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Bringing the Holy Sepulchre to the west: S. Stefano, Bologna, from the fifth to the twentieth century1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Colin Morris*
Affiliation:
University of Southampton

Extract

By virtue of its basic pattern of belief, the Church is committed to looking back as well as forward. In his introductory letter for the Conference which has produced this volume, Andrew Martindale reminded us that ‘doctrine, dogma, and revelation are all pinned to time and place’. Most of all are they rooted in Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre, the site of the death and Resurrection of the Lord. It is true that, in particular since the Reformation, the theology of the Passion and Resurrection have often been discussed without reference to their historical location. Other Christians in other times, confident that the Holy Sepulchre discovered under Constantine was indeed the authentic place of Christ’s Resurrection, desired to reach out to and to grasp its historical and geographical reality, for these embody the very time and place of their redemption.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1997

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Footnotes

1

I am glad to express my thanks to the Leverhulme Trust for the award of an Emeritus Fellowship, which funded research on the continent, including visits to Bologna and other ‘copies’ of the Holy Sepulchre in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany.

References

2 See D. Neri, ‘La leggenda di trasferire il S. Sepolcro a Firenze’, La Terra Santa, 65 (1989), pp. 73–6; see also his book, Il S. Sepolcro riprodotto in Occidente (Jerusalem, 1971), pp. 88–93.

3 G. Fasoli, ‘Storiografia Stefaniana tra XII e XVII secolo’, in G. Fasoli, ed., Stefaniana: contributi per la storia del complesso di S. Stefano in Bologna (Bologna, 1985) [hereafter Stefaniana], p. 27; C. Valenziano, ‘Mimesis Anamnesis: spazio-temporale per il triduo pasquale’, in I. Scicolone, ed., La celebrazione del triduo pasquale, anamnesis e mimesis. Studia Anselmiana, 102 (Rome, 1990), p. 33.

4 There has been some outstanding work in recent years on the complex of churches. In this article, I am especially indebted to the studies by Montorsi, William, S. Stefano in Bologna, 2 vols (Modena, 1980)Google Scholar [hereafter Montorsi], and Serchia, L., ed., Nel Segno del San Sepolcro (Vigevano, 1987)Google Scholar [hereafter Serchia]. For a full bibliography, see Serchia pp. 457–61. The section on Bologna in Stocchi, S., L’Emilia-Romagna, Italia Romanica, 6 (Milan, 1984)Google Scholar [hereafter Stocchi], pp. 301–37, is an excellent survey, primarily founded on the views of Montorsi. Important studies on copies of the Sepulchre in Western Europe include Dalman, G., Das Grab Christi in Deutschland (Leipzig, 1922)Google Scholar; R. Krautheimer, ‘Introduction to an iconography of medieval architecture’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 5 (1942), pp. 1–33; Heitz, C., Recherches sur les rapports entre architecture et liturgie à l’époque carolingienne (Paris, 1963)Google Scholar; Neri, Il S. Sepolcro riprodotto in Occidente (but the work is older than its date of 1971 suggests); G. Bresc-Bautier, ‘Les imitations du S. Sépulcre de Jérusalem (IXe-XVe siècles). Archéologie d’une dévotion’, Revue d’histoire de la spiritualité, 50 (1974), pp. 319–42; Untermann, M., Der Zentralbau im Mittelalter: Form, Funktion, Verbreitung (Darmstadt, 1989)Google Scholar; and Ousterhout, R., ‘Loca Sancta and the architectural response to pilgrimage’, in Ousterhout, R., ed., The Blessings of Pilgrimage (Chicago, 1990), pp. 10824 Google Scholar.

5 Lanzoni, F., San Petronio vescovo di Bologna nella storia e nella leggenda (Rome, 1907)Google Scholar [hereafter Lanzoni], pp. 231–2. I have assumed in the text that the anonymous author was describing in turn the model of the Sepulchre, the octagon which encloses it, and the present cortile di Pilato, but his intentions are not really very clear.

6 Corti, M., ed., Vita di San Petronio (Bologna, 1962), p. xiii Google Scholar. The introduction to this book provides strong reasons for thinking that the thirteenth-century vernacular Life, which she edits, was a translation of a Latin ‘first edition’, of which the surviving Latin text is an inferior version. This earlier text, which does not survive, must nevertheless be dated after the middle of the twelfth century.

7 The finding of the relics is well summarized in Dudden, F. Homes, The Life and Times of St Ambrose (Oxford, 1935), pp. 31618 Google Scholar (with references). Brief, and slightly divergent, accounts are given of Petronius by Eucherius of Lyon and by Gennadius, De viris illustribus, ch. 42: see Schaffand, P. Ware, H., eds. Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., 3 (New York, 1892), p. 393 Google Scholar.

8 The likelihood that the present S. Sepolcro was originally a baptistry is greatly increased if S. Stefano was at first the cathedral of the city. Lanzoni denied that it was ever a cathedral: see his Appendix 5. The summary in Stocchi, p. 307, is judicious: ‘One can suppose, but not prove, that this basilica [SS. Vitale e Agricola] was the first cathedral of Bologna, or one of the first, and that the octagonal rotunda, properly called S. Stefano, was later added as its baptistry.’

9 The phrase is that of Montorsi, p. 18.

10 Lanzoni, p. 71. So also p. 51: ‘the value of the Vita as a whole is rather slight’.

11 Lanzoni, p. 114: ‘The three edifices at Bologna were oriented like the constructions at Jerusalem. The obvious conclusion is therefore that the architects of the edifices at Bologna intended to reproduce the Constantinian constructions at Jerusalem.’ Recent work in the church of the Holy Sepulchre has inevitably generated an enormous amount of publication, among which there are important works by C. Coüasnon, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (Oxford, 1974); Corbo, V. C., Il santo sepolcro di Gerusalemme, 3 vols (Jerusalem, 1981-2)Google Scholar; and Gibson, S. and Taylor, J. E., Beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (London, 1994)Google Scholar. For an excellent summary, see Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P., The Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (Jerusalem, nd [1995])Google Scholar.

12 In particular, it has been argued by Robert Ousterhout that the Romanesque octagon was an imitation of the Anastasis as it was rebuilt about 1050, after the destruction of the original by Caliph al-Hakîm. See his article, ‘The Church of S. Stefano: a “Jerusalem” in Bologna’, Cesta, 20 (1981), pp. 311–21, which is essentially reproduced in Italian in Stefaniana, pp. 131–58; also his ‘Osservazioni sulla galleria del S. Sepolcro a S. Stefano di Bologna’, Stefaniana, pp. 159–67. The fact that Ousterhout is a major authority on the shrine at Jerusalem requires one to take his detailed analysis very seriously. For the contrary view, see Serchia, pp. 147–8, where he specifically rejects Ousterhout’s argument, and asserts that in the rebuilding after 1141 ‘nothing was added which could in any way refer to the planometry of the sanctuaries on Golgotha, as they were restored by Constantine Monomachos’, that is in the mid-eleventh century.

13 Some confirmatory arguments from liturgy were presented by Giulio Belvederi, in his article, ‘La liturgia della Passione a Gerusalemme e in Occidente al secolo IV e al secolo V, Rivista di Archaeologia Cristiana, 8 (1931) [hereafter Belvederi], pp. 315–46. Belvederi was right in supposing that the ceremonies which he was discussing originated in Jerusalem in the mid-fourth century, but he ignored the fact that they were widespread in the West in the Carolingian period. There are no grounds for thinking that Bologna was early and unique in its imitation of the Jerusalem liturgy.

14 Giulio Belvederi was an even more enthusiastic advocate of continuity than Lanzoni: ‘We may say that Bolognese tradition has every reason to claim and be considered to be true and worthy of belief. … It can be concluded that from a desire to represent to the mind and hearts of believers far away from the Holy Places of the Passion,… Petronius constructed in his episcopal see sacred edifices which from the earliest period until now have been recalled with the same of Jerusalem.’ (Belvederi, pp. 324, 346)

15 See the crucial article of Camillo Boito, ‘I nostri vecchi monumenti: conservare o restaurare?’, Nuova Antologia di Scienze, Lettere e Arti, ser. 3, 87 (1886), pp. 480–506.

16 Serchia, ch. 1. Some of Gozzadini’s major articles are listed in the bibliography there, pp. 457–8.

17 Montorsi, pp. 172–3.

18 See the remarks of Montorsi, pp. 192–8.

19 Lanzoni, p. 112.

20 The whole Lanzoni-Belvederi position was powerfully criticized by A. Testi Rasponi, ‘Note marginali al L. P. di Agnello: IV. Vita Sancti Petronii Episcopi et Confessons’, Atti e Memorie della R. Deputazione di Storia Patria per le provincie di Romagna, ser. 4, 2 (1912) [hereafter Testi Rasponi], pp. 120–262. Belvederi’s own conclusions from the excavations can be found in his article, ‘La S. Giuliana Bolognese’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, 4 (1927), pp. 141–50.

21 Montorsi, p. 236.

22 Serchia, p. 35. Strictly, there were two ‘moments’, since the restorations of Gozzadini had a rather different motive from those perpetrated under the influence of Belvederi.

23 Lanzoni, p. 112: ‘The Holy Cross was the principal ornament of the ancient basilica of Calvary at Bologna, as it was of the basilica of Constantine.’

24 The Lombard inscription on the catino di Pilato of about 740 contains a mysterious abbreviation ‘IHB’, but the attempt to treat this as a reference to ‘Jerusalem’ seems far-fetched.

25 H. Grisar, Antiche basiliche di Roma imitanti i sanctuari di Gerusalemme e Betlemme, Analecta Romana, 1899.

26 L. Duchesne, ed., Liber Pontiftcalis [hereafter LP], i, 2nd edn (Paris, 1955), pp. 242, 261.

27 LP i, p. 179, where ‘our own day’ probably refers to the beginning of the sixth century. In the late Middle Ages, a mosaic inscription datable before 434 still survived in the church, and referred to it as ‘the holy church Jerusalem’.

28 The diploma of 887 only gives the name of the church, without any details, among a list of possessions: Kehr, P., ed., Die Urkunden der deutschen Karolinger, 2, MGH Dip. II (Berlin, 1937), no. 171, pp. 2767 Google Scholar. For a document of 1017 see Lanzoni, p. 104.

29 So Gregory VII, 22 March 1074: ‘the monastery of St Stephen, which is called Jerusalem, and which St Petronius built’ (J. v. Pflugk-Harttung, ed., Acta Pontificum Romanorum Inedita [Tubingen, 1889, repr. Graz, 1958], no. 158, pp. 122–3). This was followed by documents of Paschal II in 1114, Lucius II in 1144, and Anastasius IV in 1153.

30 On the relationship of the two Lives of Bononius, and some of the dating problems, see Lanzoni Appendix 3, and Testi Rasponi, pp. 166–7.

31 For references, see Belvederi, pp. 340–1. The grant of 959 is damaged, but Belvederi argues convincingly that the reference is to S. Giovanni di Monte Oliveto.

32 The monastery, however, could be older: the change in 973, for all we know, may have been a response to pressure by a monastic community which was already established there. The Life of Bononius would suggest a flourishing religious life in the 970s, although it does not strictly compel one to believe in it.

33 William Montorsi is inclined to discount any major change in this period, and suggests that ‘Jerusalem’ simply meant a place of pilgrimage, a ‘Mecca for pilgrims’: see Montorsi, p. 19. For references to literature on the use of the name ‘Jerusalem’, see Cardini, F., ‘L’inizio del movimento crociato in Toscana’, in Sestan, E., ed., Studi di storia medievale e moderna, 1 (Florence, 1980), pp. 1389 Google Scholar. The monastery of Tuscolo was said to have been called ‘Jerusalem’, and the same name was given to the district where it stood: diploma of Benedict VIII, 26 April 1017, in Zimmermann, H., ed., Papsturkunden 896–1046, 2 (Vienna, 1985), no. 516, pp. 9813 Google Scholar.

34 Lanzoni, p. 232.

35 At Paderborn, Bishop Meinwerk had built a church ‘in the likeness of the Holy church of Jerusalem’. In the foundation charter of 25 May 1036, one of the witnesses, Abbot Wino of Helmershausen, was said to have brought back from Jerusalem ‘the measures of the church and Sepulchre’. See G. Mietke, Die Bautatigkeil Bischof Meinwerik von Paderbom und die friihchristliche und byzantinische Architektur (Paderborn, 1991). The chapel of St Michael at Fulda, built early in the ninth century, probably did not contain the copy of the Holy Sepulchre which has been wrongly ascribed to it: Ellger, O., Die Michaelskirche zu Fulda als Zeugnis der Totensorge (Fulda, 1988)Google Scholar.

36 The mention in the Sermo of the ‘Sepulchre created by St Petronius’ provides a clear confirmation of the existence of a version in 1141: see Lanzoni, p. 243. The design of the main part of the existing monument is most naturally seen as late twelfth-century (so that it may, or may not, have been there in 1180). The depictions of the events of Easter morning on the outside of the Tomb are clearly much later additions.

37 Patricelli, Francesco, Cronica della misteriosa et devota chiesa e Badia di S. Stefano in Bologna (Bologna, 1575)Google Scholar. For a survey of these publications as a group, see Fasoli, G., ‘Storiografia Stefaniana tra XII e XVII secolo’, in Stefaniana, pp. 2749 Google Scholar.

38 Patricelli, Cronica, p. 43: ‘rappresenta la Casa, nella quale il Nostro Sig. Giesù Christi, fece l’ultima cena con gli suoi Apostoli. Et rappresenta ancora, l’horto, nel qual’fu egli … preso.’

39 For details, see Fasoli, ‘Storiografia Stefaniana’, p. 40.

40 See Neri, ch. 12, and F. Cardini and G. Vannini, ‘San Vivaldo in Valdelsa: problemi topografici ed interpretazioni simboliche di una “Gerusalemme” cinquecentesca in Toscana’, in Religiosità e società in Valdelsa nel basso Medioevo, Atti del Convegno di S. Vivaldo, 29 settembre 1979, Società Storica della Valdelsa, 1980.