THE BASILICA OF “SAN GIOVANNI A PORTA LATINA” TO ROME
By Alessandra Pignotti
1
1-The Area of the church The basilica of Saint John to Latin Door is built on the Celius near the Latin Door, one of the Door of the Aurelian Walls of Rome, that conditioned the history and the evolution of this church with the closing or the opening of the same cause of barbarian invasions by the Centre of Italy. The presence of this walls gathers the importance of defending of the inhabitants of Rome versus the Barbaries that were often near the city during the III century, when was necessary built the Aurelian Walls around the capital of the Roman empire, following the natural depressions of the territory and including all the part of built up area. The line of the walls dates from Aurelian (271-274 A.D) empriror and from Probus that was the head of the work end of the structures .This great built surrounded Rome covering 19 km, the area of this sacred built is consisted of the Apian street, Saint Sebastian street, and Numa Pompilius place. In the antiquity this part of city were divided by State in “regiones” II e XIII. The area is full since the antiquity of artistic expressions from monuments(temples) to the tombs that are collocated out the wall as the roman laws said; this funeral built were sarcophaguses, “colombari”, little altar and dead city with holes for the bone burned. The workforces were specialized to the marble methods decorations until to the end of Roman art; the Apian street and the Latin one show a rich series of funeral finds from the most beauty and elegant to the most simply and popular forms with also the standardized productions in series The classical tradition of the Christianity want set here the St. John’s sentence to the boiled oil, commuted in exile when the Saint survived for miracle and the people answered to the emperor Domitian for an pity act in front of this situation.(92 A.D.) During the middle age was built a little cell 1 dedicated to this saint and later near this monument raised the church in the same space of that modern. In the church area, Romans described also one Diana temple, closed in 58 B.C. built for the victory over the Latin in the Regillo’s battle (459 B.C.) 2 . This fact could be confirmed by archaeological finds now in the garden of church and on the little wall of the garden; few of this materials are well datable in a precise period cause of their ruin and so the comparison remains only hypothetic. During the Middle Age this area had some periods of crisis, when there were problems of public health, but then there were periods of brilliant expressions of arts and the church understood a long history of interventions visible in the different kinds of materials and decorations in the actual result. The artistic high quality of the area is clear by the use of various ancient finds(Roman and of Middle Age) for the church, in the wall, in the pavement, for the stairs, and other part of the same. 1The basilica of San Giovanni a Porta Latina The church The basilica of “San Giovanni a Porta Latina” shows a complex whole of styles: from those antiques, (remembered by materials in the walls and in the garden), to Romanic,(visible in the façade, made of ancient columns with ionic capitals, to the use of narrow windows that are opposite to that of the Early Christian3), to other decorations and to XX century (restores).4 It’s a church with a plant of basilicas, oriented Nor/West S/ East parallel to the Latina Street. Now it is together the College Rosmini, an institute born at the right of the same church adjacent the Latin street in front of the Scipioni Park and a private house with tombs (Columbarium of Vigna Codini). The priest institution has a history collected to the success of clerical systems succeeded in the numerous century of history about this basilica.
1
The history of the martyrium and of the cell and church on can finds in the middle age sources Liber Pontificalis, I p.508 The question about the written sources is relationed in Cecchelli, 2001 p. 265 (tialian) 3 Some archaeologies find in this church the Ealy Chrisitian period caratterized by big windows and other elements. 4 The news of this basilica are in Krautheimer, 1937 I , pp 311 – 316 2
2
The basilica has one plant with three naves created by columns from ancient temples of the area of various marbles; two columns near the presbytery are in Phrygium Marble with deep grooves around, the third pair is in Carystium Marble, the others are in Grey Granite and in Red Granite. About the middle age decorations put on evidence the marble pavement near the altar white, green and red, restored in the 50th of XX century; it’s a decoration in opus sectile, the mosaic of middle age near to the real technological mosaics, inspired to ancient roman mosaic methods. Some studious thought that this fact are collected to one desire to recover the Classic arts in the Christian art of middle age, that refused all bad forms for the new culture from pagan arts. This hypothesis isn’t recognized by all archaeologies and gives to the classical material only an aesthetic function, of the beauty of these forms. The reuse of roman fragments and blocks continues for all part of this monument until to the walls of apse, visible from the garden behind the church. The reason of great use of Roman finds has two principal motives: 1)the scarcity of new materials for a great built and the crisis of empire that broke the creasing of the public town planning reduced to the building of few public structures, with the reduction of the workforces, 2)the born of a Christian Art, with the explosion of churches in Rome, art that aspired to be better that pagan, using the same forms and languages but full of the new message of savage. This art has also a superstitious5 field that is the fear of devil and demons that lived on the ancient temples. People thought that using part of this in the wall for the pavement gave out those bad being. Finally workforces showed an especial aesthetic smell, choosing the better finds to take for that churches in the Low Empire and Early Christian building. That smell is completed by a new art that get off traditional limits and out of the classical mind. At the left of the façade of the basilica there’s the bell tower; it’s a beauty tower to three plains with windows to fork or three fork and plats or other kind of pottery on the wall of plains; some of this are from Islamic art, very usual in Roman bell tower. The church shows a façade of two pillar and four columns preceded to a courtyard with gate in beat iron with as Early Christian Art, near to the intervention of the XII century A..D The façade is low and large as that of Early Christian Period and of that Romanic. The portico of columns and pillars is set to five arcades with ionic capitals. The wall at the entry shows tracks of high middle age picture. The courtyard preserves tracks of the source baptismal. The façade has in the walls fragments of marble sarcophaguses; the portico walking plan to the has blocks of marble written from tombs or other Roman monuments. Other finds are on the bell tower. Over the door of the entrance and over the jambs are marble decorations with geometric forms as that of the pavement near the presbytery, but reduced in little square coloured in the white base; as beam arch there’s one decoration in low relief continuous named “people scroll” (vegetal shoot with leaves of Acanthus with the form of hearth, grapes in the spiral of Acanthus, birds and daisies and other flowers rising from that shoot). On the left of the portico there’s the rest (cymas a) of one temple dedicated to San Giovanni in Oleo, the side of the little cell then monumentalized and the base for the cult of the church.. It’s very difficult to divide all the single interventions of the church. The basilica has a complex series of restore until 2004 for the portico and high middle age picture of the internal. The college Rosmini has in the wall of the left portico numerous fragments: architectural earthenware (tiles decorations), sarcophaguses, and epigraphs. Behind the church there’s the garden united to the college Rosmini; also here there’re fragments of marble, travertine from built, some maybe from a temple of Augustan Age other from the temple of Diana, all yet destroyed when rose the basilica. The garden in the past had used as vegetable garden 5
Romans and Christians thought that bad being could live in temples and in other place making noise to the human life with bad things and actions.
3
of priests .in the occidental walls are sarcophaguses fragments dated to different ages: republican of the empire (signs of the dictator or of the magistrate) late ancient (furious dolphins or whales). A step of presbytery is an other ancient find; other relief are dated in period preceding the Romanic (VII-VIII A.D/VIII-IX A.D.) and Romanic.. There are alternated naturalistic forms (animals, flowers, vegetables) sinuous and elegant to simply, geometric, linear, rigid and popular. The basilica is the mirror of evolution of the two different sources of Roman Art: !)Essential that sees over all the meaning of the message, very expressive and pregnant, 2)Elaborated that shows natural, realistic, elegant forms with the will of aspire to the perfections of the work, confiding to the relief, picture, architecture the duty of the raising the message of God to the Sky and also Man in font of God as artist(concept developed in the Renaissance). This built is an aspired one. History and facts of the basilica The first new about the church born over the ruins of a temple of Diana, destroyed for numerous motives during the I century B.C.6is of a source of III A-D., Tertullian that collected the area to the Saint Giovanni the Evangelist since 160 A.D. The proceeding writers dialled about the fact of the saint of the death to the Patmos island, wanted by Domitian after the magic savage to the sentence to die for effect of the boiled oil under the Latin Door of the city walls.7 The most ancient period of this documented is the Early Christian, V –VI A.D. cause of the stamps of the tiles of the roof, now preserved in the bell tower. Narsete is the first personage associated to the intervention, during the period of pope Gelasius and the emperor Jiustinian, recognized by his allied Theodoric(Goth). This period showed only the windows biggest, a church full of light and the use of marble gates in the presbytery to divide the priests to the people. A plan superior, now not visible to the late of naves were set for the female public, for some archaeology; for others the division happened in the naves as the beginnings of the XX century(for sex). The Romanic church, that is the image that on can actually seen, gave modifies to the plant with the reducing of the windows the building of the tower of the bell, the shown of “spolia” and finds in all kind of collocations is one heredity of the Early Christian Age together the portico, the courtyard(as a out nave used in fist roman churches and the Byzantines churches). It had also wide space, reduced in the 1191 A.D. Before this date, in the high middle age the basilica had numerous interventions between the 792 and the 795 A D. by pope Adrian. in the IX AD there’s an other restore, the source baptismal had a remember of this: “In nomine pa(tri) et filii spi [ritus sant]i /omnes sitie[entes venite ad aquas] / Ego Stefanus.” In the X century bloody facts are nominated by clerical writers. Under Benedict XI the church began his history to the clerical communities. In the 1228 A.D. the church is associated to for churches : o S. Stefano in “Capite Africae” o S.Lorenzo “Juxta Porticum B.Petri” o S.Anastasio “Cum Castro Noviliae” o S. Lucia “DeColumna”. During the XIII century had a ruin period; in the following ages continued the restoring until to the 2004 with the last restore known. The history crossed with the Rosmini College, now collected to the church; this has a little library with all the publications about the basilica and the institute Rosmini. Bibliografia: Studies: Cecchelli,Armellini, 1942 = M. Cecchelli, N.Armellini”Le chiese di Roma “Roma 1942 n.v. 6 7
Krautheimer,1937,vol. I, pp.302-316 e in Pietrangeli,1998, pp. 58-70 Cicerone “De Aruspicum resp.”, XV, 32 Studious of the live of the saint of VII A.D.
4
Cecchelli, 2001 = M. Cecchelli “Materiali e tecniche edilizie dell’edilizia paleocristiana a Roma, Roma 2001 Coarelli, 2001=F. Coarelli, “Roma” “in Guide Archeologiche” , Roma 2001 Crescimbeni, 1716 = G.M. Crescimbeni, “Historia della chiesa di S. Giovanni a Porta Latina”,Roma 1716 D’Ancona, 1909 = A. D’Ancona, “Giornale di viaggio di Michel Montaigne in Italia” in “Saggio di una bibliografia ragionata e delle descrizioni d’Italia e dei costumi italiani in lingue straniere”, Ravenna1909 Frothingham, 1925 = A. L. Frothingham, “ Monuments of christian Rome”, 1925 n. v. Krautheimer, 1937- = R. Krautheimer, S Corbett “Corpus Basilicarum Urbis Romae “, Vol. I, Città del Vaticano,(”La Basilica di San Giovanni a Porta Latina”) Krautheimer, 1986=R. Krautheimer “ Architettura cristiana e bizantina,“ Città del Vaticano 1986 Krautheimer, 1993 =R. Krautheimer, “Architettura sacra e medioevale “, Torino 1993 Lachenal, 1995= L. de Lachenal, “Spoglia. Uso e reimpiego dell’antico dal III al XIV secolo”, Milano 1995 Mango ,1995 =C. Mango, “ Architettura Bizantina “, Milano 1995 Matthiae,1951 = .G.Matthiae, “San Giovanni a Porta Latina e l’oratorio di S,Giovanni in Oleo” in “Le chiese di Roma illustrate”, Roma 1951 n°51 Matthiae,1961 = G .Matthiae “Le chiese di Roma dal V scolo al X secolo,” Bologna 1961 Melucco Vaccaro, 2000 Roma = A. Melucco Vaccaro, “Archeologia e restauro”, Roma 2000 Pensabene,1989= P.Pensabene, “ Reimpiego dei marmi antichi nelle chiese alto medioevali a Roma” in “Marmi antichi”, Roma 1989 n. v. Pensabene, 1991= P.Pensabene, “Contributo per una ricerca sul reimpiego e il ‘recupero’ dell’antico nel medioevo “ il reimpiego nell’architettura Normanna in estratto dalla “Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale e Storia dell’Arte” Serie III –Anno XIII -1990 Roma,1991 Pensabene, Panella, 1994 = P.Pensabene, C.Panella, “ Reimpiego e progettazione architettonica nei monumenti tardoantichi di Roma”, in rendiconti PARA, 66 (1993-1994) , pp. 174 ss. 1994 n. v. Pietrangeli 1998= C. Pietrangeli, “ Rione XIX Celio” in “Guide Rionali di Roma,” Parte II, Roma 1998 Schlosser,2004= J. Von Schlosser, “L’arte del medioevo“ Einaudi Torino 2004 p 76 Styger, 1914 = Styger, “ La decorazione a fresco di San Giovanni a Porta Latina” in “Studi Romani”, III , Roma 1914 n. v. Vannelli 1934= Vannelli “Dov’è finito il pozzo di San Giovanni a Porta Latina ? “ in “L’Urbe”, Ott. 1934 p. 37 n. v. Ancient sources Cicerone “De Aruspicum resp.”, XV, 32 Liber Pontificalis I p. 508 (v. d. Krautheimer, 1937, I, p. 301) G.M. Soresino”De ecclesiae Santi Johannis ante P ortam Latinam“ ms. XVII Rom. Arch. Lat. (v. d. Krautheimer, 1937, I, p. 301) Tertulliano ”De Prescriptione Haereticorum“, XXXVI, 3
5
6
7