Julian Barnett
Hidden Rome, Part 3: ‘All That Glitters is Indeed Gold’: Little Visited Wonders of Byzantine Rome

Julian Barnett - Hidden Rome, Part 3: ‘All That Glitters is Indeed Gold’: Little Visited Wonders of Byzantine Rome

- The topic for today is of course Rome, and maybe, by the way, one day or other, I will get round to doing some tours of London, and there’s lots to say about that, so that might come one day in the future. This is now lecture three of five on Rome, and today we’re looking at Byzantine Rome. And just to put that in its context, the Byzantine period runs from 330 AD to 1453, 330 AD being four years after Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, what I would argue, as a historian, to be one of the most important events in European history, full stop, the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity. So within three to four years, the Byzantine Empire was established, and it lasted all the way through to 1453, the fall of Istanbul, or the fall of Constantinople, to the Ottomans, the Ottoman takeover of Constantinople. Now, that said, it is very important to see the Byzantine Empire, not as an empire on its own in isolation, but as the fourth incarnation of Ancient Rome, or the fourth incarnation of Rome, I should say. We’ve already looked at those first three incarnations. We’ve looked at Rome of the kings, in other words, the period of round about 600 BC through to round about 400 BC. Then the period of republican Rome, approximately 400 BC to 100 AD, then imperial Rome, going all the way through from round about 100 AD to 500 AD, or 400 AD. And of course, I gave the precise dates for those over the last two lectures. So now we’re coming into that fourth incarnation, or iteration of the Roman world, and it’s very important to, it’s often overlooked that the Byzantine Empire is still the Roman world. We now look back retrospectively and we see that the true glory of Ancient Rome was now fading.

They didn’t know that at the time, but that glory of Ancient Rome, one could argue, had faded by the time Rome entered the imperial period, once we were into the AD period. So that’s something very important. The other thing is the Byzantine Empire, sometimes known as the Eastern Roman Empire. The peoples of the Byzantine Empire saw themselves as Romans. They spoke Greek, Greek was the language of that empire, and their architecture was very different, and of course, most important of all, by then they were Christian, although a very, very different form of Christian to what we now know as Christian, but the key thing to bear in mind is that those people in the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, saw themselves as Roman, just as the next step on in that Roman Empire. The other thing I should add is as follows, the Roman Empire in the period of kings, and in the republican period, and in the imperial period, was extremely fluid in what it believed. Yes, we know that it was Pagan, we know it was multi god and goddesses, but what was creeping in by the time we get to that imperial period, is almost an unconscious separation of what we now call church and state, of the religious functions, or the religious culture of a country, and the political functions. By the time we get to late republican and imperial Rome, we have the beginning of civic society as we would understand that now, which is why Rome is so important to us.

In the words of Mary Beard, there is a bit of Ancient Rome in all of us, because all of what we understand as civil society, civic society, politics, religion, state religion, non-state religion, the idea of citizenship, the idea of legislation, the idea of separation of powers within states, these go back to Ancient Rome. But once we get to the Byzantine Empire, something changes. There is a real aim and desire to somehow pull the religious functions of the state together, and establish a dogma, a religious dogma, to, in other words, bring church and state together again. Thus we see in the Byzantine Empire the strong preoccupation with religious dogma. What made you a Christian? What made you not a Christian? What made you worthy of persecution as somebody that was veering away from Christian Orthodox belief? There was much more of the pressure in the Byzantine Roman Empire to really establish a religious dogma, and that’s something extremely important to bear in mind. So let’s now turn to the pictures, and thanks in advance to you, Emily, for doing this once again, and let’s have a look at the greatest building in Byzantium, and as you can see there, this is called Byzantium Basilicas and Bethlehem, and I’ll come to that very shortly as to why. Let’s open up on that picture, and we will see the greatest of them all, The Church of Ayasofya, the Church of the Holy Wisdom. This is one of, I would say, one of the great structures of the world, the 10 great buildings of the world. If I was forced to choose 10, or possibly even half a dozen, this would be one of them, and anybody that’s been to it is absolutely, it’s impossible not to be in awe, at this tremendous structure.

It was built between 1453, oh, sorry, between 532 and 537, over only a five-year period by Justinian I, and it became the prototype for Ottoman architecture, although it predates Ottoman architecture by 1,000 years. It’s a tremendous thing. It is vast, and it is powerful, and it just looms over the city now as it did at when it was first built. We’re talking about something that was built in those very early years, the first century of Byzantium, 532 AD. A tremendous thing. Okay, so let’s have a look at a few more pictures of this terrific structure. So firstly, where was this placed within Ancient Rome, within Constantinople? And bearing in mind, I’m trying to stop myself calling it Istanbul, it’s Constantinople, named after Constantine the Great, who converted to Christianity, and thus precipitated the gradual movement of the Roman Empire to Christian. Note my words, the gradual movement. It’s too simplistic to say, you know, the Roman Empire converted to Christianity in 326 AD. This took time, but bear in mind that Paganism was in decline anyway, Constantine sensed an opportunity here. He sensed that Christianity was the future, and the power, and, most important, the political and economic force for the future, and therefore his conversion, even if it was a personal conversion of him seeing the light and the power of Jesus, and there’s much debate over whether it was a personal conversion, he certainly saw it as the key way for the Roman Empire to carry on sustaining itself, leaving paganism, moving with the force of the future, which he identified correctly as Christianity. Now look at this picture.

You can see the Hippodrome, the race course right in the middle of that peninsula that sticks out into the Bosporus. This is the horn itself, the Golden Horn, as it’s still called to this day. You can see a little golden dome bottom right-ish, and that’s Topkapi Palace, or the original Roman Topkapi Palace. And then further up you can see a series of domes, and that is Ayasofya, that grey structure on the slight rise above the Hippodrome. Topkapi still exists. Ayasofya still exists. The Hippodrome, the site of the Hippodrome, still exists. All of this is within the area of Istanbul, that is the the classic area where any visitor to Istanbul would go to. One of these days, I’ll do a series on Istanbul, a fantastic city for anyone to go to. Let’s move on, and let’s see the power of this structure of Ayasofya, the Church of the Holy Wisdom. The reason why I chose this photograph, if you look at the very bottom of the picture, you can see people. That gives you a sense of how vast this structure is. Now when you consider that this structure is 1600 years old, it was the largest covered structure in the world when it was built, and remained the largest covered structure in the world for almost 1,000 years. Now we have, of course, done a tour, a four-part tour of Egypt, and the pyramids were, and still are, one of the largest stone structures in the world, but they are, in a sense, dense structures, with a few tunnels within them, and a few small chambers within them.

This structure is a roofed structure as we understand it, as a modern building, a vast dome covering more or less an empty space with inside. A tremendous achievement in its time. And those little dots of people at the bottom really give you a sense of how enormous it is. The three domes in the foreground are the domes of the tombs of some of the early Ottoman emperors. But I must stop myself here. We will return to this one day when we look at Istanbul, because if we get delayed or diverted into the Ottomans, we’ll never get back to Rome. So of course, the question you might ask is why are we looking at this, if this is the third of a five-part series on Rome? More on that soon. Let’s just look at a couple more pictures of Ayasofya, the Church of the Holy Wisdom. Look at the power of it, this brooding, heavy, magnificent structure. And soon we’re going to go inside to the next picture please. And you can really get a sense again of the complexity of the structure, these massive buttresses holding up this absolute mammoth structure, as you can see there. It is a seminal, seminal building. Very simple, in some ways, in what it does, holding up this huge dome, almost miraculously, of course not miraculously, we know how it’s held up, but it was remarkable how they built such a thing 1600 years ago. To the next picture. Now we go inside. Again, look at the people. This is just underneath one of those major domes within it.

You can see the Arabic there, “Allah” on the right hand side, and , “There’s one God, and he is Allah,” because remember, this structure was built as a church, lasted as a church from 532 all the way through to 1453, then became a mosque in 1453, all the way through to the early years of the modern-day Turkey of Kemal Ataturk. In 1924 it ceased to be a mosque, became a museum, and has now become a mosque again in the last few years, in increasing Islamization of Turkey, which might be something I’ll touch upon in a series, a future series on Istanbul. Okay, let’s move on. And we see here a very, a particularly old sketch of Ayasofya, oh, sorry, not yet. Nope, there’s still a few. I’m reminded. So now we look up and we get a taste of Byzantine Istanbul. Look at the golds within the roofs. And we’re going to be looking at a lot of gold within Rome in due course, because gold mosaics became one of the hallmarks of the Byzantine period. There was a tiny town in northeast Italy called Ravenna. Get there if you’ve never been, this was the capital of the Byzantine Empire for a short period, and it is something to behold, if you want to see golden mosaics. We’re going to stick mainly to golden mosaics in Rome today, but do get to Ravenna if you get the chance, not far from Bologna, and if you want to fill yourself on wonderful food, well, Bologna is one of the food capitals of Italy.

But I digress again. So we’re now looking into Ayasofya. We’re looking up into one of those many domes. What I love about this picture is that you have the Justinian architecture of late Pagan, early Byzantine Rome, those powerful pillars, and columns, and marble walls, and arches. You have the golden mosaics of the Byzantine Christian period, and you have the Arabic, there you can see these huge Arabic medallions on the walls, they’re enormous, of the Ottoman Islamic period. So you’ve really got it all. You’ve got Pagan, and you’ve got Byzantine Christian, and you’ve got Islamic. Let’s move on please. And Istanbul has many such structures, and they are, in a sense, small versions of Ayasofya. Now, bear in mind, Ayasofya in Istanbul was the prototype for the Byzantine churches around the world. So when we soon return to Rome, we’re going to see some of these round churches popping up in Rome. Not all of them are round, but some of them are. Here’s the church of the Chora, the Chora church in Istanbul, with the most spectacular golden mosaics within. A quick spin through those mosaics, to the next picture, please. You can get an idea once we get into the interior, there’s another side of the exterior, look at that. These beautiful mosaics, Jesus portrayed in blue, the classic colour of the Byzantine period for Jesus, with the richness of these mosaics. This is the finest collection of mosaics within Byzantine Turkey. And to the next one, please. And the next, look at the richness of colour here, and the next.

And just to hold onto that one, here we see a very important mosaic. Within the Chora church in Istanbul, in Constantinople, I should call it. What’s very important about this is here you have Mary holding Jesus, and on the left you have Ayasofya, the church, that great church in Istanbul, but on the right you have the walled city of the Vatican. What is the message here? Even though the shift of power had moved from Rome to Constantinople, Rome was now in a slow, inexorable decline, as we now know retrospectively, even though that was the case, what we see here is that the heart of the Christian world, if not the purse strings, and if not the power and the military might, and if not the economics, the heart of the Christian world was still considered Rome, that walled Vatican City never forgotten, the vast majority of Romans, as they saw themselves in Constantinople, never went to Rome. Rome was now in decline. Rome was falling to the Vandals and the Visigoths, and the many other tribes coming almost like vulture-like, from all over the world, to eat alive that beautiful, beautiful city of Rome. You can see the romantic coming out within me, but Rome still held that pull, that aura, that was the centre of the Christian world. Let’s move on, because now we’re going to look at these last pictures, these remarkable pictures of mosaics within the Chora Church within Byzantine Istanbul. And to the next one, this beautiful picture from Getty Images, as you can see there, absolutely glorious with the Ayasofya. This really incredible mosaic’s face.

It’s more like an icon painting, but believe it or not, it is a mosaic of this Jesus with his flushed cheeks, looking out. Look at the intensity there of Jesus looking out there, the classic Byzantine mosaic there, a taste of things to come later in this talk. Let’s move on, please. And you’ll see the final picture that I’m going to show here, or photograph of Ayasofya, looking out over the Bosporus, which, of course, is where Europe and Asia meet, more on that maybe one day, and you can see the chimney pots right-hand side of Topkapi Palace and one of the towers left-hand side of Topkapi Palace, and the four minarets that were added in the Islamic period around the church of Ayasofya. What a structure, what a thing. As I say, one of the great buildings of the world. Okay, let’s move on, and let’s see a sketch of Ayasofya, because the original plan was that the Vatican was going to be modelled on Ayasofya. You will recall two lectures ago, right, we did a whole movement of obelisks around the world, from Axum in Ethiopia, to the unfinished obelisks in Aswan, to the obelisk of Cleopatra’s Needle in London, and one in Central Park in New York, and Place de la Concorde in Paris, and then we ended up in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome. So there is the obelisk in Rome where it has been since the death of Saint Peter, in fact, before the crucifixion of Saint Peter, and the plan was to build an Ayasofya in Rome, which would be the first structure of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

It didn’t actually happen. If we go to the next picture, you’ll see what really occurred. Because what happened was, that was the first structure built in Rome. This was the first Saint Peter’s in Rome, and that is the structure of a basilica. Now this word, basilica, is a bit of an odd one, because depending on the context, basilica can mean something purely architectural. So a basilica is normally a rectangular architectural structure with a rounded apse at the end, with these sort of colonnaded atriums at the front, and at the sides, that is, architecturally speaking, what a basilica is, comes from the Greek word, basilica, meaning a royal house. The Romans built basilicas all over the place. Sometimes they were became temples, sometimes they were temples that became churches. Sometimes they were palaces, but there was a second use of the word basilica, and that’s when the Roman Catholic Church uses that term. And the basilica there is a major, major church. In fact, basilicas outranked cathedrals. There are four great basilicas that are called the Major Basilicas of the world. They’re in Rome. Number one is Saint Peter’s, or I should say in order, actually, of precedence, Saint John’s Lateran Basilica, which is the Cathedral of Rome, not the Cathedral of Saint Peters, which is not the Cathedral of Rome, that’s simply the parish church of Vatican City. So Saint John’s Lateran, which we will come to eventually in a future lecture. Then St. Peter’s, the second of the great basilicas. Saint Paul Outside the Walls, which we’re going to look at today, and Saint Mary Major, the largest church dedicated to Saint Mary’s in the world. But that is the classic basilica design.

There are also eight minor basilicas, Roman Catholic basilicas, around the world. One is in Spain, others are in Italy, and they’re dotted around the Roman Catholic world. Let’s move on please. And what we’re going to look at now is again, there you can see the design of what those basilicas look like on the interior. And moving on again please. There you can see Saint Peter’s Square, the elliptical roundness of the square, as you can see on the right-hand side. You can see in green where the original race course was, the chariot race course in Rome, prior to Rome becoming Christian. You can see in sort of brown, the basilica version of, it was the first version of Saint Peter’s Church in Rome, and underneath that brown, you can see the current-day Saint Peter’s. So four things going on there, Saint Peter’s Square, built by Michelangelo and others, and many others, actually. You can see the chariot race, the actual chariot race circuit for Rome, the current Saint Peter’s, and the old Saint Peter’s. Okay, let’s move on. And then let’s look at, I mentioned, you’ll recall, the format of basilicas. There you can see again the apse at the end, and the rectangular bases. And to the next picture.

This is the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the three Bs I started off with, Byzantium, basilicas, and Bethlehem. Bethlehem has one of the best surviving basilicas in its ancient form, in the world. And you might recall, those that were at my five-part lectures on Jerusalem, we actually looked at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and also, this particular basilica here. Just I wanted to show you a couple of pictures from this one. Let’s go inside to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the traditional site for the birth of Jesus, built over that site. Remember this photo everybody, because in a few pictures time, you’re going to see a church that looks so similar in Rome. So there it is, Roman columns with Roman capitals, long, straight side naves, side aisles, at the side there. The flooring is the original 2,000-year-old flooring. This is a tremendous survivor in Israel, Israel, Palestine, of course, this is in Bethlehem, over onto the other side, and it really is a remarkable survivor. Let’s have a look at some details of this church. You can see some of the Byzantine mosaics within the church, beautifully restored in recent years. And to the next picture, please. We move to this, Santa Sabina. Santa Sabina is the first of the churches we’re really going to look at in Rome. Now, I’m just going to maybe give you, I think it’s six churches today in Rome. They’re all slightly off the beaten track. Rome, of course has hundreds and hundreds of churches, but what I’m trying to do today is show some of the churches to do with that Byzantine period in Rome, and the first is Santa Sabina.

This is a critically important survivor. It gives us a very good idea of what the original Saint Peter’s would’ve looked like. Let’s go to that picture and have a look at Santa Sabina, and it’s named after Saint Sabine, named after the Sabine Hills around Rome. We know very little about her, other than the fact that she was martyred in 126 AD, but that’s really all we know. Her remains, some of her relics, are within the church, and it sits atop the Aventine Hill. We are going to look at the hills of Rome next time round. Those seven famous hills of Rome, the Capitoline, the Quirinal, the Viminal, the Esquiline, all those seven there, the Caelian, the Aventine, and the Palatine. They all serve really important purposes in imperial and in republican Rome. And you will probably remember that little fountain on the left, which I showed you last week, a 2,000-year-old Roman bath from the Diocletian Baths. It’s a little bronze bath with water pouring out, just on the left-hand side. Let’s go through that gate, and let’s have a look. To the next picture. We’re going to have a look at some of the exteriors of it. There it is, the rounded apse. This is a terrific survivor from the Byzantine period, the Church of Santa Sabina, sitting a top that Aventine Hill. A very important spot in ancient Rome, to have a church built in the fourth century, it’s 1700 years old, to have a church built so early there. This was prime spot. And the church was, from a very early age, called the New Jerusalem, and I’ll explain why in a moment. Let’s move on. Some more external pictures of the church.

And the next one. And the next one. You’ll get the idea. A long, simple, rounded apse, surrounded by this beautiful park of those fantastic-smelling pine trees, umbrella pines, and also orange trees just below them. This is one of the most beautiful little parks in Rome. The view is spectacular. Let’s keep on going. And we’re soon going to go into this very understated entrance into the church itself. Let’s go into that church, and you can see 24 columns. They’re tremendous. These columns are what are called spolia. Spolia comes from the spoils of ruins. It was done all the time. So republican, imperial Rome took from republican Rome buildings. They would demolish buildings, use them for new buildings. Why sculpt a new column when you can use old ones? And Rome was full of thousands of columns. So one of the most fun things to do around Rome is to learn how to read a building. You go into a church, you literally learn to read it. You look, “Aha, that column was taken from X. Those capitals were taken from Y. Those marble sheets were taken from Z.” You can begin to recognise the buildings that they were taken from, and the time periods when they were from. Now these columns are of a different age to the capitals above the columns.

Let’s go have a look at another picture closer up. And you can see whole sheets of marble on the floor, the original floor, but again, taken as spolia from previous buildings. But those huge sheets of marble on the floor have been there for 1600 years. It’s the most sublime church, because it’s essentially so simple, firstly, and secondly, it gives us a complete understanding of what it would be like to stand in a Byzantine, classic Byzantine, church, 17, 16, 1700 years ago. To the next picture, please. And you can see wonderful sheets. These are all pieces of marble showing the Eucharist. So you can see the wafer, the bread, representing the body of Christ, the wine, the goblet holding the blood of Christ. So this is really important stuff. Originally all the walls were absolutely covered with sheets of marble that portrayed the key sacraments of that early Byzantine Church. Remember, it was the Byzantine Church that was really hammering out Christianity as we know it now, because what you had was the power of Rome, now being channelled through the Byzantine Church, the new Roman Empire, the new Roman Christian Empire. So this is when Christianity really comes into its own, after it had been an underground religion, or persecuted for so long. Let’s have a look at another couple of pictures in this very important church of Santa Sabina. This is a wonderful inscription, which I’m going to read to you. Excuse me putting on my glasses. Here it is in Latin.

This is the original inscription from 1600 years ago, all done in mosaic. “When Celestinus,” which is Pope Celestinus, “held the highest apostolic throne, and shone forth gloriously as the foremost bishop of the whole world.” In other words, the Pope. “A presbyter of the city, Illyrian by birth, named Peter, and worthy of that great name, established this building at which you look at in wander. From his earliest years he was brought up in the hall of Christ, rich to the poor, poor to himself.” I think that’s such a beautiful line. Rich to the poor, poor to himself. “One who shunned the good things of life on earth, and deserved to hope for the life to come.” Beautiful. It’s the original inscription, dedication, to Peter, not Saint Peter, Saint Peter who was Illyrian by birth, from the Greek Islands, and he paid, an elder of Rome, he paid for this church to be built. Now on either side of this inscription is something extremely important. One of the treasures of this church. And there are many. I could talk for three hours about the treasures of this church, but you have two figures, one on the left, and one on the right. These represent the old covenant and the new covenant of Christianity. Now the New Jerusalem Church, capital N, capital J, capital C, was established in 50 AD. There was a meeting in Jerusalem to establish what should this new Christianity be? And there was the understanding that for those that were Jews already, they would carry on their Old Testament practises.

But for those that were coming into the faith as converts to Christianity, not only did they not need to keep some of those Old Testament practises, but in fact they were obligated to not keep them. So those that were coming into Christianity should not be circumcised. This was the principle that was established in the New Jerusalem Church in 50 AD. So what you have on the left is the circumcised Jew, and on the right, the uncircumcised Christian. Sorry, let me start again. What you have on the left is the Jew who was circumcised, who became Christian, and what you have on the right is the person that was born into the new faith, and therefore should not be circumcised, and was from that new faith of Christianity. This is a very important thing. This is a snapshot of the birth pangs of Christianity in 50 AD, that subsequently became part and parcel of the Byzantine Empire. Incredibly important. Let’s move on. Let me show you another treasure of this church. And this is so Rome, ‘cause Rome is just as full of these treasures. These are windows, these are the original 1700-year-old windows. They’re not made of glass. They’re made from crystallised gypsum, but yet they let the light in. They are really beautiful things to see. And you can see the age of them, these worn edges to them. So a very, very, very ancient set of windows. Let’s move on to another picture, and I’m going to show you another treasure of this church, because we look at this door, and we, if you first just look at the lintel above the door, that is from the Baths of Caracalla.

So again, spolia used for other purposes. Now look again. Top-left panel. To the next picture, please. Let’s look close up at the top-left panel. And you can see there the earliest known depiction of Jesus crucified between the two thieves. Isn’t that incredible? These are the original doors made 1600 years ago, and here you have Jesus, surrounded by Dismas and Gestas, the two thieves between which he was crucified. There they are depicted on this door. There’s no label in the church, there’s no label near the door. Those that know, know, and those that don’t, don’t. But it’s so Rome, in a sense, that here you have this church, just look at what it has. Those three things I’ve just shown you, just those three alone, the commemoration of the New Jerusalem protocol, I suppose, about what future Christianity was. This remarkable survivor of an early Byzantine door, giving that important depiction, and those magnificent windows. Such is Rome, it’s full of such treasures. Let’s move on. And we go to the Church of San Paolo Fuori le Mura, the church of San Paolo Outside of the Walls, because these were originally outside of the walls of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I’m sorry, of Rome. Let’s have a look at this. Now what you’re looking at here is actually a 19th century church, but built on a Byzantine structure. So again, you can see that simple structure, the colonnades, the atrium around the outside, the colonnades there. It’s beautifully symmetrical. I love it. I like symmetry. And it really is a tremendous structure. That said, although it’s a 19th century structure, there has been a church built on this site since 324 AD.

It’s named after the traditional burial site of Paul of Tarsus, Saint Paul, who died in 64 AD. Now let’s move on, and let’s look at some of the other pictures of this church. And I want to say something really remarkable about something that happened here as recently as 2002. Beautiful picture of the facade. And again, please, Emily, thanks. And another one. Byzantine style, but 19th century. It’s vast, as you can see. You can really get an idea. Now this is a really important church, because this was the traditional burial site of Paul, but like so many traditional burial sites, how can one trust these things? One has to treat these things with a pinch of salt, until 2002, when there were some repairs being done to the foundation of the church, and a marble sarcophagus was found with three words on it. Three simple words, Paul the apostle martyr. This was a 1900-year-old sarcophagus. The Vatican archaeologists were poring all over it, but perhaps once bitten, twice shy, because they were so still smarting from the Shroud of Turin, and the results of the carbon dating with the Shroud of Turin that showed that it was probably mediaeval rather than 2,000 years old, they were very nervous about doing checks on this. But whole teams of archaeologists have been moving in on this, and with the permission of the Vatican, in 2009, the late Pope Benedict XVI gave permission for a small camera to be sent in, to be probed in.

A little hole was drilled in the sarcophagus, was drilled in, and there they found pieces of incense, some pieces of purple fabric, some blue linen, and some tiny bone fragments. The linen was carbon dated, as were the bone fragments, and they are indeed 1st century. So this could be a rare example of what it claims to be, the remains of Saint Paul. One has to treat these things with great caution, but there is something extremely ancient within that sarcophagus, and everything, all the other things within the sarcophagus, do seem to tally with a person of wealth, of influence, of power, all those things that Paul had. It was a very, very, it is, a very, very interesting ongoing explanation. What you’re looking at here, as I say, is the 19th century version of, it’s the seventh church on the site since 324 AD. The first church built Byzantine period. Let’s move on, please. And we’re looking at San Stefano della Rotondo, a real beauty of a church, named after Saint Stephen, the first pilgrim, the first martyr of Christianity, who was martyred outside Saint Stephen’s Gate in Jerusalem. The gate is known in Arabic as . The gate is known in English as the Lion’s Gate. The gate is known in English as Saint Stephen’s Gate. As with all things in Jerusalem, very little agreement over what to call iconic parts of the city. Again, those that attended my Jerusalem lectures will recall how every major part of Jerusalem, every major sort of gate within the city, is known by multiple names, depending on what faith you come from, on what history you go by, and so on, such is the richness of that city. Saint Stephen was martyred in 34 AD, and his remains were brought to San Stefano della Rotondo very early on in the Byzantine period.

This is another Byzantine church within Rome, round, but within a cruciform pattern. Let’s go in and have a look at some of the pictures there. You have 22, oh, let’s have a look at these beautiful walls first, and in through the gatehouse, it’s this time warp of a building. To the next picture, please. And in through the gate. Chiesa San Stefano Rotondo above the gate. It’s beautiful. It’s tucked away off the beaten track. And in through the gate. And again, please. And then we come in to the church itself. Inside please. And to the next one. It’s almost like a rural idyll. Into its courtyard. Look at that. And again, please. And again. Beautiful structure. There was my bike parked outside. In I went, to the next picture, and there you can see the round structure. Now because this church commemorates the first Christian martyr, Saint Stephen, as I said, martyred 34 AD, it has these very gruesome paintings on the walls. It’s a very simple structure, round dome structure, within a cruciform pattern, as I said. Let’s have a look at some of those depictions of martyrdom. They are pretty gruesome. We go through the side door into the walls to the next one, and to the next one, really gives you a sense of the height of it. Beautiful capitals upon columns, high church, 1400 years old, as I say. And to the next. And let’s just go through quite quickly, death by upside-down crucifixion, Saint Peter.

And by beheading. Keep on going Emily. They’re pretty gruesome. And by being eaten by lions, and by being ripped apart, defenestration, thrown out of windows, boiled alive, pretty grim stuff. The deaths of the early Christian martyrs. Being eaten by dogs and wolves, flayed alive, pouring boiling oil into people. Pretty horrific stuff. Buried alive. So there are huge amounts of depictions. You can keep going through, Emily. Huge amounts of depictions of these terrible scenes of what was going on to the early Christian martyrs. And there is the original sarcophagus, 1700 years old. It’s actually older than that, it’s a Roman sarcophagus that was then subsequently used for Saint Stephen’s remains. Now underneath this church is a mithraeum, and I’m going to come more to that in the next lecture, what mithraems were. They were all to do with the cult of Mithras, and remember that word. It’s particularly important. It’s particularly fascinating. More on that next time. Okay, let’s move on. Beautiful details on the walls from the Byzantine period, this use of gold, and red, and blue mosaic tiles to get that effect. And to the next one, please. And to the next. Me proudly standing outside the door, after meeting some very interesting people inside that really gave me a wonderful tour of the place. Okay, let’s move on. And we’re looking at this jewel, Santa Costanza. Costanza was the daughter of Constantine the Great, who I’ve mentioned to you. He died in, well he converted to Christianity in 326 AD, and he built a church for his daughter who predeceased him.

Now there is some debate whether this church was built as a church, or simply as a shrine. It soon became a church. It’s on Via Nomentana, the road to the town of Nomentana. It’s again off the beaten track. It is an absolutely jewel of a place. Let’s have a look at this. So one approaches Santa Costanza. There she is, this beautiful stone and gilt statue of her behind the altar. Just click on to the next one, Emily. Really beautiful little image of Santa Costanza looking very Roman, to stress the fact that this was the Byzantine period still. Still Rome, though Christian. And to the next. And to the next one, please. Everything about this church is beauty and refinement, a square structure, but then within, and then on top of that, a round structure built. Again, Byzantine period, use of spolia. Look at the lintel above the door. Came from another Roman temple. The bricks were used from other buildings as well. Let’s go through these pictures. You can just carry on, Emily, and I’ll halt you if I just want to say something about it. There’s the back of the church, and the entrance, and in through the door, and in we go. Never a soul there. Everything is beauty here. Just halt it there. Sorry, Emily. Now you can get, that’s fine, thank you. There you can get a real sense of this space. It’s absolutely bathed in light coming in through the windows. I don’t believe any lights were actually on. It’s so beautifully designed, it just makes the most of the natural light as it comes through, and you have lots of pairs of columns used from a previous Roman temple, with capitals atop, and then these strange, square, rectangular stone structures above the capitals.

Almost coffin-like. They almost look like chests, but I’ve never seen a design like it anywhere else. It was a one-off structure. Now look at the very back, and you can see at the back, a red structure. This is a remake of the original sarcophagus of Costanza. The actual original sarcophagus of Costanza, the daughter of Constantine, is in the Vatican Museums for all to see. But as I say, everything is beauty. A tradition of beauty is carried on in this church. Carry on through these pictures, Emily, thank you. And you can see, look at the lights, look at the fabrics, look at the seats. Everything is refinement in this building. Absolutely exquisite. Look at the stones, spolia stones, secondary use. Look at the seats. It’s beautiful. The whole thing is a jewel, but its real jewel are these. Halt it there, please. These are the mosaics within the ambulatory of the church. An ambulatory is a sort of covered passage around a cloister or a processional way. So it’s covered, often decorated, but not always. And the ambulatory of this church is round, and within that ambulatory is the most amazing survivor of these mosaics. Now what’s really unusual about the mosaics is that with one exception, these mosaics are of a secular nature. So they are not depicting religious scenes, which is probably why they survived. They didn’t get ripped out by anybody, because they offended nobody. Let’s have a look at some of the closeups of these mosaics. Look at them. They’re people dancing.

And again, please. They are people pulling oxen. They are grapes and vines. This is the only religious mosaic within it, and it is very important. This depicts Jesus, but Jesus is wearing the robes of a Caesar, the gold and the red purple robes, and he’s passing to Peter the keys. Remember that line, I’ll read it to you from the gospels. It’s very famous. Matthew 16:19. “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” This is incredibly important. This is one of the earliest depictions of the early church trying to make it clear that the authority of Jesus, and the authority of God, was now channelled through the papal authority. And where does the papal authority come from? It comes from, yes, the authority of Jesus, but the Pope inherits the authority of the ancient Caesars. This is an incredibly important snapshot of the thinking of the early church. It is, in effect, saying that we the church are in charge, and that the Popes have the authority that comes from Ancient Rome, and they have the authority that comes from Jesus himself. It is a remarkably important survivor, saying where that line of authority comes from. Very, very important piece. Now let’s look onto some more of these absolutely fantastic mosaics. Just hone in on some of these please, Emily, and you’ll see. Look at the condition of these. Hold it there. Look at the middle of that pot. Here you see a pot with gold edging with two pigeons. We’ve all seen scenes like this.

Nothing’s changed. There’s nothing new under the sun. If you go in a little closer to the next picture, please, you’ll see that these are just scenes that we would all be familiar with. Look at the pigeons, look at the birds, just sitting on the trees. Nothing religious about that at all. It survived. Look at the 3D effect of these things. It’s remarkable. Move on to the next picture, please. Look how they twist with a little bit of gold mosaic, to get that twist of the horn. Again, remember, nothing religious there, just beauty. And finally we get here to the sarcophagus of Costanza. This, as I mentioned, is a recreation of that, recreated in the 16th century, I believe, when the original was taken out from the church, and is now in the Vatican Museums. Let’s move on to the last few things I want to show you. There we leave the beautiful Costanza, and we move to Santa Maria Trastevere, which is, to the next picture. Trastevere is a neighbourhood in Rome. It literally means beyond the Tiber. So this was an area beyond the Tiber, beyond the main parts of occupation in Roman times. It’s now a very trendy area. Up until 30 years ago, this was quite a rough and ready area. It’s now been gentrified, to a certain extent, but there are still fantastic things to find in Trastevere, and in the next lecture that I’ll be giving, which I’m just checking my dates here, which is the 14th March, I’m going to take you to some churches in Trastevere which you’ll never forget.

Let’s have a look at this church. This is Santa Maria Trastevere, one of the oldest churches in Rome. It has a Romanesque frontage. But now let’s go into that church, and you can see some of the beautiful golden mosaics. Just look at the richness of this. There is Christ in majesty, surrounded by the 12 apostles, in the apse of the church. Remember, the apse, it’s a Byzantine-shaped church, not churches as we’d normally see them in Western churches, long and straight with a curved apse at the end. And to the next picture, please. And to the next one. All is gold in this church. Wonderful mosaics from the 5th century. And to the next. And to the next one, please. And now to our last two churches. Two sisters, both of whom were martyred, Santa Pudentiana and Santa Praxedes. Now they are two very interesting churches in quite poor neighbourhoods within Rome. Again, hardly anybody seems to get to them. The first is Santa Pudentiana. Let’s open that one. They were early martyrs. Notice how high the buildings are to the church, because to get to that church you have to go down a whole flight of steps, because that church, although the structure is a 17th century structure, and the belfry at the back is a 14th century belfry, the church itself is 2nd century. This church is built upon an Ancient Roman house, a house where Christians secretly met in those early centuries of Christianity, when to be a Christian, you’d be sent to the coliseum, and be sent to execution, terrible deaths and persecution. So this church, let’s go inside, is an absolute beauty.

It’s an amazing survivor. Within that is a relic of Santa Pudentiana. And let’s go to the next picture. You can see some of the steps from the original house, where the Christians lived and worshipped secretly until, of course, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, the beginning of the Byzantine period. Note again, that little twisted, barley twist column, on the right, the original Byzantine from the original Byzantine period. To the next picture. Beautiful, beautiful stonework. Roman marble, again, spolia from a previous temple. This is the very beginning of Christianity in Rome, what you are looking at. Those steps are from an early Christian house that those Christians used to live in and exist in. Indeed, this house was the residence of popes until the year 313, when Emperor Constantine, already softening in his Christianity, in his attitude towards Christians, although he hadn’t yet converted, he then gave over land to those Christians. But this is the nascent Christianity. You’re looking at the steps those Christians used in those very early generations of Christianity in Rome. Moving on, please, to our final church coming up, and that is Santa Praxedes, the sister of Santa Pudentiana. It’s in an area called Monti in Rome, which means mountain or hillock, and in 780, Emperor Hadrian I commissioned this church. It is a jewel. It was the church dedicated to many martyrs, and it’s considered, they’re considered the finest of all mosaics of the Byzantine period in Rome. Let’s quickly have a look at these jewels.

So here we have the chapel, or there we have the entrance, an unprepossessing entrance on a side street in Rome, and in you step to this wonderful survivor. This is the Chapel of San Zeno, was built in 822. It was commissioned by Pope Paschal, and here you have a selection of saints and apostles. You have the 12 apostles, six on either sides of Jesus at the top, and a group of female saints. Very unusual to have female saints only depicted within a church. And within that bowl in the middle is a piece of what is said to have been the pillar upon which Jesus was flogged during the Passion leading up to the crucifixion. Let’s have a look at some more pictures within this church. The most exquisite ceilings. Jesus the Lamb of God at the bottom, and there is Jesus between two of the apostles. And moving on again, absolutely wonderfully preserved mosaics. And very unusually, very important mosaic. Here you have two angels holding up an empty throne, because Jesus was now embodied by the Pope, the living embodiment, Christ’s priest on earth living in Rome. What is this telling the pilgrims that came to Rome? That their first loyalty, in a sense, is to the Pope and to Rome. This is now the embodiment of Christianity. It’s a further development to what we saw in Santa Costanza. So the throne of Jesus is empty. There’s no Jesus on it, because Jesus, the embodiment of Jesus, is within Rome that the pilgrims should be giving their first loyalties, and their first devotions to.

Moving on to the final pictures. You can see the most wonderful, beautiful ceiling held up by very Greek-Roman-looking angels. Look at these angels, holding Jesus up in the middle there. If ever there was a Byzantine idea, there it is, this Greek-Roman embodiment of Christianity. Looks more like the ancient world, but this is indeed a Christian world, a cross between angels, and Greeks, and Romans. And the final couple of pictures is this one. Thank you. And to the next one. And this is the final picture, and it’s fascinating. Here you have four saints lined up, three of them with your traditional round halos, and the saint on the left, you will notice, has a square halo. Now we do not know who this saint is, but it is an extremely rare example of a square halo, rather like Santa Sabina and Santa Costanza, I could spend all day talking about this particular church of Santa Praxedes, because there is so much in it about the iconography. But the key thing about these halos that are square, is that they were normally used when the saint was still alive. A very rare thing. When either the saint was still alive, or when the person that had donated money to build the church was still alive. So that might well be Pope Paschal, or it might well be another person that financed the church with a square halo, denoting that the saint, or the person there, is still living. On that very beautiful depiction from Byzantine Rome, I’m going to sign off and start to take questions. Our next lecture is on the 14th March, and that is going to be entitled “The Mother of All Churches, Secret Glories of Catholic Rome.” And I’m going to show you some really wonderful little corners, for now, let’s go to the questions, and here they go.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: Oh, my goodness, right. “What is the vintage maker’s name of the longcase clock to your right?”

A: Well, it’s a good question. Don’t know the answer to that, because the clock was painted over many times, it’s a pretty old one, but the maker’s name is long gone. There will be a maker’s name within the mechanism, but thankfully, the clock is always working, so I never had to get it repaired, and therefore I don’t know who the maker is. One day I’ll find out.

Q: “Why didn’t Byzantine Rome speak Latin?”

A: Because by then the focus of power, if you think, the whole energy of Constantine was to convert to Christianity, and convert the Roman Empire to Christianity, so he could have the maximum gain. Now how do you, oh, my battery is about to go, so I’m plugging it in. One second. How do you, if you are Constantine the Great, trying to get hold of, sorry about this. Just need to make sure I’m not cut off. I’m on low battery. If you are Constantine the Great, wanting to get the most out of this conversion of empire to Christianity, you don’t want to force the whole of a population in Constantinople, who don’t speak Latin, who speak Greek and other languages, to speak languages alien to them. You want to envelop everything possible. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to join. So those that were in Rome carried on speaking Latin, and those that were in Constantinople spoke the language that they already spoke, which was Greek. Now the balance of power had shifted. The centre of the Roman Empire was Constantinople, and that is why the language, in effect, became the Latin of that last quadrant of the Roman Empire. Remember, period of the kings, period of the republic, period of the imperial period, and now the Byzantine period, that is why that final Byzantine period, in effect, the de facto language of the Roman Empire, where the Roman Empire was channelled, in other words, Constantinople, was Greek. Hope that explains that.

Q: “How long did it take to build?”

A: What are you referring to Hannah there? If you could just clarify that.

Q: “How were all these magnificent buildings financed?”

A: Hello Ellie, nice to see your name. How were these magnificent buildings financed? Variety of things. They were financed by, in Constantinople, by trade. They were financed by the remnants of the Roman Empire. They were financed by the early popes, who were immensely wealthy in what they were collecting from the faithful, but in the main, they were financed from the massive trading empire that Constantinople was soon becoming. Constantinople, in the end, was funding Rome, but Rome was becoming more, and more, and more of a backwater. So although I have shown you some of these magnificent Byzantine buildings within Rome, the most magnificent of the Byzantine structures were in the northern part of Italy like Ravenna, the trade routes. Rome was becoming more and more of a backwater, and was becoming almost like the sad elder sister that everybody had loved once, but was now in decline. I hope that answers your question, Ellie.

Q: Shelly, “Was Byzantine Rome Catholic under the Pope, or was it Eastern Orthodox like Greece?”

A: Byzantine was Eastern Orthodox, indeed, like Greece, although remember, papal authority was, how can I put it? The papal authority, they wanted it to reach as far as Constantinople, but that simply was not possible. So that is when you get the beginning of the real splintering of Christianity, between the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which still exists to this day. The father figure of all the Orthodox churches is based in Constantinople, Bartholomew, who you can meet any Sunday morning in the Greek Patriarchate in Istanbul, current-day Istanbul, and papal authority existed in Rome over what we would now know as Western Europe. So that’s when we see this real split coming in.

Q: James, “Would there originally have been mosaics in Santa Sabina?”

A: Absolutely.

Q: “As in the slightly later Byzantine basilica church in Ravenna?”

A: Yes, they would have, but we also know that most of the decorations in Santa Sabina, there were mosaics, but most of the decorations were huge slabs of marble. I’m not downgrading them. They were very skillfully and beautifully grafted pieces of marble, but it was mainly cut marble decorations, slabs of marble cemented to the walls. There was some mosaic in the apse at the end, but there was also marble.

Q: “If so, what happened to them? Were they lost later during periods of iconoclasm?”

A: Some were, some were not. Many were covered up. In the period of iconoclasm, many of them were covered up.

Q: And Jean, “Where is the sarcophagus of Paul now?”

A: I believe it is still within the church, in the actual, what’s the word? The catacombs of the church underneath. It’s being kept there. It is still there, and there is lots of stuff being done.

Q: Hilton, “Is the Shroud of Turin still on display?”

A: Yes and no. Every 33 years it is displayed, 33 being the year of Jesus, the age of Jesus when he died, and although during that sort of pretty disastrous carbon dating test, and the Vatican allowed, it allowed a number of tiny microscopic, almost microscopic, slightly larger than microscopic, pieces of fabric to be sent away to, I think it was Berlin, London, and somewhere in America, I can’t remember where, they all independently came back saying that it was mediaeval. There is still some debate whether the carbon dating was correct, and the church isn’t, of course, happy with, excuse me, isn’t happy with the result, but unfortunately, yeah, it has been very much, many people have now lost faith that that is the Shroud, but it’s a fascinating story, and it is still unveiled every 33 years. Thank you, Yanna.

Q: “Compare the design of San Paolo Fuori and the Getty Villa in California.”

A: I never have, and I certainly shall. Thank you. Moving on very quickly. I’m just going down here. Sorry.

“Where would Santa Sabina,” I’ve answered that one.

Yes, “Spiral column in Santa Pudentiana has Hebrew letters.” I must have another look at that. Thank you for that, Marion.

Q: “Could you please tell me what area’s buildings in Rome you’ll be covering next time?”

A: Yolande, all over Rome, because I’m going to be pointing out some of the great Catholic structures within Rome, rather than the Byzantine structures, the imperial Roman structures. I’m going to be looking at the Catholic structures in Rome, so all over, so dotted here, there, and everywhere, but I hope structures that some of you might not be familiar with. Thank you, Lorna. My pleasure.

Q: “Who pays for the upkeep of these churches?”

A: The Roman Catholic Church. 100%. They pay for the upkeep of these.

“Is there any significance with,” ah, that said, some of these churches are sponsored by churches around the world, so Santa Pudentiana is very popular among Roman Catholics from the Philippines. So it’s Roman Catholics from the Philippines that help with the upkeep, but it is the Roman Catholic Church that pays for them, yes.

Q: “Is there any significance related to the lamb mosaic in the very last picture?”

A: Yes. It’s “Behold Jesus the Lamb of God,” one of the old names, and one of the old descriptions of Jesus.

Q: Marion, “Santa Sabina’s a church with apse. Can you say which end of the building the apse is?”

A: It is the eastern end, Marion.

Q: And Barry, final question here, actually. “Did Byzantine Christians live in underground cities in Turkey?”

A: They certainly lived in… Underground cities? Not to my knowledge. No. No, because by the time we get to Christians in the Byzantine period, it was perfectly open. Not only that, that part of the world was Christian, so they would have no reason to live underground out of fear. Unless you’re thinking of Cappadocia. Is that something else, where you’re thinking about Christians living in the caves of Cappadocia, which might be something else?

We’ve slightly run over. It’s eight minutes past eight. Thank you all for attending. Thank you. Bye-Bye.