. THE RECENT DISCOVERIES IN ROME.
IT is a trite subject of complaint that systematic excavations have never been undertaken in Rome. After making all allowance for the many kinds of devastations that have fallen upon the Eternal City, it is certain that although it may not have still buried as much as we would wish to see within its heaps of accumulated rubbish, there is yet a great deal not brought to light which would be of a etartling interest. Such a discovery has been recently made at the church of San Clemente and this which is u.ndoabtealy the most important discovery that has happened in Rome for many years, is due to hap-hazard. The church of San Clemente, between the Coli- seum and the Lateran, is well known to every church antiquary as, from its construction, one of the most interesting, and it has hitherto been supposed one of the most ancient, Christian churches. Tradi- tion, sanctioned by the Church, considers it to stand upon the site of St. Clement's house, by him converted into an oratory, while criticism has been content, at all events, to admit its existence at the end of the fourth century on the distinct testimony of St. Jerome, who says, " Hominis ejus (Clementis) memoriam usque hodie Rome constricts ec,clesia custodit." It is this particular church which has been generally believed to be preserved in the remarkable edifice still going by the name of St. Clement, but the excavations, which are entirely due to the intelligent energy of the prior, Father Mullooly, have established that the church, 130 long contemplated with intense interest by Christian archteologists, is of a comparatively modern date—that the objects of undoubted antiquity within it have been brought thither from an older building, and that the older build- ing, the very same spoken of by St. Jerome, is still starkling beneath, and actually supporting the present church. Unfortunately, the very slender means at his disposal have not enabled the prior to do more, as yet, than clear out one whole aisle and a very small bit of the other. The remainder of this aisle, and the nave, are still filled up with earth, and will require a deal of additional labour, as soon as the re- quisite funds may allow Father Mullooly to go on with his work of love. The aisle cleared out is supported by antique columns, two of which are of extremely precious marbles, not known to exist anywhere else in blocks of such size. One of them is valued at six thousand Roman crowns. But still more interesting are the paintings on the walls. It appears that they were covered with paintings ; what has been preserved, are, however, merely fragments where the plaster has not come away. But these frag- ments are generally, as regards colour and design, in a remarkably good condition. They represent, amongst other subjects, Our Saviour—once in a bust—another time seated holding two books in one hand, while blessing with the other ; a third time as a babe in his mother's lap ; a group of heads as of an assembly ; two feet nailed to a cross of an upturned figure, and therefore supposed to represent St. Peter ; a head with an imperial diadem ; a bishop robed with the Eastern pallium; curious designs of animals. Natu- rally the sight of these paintings has excited great curiosity to ascertain the date of this execution, and the point is one which hail been made matter of hot discussion amongst the learned in Rano. We have no pretension of pronouncing an award in a controversy of so very delicate a nature, and resting on an appreciation of much which can never be made amenable to positive and irrefutable tests. There are, however, certain points beyond dispute. In the first place, it is admitted that the drawing and execution of these paint- ings are marked with an excellence very much above the type of Byzaritine art, properly so called. It is impossible to hesitate as to the fact that the expression in the heads and the general touch of the workmanship exhibit a greater mastery than is to be found in any other preserved Christian paintings. At the same time, Our Saviour is represented—according to what is established as the type of the first centuries—without a beard. This is very strong evidence in favour of an early date. Also the costumes and other indications point to a period when the style of the Byzantine courts still prevailed in Rome. The dresses of the figures, forming appa- rently an assembly, are of a thoroughly Byzantine character, as also the crown upon the supposed Emperor's head, and the robing of the bishop. Although, therefore we cannot presume to decide whether the third or the sixth centuries be the date of their execution, it does seem to us that the evidence is tolerably conclusive that they must be referred to a period when thefirst traditions of the Church were not yet effaced, and when Rome was still thoroughly a city of the Empire.
The interests awakened by these paintings has, however, been superseded by a discovery made a few moutha ago by the indefa- tigable prior. In the very small portion of the second aisle cleared out he fell upon a wall just under the line of columns in the upper church, and the purpose of which, in its position between aisle and nave is as yet difficult to guess. Further excavation will show whetler it runs on; at present there are but about eight feet in length, and perhaps ten feet in height of it—the side facing the nave being covered with paintings which, whether we consider their per- fect preservation, or their subject, or merely the inscriptions on them, must rank as the most startling things that have been brought to light for a long while in Rome. The paintings are divided into three horizontal compartments, the middle one being separated from the one below by an inscription which has given rise to considerable discussion. The upper compartment is alone injured. All the figures have had their heads effaced, but still the subject is perfectly clear, and the names are subscribed under each figure. Upon a raised altar standa St, Clement in thc =pent ef being installed by St. Peter, Linus and Cletus being in attendance. Could we really believe that we here have before us a painting of the early date to which some eager antiquaries would fain refer it, we should then possess a very precious piece of evidence on one of the most obscure points of Church chronology as to the order in which the immediate successors of St. Peter were considered to follow in the primitive days of Christianity. But this we apprehend it will be found not safe to assume. The great middle painting is most interesting and perfectly preserved. It represents Pope St. Clement with the glory round his head officiating at the altar—the book thereon being open at the passage Dominus vobiscum. On either side are the congregation, offering in the representation many points of interest on which we have not the space to dwell. Amongst these figures there occur in one corner two whom, from the inscriptions, we learn to be Sisinian and Theodora, martyrs under Nerva, connected with Clement by Church legend, and whose relics are preserved in Rome; and on the.opposite side a figure of a certain Beno, as to whom the great inscription running along the bottom of the painting supplies the only information we possess. It runs thus: " Ego Beno di Rapiza, cum Maria Uxore mea, pro amore Dei et Beati Clementis." But who was WI individual—was he the painter or merely the in- dividual who from piety caused the painting to be executed ? Much has been conjectured on these heads, on which it would be to no purpose to ester. It is better to confine ourselves to what can be recovered of certain distinct and well-authenticated features. In the first place, the form of the letters and the contractions in this inscription are exactly such as are recognized to have been usual in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Secondly, the same names, Beno and Rapiza, although not in conjunction, ocepr in records of that period, when mention is made of a Count Rapiza of Todi. The style of writing and the names would therefore both be quite easily refer- able to either of those two centuries, and would, indeed, seem to point to them with conclusive evidence. Nevertheless, it is the opinion of some antiquarians that this painting must be ascribed to an earlier date by several centuries, in consequence of the combined Latin and Italian inscriptions on the pictures of the lower compart- ment, and they would fain believe they have here proofs of the Italian vernacular tongue having been in use at a time considerably before the date generally assigned to its origin. The paintings in the lower compartment are, in truth, very singular, and, from the positive ribaldry occurring in the inscription, strangely out of place in a church. Several workmen, possibly slaves, are repre- sented labouring to raise a column in the presence of Sisinian, pro- bably their master, who upbraids them as sluggards in language which, to say the least, is of a kind that would be not expected from a saint whose relics are a precious object of worship. To give the reader an idea of the tongue employed, and how near it approaches modern Italian, we must needs go from the saint to the workmen for words fit to quote. The one on the extreme left gets or else gives the following order: "Falite dereto co e pale Carvoncelle," which means, " Carvoncelle, get thyself behind with the spade." Side by side with such thoroughly Italian sentences there are others in undeniable, although not thoroughly grammatical, Latin; and it is this juxtaposition which is singularly enough held to indicate by some arclueologists an origin variously put at the fifth and ninth cen- turies. We cannot say that anything we have heard advanced in favour of this view has appeared to us warranted by the evidence on hand. On the contrary, the remains in the church seem to us to speak against so early a date of this particular picture. For while costume and style of expression in the paintings on the other walls of the church are in the character of the earlier Byzantine period, the costumes here, especially in the kirtles, cloaks, and shoes, are decidedly according to well-known fashions of the middle ages. But that does not do away with the capital importance on other grounds of this picture. Paintings of such good execution' dating probably from the eleventh century, and evidently the work of an artist who was decidedly not the mere puppet of Byzantine traditions in their last stage of degradation, are to be looked upon as discoveries of the greatest value, and it would be matter of the highest interest if more were to be brought to light in the not yet explored portions of the church.
This does not close the list of the remarkable objects that engage our attention. This ancient church is now found to rest on Roman substructures of immense and very varied construction, whose style affords matter for perplexing speculation ; while our topographical knowledge of the quarter of classical Rome is so vague as to supply no data as yet for anything but the merest hap-hazard surmise as to their possible nature. These substructures show three very distinct constructions, one being of the well-known brickwork of imperial times. Bat, besides, there is some massive masonry in travestine, such as was not uncommon in buildings of Augustus' time, below which again there is an immense wall, not yet excavated to the bottom, but of which some ten feet are laid bare, built in huge blocks of what, on the authority of Professor Ponzi, the most eminent geologiat in Rome, has been pronounced the old Roman tufa, used
in the earliest constructions before the Gabine and Alban stone came to be employed. This, however, could not, in our opinion, be in itself enough to prove the primitive age of this construction, unless it were established that the R0111811 tufa was never more employed when once the Gabine and Alban stone had become known. Far more conclusive would be the fact, confidently asserted by some, that the blocks are not cemented, and that what now looks like cement is of later introduction—the result of the rubbish and puzzolana earth with which everything was filled up. It does appear to us, after examination, that there may be some grounds for this opinion, and it will be well worth while, therefore, closely to inspect the yet buried portions of the wall, with a view to establishing this very interesting point. Here, also,it may perhaps be possible to obtain some more trust- worthy indication as to what the building may have been than the off-hand surmise that it must have been the wall of Servius Tullius, merely because reared in hewn stones upon a line between the Aventine and the Esquiline. Undoubtedly we have here materials for a discovery of incalculable value for the topography of classical Rome; but there is, likewise, another point of interest connected with these substructures of St. Clement's church. How is the existence of such constructions reconcilable with the Church tradition that the saint had built his church on the site of his own dwelling ? These and a great many more important matters it might be probably hoped would be solved by a thorough excavation of the old church and the ground about it. The startling remains brought to light warrant the greatest hopes, yet, strange to say, the excavations so successfully begun have been forcibly brought to a close from an ab- solute want of money, and Father Mullooly, after having tried by his own energy, and even personal labour, as far as he could, to supply the absence of public support, has sadly been obliged now to desist from the prosecution of those cherished labours he had been pushing with so much intelligence. We trust that the suspension may prove only momentary.
Previous page
