Saint Charles Borromeo: A Tale from the Crypt of Milan Cathedral

16 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Reliquarian in Music History, Tomb / Sarcophagus

Tags

cathedral, crypt, Italy, martyr, Milan, Milan Cathedral, Palestrina, relic, Saint Bartholomew, Saint Blaise, Saint Charles Borromeo, Saint Denis, sarcophagus, tomb

Sarcophagus of Saint Charles Borromeo, Milan Cathedral, Milan, Italy. The sign to the right reads, “Reliquie di San Carlo Borromeo, Cardinale Arcivescovo di Milano.”

A Poem Wrought in Marble

In 1867, Mark Twain spent several months touring Europe and the Holy Land aboard the steamship Quaker City. He recorded his observations of the trip, which he later published as his first book, The Innocents Abroad, one of the great travelogues of the English language and one of the bestselling travel books of all time. Among his impressions are those of Milan Cathedral (Duomo di Milano), the majestic seat of the Archbishop of Milan and currently the fifth largest cathedral in the world. Milan Cathedral simply mesmerized him. “What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and yet it seems in the soft moonlight only a fairy delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath! . . . It was a vision!—a miracle!—an anthem sung in stone, a poem wrought in marble!”[1]

Twain was awed by Milan Cathedral’s spires,[2] its luminous windows,[3] its sculptures,[4] and its sheer mass. He called the cathedral “the princeliest creation that ever brain of man conceived”[5] and could imagine no greater church building in the world.[6] “They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to St. Peter’s at Rome,” he remarked. “I cannot understand how it can be second to anything made by human hands.”[7]

Altar of San Giovanni Buono, Milan Cathedral

Nevertheless, despite his obvious and unbounded enthusiasm for the cathedral, Twain managed to devote nearly half his chapter on the cathedral to a subject unrelated to the aesthetic merits of the building—namely, saints and holy relics. In particular, he dwelt on the earthly remains of Saint Charles (Carlo) Borromeo, a former Archbishop of Milan, who was displayed in the cathedral’s crypt in a “coffin of rock crystal as clear as the atmosphere.”[8] “To us it seemed that so a good a man . . . deserved rest and peace in a grave sacred from the intrusion of prying eyes,” he rued, “but peradventure our wisdom was at fault in this regard.”[9]

Twain on Saints and Relics

Twain did not have a particularly positive opinion of saints or relics. In The Innocents Abroad, for example, he criticizes “coarse” depictions of saints as suffering martyrs[10] and he decries the veneration of relics as “Jesuit humbuggery.”[11] In his book The Reverend Mark Twain, Joe B. Fulton explains that Twain questioned not only the “theological concept of a saint,” but also the “aesthetic practices of martyrology.”[12] Twain found “visual depictions of the saints unintentionally grotesque, using his own ‘grotesque realism’ to undermine their reverential seriousness.”[13] In Italy, for example, Twain complained of the “huge, coarse frescoes of suffering martyrs” he found painted on the facades of roadside inns.[14] Twain, who rejected the “ideology inherent in the martyrological form,”[15] wryly noted that “[i]t could not have diminished their suffering any to be so uncouthly represented.”[16] Twain was similarly disturbed by the statue of Saint Bartholomew at Milan Cathedral (pictured below), which depicts the martyr with his skin flayed. “It was a hideous thing,” he wrote, “and yet there was a fascination about it somewhere. I am very sorry I saw it, because I shall always see it now. I shall dream of it sometimes.”

St Bartholomew - Milan Cathedral Still, Twain complained “less about the idea of sainthood than about relics and the depictions of them.”[17] To Twain, the veneration of relics was an irrational, antiquated practice, a holdover of the “peculiar devotional spirit of the olden time.”[18] As Fulton observes, “[r]elics of the saints trigger comedy rather than reverence” for Twain, and relics are a frequent target of his irreverent humor in The Innocents Abroad.[19] While recounting his visit to Genoa, for example, he paused to ruminate on the multiplicity of relics he had encountered. “But isn’t this relic matter a little overdone?” he begins skeptically.[20] “We find a piece of the true cross in every old church we go into, and some of the nails that held it together. I would not like to be positive, but I think we have seen as much as a keg of these nails. Then there is the crown of thorns; they have part of one in Sainte Chapelle, in Paris, and part of one also in Notre Dame. As for the bones of St. Denis, I feel certain we have seen enough of them to duplicate him if necessary.”[21] (Saint Denis, pictured below from Rheims Cathedral, is commonly depicted carrying his decapitated head in his arms.)

St Denis - Rheims Cathedral

Twain is not the only one to have expressed exasperation at the multitude of saintly relics displayed throughout Europe. A French anti-clerical cartoon from the early 1900s, for example, “reconstructed” Saint Blaise—complete with five heads, six arms, and six legs—from “authentic” bones displayed in various cities.[22] Twain’s avowed skepticism of relics, however, did not preclude a certain fascination with the sainted figures who supplied them. Later in his career, in fact, Twain would actually engage in hagiography, although he arguably never really altered his view of saints, sainthood, or Catholicism generally.[23]

Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, published in 1896, is a fictionalized account of Saint Joan of Arc’s life as retold in the (fictional) memoir of her page, Louis de Conte. The book’s seriousness and the “air of absolute reverence” with which Twain portrays Joan of Arc represent such a stark break from his previous work that he initially published it anonymously.[24] Years later, however, Twain fully acknowledged his authorship and embraced the book as his greatest work. “I like the Joan of Arc best of all my books and it is the best,” he declared.[25] “[I]t furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; 12 years of preparation & 2 years of writing. The others needed no preparation, & got none.”[26] Twain valued Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc even more highly than Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.[27]

Good Saint Charles Borromeo

Twain manifested an interest in the life of another saint, Saint Charles Borromeo, in his much earlier The Innocents Abroad. Twain described Saint Charles with reverence and admiration, characterizing him as “a good man, a warmhearted, unselfish man,” even though he bristled at the way the saint’s corpse had been placed on public display.[28] Inviting readers to descend with him into the crypt, under the grand altar of Milan Cathedral, he prepared them to “receive an impressive sermon from lips that have been silent and hands that have been gestureless for three hundred years.”[29]

St Borromeo - Crypt3 “The priest stopped in a small dungeon and held up his candle,” Twain begins. He and his companions now stood in Saint Charles’s tomb. Recognized as one of the great 16^thcentury reformers of the Catholic Church, during a period known as the Counter Reformation, Saint Charles was responsible for, among other things, establishing seminaries to educate priests and ministering with great compassion to victims of the plague.[30] He was born an aristocrat and could easily have taken advantage of the ease and luxury his station afforded. Instead, he showed little interest in worldly goods and devoted his life to serving others.

Saint Charles was born on 2 October 1538 at Arona Castle on Lake Maggiore. His father, Count Gilbert Borromeo, was a “man of talent and sanctity,” and his mother, Margaret, was a member of the Medici family, one of the most power and influential families of the Renaissance.[31] He received the tonsure at the age of twelve and after his uncle’s election to the papacy in 1559, he served in various offices in Rome. He was ordained a priest in 1563 and was subsequently appointed Archbishop of Milan in 1564.

Spires of Milan Cathedral, as seen from roof

After arriving in Milan, he immediately set to work reforming the diocese. According to Butler’s Lives of the Saints, “[w]hen St Charles came first to reside at Milan he sold plate and other effects to the value of thirty thousand crowns, and applied the whole sum for the relief of distressed families.”[32] Meanwhile, despite earning a considerable income from various sources, he chose to live modestly. Francis Panigarola, Bishop of Asti, recounted how he once found Saint Charles on a very cold night studying “in a single tattered cassock.”[33] He said, “I entreated him, if he would not perish with cold, to put on some better garment. He answered me smiling, ‘What if I have no other? I am obliged to wear a cardinal’s robes in the day; but this cassock is my own and I have no other, either for winter or summer.’”[34]

St Carlo Borromeo Tended by an Angel, by Francesco Caccianiga, oil on copper (early 18th century) (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

To curb the gross abuses he discovered in his diocese, Saint Charles established strict regulations governing the clergy, who he found “lazy, ignorant and debauched” upon his arrival.[35] He also established seminaries to “remedy the disorders engendered by the decay of medieval life.”[36] His broader reforms, however, were not always well received, and they created many enemies.

On 26 October 1569, a priest by the name of Jerome Donati Farina was sent to murder him while he attended evening prayers. As Saint Charles kneeled before the altar and a choir performed a motet by Orlando di Lasso—“It is time therefore that I return to Him that sent me,” they sang—Farina fired an arquebus, striking Saint Charles in the back.[37] Believing himself mortally wounded, Saint Charles “commended himself to God.”[38] However, as the Lives of the Saints explains, “it was found that the bullet had only struck his clothes in the back, raising a bruise, and fallen harmlessly to the floor.”[39] A painting titled Farina’s Assassination Attempt by Gian Battista della Rovere (Fiammenghino) located in the south transept of Milan Cathedral depicts the event.[40]

Reliquary (St Borromeo) - Krakow Saint Charles died many years later in Milan on 4 November 1584 at the age of forty-six. He had celebrated his last mass at Arona, his birthplace, several days earlier, and arriving in Milan, he immediately took to bed and asked for the last rights. After receiving the final sacrament, he whispered Ecce venio (“Behold, I come”), and expired. He was canonized by Pope Paul V in 1610.[41] (The reliquary, pictured left, contains a relic of Saint Charles. It is located at the Archdiocesan Museum in Krakow, Poland.)

The Vanities of Earth

Twain was clearly familiar with Saint Charles’s story, and he alludes to several of the saint’s virtues, particularly his generosity and his compassion, in The Innocents Abroad.[42] Twain writes, “His heart, his hand, and his purse were always open,” and he imagines the saint’s “benign countenance moving calmly among the haggard faces of Milan in the days when the plague swept the city.”[43] In the presence of Saint Charles’s corpse, however, Twain’s thoughts turn to death and the impermanence of earthly things.

Relics of Saint Charles Borromeo, Milan Cathedral

The body, he states, was “robed in costly habiliments covered with gold embroidery and starred with scintillating gems.”[44] Meanwhile, Saint Charles’s “decaying head was black with age, the dry skin was drawn tight to the bones, the eyes were gone, there was a hole in the temple and another in the cheek, and the skinny lips were parted as in a ghastly smile!” After describing other treasures arrayed about the body, Twain declares, “How poor and cheap and trivial these gewgaws seemed in the presence of the solemnity, the grandeur, the awful majesty of Death!”[45] Saint Charles’s “sermon,” delivered by silent lips and still hands, was this: “You that worship the vanities of earth—you that long for worldly honor, worldly wealth, worldly fame—behold their worth!”[46]

In the end, the body of Saint Charles—the relics of Saint Charles—had greater power over Twain than perhaps he realized.

Post Script: Charles Borromeo and Palestrina, the “Savior of Church Music”

View of the Roman Forum. Palestrina’s music has been called the “soundtrack” of Rome. He composed over 100 masses and 250 motets here during his lifetime.

One of the issues taken up by the Council of Trent, the 16^th century Ecumenical Council convened to debate and implement extensive reforms in the Catholic Church, was the future of sacred music. By the mid-16^th century, liturgical music had grown so elaborate and unintelligible in its complexity that the Council considered banning polyphonic music from the liturgy altogether. According to popular legend, Cardinal Borromeo, then a member of the Council, commissioned Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina to compose a Mass to convince the Council otherwise.[47] The result was the extraordinary Missa Papae Marcelli (Mass for Pope Marcellus). Palestrina’s Mass demonstrated that polyphonic music could be simultaneously beautiful, pure, and textually clear, and it changed the minds of those on the Council, which ultimately abandoned the movement to ban sacred music from the liturgy.

In reality, Palestrina likely composed the Missa Papae Marcelli years earlier, probably in 1555, eight years before the Council of Trent sought a resolution on the fate of sacred music. Nevertheless, regardless of whether the Missa Papae Marcelli was commissioned for the purpose, Palestrina’s music, and the Missa Papae Marcelli in particular, were undoubtedly highly influential in saving polyphony. As Will Durant has noted, “by its fidelity to the words, its avoidance of secular motives, and the subordination of musical art to religious intent” Palestrina’s music “played a part in leading the committee to sanction polyphonic music.”[48]

Milan Cathedral, as seen from roof

For a fantastic overview of Palestrina and his music, see the BBC’s extraordinary series Sacred Music, series 1, episode 2, on “Palestrina and the Popes.” Presented by Simon Russell Beale with music performed by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, the episode originally aired on 28 February 2008.

[1]Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad 124 (Signet Classic 1980) (1869).

[2]Id. (“Away above, on the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring high in the air, and through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond.”).

[3]Id. at 125 (“We loitered about gazing aloft at the monster windows all aglow with brilliantly colored scenes in the lives of the Saviour and his followers. Some of these pictures are mosaics, and so artistically are their thousand particles of tinted glass or stone put together that the work has all the smoothness and finish of a painting.”).

[4]Id. at 124 (noting that the bas-relief carvings on the cathedral’s doors were “so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures—and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest”).

[5]Id.

[6]Id. at 130.

[7]Id.

[8]Id. at 129.

[9] Id. at 128.

[10] See id. at 149. During his journey through Italy, Twain observed, “Here and there, on the fronts of roadside inns, we found huge, coarse frescoes of suffering martyrs like those in the shrines. Id. at 149.

[11] Id. at 43.

[12] Joe B. Fulton, The Reverend Mark Twain: Theological Burlesque, Form, and Content 106 (2006).

[13] Id. at 105.

[14] Twain, supra note 1, at 149.

[15] Fulton, supra note 12, at 106.

[16] Twain, supra note 1, at 149. Twain concludes dismissively, “We were in the heart and home of priestcraft—of a happy, cheerful, contented ignorance, superstition, degradation, poverty, indolence, and everlasting unaspiring worthlessness.” Id.

[17] Fulton, supra note 12, at 105 (internal citations omitted).

[18] Twain, supra note 1, at 179. Twain described the veneration of relics as a belief in “the protecting virtues of inanimate objects made holy by contact with holy things.” Id.

[19] Fulton, supra note 12, at 105.

[20] Twain, supra note 1, at 119.

[21] Id. at 119–20. Later, while exploring Milan Cathedral, Twain is shown, among other relics, “two of St. Paul’s fingers and one of St. Peter’s,” a “bone of Judas Iscariot (it was black),” “part of the crown of thorns (they have a whole one at Notre Dame),” and a “picture of the Virgin and Child painted by the veritable hand of St. Luke,” the second he had seen. Id. at 129.

[22] See, e.g., Europski Dom Dubrovnik, Saint Blaise: Veneration Without Boundaries 21 (2012) (featuring an illustration titled “Les Reliques Authentiques”).

[23] Fulton, supra note 12, at 107–08. Twain published Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, a novel about Joan of Arc, in 1896. Fulton argues that since “Twain’s attitudes toward Catholicism remained negative before, during, and after the writing of the work, one must find some other, more reasonable, explanation to make sense of it. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc marks no sea change in Twain’s attitudes toward the Roman Catholic Church, or indeed toward religion generally.” Id. at 108.

[24] See 17 The Cambridge History of English and American Literature 29 (A.W. Ward et al. eds., 1907–1921) (2000) (“Recognizing that the book was quite out of his customary vein, Mark Twain published it first anonymously . . . .”).

[25] Id. at 29.

[26] Id.

[27] Fulton, supra note 12, at 108 (explaining that Twain ranked Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc above Adventures of Huckleberry Finn).

[28] Twain, supra note 1, at 127.

[29] Id.

[30]4 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 255–62 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956). Butler’s Lives of the Saints declares that “with Pope St Pius V, St Philip Neri and St Ignatius Loyola, he is one of the four outstanding public men of the so-called Counter-reformation.” Id. at 255.

[31] Id. at 255.

[32] Id. at 257.

[33]Id.

[34] Id.

[35] Id. at 258.

[36] Id.

[37] Id. at 259.

[38] Id. at 259–60.

[39] Id. at 260.

[40] See Ernesto Brivio, The Life and Miracles of St. Carlo Borromeo: A Pictorial Itinerary in Milan Cathedral (2006), fig. 11.

[41]Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 30, at 261–62.

[42] Twain, supra note 1, at 127.

[43] Id.

[44] Id. at 128.

[45] Id.

[46] Id.

[47] Will Durant, 6 The Story of Civilization: The Reformation (1957). Importantly, another major reason for the movement to ban sacred music was the realization that some composers drew inspiration for their compositions from common, often bawdy, popular songs of the day. In addition to rejecting the unintelligibility of polyphonic compositions, which regularly resorted to overlapping melodies and multiple, interwoven lines of text, the Council sought to “exclude from churches all such music as . . . introduces anything of the impure or lascivious, in order that the house of God may truly be seen to be . . . the house of prayer.” Id.

[48] Id.

The Way of Saint James: Pilgrimage to the Tomb of a “Son of Thunder”

09 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by Reliquarian in Altarpiece

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Altar of the Holy Blood, altarpiece, church, Friedrich Herlin, Germany, martyr, pilgrimage, relic, Rothenburg, Saint James, Santiago de Compostela, tomb

Twelve Apostles Altar, Church of Saint James (St. Jakobskirche), Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

The Way of Saint James

According to tradition, Saint James, one of the twelve Apostles, was martyred by beheading in the year 44. After the rediscovery of his relics in 814, pilgrimages to his tomb in Compostela, northern Spain, became extremely popular. Compostela even rivaled Jerusalem and Rome as a destination for pilgrim travelers during the Middle Ages. Consequently, routes to Saint James’s shrine, including one through Rothenburg, Germany, crisscrossed Europe, marking the path to the saint’s tomb. Today, the Way of Saint James (Camino de Santiago) continues to direct travelers to the remains of the fiery-tempered Apostle whom Jesus once called a “Son of Thunder.”

Invitation to a Beheading

Saint James was beheaded in Jerusalem during the Christian persecutions of King Herod Agrippa I. According to Clement of Alexandria, Saint James’s accuser was so moved by the courage and conviction James showed at his trial that he subsequently repented and declared himself a Christian. As a consequence, the man was sentenced to be beheaded alongside Saint James. As both men were led to execution, the accuser turned to James and begged for his forgiveness. According to Butler’s Lives of the Saints, “St James, after pausing a little, turned to him and embraced him, saying, ‘Peace be with you’. He then kissed him, and they were both beheaded together.”[1]

A Tomb by the Sounding Sea

Isenheim Altarpiece, Matthias Grunewald (sculptures by Nicolas of Hagenau) (detail), 1510-1515, Colmar, France. On the carved predella of the Isenheim Altarpiece, Saint James can be seen holding a large seashell in his right hand. His pilgrim’s cap is also adorned with a shell. Photo by Reliquarian.

Early chronicles suggested that after his death, Saint James’s remains were transported from Jerusalem to the northern coast of Spain where they were buried contra mare Britannicum, “close to the British sea.”[2] The location of the tomb, however, remained a mystery until, centuries later, in about 814, the tomb was rediscovered under miraculous circumstances.[3] According to legend, a local monk named Pelayo was guided by a star to a secluded spot in the woods near the Galician coast.[4] There he discovered a marble sarcophagus that contained human bones, apparently very old.[5] Bishop Teodomir, the local bishop, proclaimed the remains to be those of Saint James, long believed to have been buried in the region. After learning of the discovery, King Alfonso II journeyed to the site to venerate the relics and ordered that a church be built on the spot. The modest church established by King Alfonso II later grew into the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the ultimate destination of pilgrims traveling the Way of Saint James.

King Alfonso II’s journey to the tomb of Saint James is considered the first pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and it set the example for subsequent generations of pilgrim travelers. Departing from Oviedo, the location of his royal court, King Alfonso II likely took the Roman road known as the Camino Primitivo to Compostela. As the popularity of Saint James’s shrine grew, other routes gradually came into regular use, such as the Camino del Norte, another Roman road, which skirted the coast. By the 11^th century, the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela had become an international phenomenon, drawing visitors from all over Christendom and establishing Santiago de Compostela as a rival to Jerusalem and Rome for pilgrims.[6] In a paper discussing the history of the pilgrimage, Laurie Dennett opines that interest in Saint James’s relics had begun to shift the “conceptual geography of Christian Europe, giving it a new pole in the west, a new focus for popular devotion, that balanced the Byzantine east with its spiritual centre at Jerusalem.”[7] She further notes that “Santiago de Compostela even seemed to rival the pretensions of Rome,” at least for a time.[8]

St. Jakobskirche and the Twelve Apostles Altar

The St. Jakobskirche (Saint James’s Church) in Rothenburg ob der Tauber was once an important stop on the pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela. Known more widely as the home of the Altar of the Holy Blood, the church also houses the impressive Twelve Apostles Altar (Zwölfbotenaltar), a carved altarpiece with a painted predella and painted wings, which incorporates several images of Saint James.

View of St. Jakobskirche from the city walls. Photo by Reliquarian.

Completed in 1466, the altarpiece is the work of Hans Waidenlich and Friedrich Herlin with carvings in the Multscher tradition by an unknown sculptor.[9] Herlin, who may have been from Rothenburg, moved to Nördlingen later in his career and is closely identified with the Twelve Apostles Altar, which he signed: “This work was made by Friedrich Herlin, painter, mcccclxvi. Saint James pray to God for him.”[10]

In Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria, and South Tirol, Rainer Kahsnitz identifies the Twelve Apostles Altar as “one of the best-preserved altarpieces from the Late Gothic period.”[11] Although little is known about the origins of the altarpiece, Kahsnitz speculates that it must have replaced an earlier work at St. Jakobskirche.[12]

Twelve Apostles Altar (detail). Photo by Reliquarian.

The corpus of the altarpiece depicts the Crucifixion, with Mary (to the left) and Saint John the Evangelist (to the right) below the cross, flanking the dying Christ. Next to Mary stands Saint James wearing a pilgrim’s hat decorated with a scallop shell, a symbol of pilgrimage. Two other shells dangle from his wrist, and he is shown with a pilgrim’s staff, another defining attribute of the patron saint of pilgrims.[13] The other carved figures below the cross are Saint Elizabeth (to the far left), who is carrying a loaf of bread and a pitcher; Saint Leonard (next to Saint John), the patron saint of prisoners of war; and Saint Anthony the hermit (to the far right), who is shown with a bell. According to Kahsnitz, the altar was kept permanently closed following Rothenburg’s adoption of the Reformation.[14] This helped preserve the sculptures and the paintings on the inner wings.[15]

Saint James and Saint Peter. Friedrich Herlin’s predella depicts Saint James with his traditional attributes in art: a pilgrim’s staff and a seashell. To the right of Saint James is Saint Peter with several of his symbols: a set of keys and a book. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint James appears again on Herlin’s predella with a shell in one hand and a pilgrim’s staff in the other. To his left, Saint Peter carries two of his traditional attributes: a set of keys and a book, which he peers into with the aid of spectacles. All twelve Apostles are represented on the predella, arranged in pairs behind a Late Gothic balustrade.[16] In addition to other paintings, the back of the predella also features a depiction of the veil of Saint Veronica: the image of Christ’s face with a crown of thorns imprinted on a veil or shroud.[17]

Sons of Thunder

Saint James is often known as “the Greater” to distinguish him from Saint James, son of Alphaeus, known as “the Lesser.” He was the son of Zebedee and brother of Saint John the Evangelist, and he was the first Apostle martyred. Saint James and his brother John apparently earned the epithet Boanerges, or “Sons of Thunder,” on account of their “impetuous spirit and fiery temper.”[18] Nevertheless, as noted in Butler’s Lives of the Saints, James, John, and Peter, the Apostles “who from time to time acted impetuously, and had to be rebuked, were the very ones our Lord turned to on special occasions.”[19] James, John, and Peter were the only Apostles to witness the agony in the garden of Gethsemani and were the only ones present for the Transfiguration.

Modern Pilgrims

The Way of Saint James continues to be a popular with pilgrims even today. According to the Confraternity of Saint James, an organization founded “to bring together people interested in the medieval pilgrim routes through France and Spain to Santiago de Compostela,” the last several decades “have seen an extraordinary revival of interest in the pilgrimage to Santiago.”[20] Once considered “one of the greatest of all Christian shrines” in the Middle Ages,[21] the route from the border of France and Spain known as the Camino Francés was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.[22]

Twelve Apostles Altar, Church of Saint James (St. Jakobskirche), Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

Still, some scholars question whether Saint James ever preached in Spain and whether the remains interred at Santiago de Compostela really are those of Saint James. Butler’s Lives of the Saints states, “Outside of Spain almost all eminent scholars and critical students of history answer both questions in the negative.”[23] Several authors have argued that Saint James’s visit to Spain is “improbable” because Saint James was martyred in Jerusalem in the year 44 and because he was “unheard of in Spain before the end of the seventh century.”[24] Additionally, while it may be “quite possible that the relics recovered, after they had been lost, are identical with those which were venerated at Compostela in the middle ages, . . . the authenticity of medieval relics is always difficult to establish and in this case it is more than dubious.”[25]

Nevertheless, thousands of people continue to follow the Way of Saint James to Santiago de Compostela each year. While there are “as many reasons for this revival as there are pilgrims,” the Confraternity of Saint James observes that “many people make the pilgrimage at a turning point in their lives, and . . . many are helped to come to terms with personal crisis by a period of separation from all that is familiar, and the shared hardship of the road.”[26]

Pilgrim’s Hat, felt, silk braid, shell, bone, jet (c. 1571). This pilgrim’s hat is currently on display at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany, along with a matching pilgrim’s cloak and staff. The matching set of pilgrim’s garb belonged to Stephan Praun III, a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint James the Greater, pine with paint and gilding, South German (1475-1500), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The influence of Veit Stoss, who worked in Nuremberg and Krakow, is evident in the carving of the statue’s robes and face. Photo by Reliquarian.

[1] 3 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 183 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956).

[2] Laurie Dennett, “2000 Years of the Camino de Santiago: Where Did It Come From? Where Is It Going?,” The Confraternity of Saint James, http://www.csj.org.uk/2000-years.htm (citing martyrologies by Florus of Lyons and Usuard of St. Germaine-des-Prés). Dennett observes that “by the late 8^th century, a literary tradition had developed which held that the burial place of St James lay in Spain, even if the site had not yet been identified.” She further notes, “Interestingly, it was not until after the purported discovery of the tomb in about 814 that a corresponding tradition evolved concerning the Apostle’s return to Palestine and death, and the transportation of his mortal remains back to Spain for burial.” Id. The mare Britannicum is the present-day English Channel.

[3] See id.

[4] Id.

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] See Rainer Kahsnitz, Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria, and South Tirol 58 (2006). Kahsnitz explains that the sculptures “were executed by a carver from the circle around the Ulm sculptor Hans Multscher (active there from 1427 until his death in 1467). In their compact three-dimensionality they are based more strongly on Multscher’s earlier works from the 1450s, at which time the sculptor was probably Multscher’s pupil.” Id. at 61.

[10] Id. at 58. A clever Latin inscription on the frame of the altarpiece also dates the work to 1466. It begins, “Bis duo c quoque sexagintaque sex quoque mille . . . .” Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Id.

[13] See George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art 112 (1959). Ferguson observes that the pilgrim’s staff is “used alone and in combination with various other objects as an attribute of numerous saints who have been noteworthy for their travels and pilgrimages.” Id. Other saints commonly depicted with staffs include Saints Christopher, John the Baptist, Jerome, Philip the Apostle, Ursula, and Roch. Id.

[14] Kahsnitz, supra note 9, at 58.

[15] Id.

[16] Id. at 60.

[17] See, e.g., Rosa Giorgi, Saints in Art 119 (Stefano Zuffi ed. & Thomas Michael Hartmann trans., 2002).

[18] Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 1, at 182.

[19] Id.

[20] The Confraternity of Saint James, The Confraternity of Saint James, http://www.csj.org.uk/csj.htm; The Present-Day Pilgrimage, The Confraternity of Saint James, http://www.csj.org.uk/present.htm.

[21] Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 1, at 183.

[22] The Present-Day Pilgrimage, supra note 20.

[23] Butler’s Lives of the Saints, supra note 1, at 183.

[24] Id.

[25] Id.

[26] The Present-Day Pilgrimage, supra note 20.

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.