Bones of Contention: Searching for Cosmas and Damian in Venice

22 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by Reliquarian in Tomb / Sarcophagus

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bones, crucifix, Germany, Italy, Munich, relic, Saint Constantius, Saint Eustace, Saints Cosmas and Damian, San Giorgio Maggiore, skull, Tintoretto, Venice

In an earlier post, I discussed a 15^th century Rhenish School-style reliquary located at the Church of Saint Michael (St. Michaelskirche) in Munich. The reliquary purportedly contains the skulls of Saints Cosmas and Damian, although as I noted in the post, other churches are also said to possess the saints’ skulls. The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice is one, and on a recent trip to Venice, I decided to find out whether the church really did posses relics of Saints Cosmas and Damian.

We arrived at San Giorgio Maggiore[1] by vaporetto at dusk. The church was dark and looked deserted, so we were afraid it might be closed. Nevertheless, we gave the door a hopeful nudge, and it yielded freely. The church was open. Inside, a few tourists shuffled through the aisles, straining to catch a glimpse of the church’s treasures – paintings by Tintoretto,[2] Sebastiano Ricci, and Jacopo Bassano[3] – in the fading light, but it was no use. All sense of depth, line, and color seemed to dissolve in the gloaming, and the tourists quickly lost interest. Soon enough, they left, and in the sepulchral stillness of the empty church, we began our search for the skulls of Saints Cosmas and Damian in earnest.

We looked for traces of the saints in the gathering darkness. Were the skulls housed in an elaborate metal reliquary? Were they displayed in sturdy glass cases? Were they even in the church proper rather than in a separate treasury or crypt? We hurried past fading altars, their angels and saints winking at us in the dim light of votive candles. We peered at statutes, examined chiseled writing, and contemplated the high altar. No sign of the saints.

Eventually, we stumbled upon a man striding confidently through the church. It was a priest, and we asked whether he knew about the relics of Saints Cosmas and Damian. He thought for a moment and then invited us to follow him. He led us to the rectory, where we repeated our question to one of his colleagues. “This may sound strange, but we’ve heard that the skulls of Saints Cosmas and Damian may be located here, at Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore. Is this true? Do you know whether the skulls of Saints Cosmas and Damian are here in the church?”

The second priest looked uncertain, and he shook his head as he began to answer. “I don’t know about their skulls,” he said. “But, there is an altar of Cosmas and Damian. Their bones are kept there.” I was elated, and I asked him excitedly where we might find the altar. “It is on the right side,” he explained. “Next to the large crucifix.”

I knew exactly where he meant. Earlier, I had paused before an imposing wooden crucifix, riveted by its wrenching depiction of Christ on the cross.[4] Next to it, we found the altar of Saints Cosmas and Damian. A large painting, the Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian, attributed to the workshop of Tintoretto, hung above it. We had missed it in the darkness! (A black and white image is available here.)

One of the saints is shown in the lower lefthand corner of the painting, his left hand outstretched but tied to a cross that is resting on the ground. One of his persecutors binds his legs to the cross while another monitors his progress. In the upper righthand corner of the painting, his brother is securely bound to another cross, which has already been raised off the ground. In the background, archers loose arrows at him while other figures appear to hurl rocks. According to tradition, the saints were unharmed by attempts to kill them with arrows, by stoning, and by crucifixion. They were eventually beheaded, along with several other brothers, who also appear in the painting, crowned with halos. An angel, tumbling into the scene from heaven, bears palm fronds in his right hand, symbols of martyrdom.

With the aid of a small flashlight – it was truly dark by now – we found a plaque secured above the altar. It read: “OSSA SS · MAR · COSME ET DAMINI IACENT HIC” (Here Lie the Bones of Saints, Martyrs, Cosmas and Damian). We had found their bones.

[1] The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore is located on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, east of the Giudecca, and across the Canale di San Marco from Saint Mark’s Square.

[2] Tintoretto’s celebrated The Last Supper hangs to the right of the high altar, in the presbytery. Painted in the Mannerist style, Tintoretto’s The Last Supper differs from other depictions of the Last Supper in striking ways. For example, the table at which Jesus and the Apostles share their meal is shown at an angle rather than head-on, as in many depictions of the Last Supper (for example, Leonardo da Vinci’s famous rendition at the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan.) Additionally, Jesus and the Apostles are not the only figures present in the scene. Although the eye naturally settles on Jesus, who is surrounded by a brilliant aureole of light, and the Apostles, who are distinguished by halos (except for Judas), some of the largest figures in the painting are ordinary men and women who have prepared and are serving the meal.

[3] Jacopo Bassano’s Adoration of the Shepherds hangs above the first altar on the right side of the nave.

[4] The crucifix is most likely one that was donated to the church in 1468. The crucifix’s deteriorating, polychrome paint was restored in 1984 by the Venice in Peril Fund. Venice in Peril, “Church of San Giorgio Maggiore,” available at http://www.veniceinperil.org/projects/church-of-san-giorgio-maggiore. A sign below the crucifix read “HIC IACET CORPUS S · EUSTACHII PAT · CONST·” (Here Lies the Body of Saint Eustace, Father of [Saint] Constantius) indicating it hangs above the tomb of Saint Eustace. (I briefly discussed Saint Constantius in an earlier post about the Waldauf Chapel in Austria.) For a modest €0.50, were able to illuminate the crucifix for two minutes enabling us to capture a photograph of it.

Saint Zacharias, Father of John the Baptist

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by Reliquarian in Tomb / Sarcophagus

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Bellini, church, Italy, John the Baptist, relic, Saint Athanasius, Saint Elizabeth, Saint Zacharias, Tintoretto, tomb, Venice

Altar and Tomb of Saint Zacharias

The Story of Saint Zacharias

All that is known of Saint Zacharias and his wife, Saint Elizabeth, is contained in chapter 1 of the Gospel of Saint Luke. According to Saint Luke, Zacharias was a priest, and Elizabeth was a daughter of the house of Aaron. As noted in Butler’s Lives of the Saints, “They were without children, and perhaps beyond the normal age of generation, when Zachary, while officiating in the Temple, had a vision of an angel, who told him that in response to their prayers they should have a son . . . .”[1] The Gospel of Saint Luke states, “[T]he angel said unto him, Fear not Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth.”[2]

Zacharias was skeptical and questioned the angel. “Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.”[3] The angel, Gabriel, responded by striking Zacharias dumb for doubting his word. “And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.”[4]

Elizabeth conceived and hid for five months. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel appeared to Elisabeth’s cousin, Mary, with even more miraculous news. “Fear not, Mary,” he told her, “for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.”[5]

Gabriel also told Mary that Elizabeth had conceived. “And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible.”[6]

Elizabeth gave birth to a son, and when it came time to name him, her friends and family assumed he would be named Zacharias after his father. Elizabeth objected. “Not so,” she said, “but he shall be called John.”[7] “There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name,” they responded, “And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called.”[8] Zacharias signaled for something to write with, and when writing material was brought to him he wrote simply, “His name is John.”[9] At this, “his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake, and praised God.”[10]

Chiesa di San Zaccaria

The Chiesa di San Zaccaria (Church of Saint Zacharias) in Venice is located a few meters southeast of the Basilica di San Marco (Saint Mark’s Basilica) on the Campo San Zaccaria. The present church was designed by Antonio Gambello and Mauro Codussi and was completed between 1444 and 1515.

The interior walls of the church are decorated with paintings by some of the greatest artists of the day, including Antonio Balestra, Giuseppe Salviati, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Jacopo Tintoretto, Angelo Trevisani, and Anthony Van Dyck. The Church of Saint Zacharias also houses one of Giovanni Bellini’s most famous works, the San Zaccaria Altarpiece, which is also known as La Sacra Conversazione. (A clearer picture of the San Zaccaria Altarpiece is available here.)

Tomb of Saint Zacharias

Opposite the San Zaccaria Altarpiece, in the right nave of the church, lie the remains of Saint Zacharias and Saint Athanasius of Alexandria. (Saint Athanasius will be the subject of a future post.) The altar and tomb of Saint Zacharias was designed by Alessandro Vittoria in 1599. Two marble angels hold Saint Zacharias’s tomb aloft, above the tomb of Saint Athanasius. Below, an inscription reads, “CORPUS S. ZACCARIÆ, PATRIS S. JO: BAPTISTÆ” (Body of Saint Zacharia, Father of Saint John the Baptist). The painting on the lunette directly above the altar is S. Zaccaria in Gloria by Jacopo Negretti, painted in 1599.

[1] 1 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 267 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956).

[2] Luke 1:13-14 (King James).

[3] Id. 1:18.

[4] Id. 1:20.

[5] Id. 1:30-31.

[6] Id. 1:36-37.

[7] Id. 1:60.

[8] Id. 1:61-62.

[9] Id. 1:63.

[10] Id. 1:64.

Saint Mark, Patron Saint of Venice

27 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Reliquarian in Tomb / Sarcophagus

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basilica, Italy, martyr, mosaic, relic, reliquary, Saint Claudia, Saint Mark, Saint Theodore, sarcophagus, Tintoretto, Venice

Basilica di San Marco – Interior Mosaics

Saint Mark and Venice

In his lush, elegant history of Venice, Venice: Pure City, Peter Ackroyd writes, “There was one great transformation in the early history of Venice. In 828 an object was brought to this place that entirely changed its character and its status.”[1] That object was the body of Saint Mark the Evangelist.

The association of Saint Mark with the city of Venice persists to this day. The symbol of Saint Mark – a winged lion – is also the emblem of Venice. Known as the Lion of Saint Mark, the symbol is everywhere in the city. Chiseled onto buildings, stamped onto tiles, and stitched into flags, it serves as a constant reminder of the enduring relationship between city and saint. The glorification of Saint Mark in Venetian culture, however, came at the expense of another saint, Saint Theodore of Amasea. Once Venice’s sole patron, Saint Theodore’s influence declined after Saint Mark’s arrival, although he is still afforded a place of honor atop a pillar in Saint Mark’s Square.

The Translation of the Relics of Saint Mark

The story of how Saint Mark’s relics eventually came to Venice is a remarkable one, and it has been the subject of various works of art throughout the centuries. Tintoretto’s Deposition Mosaic Closeup Translation of the Body of Saint Mark, a stark, dramatic painting that has the eerie feel of a photo negative, may be one of the most recognizable. Painted between 1562 and 1566 for the Scuola Grande di San Marco,[2] the work is part of the permanent collection of the Accademia Galleries in Venice. (A companion painting, Discovery of the Body of Saint Mark, is located at the Brera Gallery in Milan.) The glittering mosaics that adorn the exterior of Saint Mark’s Basilica also tell the story, in tessellated form, of the translation of Saint Mark’s relics. For example, the mosaic located above the left doorway (the Door of Saint Alypius) of the west facade depicts Saint Mark’s body being carried into the basilica. The mosaic, known as the Deposition mosaic, is the oldest exterior mosaic on the basilica and dates to 1260-1270.

According to legend, Saint Mark’s body was stolen from Alexandria, Egypt, in 828. Two Venetian merchants traveling in Alexandria obtained the relics of Saint Mark from priests at the church of Saint Mark, where the saint’s body was interred. The priests feared Saint Mark’s relics might be damaged or destroyed by the Saracens during the persecution of the Catholic community in Alexandria. Promising to safeguard the saint’s relics, the merchants convinced the priests to allow them to return to Venice with the body of Saint Mark.

Stealing of the Body Akroyd explains, “The body of Saint Mark was taken out of the sarcophagus and unwrapped from its silk shroud, the relic being substituted by another and less eminent saint. It was then placed in a chest and taken on board the Venetian ship, the merchants first ensuring that the saint’s remains were covered by a layer of pork and cabbage. When the Muslim officials asked to inspect the chest, they cried out ‘Kanzir, kanzir’ (Oh horror) at the sight and smell of the pork. . . . Thus the evangelist was safely conveyed to Venice, but not before a number of miracles eased his passage across the Mediterranean.”[3]

Basilica di San Marco

Basilica of Saint Mark Saint Mark’s body was initially kept in a chapel at the Doge’s palace, a chapel originally dedicated to Saint Theodore, until a more suitable church could be built. Begun in 829, the year after the translation of Saint Mark’s relics, the first church of Saint Mark was completed in 832. This church was destroyed in 976 during a rebellion against Doge Pietro Candiano IV. A second church was built in 1063 but was not consecrated until 1094, after Saint Mark’s relics, which had been lost in the years following the destruction of the first church, were rediscovered.

Loss and Rediscovery of Saint Mark’s Relics

The Pala Feriale, an altarpiece of tempera and gold leaf on panel created by Paolo Veneziano and his sons in 1345 for Doge Andrea Dandolo, depicts the miraculous rediscovery of the relics. Divided into two registers, the lower register of the Pala Feriale features seven panels portraying the story of Saint Mark, including the apparitio — the self-revelation of Saint Mark’s relics in 1094. According to tradition, the saint’s remains, which had been lost, revealed themselves to have been hidden inside a reliquary pier within the church. Earlier depictions of the apparitio, however, seemed to suggest that despite the miracle of the apparitio, the reliquary pier itself was empty; Saint Mark’s body had turned to dust. As one scholar has noted, “The miracle disclosed the location of the body but did not reveal the body itself.”[4]

In contrast, the Pala Feriale portrayed Saint Mark’s body as intact and physically present. As Ana Munk explains in “The Art of Relic Cults in Trecento Venice,” “Paolo Veneziano’s shutters . . . may be the only scene among sixty-one representations of Saint Mark where the audience’s devotion to the saint in his problematic tomb within San Marco was recorded; every instance and effect of Saint Mark’s life, death, and his translation from Alexandria was documented in previous mosaics except the actual location of the body itself.” The effect of these earlier depictions was to assure worshippers that Saint Mark was, indeed, present at the basilica – the Deposition mosaic clearly shows Saint Mark’s body entering the basilica – while leaving the exact whereabouts of his relics vague and uncertain. As Munk observes, “the body of Saint Mark was simultaneously omnipresent and elusive.”[5]

Final Resting Place

In 1835, Giacomo Monico, Patriarch of Venice, exhumed the body of Saint Mark from the crypt beneath the basilica and placed it in the high altar.[6] Before then, the saint’s body had apparently last been seen in the 12th century, dressed in ecclesiastical robes, when it was placed on display for five months for public veneration.[7]

Sarcophagus of Saint Mark During my visit to the basilica, Saint Mark’s simple, marble sarcophagus could only be viewed from behind the high altar. The exterior of the sarcophagus was well lit and a short inscription applied to the stone in metallic letters read: “SALUTAT VOS . . . MARCUS FILIUS MEUS.” This inscription was followed by a citation in much smaller letters below the word “MEUS.” The citation read “1 Petri 5.13,” the source of the abbreviated quote on the tomb. The front of the sarcophagus apparently proclaims “CORPUS DIVI MARCI EVANGELISTAE” (Body of the Divine Mark, Evangelist).[8] When I visited, it was Christmas Eve, and in addition to the poinsettias and other decorations installed around the basilica in preparation for Midnight Mass, someone had placed two, single red roses on top of the sarcophagus.

[1] Peter Ackroyd, Venice: Pure City 37 (2009).

[2] Giovanni Nepi Scire, The Accademia Galleries in Venice: General Catalogue 88 (2012).

[3] Akroyd at 37-38. In his book The Secret Lives of Buildings, Edward Hollis identifies the two Venetian merchants as Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, and he names Saint Claudia as the saint whose relics replaced those of Saint Mark in Alexandria. Hollis writes, “At the time Alexandria was in the sway of the Fatimid caliphate; but two merchants of Venice, by the names of Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, went to the city and found an old church dedicate to Saint Mark the Evangelist. Saint Mark had been martyred in Alexandria, and his remains had been kept in this church ever since. The two merchants spoke with the guardians of the saint. They were in danger, these priests said, for the governor of Alexandria intended to demolish their church and send its marbles and columns to the caliph’s new palace in Babylon. . . . One night, under the cover of darkness, the priests let them into the church. Torcello and Malamocco took the body of Saint Mark and substituted it with the body of another, less exalted martyr, Saint Claudia . . . .” Edward Hollis, The Secret Lives of Buildings 50 (2009).

[4] Ana Munk, “The Art of Relic Cults in Trecento Venice: Corpi Sancti as a Pictorial Motif and Artistic Motivation,” 30 Radovi Instituta za Povijest Umjetnosti 81, 88 (2006) (citations omitted). In Hollis’s telling, Saint Mark’s body appears, lifeless but fully formed, from the reliquary pier. After chanting and praying intensely for the recovery of their missing saint, the Venetians at the new basilica noticed “a sweet smell began to pervade the church. Suddenly, one of the piers to the right of the altar began to shake, and the masonry began to buckle. With a crash and a roar, an arm appeared, then a shoulder, a torso, and a head; and then the whole body of Saint Mark fell lifeless onto the pavement of the sanctuary. The doge Falier placed this body in a marble sarcophagus in the crypt, and the Heroon of the Venetians received its patron saint.” Hollis, supra note 3, at 52.

[5] Id. at 87.

[6] Id. at 91 n.50.

[7] Id. at 87 (citing Bruno Bertoli, Le storie di San Marco nei mosaici e le ragioni dell’agiografia, in La Basilica di San Marco: Arte e Simbologia 114-115 (Bruno Bertoli ed.,1993)).

[8] John Nickell, Relics of the Christ 37 (2007).