More Jerome

I took this lousy picture of the Vatican's only painting by Leonardo da Vinci on Wednesday when we visited the Vatican Museums. The Vatican Museums are an extensive complex including ancient Roman art, Etruscan art, Egyptian art, Mesopotamian art, some of the best paintings of the Italian Renaissance, and the Sistine Chapel. At least, those are the parts of the museum that I saw.

Not surprisingly, much of the art on display is religious. The vast collections include art on a number of Christina topics, St. Jerome the Penitent among them. The da Vinci painting above was never fully completed. It was not recognized as a work of art by the great artist until the nineteenth century and was acquired by the Vatican in mid-century. Jerome is portrayed by da Vinci in a typical pose in his study. He is staring at a crucifix while writing. Unlike many of the other paintings I have seen of St. Jerome, including Caravaggio's, there is a lion in the image. Apparently, there is a medieval story about St. Jerome removing a thorn from a lion's foot, hence the lounging beast. This is very different from the depictions of lions many saints martyred in the Coliseum enjoy in paints of them.

Another meme in St. Jerome paintings is the presence of the Trumpet of Doom. I first saw this figure when I visited Doria-Pomphilj Gallery, a gallery located in the same building as our classrooms. The Gallery has a painting by Jusepe de Ribera in which St. Jerome is startled by the trumpet. This painting is by Pier Francesco Mola and hangs in the Vatican Museums not far from da Vinci's St. Jerome. You can see the trumpet in the upper left and St. Jerome appears to be turning his right ear toward it.

The Trumpet of Doom is the instrument that is supposed to sound on the day of judgment. Since St. Jerome was known for his penance as well as his intellectual contributions to the Catholic Church, it makes sense that he would be attuned to hearing the trumpet's announcements. Confession is motivated by the need to be on the right side when the final day of judgment comes around, so St. Jerome's special attention to the trumpet is a reflection of his penatant bent. It is interesting to think that salvation that many seek when they enter the confessional at St. Maria Liberatrice and in other churches is prophesied to begin with a sound on this instrument. Although it is termed "Doom," for many the trumpet is the herald of ultimate salvation.

One more place where I found St. Jerome was in one of the giant frescoes in the Raphael Rooms in the Vatican. Raphael depicted St. Jerome in a blue robe in the center of the painting pointing toward the heavens and apparently lecturing the other important church figures around him.

Forgive Me Santa Maria in Trestevere

On Friday, Mike, Mia, Hillary, and I went to visit Santa Maria in Trestevere. Mike explained that the fourth century church claims to have been the first to be dedicated to Mary and she is featured prominently in the gilded depiction on the facade above the portico. Although, the church is among the oldest in Rome and consequently an important historic site, I found myself interested in the confessionals inside.

I found this piece of paper on one of the confessionals. The text appears to have two confessional prayers that can be read to the priest to initiate penance. The first is addressed to God and the second to Jesus (also, God by way of transubstantiation). Apparently, if you are not sure how you should properly begin to ask forgiveness because you are too distraught with your sins or simply nervous you are allowed to use this cheat-sheet. All kidding aside, I do have to wonder how it is actually used. That is, if giving a formal prayer to initiate penance is expected at St. Mary's in Trestevere or if it is an optional formality. There was no similar sheet on the confessionals in St. Maria Liberatrice in Testaccio, so the need to begin confession with this specific formal prayer is probably not a church edict in Rome. Nevertheless, there is some sort of expectation and some set of norms for how one begins confession. In the US we tend to think of this as the brief statement, "Father, forgive me for I have sinned..." I have to wonder if this sheet is bearing the Italian equivalent. That is, if there is one.

In order to determine if the the prayer was a recognizable Catholic standard, I made a half-hearted attempt at translating it using a combination of Babelfish and an Italian-English dictionary. After getting a couple lines down and then searching them in quotes on Google, I did not find anything. There are a lot of Catholic prayers, so this does not necessarily mean anything. Additionally, this particularly prayer may have been authored by the church officials involved with St. Mary's in Trestevere and thus might not be recognized more widely by the Catholic Church.

St. Nicholas in Mala Strana

This past Sunday I missed the service at San Maria Liberatrice because I was in Prague. While there, Jessica and I paid a small fee to visit St. Nicholas, a church in the Mala Strana (lesser town) district of Prague. As the picture above illustrates, the church is a full-on baroque production. Everything inside the Jesuit institution was ornately crafted. Some of the work with gold was particularly stunning like the wings on this angel and the scroll that he is holding. In addition to a stunning nave, both walls of the church were lined with smaller chapels like many of the churches in Rome. These were roped off and while there was no indication as to whether they belonged to anyone in particular, each had its own character.

In addition to being decorated is slightly altered ways, each of the chapels also had its own altar and confessional. Separate altars have been typical in the chapels of all of the churches that we have visited in Rome, but separate confessionals is unique to St. Nicholas so far in my experience. I have to wonder to whom or what the chapels are tied. Did wealth families pay for them? If one must enter one of these chapels to take confessional at St. Nichlas, are there restrictions for doing so? The confessional pictured at the right was in the first chapel on the left as I entered. This was the only chapel that was not cordoned off and may be open to the public and open to public confession all of the time.

This is a picture of another confessional in St. Nicholas. You can see the yellow rope barring entrance to the chapel in which it stands in the lower-left corner if you look closely at the picture. The confessionals themselves were elaborate wooden productions and were set into the walls of the church. This is different from Roman confessionals. Even in St. Peter's the confessionals, while equally complex pieces of art, were constructed as separate units from the church itself and set in a convenient spot in the church. In St. Nicholas, the confessionals appear to be part of the church itself.

St. Jerome in the Barberini Gallery

Today we visited the Barberini Gallery, one of the many important art galleries in Rome. The gallery has a number of important works including Holbein's Henery VIII, Caravaggio's Narcissus at the Source, Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes, and Rafael's La Fornarina. It was nice to see the Henry VIII painting and the Narcissus because both figures are referenced so often and the images are regularly recycled as academic book covers. Now, I will recognize them for having seen the original work, not just for having seen the image in multiple books.

Along with the more famous works, I found three images of St. Jerome the Penitent. St. Jerome spent a fair amount of time in Rome working to translate important Biblical texts for the church in the fourth century after death. His time in Rome may help explain his popularity as a topic for Italian Baroque and Renaissance painters. He is considered one of the most important translators of the early church. Although I cannot find anything saying this directly, I suspect that his title, the Penitent, is a reference to his ascetic lifestyle. In two of the paintings (Guercino and Tintorreto), he is depicted in his study with a crucifix. Many of the painters who have taken on Jerome as a subject place him in his study with a crucifix and a book of some kind. In Guercino's portrayal he is sealing an envelope. This is interesting because he was known for having outspoken and unconventional views on translations of important texts. Many of these views earned him enemies within the church. So, the act of mailing a letter was often controversial for St. Jerome. In the other painting (Muziano) he is standing, looking bashfully at a crucifix. In all of the paintings the crucifix is close at hand and he appears to be appropriately dedicated to his faith. In all of the paintings he looks to be humbled or in awe. I find this confusing given the controversial nature of many of his writings.

As a rhetorical scholar, I am excited to see a saint canonized for his intellectual contributions to the Catholic Church. I am also interested to see that he received the title the penitent. I had hoped that researching St. Jerome a little bit might shed some light on the history and nature of the sacrament of confession, but so far I have not found anything directly linking him with its development.

Sunday Morning

Santa Maria Liberatrice has been the scene of a lot of commotion in our neighborhood lately. The past week the church has been celebrating both the festival of its patron saint and its centennial. On Sunday the 25th, the church finished this festival by bringing their statue of Maria out and parading her through the streets. Mia was caught in the path of the parade on her way home from the Sede. I was able to pick up some of the fliers for the event during one of my visits to the church and both feature two images on the cover; the church and the statue of Maria with her child. The statue portrerys a very adultish baby Jesus who is waving to the crowd and a Mary with a sort of surprised face with a distant stare. It seems as though the two facial expressions should reversed since one is supposed to an adult and the other an infant.

On the following Sunday, the first of June, I visited a much quieter San Maria Liberatrice. I went in about a half an hour after the morning service. There was one confessional open and a few people dotted throughout the church. I took a seat in the back and took some notes. Most of the parishioners were sitting and praying, but some were kneeling. The entire time I visited, no one went to take confession. I found this confusing, because I thought that the increased privacy of such a time would make it ideal for taking confession. However, some of the faithful who were there might have already given penance and only a few entered, so they're not being in church for confession could have just been a coincidence. It seems likely that someone takes confession regularly at this time or the priest would not take time in the confessional. Although, it is possible that selecting unpopular confessional hours could be a way to get out of performing a lot of confessions. Again, though, I doubt that Sunday morning is a time selected with that intention. In any case, I will have to visit again.

While I sat in San Maria Liberatrice, I took some more notes on the place. One thing that I notices was how bare the ceilings are. Having been to a number of Catholic churches in Rome by this point, I have seen much smaller institutions with elaborately gilded ceilings. I think that the simplicity of Liberatrice's ceiling is probably related to the fact that it is such a new church (100 years is nothing in Rome) and that the neighborhood, Testaccio, is a working-class neighborhood. It is doubtful that the folks there have the money for too many unnecessary decorations. I also noticed an older woman moving a table and some rugs around in the middle of church. The church seems to be a center of activity almost all of the time. Because the building is used for so many events, it is constantly being rearranged, even if in small ones by a single person.

Confessionals at San Giovanni

Today, we visited San Giovanni in Laterano. San Giovanni is a very large basilica that was something like a precursor to the Vatican. It was actually the first cathedral of Rome. The Pope's official ecclesiastical seat is the Bishop of Rome and San Giovanni is where the seat is held (1). Thus, just like the Vatican, San Giovanni is extraterritorial and administered by the Vatican.

Saint Giovanni in Laterano means Saint John in Lateran. The land on which the church was built was confiscated from the Laterani family by Emperor Constantine and St. John refers to John the Baptiste (2). I snapped a quick picture of the statue of John that stands below the altar. I had trouble identifying the statue at first; not knowing that Giovanni translates to John. Joe and I discussed who it could be and to give us credit we did consider St. John as a possible candidate...along with Jesus and Jebediah Springfield.

If one thinks of saint statues as action figures, St. John's has collected all of the best ones. Carley pointed out the most intense saint statue at Saint John's. It is of Saint Bartholomew holding a piece of his skinned face. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he was killed for converting his brother, the King of Armenia, to Christianity. St. Bart is typically represented in this way; holding his own head or his own skin.

I was surprised when I entered St. John's to find so many people confessing. There were more people seeking absolution at San Giovanni than at any other church that I have been in with the exception of St. Peter's. The confessional crowd, however, seemed to be comprised mostly of people involved with the church. I saw a host of nuns going to an from confession while I tried to get pictures of the confessionals. I was able to snap this shot while hiding between a column and some chairs which ended up in the frame. My suspicion, that certain confessionals serve certain populations, has been confirmed again at St. Johns.

Having seen many confessionals by this point, I have also noticed that the elaborateness of the confessionals themselves seems related to the importance of the church. It might also be related to how many confessors the church serves. In any case, both St. Peter's and St. John's have significantly more complex confessionals than Santa Maria Liberatrice. Although one cannot enter fully into a confessional at St. John's, when kneeling as one can at St. Peter's, the walls on the sides of confessional conceal the confessor with the possible exception of his or her shoes. The level of privacy for the penitent at St. John's is thus much greater than the level of privacy for the penitent of Santa Maria Liberatrice.

Lights continue to be important as well. At Santa Maria Liberatrice, the first thing that the young priest did when he entered the confessional was to turn the light on. The light seems to be the universal sign that the confessional is open for business. The light at Santa Maria was a simple bulb that the priest also used for reading. It shown through a hole just above the doors of the confessional. At St. Peter's and St. Paul's, the light is colored (green and red respectively) and is separate from the light that the priest uses to illuminate his chamber.

1. Fiona Wild, ed., Eye Witness Travel Rome (London: Dorling Kindersley Limited, 1993), 2007 edition, 182-183.
2. Wild, 182-183.

Confessional Comparisons

St. Peter's basilica has some fifty or so confessionals. They are located mostly in the wings of the church in sections roped off for prayer and genuflection. With Hillary's camera I was able to sneak couple quick shots of one of the operating confessionals, before I was told not to photograph the confessionals. As I had imagined, it is a touchy subject for photography. Given the secretive nature of the sacrament, I will have to be cautious about how I document it.

There are some significant differences between confession at St. Peter's as compared to Santa Maria Liberatrice. At Santa Maria, a younger priest came out to hear confession during the service. As far as I can tell, at St. Peter's you can confess anytime. It seems pretty clear that this is designed for different audiences. Santa Maria is a neighborhood church and the priests there are fewer in number and offering a spiritual service for a population with habituated practices for attending mass. At St. Peter's the population that is confessing is largely tourist. One of the students in our program who took confession at St. Peter's explained that when he went, he was able to select a priest based on the language that the priest spoke. Each confessional had a list of languages outside ranging, he said, from two to four or five. He also said that he spent a fair amount of time talking about St. Peter's as well as confessing. I got the impression from the behavior of the people confessing at Santa Maria Liberatrice, that they were not taking time to talk about the building during their confession.

Another interesting point of comparison is provided by the Pantheon. The Pantheon has been a Catholic church since it was given to the Pope in the seventh century. Despite its technical existence as a local church, the Pantheon did not have any visible confessionals. It seems that people interact with the Pantheon more as a secular monument than as a religious one. That is, no one goes to the Pantheon to confess their sins. I would assume that it is grander to confess your sins at St. Peter's. As Hillary joked, if you have a really big sin to confess, St. Peter's would be the place to confess it. In fairness as well, you are much more likely to get a priest who speaks English and absolves sins on a regular basis at St. Peter's. Confession at the Pantheon and certainly at Santa Maria Liberatrice is much less tourist-friendly.

Festa Patronale di Santa Maria Liberatrice

This morning I attended the Celebrazione Eucaristica as part of the Festa Patronale di Santa Maria Libertrice (that is the celebration of the eucharist that is part of the festival of the patron Saint Maria Liberatrice). The church in Testaccio is the new Santa Maria Liberatrice. The original church was erected in the middle of the forum and torn down at the beginning of the twentieth century.

I attended the festival mass at Santa Maria in pursuit of finding a particular confessional that I can observe. Entering the church, I noticed that there were four confessionals, two on each side of the nave. I resolved to get some photos of them, but I did not want to alarm the church goers by my strange photographic behavior, so I sat down and began casually photographing the church. Eventually, I made my way around to getting some shaky images of the confessional nearest to me. The experience made me consider the difficulty of documenting cultural practices that are ongoing. It is difficult to do so without allowing the academic perspective trivialize the culture that is being studied.

As the church began to fill, I noticed flashes going off. It turns out that the festival mass is a special occasion that brings the parishioners to church in their best clothes. The mass itself also included a great deal of parishioner participation. The church, which is not small, filled with people; some had to stand in the back. I suspect that all of these realities made today a photo-worthy occasion for the parishioners as well as me and so I felt a little less out of place taking pictures than I might have otherwise.

At the beginning of the mass, the head father came out and began to speak. The room got quieter as the parishioners began to listen to mass. At the same time, and much to my fascination, a younger priest came into the nave and entered the confessional closest to where I was sitting. During the mass, about five or six parishioners came to give penance. I was able to snap a few pictures and tried to be careful not be intrusive or to take photographs that would identify any of the confessing Catholics. In order to study confession responsibly, I think that I will have to respect the anonymity of the sacrament just as the church does.

I did learn some small pieces of information about the process of confession for the priest. The father who sat for confession today brought a book with him. When he arrived at the confessional, he turned on a light and closed the curtain, but he did not feel obligated to keep the curtain closed the entire time that he was hearing confession. At one point he had the curtain open and even appeared to be paying attention to the festival mass.

Confessionals

For my place theme, I plan to investigate a confessional. So far, all of the active churches that we have visited have had confessionals in them. All of the confessionals have been large, wooden boxes. The image above is from San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains). It is a church in the Esquiline neighborhood in Rome. The church has chains on display that are said to be those that held Saint Peter in the Mamertine Prison before his execution (2). The confessional in San Pietro in Vincoli has an enclosed space in the middle where the priest would sit to hear confessions. Those who confess are to kneel at the side of the confessional box and tell the priest of their sins.

On Tuesday of this week, we visited Sant'Ignazio di Loyola (the Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola). It is a Jesuit church of an impressive scale. It contains several large marble reliefs and a magnificently painted ceiling (3). The confessionals at Saint Ignatius were positioned in the front portion of the church, near the altar. At Saint Peter in Chains, the confessional boxes were located in the back of the church near the doors. I am curious if there is a reason for this positioning. It could be a coincidence or a simple spatial necessity, but it could also be related to the philosophical bents of the sects who run each church. Saint Ignatius is still in use and while we were visiting there was a ceremony occurring in one of the alcoves on the side of the church. The confessional at Saint Ignatius was a bit more elaborate than those at Saint Peter in Chains. One would enter entirely into the box to ask for forgiveness at Saint Ignatius. The priest, sits in a separate room inside the box and hears the confessions of the faithful.

I am making it a goal to find a church with an active confessional that I can visit on a regular basis to get an idea of how the sacrament of confession is practiced in Rome, and if possible, how its practice influences or is influenced by the confessional boxes and the spaces they inhabit.

1. Fiona Wild, ed., Eye Witness Travel Rome (London: Dorling Kindersley Limited, 1993), 2007 edition, 170.
2. Wild, 91.
3. Wild, 106.