medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Visitors Get a Chance to See Frescoes

By AIDAN LEWIS
Associated Press Writer

AP (in Chicago Tribune) April 8 2004, 3:18 PM CDT

http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/news/celebrity/sns-ap-italy-forum-frescoes,0,6534594.story?coll=mmx-celebrity_heds

ROME -- Buried for 12 centuries by a landslide and closed to the
public for 24 years, the oldest Christian church in the Roman
Forum is being opened for a limited time, offering glimpses of
Byzantine frescoes that changed scholars' views of medieval art.

Guided tours of the Santa Maria Antiqua, nestled under the
imperial palaces of Rome's Palatine Hill, begin this weekend and
continue through May while restoration efforts continue.

Werner Schmid, a restoration expert working on the project, said
Thursday the tours will give visitors a chance to see frescoes
from the mid-6th century to the mid-8th century.

Standing in the nave of the church amid the restorers'
scaffolding, Schmid said the works are unusual because they show
a loose, classical style once considered alien to medieval Rome.

Similar works in other churches of the same era were painted
over or destroyed over the years, he said. Others were destroyed
by iconoclasts who argued that the use of icons in religious
worship was a pagan ritual.

In Rome, though, successive popes sought to keep classical
traditions alive, paying artists to decorate churches in
Byzantine styles. Santa Maria Antiqua, consecrated in A.D. 650,
was a papal chapel and benefited more than many others from the
popes' patronage.

In A.D. 847, an earthquake triggered a landslide that covered
the church with rubble from the Roman buildings on the hill
above.

It remained underground until an Italian archaeologist began
excavations in 1900.

Like many early churches in Rome, Santa Maria Antiqua was
adapted from an existing, ancient Roman structure -- possibly a
guard room at the foot of the Palatine, the preferred home for
Roman emperors and later the governors of the Byzantine Empire.
The building is part of the Forum, the collection of buildings
at the center of ancient Rome.

While paintings in other churches were adapted and repainted in
new styles "this church was mute for twelve centuries," said
Maria Andaloro, a professor of art history at the University of
Viterbo who has been working on restoring the frescoes.

The rediscovery of the church took art historians by surprise.

"The church had its seals removed," said Andaloro, revealing
paintings that were "more impressionistic, organic, loose, more
alive" than the style that art historians had once taken to be
the standard of the time.

She says the pictures are extraordinary examples of Byzantine
art, but also proved the continuity of classical Greek art in
medieval Rome at a time when the city was thought to be
struggling through the Dark Ages.

Most impressive is a wall in the apse of the church that shows
overlapping paintings of different styles completed between the
mid-500s and early 700s.

A picture of the Virgin Mary shows a medieval technique, while
next to it is the face of an angel painted shortly afterward in
the more expressive eastern, Hellenistic style, Andaloro said.

The angel is similar to the classical style of Roman paintings
at Pompeii, which date from before A.D. 79, Andaloro said.

"It seems to come from a different age," she said.

The last time the church was open to the public was in 1980.
When the latest restoration effort began in October 2001, nearly
two-thirds of the frescoes were pulling away from the walls of
the church. Restorers have been able to secure them thanks to
funding from the Italian Culture Ministry and several
foundations in the United States and Norway.

The doors of the church will close again at the end of May.
Officials are hoping to complete the restoration and reopen the
church in 2007, but say they will need $1.8 million more to
finish the project.
--
On the Net:

Restoration project and ticket information is at
http://www.pierreci.it

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