Tag: emperor diocletian

Postcard from Naples, Italy: The most bejeweled saint

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164 rubies, 198 emeralds and 3,326 diamonds adorn the gold mitre created by Matteo Traglia in 1713 for a bust of San Gennaro

Gennaro, or Januarius, ascended through the ranks of early Christians to become Bishop of Naples. Unfortunately for him, this was during the time period when Emperor Diocletian was at his most testy. In the year 305, the bishop and some of his fellow practitioners were sentenced to be thrown to the bears awaiting them in an amphitheater. Legend claims the bears refused the proffered meal, so the emperor was forced to change their sentence to beheading, which proved more successful in achieving their martyrdom.

Later, San Gennaro’s remains were moved to catacombs in Naples that bear his name. But his remains no longer are found there. At some point, his body went elsewhere while his head remained in Naples. Finally in 1497 a cardinal in Naples, where Gennaro is the city’s primary patron saint, managed to regain the body and reunite them in a handsome crypt below the cathedral, which bears the name of San Gennaro as well.

Back in 305, one of San Gennaro’s followers salvaged two ampules of his blood after his beheading. Their whereabouts for the next thousand years or so are uncertain, but they surfaced and were secured in the church. Not surprisingly, the blood had dried up by then. But soon after, its caretakers observed it spontaneously liquifying.

Creating much excitement among the faithful, the liquification supposedly occurs to this day three times a year – on the Feast Day of San Gennaro, September 19; on December 26, the celebration of his patronage of Naples; and finally in May to mark the reunification of his body parts. Sometimes one of the ampules liquifies when visited by popes. This miracle failed to occur when Pope Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI arrived at San Gennaro, but supposedly an ampule half-liquified for Pope Francis, demonstrating San Gennaro’s strong support for his reign.

Survivors from several 16th-century disasters wanted to show their gratitude to the city’s patron saint and decided to erect a chapel adjacent to the cathedral to honor him. Citizens stepped forward to donate huge numbers of gemstones to commission appropriate tributes. One is a stunning necklace created by Michele Data in 1679; another is the jewel-encrusted mitre at the top of this post.

Additional treasures were accumulated to add to San Gennaro’s treasures. Major silver statues of saints among them.

Santa Irene, Carlos Schisano, 1733
detail of Santa Irene, Carlos Schisano, 1733
Cathedral of Naples
San Gennaro’s necklace created by Michele Data, 1679
pearl necklace, 1706
4th-century mosaics
portable Last Rites tools
detail of San Emidius, 1735
4th-century mosaics
Cathedral of Naples
4th-century mosaics
Far left is the treasured bust of San Gennaro; the bronze statue of the saint is in the center. The ampules of San Gennaro’s blood are locked in a safe behind this altar in the Royal Chapel of the Treasury.
San Emidius, 1735
silver San Miguel, 1691
4th-century mosaics

The unusual aspect of the Treasures of San Gennaro is ownership. They belong to the citizens of Naples themselves, not the Catholic Church. They escaped confiscation by the state of Italy when it was unified. Periodically rumors spring forth the Vatican is trying to get control of them, sparking major protests in Naples, one as recent as 2016.

Sorry, so distracted by the shimmering jewels that have neglected to make much mention of the Cathedral of Naples, Cattedrale di San Gennaro, itself. The initial construction of the cathedral was commissioned by King Charles I (see earlier post) but was not completed until the 14th century. Mosaics from the 4th century are found in an adjacent baptistry predating the cathedral.

Postcard from Rome, Italy: A numbers game sparked by the baths

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Visualizing times gone by is difficult, even when surrounded by highly visible ancient remnants.

Baths to accommodate 3,000? That number finally hit me for some reason. Wait, how big was Rome?

The Diocletian Baths, built beginning about the year 290, could accommodate 3,000 people bathing, getting a shave and a haircut, exercising, reading in the library, gathering for gossip and, well okay, visiting the brothel. Not sure in which order these activities were engaged.

But the Diocletian Baths were not the only baths. There were hundreds and hundreds of them in ancient Rome.

Which finally sent me back to try to understand the immense size not of the sprawling Roman Empire, but of Rome itself.

The AlamoDome in San Antonio seems large to this girl; it can accommodate 64,000. The Coliseum in Rome could house somewhere in the range of 75,000 people, who could all exit within a 15-minute period after Emperor Diocletian (244-311) had executed some of the thousands of Christians he made into saints during several prime years of persecution.

But that was still a small house in Rome. Other special events attracted even larger crowds; close to 300,000 could gather to watch chariot races at Circus Maximus.

Wait, where did all those people come from? The majority were just locals. The population of Rome then was well over 1,000,000. So hard to envision an ancient urban environment that dense.

Things would change dramatically in only a view years. The collapse of the empire, invasions by those pesky Goths. The population evacuated for new opportunities or was devastated by pestilence. During the 1300s, with schism in the papacy between Rome and Avignon, Rome had fewer than 20,000 inhabitants.

But I digress, once again.

The photos below are from the collection of the Museo Nazionale Romano housed on the grounds of the former baths and portions renovated/remodeled into cloisters for a Carthusian monastery, commissioned in 1561 by Pope Pius IV (1499-1565) of the Medici clan and designed by Michelangelo (1475-1564).

More recent remodeling to house the collection and special exhibits was completed in 2014. Thousands of the museum’s holdings once crammed akimbo into this one location are now spread out for improved viewing around several locations.

And, by the way, sometimes there was a lot of r-rated activity happening on the outside of those sarcophagi.

Postcard from Budapest, Hungary: A palatial neighborhood

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Saint Sebastian (?-288) generally is depicted as turned into a bristling porcupine by arrows shot into him upon orders of Roman Emperor Diocletian (244-312). Although left for dead, Sebastian managed to recover from these seemingly mortal wounds, surviving to taunt the emperor about abuses against Christians on another day. Offended, Diocletian ordered Sebastian clubbed to death. The second brutal sentence brought the results the emperor desired.

It is not surprising that a saint capable of recovering from the archers’ multiple piercings of his body was turned to for aid by those suffering from an incurable disease wiping out multitudes in Europe – the plague. In 1706 near the Matthias Church, Buda erected a column in honor of the Holy Trinity to protect the city’s residents from the Black Plague. But the plague returned, so the council reasoned the first column had not been grand or tall enough. A more impressive column was built in 1709 including the above figure of Saint Sebastian. Bigger proved better according to the belief of the city’s inhabitants of the time, with Saint Sebastian receiving credit for keeping the disease at bay these centuries since.

An impressive equestrian statue featuring Saint Stephen (975-1038), the first king of Hungary, stands nearby. Saint Stephen guides the way to Fisherman’s Bastion, a fairytale-like overlook added to this perch above the Danube at the dawn of the 1900s after the extensive remodeling of Matthias Church. The landmark was built upon the bastion protected by the fishermen’s guild during the Middle Ages.

Ascending up the hill toward Buda Castle, one encounters a sculptural fountain lorded over by a statue of Matthias Corvinus (1443-1490) dressed for the hunt. The vizla dogs are the best part of this grouping, also completed in the early 1900s, but the woman on the lower right is the heart of the tableau. She represents a young peasant who supposedly fell in love with the king while he was hunting, not realizing he was king and, as such, unavailable, to her.

The Buda Castle is among the dropdead-gorgeous Budapest photo-ops viewed from the river below. Things look pretty palatial now, but the castle has had a life as tortuous as Saint Sebastian.

statue outside Varkert Bazaar
Varkert Bazaar below and leading up to Buda Castle
The tural, a mythological bird of prey symbolic of Hungary
Gate approaching Buda Castle
Statue of Saint Stephen
The raven, a symbol of King Matthias
Buda Castle
Matthias Fountain
Matthias Fountain
Buda Castle
Holy Trinity pillar (1709) outside Matthias Church
Taming a wild horse, a statue originally in the Royal Riding School
Galeotto Marzio, the Italian court historian of King Matthias
Statue of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736)
Statue of Saint Stephen
Statue of Saint Stephen backed by tower of Fisherman’s Bastion
Varkert Bazaar below Buda Castle
King Matthias celebrating the hunt
World War I exhibition at Varkert Bazaar
Matthias Fountain (1904) in courtyard of Buda Castle

King Bela IV (1206-1270) first built walls to fortify the hilltop against invasions by Mongols under the command of Batu Khan. King Sigismund (1368-1437), who at one point during rather tumultuous European times served as Holy Roman Emperor, expanded the royal residence into the largest Gothic palace of the Middle Ages to demonstrate his importance among the European leaders. Later, King Matthias Corvinus rebuilt the palace to reflect the trends of the early Renaissance.

In the 1500s, the Turks managed to conquer Buda and claim it as part of the Ottoman Empire. The extensive compound was damaged during the invasion, but palace maintenance was not among the priorities of the new rulers. Portions of the castle were relegated to serve as barracks, storage halls and stables. Several failed efforts by the Habsburgs to liberate Buda from Ottoman control inflicted more damage, but the great siege of 1686 proved the most devastating.

The Turks used a remaining tower on the grounds to store their supply of gunpowder. When bombarded, the explosion was reputed so huge as to have killed as many as 1,500 of the Turkish soldiers and created a massive wave on the Danube that swallowed more upon its banks. The Christian allies were successful in their quest, but the palace fared poorly. A new Baroque structure was begun but was partly destroyed by fire in 1723.

In order to pay tribute to Queen Maria Theresa (1717-1780), the only woman ruler during the centuries of the Habsburg dynasty, the Hungarian Chamber laid the foundation stone for a new palace on the queen’s birthday in 1749. Unfortunately, the nobles’ plans were grander than the depth of their pockets, and the project remained incomplete.

After visiting in 1764, Queen Maria Theresa allotted funds for finishing the project, despite having no desire to reside in Buda. She presented one wing to the Sisters of Loreto, but it was apparent the palace was too fancy for a nunnery. A university was established there, but later moved to the Pest side of the river. After Archduke Alexander Leopold (1772-1795) of Austria tapped it for use as his royal residence in 1791, the castle again became a bustling, fashionable center of society in Buda.

Efforts to keep the Austrians and Hungarians in harmony faltered. The Hungarian army revolted in May of 1849, with the Austrians holed up in the castle atop the hill. Heavy artillery fire was required to unseat them, and the resulting flames once again destroyed much of the palace.

Work once again commenced to make it grand enough to accommodate all of the archdukes, duchesses and officials connected to royalty. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, things settled down rather comfortably for a while under the rule of Emperor Franz Joseph (1830-1916). Buda and Pest became one city in 1873, and both benefitted during this period of peace and affluence from a considerable boom in building and urban improvements, including some of the enhancements above.

The Varkert Bazaar, or Royal Garden Pavilion, was built at the base of the Castle Hill on the river’s banks in the late 1800s, with elegant stairways leading upward to new gates. So many wings were needed to accommodate comings and goings, the castle outgrew its narrow hilltop footprint. A three-story substructure was constructed to provide a base for an addition on the west side. Royal stables and elaborate gardens contributed to the grounds, and the newly decorated palace was inaugurated in 1912.

The castle survived for several decades until World War II. The last stand of Axis forces during the siege of Budapest in 1944 and 1945 was Buda Castle. The heavy artillery fire and intense fighting required by the Soviet forces to evict them, left the palace in ruins once more.

Reconstruction Communist-style was different; modernization eliminated much of the former ornate ornamentation.

Restoration work continues on various wings of the castle even today, with Buda Palace now home to several major museums and a library.