Italian artworks

Of the five doors to St. Peter's Basilica, the last on the right is the Holy Door. A Holy Door is the door of a basilica that is only opened on the occasion of a Jubilee and has a very precise meaning: it symbolises the transition that every christian must make from sin to grace, remembering the words of Jesus , who says: “I am the gate”. The most famous Holy Door is that of St. Peter's, but there are several others. The three major basilicas of Rome (Saint John Lateran, Saint Paul Outside The Walls and Saint Mary Major) each have one, and there are others as the pope can decide to designate holy doors in any church in the world. Until 1975, the Holy Door of St. Peter's was walled up at the end of each Jubilee and the wall was then demolished at the beginning of the next one, with the pope performing the rite of giving the first three hammer blows. Since the Jubilee of 2000, however, Pope John Paul II decided to change the ritual. Nowadays, the wall sealing the Holy Door of St. Peter's is demolished in the days leading up to the opening, the key to open the door is taken out of a box, and the Pope symbolically pushes the doors open. From that moment on, the door remains open throughout the Jubilee year for the passage of pilgrims. The present-day Holy Door is the work of the sculptor Vico Consorti (1902–1979), who won the competition for the creation of the Door for the 1949 Jubilee. Completed in 11 months, it was inaugurated on Christmas Eve 1949. It is adorned with 16 panels depicting the history of mankind, from "Sin and the Expulsion from the Earthly Paradise" to the "appearances of the risen Christ to Thomas and to all the Disciples". The last panel depicts the image of Christ as the door of salvation. At the top left can be seen the original inscription, with the bull of indiction of the first jubilee proclaimed by Boniface VIII in 1300.

It is not easy to find an interpretation that all historians agree on regarding the etymology of the word "catacomb". It is, however, a fairly certain fact that the first place in history known by this name was the early Christian cemetery excavated under today's Basilica of St Sebastian Outside the Walls. The many other underground cemeteries built later in Rome and other cities then adopted the same name as this cemetery. At the time, in fact, this site was called "ad catacumbas" and through habitual use, this place name eventually came to be used to refer to Christian underground cemeteries, hence catacombs. Not only are these the first real catacombs in history, but they also play an important devotional role: the highly venerated Saint Sebastian, tortured and martyred in 303 AD by order of the Emperor Diocletian, was buried within these tunnels and an increasingly large basilica in his memory developed over the following centuries, visited by pilgrims from all over the world. Not only that: the Basilica of St Sebastian Outside the Walls was later included in the traditional Pilgrimage of the Seven Churches, which includes the main basilicas of the Eternal City. Not to be missed are the many works of art distributed along the aisles of the church, such as the last masterpiece by the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the bust of the Salvator Mundi from 1679.

At the intersection of the Via Ardeatina and the Appian Way, the Church of Domine Quo Vadis is a jewel of Roman religious architecture. Its unusual name derives from a specific episode in the life of St. Peter. In a context of violent persecution of the early Christians in the Neronian era, the resigned Apostle Peter was leaving Rome and heading south. All of a sudden, along the Appian Way, Jesus appeared to him walking in the opposite direction. Pietro was excited and asked him "Domine, quo vadis?" (which in Latin means "Lord, where are you going?"), Christ replied that he was going to Rome to be crucified a second time. The saint was thus convinced to retrace his steps, aware of the sacrifice that awaited him in the city. Inside the Church of Domine Quo Vadis, a stone shows the shape of Christ's feet when he appeared in this vision to the apostle: it is a replica, because the original of this legendary relic is instead preserved in the nearby Basilica of St Sebastian Outside the Walls.

In Caffarella Park, slightly shifted to the north with respect to the passage of the Appian Way, an ancient testimony of archaeology is revealed: the sepulchral monument of Annia Regilla, immersed in the Roman pine forest. For some time, it was thought that this temple was dedicated to the god Rediculus, protector of the Roman soldiers who, after having been at war for a long time and far from home, returned to Rome (referred to as "rediculi"). It is much more likely, however, that the monument is a cenotaph commissioned by Herodes Atticus, a very rich intellectual of Greek origin, in memory of his wife Annia Regilla, who was killed in 160 AD, likely by order of her husband himself. Whatever the origin of this structure, you will be able to observe its splendid exterior decorations in polychrome marble and let your imagination travel to times of ancient splendour.

The Catacombs of Domitilla, perhaps slightly less well-known than the nearby catacombs of San Callisto and San Sebastiano, are impressive in appearance and size. About 12 kilometres of underground tunnels run along the walls of the tombs, decorated with biblical symbols and scenes that refer to faith in the resurrection. Early Christians began, in fact, to bury the bodies of the faithful to preserve them for the afterlife, going against the traditional cremation in use among pagans. The Domitilla that gives her name to the site is Flavia Domitilla. She was the granddaughter of Emperor Vespasian and originally owned the land that today covers the intricate network of early Christian catacombs.

Fontecchio is a stone town, well recovered after the extensive damage caused by the earthquake in 2009 and rarely visited by tourists, which resembles a period photograph. The structure is typical of mediaeval fortified villages, with a dense network of cobbled streets, steep stairways, access gates, walls and towers: you can have an overview of it while arriving in the town along the road from Rocca di Mezzo. Beside the fortified section is Piazzetta del Popolo ("People's Square"), with one of the local symbols: the beautiful fourteenth-century limestone fountain, decorated with lion-faced masks, which is also featured in the town's coat of arms. Near the fountain, a votive shrine preserves a precious 15th-century fresco depicting the Madonna and Child, with colours that are still vivid despite the damage of time. Also on the square are the ancient communal oven, where families used to bake bread, and the parish church of Santa Maria della Pace, founded in the 11th century and rebuilt after the devastating earthquake that struck Fontecchio and the entire region in 1703. The fortified village can be accessed through the medieval gate on the south side of the square: at the top of the hill stands the fifteenth-century Clock Tower, another symbol of this village just waiting to be discovered. The clock, which is very old, has only one hand because it keeps time according to the "Italian method", i.e., the clock face is divided into six hours, with four revolutions of the hand each day. The tower houses a touching permanent photographic exhibition dedicated to the city of L'Aquila and the areas around it, before and after the 2009 earthquake.

According to tradition, the basilica of Sant'Eustachio was founded in the 4th century by the Emperor Constantine on the site of the saint's martyrdom. However, the church is not documented until the 8th century: the only certainty is that we are in the area of the Neronian-Alexandrine Baths, erected by Nero in around 62 and rebuilt by Alexander Severus in 227, from where the two ancient columns leaning against the side of the building, along Via di Sant'Eustachio, originate. We know that the basilica was restored and enlarged in 1196, when the Romanesque bell tower was built, featuring bifora windows that are partly walled in. The present-day appearance of Sant'Eustachio, however, is due to major restructuring, or rather, rebuilding in the first half of the 18th century, the period from which the bronze and polychrome marble high altar by Nicola Salvi and the baldachin above it, created by Ferdinando Fuga in 1746, also date. The work was essential to save the church from the infiltration of water and floods from the Tiber, which were frequent and dangerous. On the façade, towards the corner of Via di Sant'Eustachio, a plaque commemorates the level reached by the river during one of its worst floods, in 1495. The upper portion of the façade is crowned with a deer's head because, according to hagiography, Saint Eustace was converted during a hunting expedition, when he saw a glowing cross (or, according to other sources, the figure of Christ) between the antlers of a deer.

Small in size, immense in architectural quality and importance in the history of the arts: the church of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza designed by Francesco Borromini is considered one of the highest and most original expressions of Roman Baroque, and a reference point for generations of architects. Built between 1643 and 1660, the year of its consecration, the church is inserted into the structure of the Palazzo della Sapienza, closing off the view of the central courtyard at the end opposite the entrance. Borromini, who was appointed architect of La Sapienza in 1632, had to work in a restricted and quadrangular space that had already been defined by his predecessors. He radically transformed it by designing a church with a mixtilinear central plan, as fascinating as it is complex in its geometry. The plan of the church of Sant'Ivo is essentially a six-pointed star formed by two intersecting triangles, a double symbol of the Trinity; in the centre, the intersection of the triangles forms a hexagon. The walls are surmounted by an entablature with alternating concave, straight and convex sides, on which rests a six-segment dome with clear and bright ornamentation, anticipating the Rococo style. The floor is also the work of Borromini, who invented a design with black and white marble inlays. On the altar is a large altarpiece dedicated to St. Ivo Hélory, a work by Pietro da Cortona that remained unfinished when the master died in 1669 and was completed by his pupils. On the outside, the dome is enveloped by a lantern tower with convex sides, which, seen from the palace courtyard, contrasts with the concave exedra below. It is crowned by a stepped roof and a spiral lantern which, with its upward thrust, has become the icon of the entire Sapienza building.

Michelangelo did not have the satisfaction of seeing it completed: construction of the dome had reached the drum by the time he died in 1564. The work was restarted in 1588 by Giacomo Della Porta and Domenico Fontana and completed in 1589 with the construction of the double-shell dome. Between 1592 and 1605, during the pontificate of Clement VIII, the lantern was completed and the dome was covered with lead plates. In 1593, the large golden bronze sphere surmounted by the cross, by Sebastiano Torrigiani, was placed on the top of the lantern. Flooded with light and impressive on the inside too, the dome is set on four grandiose arches and as many pillars. In the spandrels, in mosaic, are the evangelists (St Mark and St Matthew based on a design by Cesare Nebbia, while St John and St Luke bear the signature of Giovanni De Vecchi). The six-tier mosaic decoration is by Cavalier d'Arpino (1605). The four large niches at the base of the dome's pillars contain 5-metre-high statues commissioned by Urban VIII (1643). Above them, four ornate balconies by Bernini serve to display the church's most distinguished relics. You can ascend to the top of the dome from the entrance on the right-hand side of the basilica portico, climbing about 550 steps or covering half of the route with a lift to the terrace roof of the basilica: from here, you have a good view of the dome, the square and the city. Two ramps lead to the circular corridor and the top of the lantern, from where a spiral staircase leads to the external gallery, from which you can admire the splendid panorama of the city as far as the Castelli Romani region and the sea.

The abbey basilica of Santa Giustina has changed its appearance many times since the 5th century, when the first version of this church was built. At first, it was only a small oratory built on a necropolis, where St Justina Martyr had been buried, in an area outside the city threatened by the marshes of the lower Veneto region. It is hard to believe it when faced with the grandeur of the present-day basilica, 122 metres long and crowned by 8 domes, and the spacious elegance of the square that leads to it: Prato della Valle, a vast late-eighteenth-century space that includes a green islet surrounded by a canal and about eighty statues, dedicated to the illustrious men of Padua and its University. From the 8th century, the Benedictine Abbey of Santa Giustina, to whom the church is still dedicated, grew up next to the basilica and houses an important library. After the earthquake that struck Veneto in 1117, the basilica was rebuilt in Romanesque style. It was rebuilt again, between 1532 and 1579, this time with monumental Renaissance forms, but the façade remained unfinished. Among the masterpieces of art housed there, the highlight is the rear altarpiece of the Martyrdom of St Justina by Paolo Veronese (from around 1575). Religious focal points include the ark of St Luke the Evangelist (1316), the ark of St Matthias the Apostle and the small shrine of St Prosdocimus, a remnant of the first early Christian complex, with a marble iconostasis from the 6th century. The relics of St. Luke and St. Matthias and the connection with the figures of St. Justina and St. Prosdocimo make this basilica a key stop along the Romea Strata, the pilgrimage route that goes down to Rome from north-eastern Europe via Friuli and Veneto. Among the tombs of so many saints and blesseds, the tomb of the Venetian Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia is also worth a stop for (secular) veneration: she was the first woman to receive a university degree, in 1678.

The panorama around the Mount Lussari sanctuary takes your breath away. The small church, built in around 1360 to house a statuette of the Madonna, stands atop a 1776-metre-high mountain and overlooks the majestic Julian Alps: a terrace from which one can admire the rock faces of the Jôf di Montasio, the Jôf Fuart and the Mangart, much of which rise above an altitude of 2600 metres. It is difficult to say where religious faith ends and where the natural sacredness of the mountain begins. But there is also another element with a strong emotional impact, and that is the sacredness of the war memories and of the lives that the First World War shattered, over a century ago, on these disputed mountains: we are very close to a double border, with Austria and Slovenia. The sanctuary itself was destroyed by cannon fire and had to be rebuilt in 1924. Today, Mount Lussari is a symbol of peace and of the newfound European harmony between Slavic, German and Italian-speaking peoples. A place of encounter and dialogue between different cultures, it is visited by pilgrims travelling along the Romea Strata, which descends towards Rome from north-eastern Europe, and by those following the Celestial Way, an itinerary connecting various places of worship in Slovenia, Italy and Austria. The desire for justice and peace among peoples is also behind the interior decoration of the sanctuary, the work of Catholic painter Tone Kralj. A Slovenian with an Italian background, Kralj worked here from the 1930s until 1960. Although the most devout climb on foot along the Pilgrim's Trail, tackling a change in altitude of over 900 metres, nothing stops you from reaching the sanctuary in comfort and making the most of the modern cable car that sets off from Camporosso in Tarvisio. After all, there is winter skiing in these parts: the key attraction is the Prampero piste, for experienced skiers.