Academic literature on the topic 'San Clemente Church (Rome)'

AbstractDuring the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Church began a process of renovation (renovatio) and the city of Rome was given new meanings. Antiquity is part of the identity of the Eternal City; the reuse or reframing of aspects of antiquity inevitably transformed the image of Rome. Public spaces, architecture and objects were given new Christian readings. Inscriptions, present both in sacred and secular settings, played an important role. A similar rewriting can also be found in travel literature and descriptions of the city, such as in the Mirabilia urbis Rome, where ancient monuments were re-interpreted to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity. Inscriptions were used as symbols of authority, as can be seen in the altar of the church of Santa Maria in Portico, in the papal thrones (San Clemente, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, San Lorenzo fuori le mura) and also in mosaics (San Clemente, Santa Maria in Trastevere). Inscriptions appeared on porticoed atriums built on new churches and added to older foundations, and they were used to renew ancient monuments and places. The Roman Commune used a similar strategy with civil buildings. The image of Rome was transformed through restoration and new construction that used spolia as meaningful objects, and inscriptions for their authoritative value.

‘I will carry with me the best architect in Europe.’ With these bold words Robert, first Viscount Molesworth, announced to his wife his arrival in Ireland in the company of the young Italian architect and engineer Alessandro Galilei in May 1717. Lord Molesworth could not know that, twenty years later, Galilei would be indeed one of the best-known architects in Europe, after having built in Rome, to the order of Pope Clement XII Corsini (1730–40), the facade of San Giovanni in Laterano (St John Lateran), the Cappella Corsini in the same church and the facade of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.Galilei was born on 25 August 1691, in Florence, the eldest son of the notary Giuseppe Maria Galilei and his wife Margherita Merlini. The Galilei family could trace their lineage to the Buonaiuti, who in the fourteenth century twice held the post of ‘Gonfaloniere della Giustizia’, then the most important position in the city government. They took the surname Galilei from the last Gonfaloniere in their family, the master of philosophy and medicine, Galileo (early fifteenth century). Even into the sixteenth century, members of the family belonged to the town council. The most famous bearer of the name was without doubt Galileo Galilei (1564–1641), from whom Alessandro was not directly descended but to whom he was remotely related. Although Alessandro’s father, Giuseppe, who in 1707 and 1711 was Proconsul of Notaries, counted himself as one of the nobili, the standing of the old patrician families had been considerably reduced under the Medici Grand Dukes because they did not actually hold a landed title. Financial decline seems also to have damaged the prestige of Alessandro’s branch of the family.

Jan Reisner (ca. 1655-1713) was a painter and architect. He was sent by King Jan III together with Jerzy Siemiginowski to study art at St. Luke Academy in Rome. He traveled to the Eternal City (where he arrived on February 24, 1678) with Prince Michał Radziwiłł’s retinue. Cardinal Carlo Barberini, who later became the protector of Regni Poloniae, was the guardian and protector of the artist during his studies in 1678-1682. In the architectural competition announced by the Academy in 1681 Reisner was awarded the fi prize in the fi class, and a little later he was accepted as a member of this prestigious university. He was awarded the Order of the Golden Spur (Aureatae Militiae Eques) and the title Aulae Lateranensis Comes, which was equivalent to becoming a nobleman. The architectural award was conferred by the jury of Concorso Academico, composed of the Academy’s principe painter Giuseppe Garzi, its secretary Giuseppe Gezzi, and the architects Gregorio Tommassini and Giovanni B. Menicucci. In the Archivio storico dell’Accademia di San Luca, preserved are three design drawings of a church made by Jan Reisner in pen and watercolor, showing the front elevation, longitudinal section, and a projection. Although they were made for the 1681 competition, they were labelled with the date 1682, when the prizes were already being awarded. Reisner’s design reflected the complicated trends in the architecture of the 1660s and 1670s, especially in the architectural education of St. Luke’s Academy. There, attempts were made to reconcile the classicistic tendencies promoted by the French court with the reference to the forms of mature Roman Baroque. As a result of this attempt to combine the features of the two traditions, an eclectic work was created, as well as other competition projects created by students of the St. Luke’s Academy. The architect designed the Barberini temple-mausoleum, on a circular plan with eight lower chapels opening inwards and a rectangular chancel. The inside of the rotund is divided into three parts: the main body with opening chapels, a tambour, and a dome with sketches of the Fall of Angels. Inside, there is an altar with a pillar-and-column canopy. The architectural origin of the building was determined by ancient buildings: the Pantheon (AD 125) and the Mausoleum of Constance (4th century AD). A modern school based of this model was opened by Andrea Palladio, who designed the Tempietto Barbaro in Maser from 1580. In the near future, the Santa Maria della Assunzione in Ariccia (1662-1664) by Bernini and Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption (1670-1676) in Paris by Charles Errard could provide inspiration. In particular, the unrealized project of Carlo Fontana to adapt the Colosseum to the place of worship of the Holy Martyrs was undertaken by Clement X in connection with the celebration of the Holy Year in 1675. In the middle of the Flavius amphitheatre, he designed the elevation of a church in the form of an antique-styled rotunda, with a dome on a high tambour and a wreath of chapels encircling it. Equally important was the design of the fountain of the central church in Basque Loyola (Santuario di S. Ignazio a Loyola). In the Baroque realizations of the then Rome we find patterns for the architectural decoration of the Reisnerian church. In the layout and the artwork of the facades we notice the influence of the columnar Baroque facades, so common in different variants in the works of da Cortona, Borromini and Rainaldi. The monumental columnar facades built according to Carlo Rainaldi’s designs were newly completed: S. Andrea della Valle (1656 / 1662-1665 / 1666) and S. Maria in Campitelli (designed in 1658-1662 and executed in 1663-1667), and Borromini San Carlo alle Quatro Fontane (1667-1677). The angels supporting the garlands on the plinths of the tambour attic are modelled on the decoration of two churches of Bernini: S. Maria della Assunzione in Ariccia (1662-1664) and S. Andrea al Quirinale (1658-1670). The repertoire of mature Baroque also includes the window frames of the front facade of the floor in the form of interrupted beams and, with the header made in the form of sections capped with volutes. The design indicates that the chancel was to be laid out on a slightly elongated rectangle with rounded corners and covered with a ceiling with facets, with a cross-section similar to a heavily flattened dome. It is close to the solutions used by Borromini in the Collegio di Propaganda Fide and the Oratorio dei Filippini. The three oval windows decorated with C-shaped arches and with ribs coming out of the volute of the base of the dome, which were among the characteristic motifs of da Cortona, taken over from Michelangelo, are visible. The crowning lantern was given an original shape: a pear-shaped outline with three windows of the same shape, embraced by S-shaped elongated volutes, which belonged to the canonical motifs used behind da Cortona by the crowds of architects of late Baroque eclecticism. Along with learning architecture, which was typical at the Academy, Reisner learned painting and geodesy, thanks to which, after his return to Poland, he gained prestige and importance at the court of Jan III, then with the Płock Voivode Jan Krasiński. His promising architectural talent did gain prominence as an architect in Poland, although – like few students of St. Luke’s Academy – he received all the honors as a student and graduate.

San Vincenzo al Volturno is an early medieval monastery in the high province of Molise, southeast of Rome, and site of most substantial excavations over the last 15 years. The publication of portrait wall-paintings from the crypt of its great church, San Vincenzo Maggiore, is occasion to examine the place of the individual in that religious society.

NUOVI SCAVI NELLA CHIESA A CRIPTA DI SAN VINCENZO AL VOLTURNO (1994)Questa breve nota vuole essere una aggiunta agli scavi della chiesa a cripta di San Vincenzo al Volturno pubblicati in R. Hodges (1993) (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1. The 1980–86 Excavations, Part I (London, British School at Rome). Scavi della Soprintendenza nell'area dell'atrio di questa chiesa alto medievale hanno rivelato la presenza di un portico recinto costruito nel IX secolo (fase 5), all'interno del quale si trovava il piccolo cimitero descritto nella prima relazione. Gli scavi hanno anche aiutato a stabilire le precise misure dell'edificio tardo romano che precedeva la chiesa a cripta alto medievale.

Portia dell'Anguillara Cesi and Margherita della Somaglia Peretti were both wealthy heiresses in late sixteenth-century Rome, and each was the patron of a fine altarpiece for the Capuchin church of San Bonaventura. Although women were widely recognized as patrons in the period, the patronage of these two paintings, which show the Virgin, saints, and the portrait of a young boy, has always been assigned to their husbands, Paolo Emilio Cesi and Michele Peretti, because the works have been related to the patrilinear, agnatic image of the early modern family, i.e., fathers and sons. Instead, the works express a bilinear, cognatic image of the family, indicating legal, economic, and affective ties between mothers and sons. Portia dell'Anguillara's will of 1587 further elucidates aspects of the bilinear family structure.

Art History
Ph.D.
Over the past decade scholars have begun to examine in greater depth the pivotal role that foreigners played in the development of the Early Modern European city. In Rome foreign communities had a major part in shaping the urban landscape, more permanently with national churches, hospitals, chapels, neighborhoods, and temporarily through public processions and festivals. This dissertation examines the Spanish National Church, San Giacomo and San Ildefonso degli Spagnoli, founded in 1450 to provide a religious and charitable center for the growing Castilian expatriate community and their many co-nationals visiting on pilgrimage. When San Giacomo opened its doors it was a small, unpretentious space, with a hospital attached, facing the medieval street of Via del Sapienza. Over the next hundred years, the church expanded significantly and a second, statelier entrance was added opening onto the Piazza Navona, which had become a locus for grand secular and religious celebrations in the city. Significantly, these changes at San Giacomo coincide with the growing prestige and influence of the Spanish community on the European stage. This dissertation will provide the first art historical monograph produced since the 1950s of San Giacomo from its origins through the 1560s. In contrast to previous studies, I will set my discussion of the architecture and art within the historical context. In this way I will demonstrate that the Spanish used the most common languages available in Roman culture--the visual and spatial--as a rhetorical device to set forth their political aspirations and religious values and promote their nation in Rome. I also connect this project to other Spanish commissions in Rome, which has not previously been undertaken, and illustrate that they shared characteristics by which the nascent Spanish nation sought to define itself. Reexamining the church within the historical background allows for a thorough iconographic reading, not previously attempted, of the most well known chapel in the church, that of Cardinal Jaime Serra, designed by Antonio da Sangallo and decorated by Pellegrino da Modena and Jacopo Sansovino. I provide an explanation for the patron's choice of content, taking into consideration both Spanish ambitions and the pressing political concerns of both the Pope and the curia. My analysis will also take into account recently discovered archival evidence that the Sangallo architectural ornamentation was actually designed and constructed two decades after the chapel was decorated. This is the first lengthy discussion of the architecture based on the new date. Moreover I use it as a base on which to reconsider the patron's motivations for refurbishing the architecture of the chapel. Finally, this study proposes that national churches in Rome, as a group, should be recognized for the vital role they played in society. Within their community they provided a safe haven and a space from which foreign nationals could deal with the rest of society. Simultaneously, they were a primary means for the public recognition of a nation within this cosmopolitan city. Consequently, tracking the art and architecture of these churches, and the changes made over time, offers a unique opportunity to gauge the way an Early Modern European country saw itself, and the way they wanted to be perceived.
Temple University--Theses

This chapter considers artistic representations, showing evidence of ‘Women Church Leaders in and around Fifth-century Rome’. It focuses on two artefacts that portrayed women church leaders operating in this broad context. It addresses frescoes of deceased women painted with open gospel books in the San Gennaro Catacombs in Naples; it proposes that the most logical interpretation of the iconographic motifs associated with them is that they were women bishops, perhaps two of the women about whom Pope Gelasius complained to male bishops in southern Italy c.496. For cultural context it next considers an ivory reliquary box discovered in 1906, which depicts three pairs of men and women in the altar area of Old St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. This scene has recently been re-analysed; one of the pairs appears to have been sculpted jointly officiating the Eucharist at the basilica’s altar. Additional fifth- and sixth-century artefacts that portray women as clergy, sometimes paired with men, sometimes independently, affirm both the identification of women bishops in the two Naples catacomb frescoes and also the scene of the woman and man officiating at the altar in Old St Peters on the ivory box.

The link between the design drawing to an architectural work, sometimes goes through the definition of geometric paths which establish alignments, proportions, correspondences. The comparison of the geometric construction of survey data of an architecture and design data is very important for understanding the original design idea, highlighting not only the artist's modus progettandi, but also matches, modifications or changes respect of precisely geometric paths and its building architecture. In these studies, the church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome, by Francesco Borromini, is an exemplar case. The project of the church, built between 1638 and 1675 and characterized by a coffered vault with an oval planimetric shape, is documented by a consistent corpus of Borromini drawings. This research, based on survey data, can allow to make new contributions to Borromini work and formulate new hypotheses regarding his construction practice.