Sancta Sanctorum Research Articles

Pope Leo X and the Sancta Sanctorum (Rome): Engaging with the Holy of Holies

Previous articleNext article No AccessPope Leo X and the Sancta Sanctorum (Rome): Engaging with the Holy of HoliesKirstin NoreenKirstin Noreen Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Source Volume 39, Number 2Winter 2020 Sponsored by the Bard Graduate Center, New York Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/706360 Views: 146Total views on this site © 2020 by Bard Graduate Center. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Topología de la arqueología litúrgica del primer románico del Val d’Aran

En el Val d’Aran existe un conjunto de iglesias románicas construidas entre el siglo XI y el primer tercio del XIII, de lo que se ha llamado primer románico aranés. Estas iglesias han sido sistemáticamente estudiadas a través de la captura masiva de datos con un Escáner Láser Terrestre (TLS) en cinco campañas (2014-2015). Los datos obtenidos nos han permitido hacer un análisis transversal de estas iglesias con el fin de analizar su topología y sus relaciones y asonancias desde la aproximación a las liturgias románicas, especialmente desde el Gemma animae de Honorio de Autun y el Mitralis de Officio de Sicardo, obispo de Cremona. Para ello, se determina la relación entre el espacio sagrado, el Sancta, el lugar de los fieles, y el Sancta Sanctorum. La relación de las características formales, superficies, volúmenes, proporciones y las orientaciones de las iglesias, nos acercan a su conocimiento epistemológico.

From Confidentiality to Work Privacy – A Transformation in a Person’s Responsibility

Abstract The confidentiality clause and the service secret are two means coming from different branches of law, public and private, but they have the same goal – to protect information, the component of a person’s patrimony, which is a more and more important issue in the world we live in. The protections provided by the two ways are different in terms of the gravity of the penalty they may involve and for this reason they may be used with discrimination, proportionally with the importance of the protected object. But in the present conditions when the information is sancta sanctorum, only this responsibility in punishment tends to dim, those interested in providing the protection of information seek for most effective and efficient punishment.

Appropriating Divinity: Iconography, Functionality, and Authority in Latium Acheropita Copies, Ca. Twelfth–Fourteenth Centuries

Simultaneously an icon of the enthroned Savior and a secondary relic of the Evangelist Luke, the Acheropita was documented as early as the mid-eighth century, and invested with meaning through its context of viewership. It maintained a layered historicity that extended its reach beyond the blurred boundaries of the Lateran’s Sancta Sanctorum via its Latium copies. Through formalism, iconography, display modes, liturgical functions, and civic performativity—elements of which were occasionally depicted across media—the mimeses of these idiosyncratic surrogates were vindicated and efficacious. Focusing predominantly on evidence from Tivoli, Trevignano, Sutri, and Viterbo, this research further contends that these late medieval panel copies configured time in a non-linear manner, thereby surmounting spatial and temporal borders to facilitate praesentia of Christ and, implicitly, of Rome.

THE RELICS OF THE LATERAN ACCORDING TO "LEIÐARVÍSIR", THE "DESCRIPTIO LATERANENSIS ECCLESIAE", AND THE INSCRIPTION OUTSIDE THE "SANCTA SANCTORUM"

Rome was one of the three most important destinations for pilgrims from medieval Europe, along with Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela. The faithful came in crowds not only to pray at the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, but also to revere the multitude of relics that were preserved in the churches of the city. From the fourth century on, the liturgical and political significance of the cult of relics grew steadily within the Christian world. The Eastern custom of obtaining a multitude of relics by dividing the saints' bodies into different parts, however, was not usual in Rome until the eighth century, when the norm of the Roman law sanctioning the inviolability of tombs and bodies fell into disuse. After that, the number of relics preserved in the Roman churches began to multiply. The bodies, or parts of bodies, of martyrs buried outside Rome were brought into churches and basilicas intra muros in order to be better guarded, but also to be a tangible sign of the city's power and superiority.1 Some of the most revered relics, including those of New Testament figures and other saints, were gathered, especially in the course of the eighth and ninth centuries, in the Basilica of St John Lateran and in the small Chapel of St Lawrence in palano, also known as the Sancta Sanctorum. This chapel was constructed inside the Palatium Lateranense, which was the residence of the popes throughout almost all the Middle Ages, at least until the Pope returned from Avignon in 1377.2Besides the numerous Latin sources mentioning the relics preserved in the Basilica of the Lateran and in the Sancta Sanctorum, a list of these relics is also included in the description of Rome in LeiOarvisir, an Old Icelandic itinerary describing a route to the Holy Land and traditionally dated around the midtwelfth century. This article will analyse the list of Lateran relics in Leioarvisir and compare it to Latin sources, in particular to the Descriptio Lateranensis ecclesiae by John the Deacon (written in its final version 11 59- 81) and to an inscription that was placed outside the Chapel of St Lawrence in palano at the end of the twelfth century. It will be shown that the list of Leidarvisir must have been composed later than the Descriptio Lateranensis ecclesiae, because the Icelandic itinerary includes two Marian relics (the garment and the milk of the Virgin) that are not enumerated in this Latin source. On the other hand, the two Marian relics are mentioned in the inscription outside the Sancta Sanctorum, which also shows significant correspondences with leidarvisir. A closer consideration of this inscription will show that it was probably placed there before the papacy of Innocent III (i 198- 1 216), thus giving useful information regarding both the dating of this source and that of the Icelandic list. In the process, the analysis will shed light on the date of composition of this passage of Leioarvisir, demonstrating that it is incompatible with the traditional dating of the itinerary. It appears that the description of the Lateran could not have been written by Abbot Nikulas of Munkabvera on the basis of first-hand information he collected during a journey - as has been argued hitherto - but that it is probably the work of a later scribe who made use of written sources.'Leiðarvisir' and its datingThe complete text of Leiðarvisir is preserved only at fols 11^sup r^- 16^sup v^ in manuscript AM 194 8^sup vo^ of the Arnamagnoean Collection in Copenhagen, an important miscellany composed in Iceland in 1387.3 The text describes an itinerary from Iceland to the Holy Land, and is commonly known as Leiðarvisir, 'guide, itinerary', a denomination derived from the explicit (p. 23(17-18).4 Leiðarvisir records stops and distances, but is also rich in significant information about places along the route.5 In the explicit, an Abbot Nikulas is mentioned as the author of the text (p. 231718). The absence of a patronymic has made his identification controversial, but it is now generally agreed that the author of Leiðarvisir is Nikulas Bergsson, first abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Munkabvera, founded in 1155. …

Opening the Holy of Holies: Early Twentieth-Century Explorations of the Sancta Sanctorum (Rome)

Although the Sancta Sanctorum preserved some of the most venerated relics in Rome and a miraculous image of Christ, until the early twentieth century strict rules limiting access to the space made a formal examination of these objects nearly impossible. The series of investigations and resulting publications of the Sancta Sanctorum and its treasure of reliquaries, relics, and icon that took place between 1903 and 1908 therefore demonstrate an important turning point in the Church's attitude toward the medieval chapel's sanctified space. The papal permission given to scholars such as Florian Jubaru, Hartmann Grisar, Philippe Lauer, and Josef Wilpert allowed, for the first time, a scientific examination and cataloging of the chapel's objects. The permission, however, also instigated an environment of intense academic competition, as noted especially in the publications of Grisar and Lauer. This article discusses the explorations of the Sancta Sanctorum's holy objects in the context of the highly charged political environment of early twentieth-century Rome. The article suggests that concerns over artistic patrimony, the financial stability of the Vatican, the relationship between the papacy and the Italian state, and shifting trends in scholarship played roles in the decision to open the “Holy of Holies” and reveal the contents of the treasure of the Sancta Sanctorum.

Re-Covering Christ in Late Medieval Rome: The Icon of Christ in the Sancta Sanctorum

The icon of Christ in the Sancta Sanctorum (Rome), known commonly as the Acheropita because of the miraculous nature of its production, had a long-standing and significant position in the cult of images in Rome. Centuries of processional use contributed to the deterioration of the icon and led to frequent interventions aimed at renewing or restoring the representation of the enthroned Christ. Through this process, which helped to ensure the efficacy of the sacred image, the surface of the icon became a site of exchange, a point of mediation between the viewer and the holy personage depicted. One of the most drastic additions to the icon was a gilded silver revetment that covers the figure of Christ up to his neck. This article explores the meaning of the metal cover by examining the images and votive objects that make up its surface; this palimpsest ofaniconic and figurai reliefs creates an intermediary zone that defined the power of the image and evoked a particular response from the viewer. Reflective of a variety of donors, the additions to the icon cover demonstrate the shifting landscape of devotional practice in Rome while at the same time reinforce the continuing significance of the cult image. This article considers the meaning of the revetment not only in the context of the icon's processional use but also in the more restricted and private environment of the papal chapel.

Revealing the Sacred: the Icon of Christ in the Sancta Sanctorum, Rome

The icon of Christ currently displayed on the altar of the Sancta Sanctorum chapel in the Lateran was one of the most important images of medieval Rome (figure I). This representation of the enthroned Savior had a special status in the cult topography of the city, for it was housed in the private chapcl of the popes and was considered to be of divine origin; according to the Descriptio Lateranensis ecclesiae, written around 1100, the portrait of Christ was ‘miraculously painted on a pancl that was begun by the Evangelist Luke but finished by God himself through the hand of an angel’.1 In essence, the Lateran icon was a representation of the human appearance of Christ as well as a miraculously created and divincly sanctioned image whose manufacture was expressed in its name ‘acheropsita’, corrupted from the Greek term ‘acheiropoieton’, meaning ‘not made by hand’.2

Sixtus V and the Scala Santa

Soon after his election as Pope in 1585, Sixtus V initiated the demolition of the ruinous Patriarchium Lateranense in order to build in its place the present Lateran Palace. Although much of the old palace was destroyed, the Chapel of St. Laurence, known as the Sancta Sanctorum, was preserved intact, and the Holy Stairs (the Scala Santa) were moved to a new location before it. It is argued in this study, using both published and unpublished documents and the visual evidence of frescoes depicting the Scala Santa in the Vatican Library, that the original project called for a simpler plan than that finally built, comprising only the Sancta Sanctorum, the Holy Stairs, and the two original lateral stairways from the Patriarchium Lateranense. In late 1587, it would appear, in order to accommodate Sixtus V's decision to upgrade the status of the sanctuary, this plan was enlarged to include two large rooms with chapels either side of the Sancta Sanctorum, and two additional lateral stairways. A chronology for the project is established and the dates for the decoration of the structure clarified.

Book Review: Sancta Sanctorum: Prayers for the Holy of Holies

Book Review: Sancta Sanctorum: Prayers for the Holy of Holies

Sancta Sanctorum: Prayers for the Holy of Holies. W. E. Orchard

<i>Sancta Sanctorum: Prayers for the Holy of Holies</i>. W. E. Orchard

A Byzantine Reliquary of the True Cross from the Sancta Sanctorum

A Byzantine Reliquary of the True Cross from the Sancta Sanctorum

A Byzantine Reliquary of the True Cross from the Sancta Sanctorum

The small painted wooden reliquary of the True Cross found among the objects in the Sancta Sanctorum early in the twentieth century, after centuries of being hidden, is one of the few Byzantine icons which have come down to us.2 It is now in the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican Library. The upper face of the lid (Fig. 1) has represented upon it a Crucifixion which is motivated by the fact that the box is a reliquary of the Holy Cross. The most striking motif is the Virgin embracing the suppedaneum, a theme which does not appear elsewhere in Byzantine art, so far as I know. It may be found in Italian art3 of the thirteenth century, and widely spread throughout Europe at a later date, as an expression of pathos.

An Ivory Pyxis in the Museo Cristiano and a Plaque from the Sancta Sanctorum

IN the Museo Cristiano of the Vatican Library is an ivory pyxis on which are represented four miracles from the life of Christ. They are the Raising of Lazarus and the Healing of the Woman with the Issue of Blood, the Healing of the Man Born Blind, and the Healing of the Paralytic (Figs. 2 and 3).The scenes run around the outside of the pyxis1 and are composed of nine figures, Christ appearing twice and in each case distinguished by the scepter cross which he carries. All the figures are short-haired, beardless, and of approximately the same height, with the exception of the blind man and Lazarus, who are somewhat smaller in stature for both iconographical and practical reasons.

An Ivory Pyxis in the Museo Cristiano and a Plaque from the Sancta Sanctorum

An Ivory Pyxis in the Museo Cristiano and a Plaque from the Sancta Sanctorum

A Late-Antique Ivory Pyxis

The cylindrical box (pyxis) illustrated in the plates, now in private possession, belongs to a small class carved with pagan subjects; the majority of pyxides are Christian. When Graeven issued his series of photographs of antique carvings in ivory and bone about twenty years ago, the number of pagan examples only amounted to a dozen, with a few fragments, and two among them, those with Orpheus and the beasts, at Bobbio and Florence respectively (see below), are claimed by some authorities as Christian. Since that time the remains of another pagan box with Bacchic scenes have come to light, discovered in the chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum at the Lateran in 1903, and now preserved in the Vatican. There may have been further discoveries not brought to general notice; otherwise the present example is the first addition to the list since the third year of the present century.