando de’ 130
Mehmet II, Ottoman sultan 197
Meo, Antonietta 94
Metro 253; (Metro tickets) 254
Michelangelo 22, 33, 76, 79, 80,
170, 189, 250
Milvian Bridge, site 153,
199–200, 201
Milvian Bridge, battle of 56, 69c., 202
Mino da Fiesole 126
Mirabilia Urbis Romae 186
Miserere, psalm 260
Mithraea, cult of Mithras 123,
124, 134, 140, 229, 230
Monica, St 165, 227, 231;
(tombstone of) 227, 227
Mons Gaudii 10
Monte Mario 10
Morton, H.V. 148
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 260
Museo Nazionale (Palazzo Massimo)
124, 203, 205c.
Mussolini, Benito 233
Napoleon 79, 190, 245
Nathanael, friend of St Philip 170
Nereus, St 24, 110, 173
Neri, St Philip 92, 172
Nero, emperor 12, 14, 39, 57,
77, 131; (revolving dining room
of) 212; (ghost of) 32
New York Times 104
Nicene Creed 100, 183, 272
Nicholas IV, pope 62
Nicholas V, pope 76, 179
Normans 134, 139
Obelisks 56, 73, 86, 184
Oratory of St Philip 173
Oratory of the Forty Martyrs 211
Origen, theologian 15, 244
Ostia 226–31
Pagan and Christian art 30, 177,
178c. 178, 192, 203–08, 205,
241–42
Palatine Hill 97c., 212
Palazzo della Cancelleria 182
Palazzo Massimo 124, 203, 205c.
Pallium 148n., 154
Pancrazio, St (St Pancras) 190
Pantheon 106, 217–22
Papal audiences 235
Papal basilicas 55ff
St John Lateran 56–68
S. Maria Maggiore 86–91
S. Paolo fuori le Mura 45–53
St Peter’s 70–85
Papal indulgences 260–64
Paschal I, pope 129, 144, 145,
154, 191; (monogram of) 192, 192
Paschal II, pope 32, 134, 139
Paul, apostle 19, 118, 122;
(appearance of) 35c., 51;
(life and character of) 34–37;
(conversion of, in art) 49, 53;
(Roman citizenship of) 29, 36;
(dwelling places of in Rome)
37–40; (imprisonment of) 20,
37, 44; (‘separation’) 40–42,
41; (martyrdom of) 42–43,
44; (martyrdom of, in art) 35,
39, 50; (burial of) 45; (and
Catacombs of S. Sebastiano) 28,
102; (sarcophagus of) 50
Paul III, pope 207
Paul V, pope 81, 90–91, 113, 185
Paul VI, pope 262
Peck, Gregory 7
Perugino, Pietro 250
Peter, Acts of 15
Peter, apostle 19, 179, 263; (life
and character of) 12–16;
(at S. Pudenziana) 16;
(imprisonment of) 13, 20–21, 23;
(chains of) 21–22, 22;
(tries to flee Rome) 23;
(bandage of) 24; (‘separation’) 40–42, 41;
(and Catacombs of S. Sebastiano) 28,
102; (crucifixion of) 15;
(crucifixion of, in art) 32–33, 77;
(tomb of) 29–32, 31, 80–81
Peter, epistles of 14
Philip, apostle 166, 167c., 167
Piazza della Bocca della Verità 218
Piazza dei Cavallieri di Malta 121
Piazza Navona 161, 162
Pietro da Cortona 40
Pilgrimage churches 92ff
S. Croce in Gerusalemme 93–95
St John Lateran 56–68
S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura 98–101
S. Maria Maggiore 86–91
S. Paolo fuori le Mura 45–53
St Peter’s 70–85
S. Sebastiano 101–03
P cont.
Pinturicchio, painter 186
Piranesi, Giovanni Battista 122
Pius V, pope and saint, 90–91
Pius IX, pope 90, 103–04, 233;
(mausoleum of) 99
Plautilla, Roman matron 39c., 39
Plautius Lateranus 57
Pliny the Younger 197
Ponte Cestio 169
Ponte Fabricio 169
Ponte Rotto 169
Ponte Sant’Angelo 6, 70–72
Pontianus, pope 112
Pontifex Maximus 233c.
Poussin, Nicolas, monument to
207–208, 209
Praetextatus, catacombs of 112
Praetorian Guard 36, 36c.
Praxedes, St 192, 194
Primus, St 132, 133
Priorato di Malta 121
Priscilla (or Prisca), friend of St
Paul 122, 123
Priscilla, catacombs of 113, 115
Protestant Cemetery 222–25, 224
Pudens, senator 16, 192
Pudentiana, St 192, 194
Quo Vadis, church
(see Domine Quo Vadis)
Quo Vadis, novel 26
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio)
76, 79, 165, 221, 240, 241;
(rooms in Vatican) 246–47
Reni, Guido 185
Roman Holiday, film 7
Romulus Augustulus,
emperor 199
Rubens, Peter Paul 173
Ruskin, John 246, 247
S. Agnese in Agone 160–62
S. Agnese, catacombs of 113
S. Agnese fuori le Mura 154,
162–64
S. Agostino 164–65
S. Alessio 120
S. Alfonso 165–66
SS. Apostoli 166–68, 167
S. Aurea 226
S. Balbina 124–26, 125
S. Bartolomeo 168–71
S. Callisto, catacombs of 106,
111–12, 144
S. Cecilia 144–46, 145, 154
S. Clemente 138–40, 204
SS. Cosma e Damiano 173–74,
218
S. Costanza 176–79, 204, 205
S. Crisogono 141–42
S. Croce in Gerusalemme 93–95
S. Cyriaca, catacombs of 101
S. Francesco a Ripa 146
SS. Giovanni e Paolo 127–28,
128
S. Giuseppe dei Falegnami 18
S. Gregorio Magno 127
S. John Lateran 55, 56–68, 204,
205
S. Lorenzo in Damaso 182
S. Lorenzo in Lucina 151,
184–85, 207, 209
S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura 98–101
S. Lorenzo in Panisperna 159
S. Lorenzo in Piscibus 151
S. Maria Antiqua 211
S. Maria in Aracoeli 186–88
S. Maria in Cosmedin 7,
155–57, 156, 218
S. Maria in Domnica 129–31,
130
S. Maria Maggiore 86–91, 89,
204
S. Maria sopra Minerva 189
S. Maria del Popolo 32, 53
S. Maria Scala Coeli 44
S. Maria in Traspontina 28
S. Maria in Trastevere 142–43
S. Maria in Via Lata 39–40
SS. Nereo e Achilleo 23–24
S. Nicola in Carcere 218
S. Pancrazio 189–91
S. Paolo fuori le Mura 35, 45–53,
49, 50, 51
S. Paolo alla Regola 38
S. Paolo alle Tre Fontane 44
S. Peter’s 70–85; (crypt of) 81;
(view of) 121
S. Peter’s Square 72–73, 84
S. Pietro in Vincoli 21–22
S. Prassede 191–94, 194, 204,
205, 205c.
S. Prisca 123–24
S. Pudenziana 16–18, 17
SS. Quattro Coronati 134–38
S. Sabina 116–19, 119
S. Sebastiano, basilica of 101–03;
(catacombs of) 27, 110
S. Silvestro in Capite 195
S. Sisto Vecchio 24
S. Spirito in Sassia 150
S. Stefano Rotondo 131–34, 132
S. Susanna 195–96
S. Valentino, catacombs of 153;
(new church of) 153; (old
basilica of) 151, 153
SS. Vincenzo e Anastasio 43, 154
Sacchi, Andrea 65
Salus Populi Romani, icon 91
Sancta Sanctorum 68
Santen, Jan van 103
Santissimo Bambino 188, 188
Scala Santa 68
Sebastian, St 27, 102
Second Vatican Council 223
Sejanus, Lucius Aelius 19
Senate house (in Forum) 58,
198, 210
Seneca, Stoic philosopher 215
‘Separation’ of Peter and Paul
40–42, 41
Septimius Severus, emperor 126
Serapia, Christian slave 117
Shelley, Percy Bysshe 7, 126,
200, 255
Sibyl, Cumaean 187
Sibyl, Tiburtine 186
Sienkiewicz, Henryk 26
Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury
120, 148ff
Simon, St 82
Simon bar Giora 19, 211
Simplicius, pope 203
Sistine Chapel 248 –51, 260
Sixtus II, pope 24, 112
Sixtus III, pope 65
Sixtus IV, pope 248
Sixtus V, pope 86, 90–91
Spanish Steps 8
Stational churches 265
Stefaneschi Triptych 240
Stephen I, pope 112
Stuart, Charles
(Bonnie Prince Charlie) 83, 168
Stuart, James,
the Old Pretender 83
Suetonius 14n., 169, 212
Susanna, St 196
Swiss Guard 234
Sylvester I, pope 57, 93, 113,
136c., 137; (chapel of) 134
Symmachus, consul 198
Symmachus, pope 190
Synagogue (Ostia) 229, 230
Tarcisius, St 112
Taxis 252
Temple of Bacchus 178c.
Temple of Hercules Victor 218
Temple of Portunus 218
Tertullian, theologian 217, 244
Theodore I, pope 67
Theodosius I, emperor 151,
183, 198
Thomas, St, relic of 95
Thomas Aquinas, St 198
Tipping 256
Titulus, tituli 122
Titulus Clementis 122
Titulus Crucis 94, 95
Titulus Fasciolae 24
Titulus Lucinae 122
Titulus Priscae 123
Titus, emperor 19, 211, 216
Tombs of the Popes 81
Torriti, Jacopo 62
Trajan, emperor 197–98
Trastevere 8, 140ff
Tre Fontane 42–44, 154
Trevi Fountain 8
Tribune 69, 69
Tropaion of Gaius 81
True Cross 80, 93, 95
Tullianum, prison 18
Urban VIII, pope 80, 260
Ursinus, rival of Pope Damasus
86
Valentine, St 151, 152
Valerian, emperor 28, 98, 102,
112
Vasanzio, Giovanni 103
Vasari, Giorgio 60
Vassalletti family 52, 63
Vatican II (Second Vatican Council) 223
Vatican City 10, 103, 232ff
Vatican Gardens 234
Vatican Museums 236ff
Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls
19
Vernicle 6c.
Veroi, Guido 35, 47
Veronica, veil of 6c., 80
Vespasian, emperor 216
Via Appia 8, 23, 25, 36, 105;
(catacombs on) 110
Via Aurelia 190
Via Cavour 16
Via Crucis, Good Friday
ceremony 217
Via della Conciliazione 233
Via del Corso 8, 40
Via Flaminia 8, 151
Via Francigena 148
Via Nomentana 8, 105, 133,
162; (catacombs on) 113
Via Ostiense 8, 41, 45
Via Praenestina 8
Via Salaria 8, 105, 113
Via Tiburtina 8
Vigna Barberini 212
Vignola (Jacopo Barozzi) 180
Virgil, poet 187
Virgin Mary, cult of 142
Vittorio Emanuele II, tomb of
220, 221
Xavier, St Francis 182
Ye Solace of Pilgrims 46
Zeno, martyr 44
Zeno, St, chapel of 191
Zephyrinus, pope 112
