Santa Maria della Concezione (I Cappuccini) -- The Undeniability of Death

On Day 2, I jumped at the chance to walk up to the crypt at the capuchin church and monastery, where there is a most disturbing crypt.  

In a series of small chapels underneath the church are dirt floors -- soil from the Holy Land -- wherein monks were buried.  But arranged into symmetrical forms, almost as ornament along the walls, and on the ceilings, and as light fixtures are....human bones.  Using the remains of nearly 4000 bodies believed to Capuchin friars, buried here (and disinterred after 30 years) or brought from other monasteries, in flight from persecution, someone -- not exactly clear who -- created these installations.  Skulls we may all have seen.  And whole skeletons.  But the use of every bone as building material -- hip bones, vertebrae, fingers, shoulder blades -- is something I had not seen.  I expected  campy excursion and it was rather more disturbing.

Is it a reminder of the transience of life -- as in the lines in the first chapel:  "What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be"?

Or is it the macabre obsessive work of a mad monk?

One of the themes of my work here is about how preservation deals with the passing of buildings and how we might have a better attitude toward 'architectural death.'  Perhaps the crypt at Santa maria della Concezione may have some lessons.  But I am not quite sure.

Cathedral Envy

This missive from Rabbi Phil Graubart popped into my email this morning, a day after I spent three hours walking to and through several churches, monasteries and St. Peter's:

"As a Jew visiting Italy, I was struck by a common disease - cathedral envy.  I wandered through dozens of dazzling churches, enormous structures, architectural masterpieces in and of themselves, but also filled with the finest art the Western World has ever produced.  And then, of course, I visited the synagogues.  Fine places, more impressive, I suppose, than anything we have here in San Diego. But, still, they pale in every way in comparison to even the smallest churches all around them.  And so I get a little jealous, but also I ask myself an unfair but important question: while the Christians were constructing their spiritual masterpieces, what were we doing?"

He answers it, in part, by reference to a debate in the Talmud:

"The Talmud takes a stab at answering the question directly in a beautiful story about Rabbi Joshua and Rabbi Eliezer strolling through the ruins of the Second Temple.  Rabbi Joshua breaks down in tears, but Rabbi Eliezer continues on, whistling a tune, utterly unaffected by the rubble all around him.  A few miles later, they pass another ruin, this time a small, modest building.  Rabbi Eliezer, who didn't cry while walking past the destroyed temple now breaks down in tears.  His companion is puzzled.  "You didn't cry over our sacred sanctuary, but you weep over these stones?"  "How can I not cry," Eliezer responds.  "This was a building that fed hundreds of hungry orphans every day, and look at it now."  The Second Temple - Herod's temple - was the St. Peter's of its day - an intimidating masterpiece.  But Rabbi Eliezer finds true spirituality in an altogether different structure - a soup kitchen."

Add this to my ongoing internal debate about my love of architecture and preservation, and my love of Judaism and its skepticism of architecture, lest they become idols.

I spent yesterday in a wonderful walk with my new friend Tom Mayes, general counsel for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  We walked along the Passegiate del Gianicolo, a ridge-line walk with grand vistas over the city.  When I went to an exhibit on views of Rome, at the Carlos Museum at Emory, the curators noted that most of the views of the city were made from the Janiculum, indeed likely from these very lookouts.  Our understanding of the overall geography and look of room has been shaped for centuries by the view out my window!  Here is one of the grandest, by Vasi, in 1765.  The Fontana Acqua Paolo, just steps from the Academy, is on the very far right;  St. Peter's is on the far left.  

In order to help a Dutch couple who sought directions, we made a quick diversion to the San Pietro in Montorio, just a hundred yards from the Academy where Bramante's Tempietto, a gem of the High Renaissance (from 1502) is located (featured, most recently, in the film, The Great Beauty).  

And then it was on to the 15th-century Monastery of Sant-Onofrio, best known as the end-of-life home for the poet Torquato Tasso, and then to Saint Peter's.  (Much more on this later). 

 Monastery of Sant' Onofrio

 Tempietto by Bramante (1502)

 Saint Peter's Basilica (with seating for the Wednesday morning Papal Audience)

Bernini's columns at St. Peter's

In our return trip, back over the Tiber, and down Via Giulia and then through Trastevere again, we passed a dozen more significant churches.  They say there are something like 600 historic churches in Rome.  I am not sure "cathedral envy" is where I will end up, but rather at "cathedral exhaustion."

Heather Maloney's "Dirt and Stardust"

A central theme of Rome, and a central theme of what I hope to write about is about permanence and death in architecture or, more specifically, preservation's problem with death.

This song popped into my mind.  It is by Heather Maloney, a rising folk/pop star I heard at my friend Joel Feldman's 50th birthday party.  An embrace of transience....

http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107859462162/

I don't want these walls
To wall me in forever.
Gonna wanna make my home unfenced and land.
We can buy our lot.
We can mark our spot.
But we're travelers whether we like it or not.
So please make my castle make out of sand
Ohhh please make my castle out of sand.

I don't want light
that lights forever.
I don't want fire that stays stable
And the wick is lit, it burns a bit
And then it goes out at the end of it
So please don't hang a bulb above my table.
Oohhhh please don't hang a bulb above my table.

Cause
I am made of
All the same stuff
That makes the seasons what they are
I am made of
Dirt and stardust
My daddy's dreams
My mother's heart
Ohhh
ohhh yeah yeah yeah
Don't want a promise
That outlives the promiser
and my body will not last longer than a metal band
and this tender expanse that's called romance
and like anything great it's riddled with chance
so, please don't put a diamond on my hand.
Ohh please don't put a diamond on my hand.
Hand, cause

I am made of
All the same stuff
That makes the seasons what they are
I am made of
Dirt and stardust
My daddy's dreams
My mother's heart.
Oh my mother's heart
Yeah
Ahhhh Ohhhhh
Ahhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh
I don't want want blooms that bloom forever.
I don't want colors that don't
fade away.
and pedals open to the sun
and then they wilt when they're all done
so please don't put silk flowers on my grave
oh please don't put silk flowers on my grave
grave

Pantheon, part 2

First, a brief video of the Pantheon dome from my first day here in Rome.

Two days, and twice I have been to the Pantheon.  The first day was intentional, the second day it was  "on the way" as I walked back from the Capuchin monastery with two fellows, Peter Bognanni and Eric Nathan (more on that in the next post).   That is the way in Rome -- you "run into" monuments of western civilization. Hamlett Dobbins, another fellow, noted that his first day here he headed straight to an art supply store.  To get through the confusing streets of the city he needed a landmark -- and the Pantheon happened to be just a block or two away.  Only after he got to the store to buy paints and brushes did he realize he had just used the Pantheon as simply a way finding tool!

The danger of writing about the Pantheon is the danger of writing about almost anything in Rome -- others have said it all before, and far more eloquently.  Pick up any book on Rome and the words about the building come pouring forth in their all their purple glory.  I have never felt Nietzsche's warning about the dangerous, stultifying weight of the past quite so powerfully as in Rome.  But talking with Peter Bognanni yesterday, I realized once again the importance of acknowledging debt to those who wrote before, and then forgetting just enough to have the courage and conviction to plow ahead and offer personal observations.

The Pantheon is my first great lesson about preservation in this city.  It has been stripped of its marble (I'll go see that marble at the Vatican, where it was reused).  And it has lost its grand staircase, as the Renaissance city was built above it.  The original temple, by Agrippa, was demolished by Hadrian to build this new one.  But all of this only adds to its historical power and, yes, even authenticity.  The exposed bricks show the structure which have, for two thousand years, held up the dome.  The sunken setting, only reminds us, without knowing a single fact about the building, that it has been here so long that the city has risen around it. Not just new buildings, but the very foundation.

It is a giant gorilla of a building, brown and rough on the outside, sleeping sleeping in the middle of this city, or in a luxurious zoo, where temper-pedic mattresses are provided, allowing the animal to sink deep down.  

I was here, almost exactly twenty years ago.  But I walked in and felt like I was walking into a familiar place.  Yes it is the photographs I have seen over the years.  The dome and oculus have been copied and transformed into so may other works that it is in a way hardly surprising.  And yet -- I have to believe that the initial experience was so powerful, and the image was so immediate and searing, that it lasted in my brain that seems so often like a sieve.  The purity of the form -- wide as it is tall, with coffered dome which draws you instantly to the oculus above -- leaves an instant, and lasting, impression.  

Pantheon

In order to stay awake on Day 1, I headed for a long walk.  The Pantheon was the obvious destination:  the greatest still-complete work of Roman architecture standing, and an inspiration for western architecture since it was built nearly two thousand years ago.  (Okay, so the church took most of the exterior marble for the Vatican, but the dome remains as it was).

Here are a few photos:

Day 1

Here, first, are a couple of photos -- of my room and the view into the courtyard.  

This morning I got a tour of the wonderful library in the Academy.  Great collection, beautiful space for reading, writing, and thinking....and as a fellow I have 24/7 access to it.  

I then went out to get some food basics -- lunch and dinner are served in the dining room but you are on your own for breakfast.  There is also a bar open from morning to night, serving coffee and small snacks, and drinks in the evening.  Quite miraculously, the bartender immediately knew my name and  I was already programmed into the computer -- so that he can call in my tab!

Sono arrivato! I have arrived!

I am sitting in my new office, a huge space with twenty-foot ceilings and a full-height window out of which I can see the historic center of Rome.  There is an easel,  a huge table with some former occupant's outline of the geometric relationships in Borromini's San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, and a whole wall-length of cork board waiting for photographs.

The trip was easy (flights on time, a free seat next to me, a car waiting to take me to the Academy on my arrival).  My room is spartan but perfectly nice, and looks out over the Academy's central, stone-filled courtyard, with tall Italian pines.  I sense that some of the furniture may have been here since the founding of the Academy!

I thought I would sit right down and get to work while it is rainy outside.  Soon I'll explore the building and join the other fellows at lunch.

More soon.....