Julian Barnett
Hidden Rome, Part 4: ‘The Mother of all Churches’: Secret Glories of Catholic Rome
Summary
In an audacious claim, Julian will argue that Rome is the greatest city in Christendom, conceptually, aesthetically, and architecturally. Studded with a beautiful collection of photographs, Julian will make the case that Rome’s lesser-known churches - as well as its famous ones such as St Peter’s - are the key to that greatness.
Julian Barnett
Julian Barnett is a teacher, collector, tour guide, and writer with a specialist interest in ultra-orthodoxy within the various faiths. For the last 35 years, he has been investigating and documenting the most extreme sects of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim worlds. His experiences and travels were serialized in the Jerusalem Report and also broadcast on BBC Radio Four Religion. Outside of his full-time history teaching post at Southbank International School, Portland Place, London, Julian lectures at numerous venues around the UK and beyond. In 2013 Julian was a joint winner of the National Teacher of the Year Award.
It’s a good question. Well, it didn’t exactly because many things were ripped out. It wasn’t raised to the ground, so the structure survived. But of course the Reformation pulled out lots of things. It was forgotten, it was a very poor slum area. But I will tell you something else, it partly survived, because the name of St. Pancras in London, it’s name is actually Old Pancras Church. So what happened was when New Pancras Church was built, they didn’t demolish the old one. They built the new one, about half a kilometer away, in a much better area. So therefore, the old one was just left to rack and ruin, and it survived.
You are talking about the catacombs underneath St. Pancras church in Rome, bone boxes, so stone boxes. And within those stone boxes, the bones of people that had been gathered and had died. Maybe I’ll do not a repeat, maybe I’ll do another tour, some objects in my home sometime in the future. And one of the objects I’ll reshow you if you are interested, is a 2,000 year old bone box that I have. And I will then explain showing you the real thing, how people would actually assemble bones in boxes.
No, don’t think so, but I have a historian’s mind. I’m a historian, so thank you for that.