Ravenna Part II

 

I mentioned that I'd write more about our trip to Ravenna and now I'm going to try to explain a little about this city's mosaics and history. Three primary cathedrals in this area (Sant'Apollinare in Classe, San Vitale, and Sant'Apollinare Nuovo) were built during Byzantine times, under the reign of the Ostrogoths, the rulers of Italy in the end of the 400's and beginning of the 500's.  The history of the Goths--Visigoths (western) and Ostrogoths (eastern) is sketchy because they didn't survive to provide a continuous history.

The primary ruler of the Ostrogoths (the prefix Ostro has the same root as Austria) was Theodoric the Great, whose tomb is in Ravenna; but not his body—Justinian had it removed when he was in charge. The most important element about the Goths is that they were Arian Christians who followed the teachings of Arius (not Aryans, the racial classification celebrated by Nazis and their philosophical descendants.)

Arians were heretics (according to those who prevailed) because they rejected primary elements of Trinitarian theology. (I'll write about that in my personal blog for those who want more information on the subject.)

When the Ostrogoths were driven out of Italy and into *oblivion,* (which evidently lies to the north) these Gothic cathedrals fell into the hands of the Catholics who preserved their marvelous artwork; which in turn preserved remnants of their ancient theology.

Margaret Barker, a British Bible scholar, author, Methodist, and theologian included a scene from one of these mosaics on the cover of her book, Temple Theology. Though her photo only includes the right half of the scene below, she felt that it displays elements of early Christian theology regarding the temple.

 Her books point out temple themes that have been lost in most of today's Christian theology but that have been retained in the New Testament and in ancient architecture. For example, she notes that the existence of altars in every Christian chapel demonstrates that Christian chapels were an attempt to replicate the temple rather than the Jewish synagogue. No synagogue ever had an altar, which since the time of the Babylonian captivity and until Christian times, had been exclusive to the temple.

Back to Ravenna specifically, it was under the rule of the Ostrogoths until emperor Justinian's forces conquered them in 562 at a cost (according to Wikipedia) to the Byzantine Empire of 300,000 pounds of gold and the lives of 15,000,000 Ostrogoths. As a result of Justinian’s victory, some of the mosaics in the three byzantine cathedrals were modified to replace Theodoric’s image with that of Justinian and members of his court. Other mosaics show signs of incomplete modifications. Consider a close up from one from the newest of the three cathedrals, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:

Notice that in the black area above the curtains, there used to be images that have now been scrubbed. Some think that the hands coming out from behind the curtains reflect evidence of attempts to scrub images; but it's clear that the hands are supposed to be in the mosaics because the curtain on the one on the right is draped around the forearm. A larger view of the scene shows more hands and perhaps an idea of what might have been erased from these panels--perhaps the work involved to remove these items proved to be too costly for the expected result. The fourth and sixth curtains have floating crowns above the curtains, and perhaps this is what was removed from the three arches on each end of the scene.

Look at the hands coming from behind the curtains at (counting from left to right) 1, 3, 4, and 9; and the evidence of scrubbed images is only at 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9.

Looking at the main curtain in the center of the scene, there are decorations on the curtain that are also present on the altar in the scene of Melchizedec in the cathedral of San Vitale:

Notice also that these right-angle designs are on the curtain, the altar cloth on top of the altar, on the front of the altar, and on the altar itself (in gold.)

The same design is on the curtain behind Melchizedec in the oldest cathedral--Sant'Apollinare in Classe, and on the clothing of men dressed in white in Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. The marks in the curtains are harder to see in this photo because there was a light stand on the right of the image--but the design is again repeated on the altar and on the curtain behind Melchizedec:

In this photo, the same marks are on the curtain. They're evidently in each corner of the curtain but since it's drawn open, the marks at the bottom are obscured.

As you enter the cathedral of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo inside Ravenna (as opposed to  Sant'Apollinare in Classe just outside of town), the main area facing the chapel and altar has men on the right, and women on the left.  Each is holding a royal crown. I'll discuss that element later, but a view of the men and women standing on each side of the chapel is also interesting.

One other item about these cathedrals interests me greatly: There are no crucifixion scenes in any of the artwork; and every depiction of the Savior (except one as an infant in Mary's arms) is as a resurrected personage. I have heard varying opinions--some have said that due to the plague in the middle ages, the emphasis in Catholicism changed from victory over death to that of suffering, and since the artwork in these cathedrals antedated the black death, the idea of overwhelming suffering and sadness had not yet taken hold.

I'm more inclined to believe that Arians had a different theology that emphasized life over death.

In the first photo of this posting above, I included one mosaic from San Vitale's cathedral. In the front of the same chapel in the dome is a representation of Jesus Christ as the Lord of the Universe, seated on the globe of the world (hmmm, before 1492), flanked by angels and two church leaders. Interestingly, Christ is clean-shaven in this depiction.

He is extending a crown in his right hand and there is the letter omega on his robe.

All the walls have depictions of Old Testament prophets, the New Testament Apostles, and some other church leaders with a bearded Christ at the top. Across from the mosaic of Melchizedec, Abraham, and Abel is another of the same format with Abraham, three angels, and what appears to be either Adam and Eve or Abraham and Sarah. The guides say it's Abraham on both sides of the table; but the clothing seems to be more consistent with Abel's in the parallel mosaic, so I think it's more likely Adam and Eve--and it seems odd to put Abraham twice in the same panel--one in a flowing robe and the other in more primitive clothing:

From my perspective, these mosaics of the prophets and apostles have the same function as photos and paintings that we have in our meetinghouses and temples.

This mosaic has the bearded Savior holding a book, just as the other depiction of the clean shaven Lord of the universe has a book in his left hand.

The apostles include Paul--rather than Judas Iscariot, or his replacement Matthias--and they're all named using the format where the letter 'u' is a 'v') .

Perhaps they realized they didn't leave enough room for Paul's full name "Pavlvs" and so it's written only as "lvs." James appears as "Iacobvs," the Greek designation for James--which is certainly closer than the Spanish "Santiago."

 

Italic Standard Time

 

I learned something new yesterday when I saw the above clock on the city's main Cathedral in Loreto, Italy. The clock face has only six hours and one hand. (There's a lateral crack in the stone face as well that makes it look like another hand.) Apparently, clocks of this type can be found in various places throughout Italy showing “Italic hours,” but this is the first time I’ve ever noticed such a clock. (Consequently, this post will be written entirely in italics.)

Italic Solar hour clocks first appeared in Italy in the mid 1300’s. In this system the new day began a half hour after sunset. In the 1600’s, the Catholic Church adopted the system as its standard.

In these six-hour clocks, four complete revolutions of the hand were required to reach twenty-four hours.

When the sun set it was the twenty-fourth hour; eighteen o'clock indicated that it was six hours before sunset, and coincided with the closing of the gates of the city or of the castle.

It seems to me that this would have been an untenable system as the length of days varies throughout the year, and someone would have to have adjusted the clock as the daylight hours changed. It would have been hilarious to have seen the Church implement this in the land of the midnight sun.

Traces of this ancient system can be found in literature and some idiomatic expressions and understanding the clock helps to explain some enigmatic passages in the Italian romance, I Promessi Sposi,--one, where a man returns at 11 pm, “just before sunset.” The days weren’t really that long—they were just using what I’d call IST (Italic Standard Time).

Napoleon’s invasion into Italy ended the Italic time zone as it was replaced by the one we currently use--when the new day begins at midnight. After the French had been expelled, the Papal State attempted to restore the Italic clocks, but couldn’t fight what had become a universal system.

 

 

Ravenna--the City I Dream About

We came to Ravenna for the weekend with our friends Eric and Loree Thorderson. They're about to finish their mission as temple missionaries, and although they had already been to Ravenna, they wanted to come with us since I was a missionary here and know a little of the history of the famous cathedrals in the area.

I think I have the tenderest  feelings for this city of all of Italy. There were things that happened to me here that   changed the trajectory of my whole life. I cried all the way through sacrament meeting yesterday. When I was here during the last century, my companion and I were the only members of the Church here.  Now, there is a very strong branch. 

There are 3 cathedrals in this city that are very much like temples--with startling differences from typical Italian cathedrals.

We left Rome Saturday after our shift at the temple ended around noon. The night before, we went out with Alberto Albanese and his wife Domenica, and at the end of the night he asked if we had snow chains for our car.  I hadn't even thought about getting them. He noted that if you're on the freeway between November and March without either chains or snow tires you are subject to significant fines. Sometimes I think we're watched over to keep us safe. Eric purchased some chains while we were in the temple.

We needed to go over a mountain range to get here, and one of the other temple workers told us to be careful driving in the snow. We thought he was being overly dramatic because Italians wear heavy parkas, scarves, gloves and stocking caps when the temperature drops into the 50's.  That is, until we were going through the mountains in a driving snow storm. We made it here safely with only a few brown alerts; but Robyn thought it was great fun and was gleefully taking photos while I tried not to cry.

It's now time to get dressed and check out of our hotel for the trip home.  I'll continue this later.

 

Update on Travels, Food, and Friends

We went back to Utah for Christmas and New Year's and now we're back home in Rome. That might sound strange; but when people asked us how long we were staying, Robyn always said, "We're going home January 2nd." It didn't sound at all strange to me to say that home was in Italy--perhaps for several reasons: our house sitters live in our home and we stayed in the basement; we have a lot of fun here; and we missed our friends. I'm going to skip ahead for today's installation and then go back and cover other items of our travels later.

Our good friends from Palermo, Sicily are back in Rome for a stint at the temple. I've mentioned Alberto before--he's the guy who calls me "Alfred" because so many of the Italians have trouble pronouncing my last name. He can say "Allred" perfectly well, but he keeps calling "Alfred" to mock those who can't. I've figured out how to fix saying my last name, though, for most people here. In Italian it's essential to pronounce double letters when they appear. Italians have a dickens of a time trying to figure out how to pronounce both els in Allred since the second el is also followed by a consonant. To say "now then"--allora--you must pronounce three syllables: al-lor-a. When Italians see "Allred," they feel they have to say, "Al-lred" and it just doesn't work. Usually, they add an "h" at the beginning (we haven't figured out that part yet), and it just goes downhill from there. If they leave off the "h" it usually comes out "Alfred." When I spell my name with only one "l" they have no problem saying it right though sometimes they still slip in the "Hall" part on the front end. 

Alberto and Domenica arrived last week and brought us goodies from their garden. Sicily is more tropical than Rome and gardens continue to produce all year. He gave us a type of lemon called a "cedro" (pronouced chay-droh.) He said, "These have a very thick peel on them; but they're sweeter than regular lemons and quite good eating."

From my perspective, they looked a little dodgy, and he was right about the peel. It was really hard to open up, (I think I used pliers in the process) and the lemon inside was just as sour as any other lemon I've ever eaten.

I told him a day or two later that I didn't find it to be particularly "good eating" and that it was as sour as most lemons I've tasted. He was a little puzzled by my comment, and a day or so later asked me how I had eaten it.

I explained the process and he said, "You don't the lemon part, you eat the peel!" I remember now that "peel" was the antecedant of "good eating." I tried some of the peel when I got home, and he was right. He sent me a photo of his grandchildren eating this fruit as the Italians do: