| Basilica of Saint Clement Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano (Italian) |
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| Basic information | |
| Location |  Rome, Italy |
| Geographic coordinates | 41°53′22″N 12°29′51″E / 41.88944°N 12.4975°ECoordinates: 41°53′22″N 12°29′51″E / 41.88944°N 12.4975°E |
| Affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Ecclesiastical status | Basilica |
| Website | Official website |
| Architectural description | |
| Architectural type | Church |
| Direction of facade | EbS |
| Groundbreaking | 1108 |
| Year completed | 1123 |
| Specifications | |
| Length | 45 metres (150 ft) |
| Width | 25 metres (82 ft) |
| Width (nave) | 13 metres (43 ft) |
The Basilica of Saint Clement (Italian: Basilica di San Clemente al Laterano) is a Roman Catholic minor basilica dedicated to Pope Clement I located in Rome, Italy. Archaeologically speaking it is a three-tiered complex of buildings on the site, the lowermost notable as being an archaeological record of a first century insula belonging to T. Flavius Clemens, with remains under it of foundations from the republican era; superposed on it is a second century Roman pagan temple dedicated to Mithras. On the foundations of the 4th century Christian church is the current one built just before the year 1100 during the height of the Middle Ages.
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History
This ancient church was transformed over the centuries from a private home that was the site of clandestine Christian worship in the first century to a grand public basilica by the sixth century, reflecting the emerging Catholic Church's growing legitimacy and power.
Roman buildings
The house was originally owned by Roman consul and martyr Titus Flavius Clemens, who was one of the first among the Roman senatorial class to convert to Christianity. He allowed his house to be used as a secret gathering place for fellow Christians, the religion being outlawed at the time.
There is evidence of pagan worship on the site. In the second century members of a Mithraic cult built a small temple dedicated to Mithras in an insula, or apartment complex, on the site. This low vaulted space, encrusted with pumice that renders it cavelike, was used for initiation rituals, lasted until about the third century. A centrally placed white marble altar is carved in low relief on all four faces, with Mithras killing the bull, torchbearers and a serpent.[1]
The first basilica
Excavations by Fr. Joseph Mullooly in the 1860s revealed the forgotten[2] earlier basilica that underlies the medieval one. St. Jerome writing in 392 attests to a church dedicated to St. Clement. After Christianity became the state religion of Rome in the 390s, the small church underwent expansion, acquiring the adjoining insula and other nearby buildings; Architects began work on the complex of rooms and courtyards, building a central nave over the early church site, and an apse over the former Mithraeum. The new church was dedicated to Pope Clement I, a 1st century AD Christian convert and considered by patrologists and ecclesiastical historians to be identical with Titus Flavius Clemens. Restorations were undertaken in the ninth century and ca 1080-99.[3]
Apart from those in Santa Maria Antiqua, the largest collection of Early Medieval wall paintings are to be found in the lower basilica of San Clemente.[4] Among these, there is one of the earliest examples of the passage from Latin to vernacular Italian: a fresco of around 1100 A.D. depicts the pagan Sisinnius and his servants, who think they have captured St. Clement, but are dragging a column instead; Sisinnius encourages the servants in Italian ("Fili de le pute, traite! Gosmari, Albertel, traite! Falite dereto colo palo, Carvoncelle!)[5], while the saint speaks in Latin ("Duritiam cordis vestris, saxa trahere meruistis").
Over the next several centuries, San Clemente became a beacon for church artists and sculptors, benefitting from Imperial largesse.
The early basilica was the site of councils presided over by Pope Zosimus (417) and Symmachus (499). The last major event that took place in the lower basilica was the election in 1099 of Cardinal Rainerius of St Clemente as Pope Paschal II.
The second basilica
The current basilica was rebuilt in one campaign by Cardinal Anastasius, ca 1099-ca. 1120, after the original church was burned to the ground during the Norman sack of the city under Robert Guiscard in 1084. [6] Today, it is one of the most richly adorned churches in Rome. Its original entrance (a side entrance is ordinarily used today) is through an axial peristyle (B on plan) surrounded by arcades, which now serves as a cloister, with conventual buildings surrounding it. At the rear is Fontana's chaste facade, supported on antique columns, and his little campanile (illustration). The basilica church behind it is in three naves divided by arcades on ancient marble or granite columns, with Cosmatesque inlaid paving. The 12th-century schola cantorum (E on plan) incorporates marble elements from the original basilica. Behind it, in the presbytery is a ciborium (H on plan) raised on four gray-violet columns over the shrine of Clement in the crypt below. The episcopal seat stands in the apse, which is covered with mosaics on the theme of the Triumph of the Cross that are a high point of Roman 12th century mosaics.
Irish Dominicans have been the caretakers of San Clemente since 1667, when England outlawed the Irish Catholic Church and expelled the entire clergy. Pope Urban VIII gave them refuge at San Clemente, where they have remained, running a residence for priests studying and teaching in Rome. The Dominicans themselves conducted the excavations in the 1950s in collaboration with Italian archaeology students.
On one wall in the courtyard there is a plaque affixed by Pope Clement XI, who praises San Clemente, declaring, "This ancient church has withstood the ravages of the centuries." Clement undertook restorations to the venerable structure, which he found dilapidated. He selected Carlo Stefano Fontana, nephew of Carlo Fontana as architect, who erected a new facade, completed in 1719.[7] The carved and gilded coffered ceilings of nave and aisles, fitted with paintings, date from this time, as do the stucco decor, Ionic capitals and frescos.
In one lateral chapel there is a shrine with the tomb of Saint Cyril of the Saints Cyril and Methodius who created the Glagolitic alphabet and Christianized the Slavs. Pope John Paul II used to pray there sometimes for Poland and the Slavic countries [1]. The chapel also holds a Madonna by Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato.
Current Cardinal Priest of the Titulus S. Clementi is Adrianus Johannes Simonis, archbishop emeritus of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Pope Paschal II (1076-1099) was one of the previous holders of the titulus.
Other burials
Notes
- ^ Touring Club Italiano, Roma e dintorni (Milan, 1965) pp.374f.
- ^ "Abandoned c. 1100 A.D. and forgotten until its existence was rediscovered by archaeological excavation in the mid-nineteenth century", remarks John Osborne, in discussing "The 'Particular Judgment': An Early Medieval Wall-Painting in the Lower Church of San Clemente, Rome" The Burlington Magazine 123 No. 939 (June 1981:335-341) p 335.
- ^ Joan E. Barclay Lloyd, "The building history of the medieval church of S. Clemente in Rome" The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 45.3 (September 1986), pp. 197-223.
- ^ 10th century frescoes discussed in Osborne 1981, and mid-eighth century fragmentary frescos discussed in John Osborne, "Early Medieval Painting in San Clemente, Rome: The Madonna and Child in the Niche" Gesta 20.2 (1981:299-310).
- ^ Lourdaux, W. (1984), The Bible and Medieval Culture, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 30-31, ISBN 906186089X, http://books.google.be/books?id=fMWXlHKwehsC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31
- ^ Lloyd 1986|197.
- ^ John Gilmartin, "The Paintings Commissioned by Pope Clement XI for the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome" The Burlington Magazine 116 No. 855 (June 1974, pp. 304-312) p 304.
References
- Mullooly, Joseph (2007). Saint Clement: Pope and Martyr and His Basilica in Rome. Reprint from 1st edition in 1873. Kessinger Publishing, LLC. ISBN 054877854X.
- "San Clemente", article by Chris Nyborg.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: San Clemente (Roma) |
- Kunsthistorie.com gallery.
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