Hope, Death, and Immortality in Art
To get to the crypt, we had to first visit the museum. The audio guide echoed in my ears as I tried to be attentive to the art and artifacts I was presented with, quickly typing up the highlights in the notes app on my phone.
“Matteo da Bascio was a founder of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin.”
Got it.
“The girdle that is tied around the waists of the Capuchin friars has three knots symbolizing poverty, chastity, and obedience.”
Okay, nice.
“This masterpiece was painted by Caravaggio.”
I wish I could take a picture.
“These are metal instruments of flagellation.”
Oh.
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That’s when the gravity of the space hit me. I was about to walk into the Bone Church of Rome, a holy place meant to serve as a reminder of earthly mortality, a way to reconcile with eventual death, and a way to communicate the hope that salvation offers. None of those things bothered me, of course. What bothered me was the bones or rather the implications of them. They are remnants of life expertly arranged across six rooms and a hallway connecting them. They are anachronistic and morbid decorations that consist of people; people who were not only bone but flesh as well. I knew that because I’d just seen what they used to flog themselves with as a form of penance.
As soon as we walked in, the weight came crashing down on me. It was horror and amazement, fear and hope all at the same time. I was instantly reminded of a similar weight I felt in the Piazza del Limbo in Florence, upon being told that I was sitting among the burials of unbaptized infants. The structure that stands beside the piazza is a church dating back to the age of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor.
In these spaces, it is easy to understand how the Christian church became the stronghold that it is in Italy. During the Renaissance, the infant mortality rate was approximately fifty percent, with the term “infant” referring to children from birth to five years old. At this time, childbirth killed twenty percent of women. In a world where life was death, surely the shift from paganism to Christianity is a natural one.
There are instances of this shift in everything. Christians adopted the Roman basilica, molding the shape of the common public buildings to symbolize the narrative of the path to heaven. In traditional basilicas, people would enter the structure from the side, choosing to go right or left; however, Christian cathedral basilicas exhibited a central portal through which only a path to the altar of Jesus Christ existed. Those who crossed into the space understood that they no longer had a choice because the choice was life or death. I saw this also exemplified on my own in the Catacombs of Santa Domitilla, a place of burial with both pagan and Christian frescos but with Christian burials becoming the primary type of burial among the 26,000 tombs below the original and modern Christian churches built upon one another.
From this perspective, Christianity and its connection to inevitable death is omnipresent in the art, architecture, and life of the Italian Renaissance and the significance rings true still today, as the foundation of the nation is Christianity and the ruler is the Church.
* Note- The photos included in this blog are not of the spaces I am describing, but are of other significant religious spaces. Due to the presence of human remains, I was not able to photograph many of the places I discussed. Additionally, I am personally uncomfortable with the public exhibition of human remains in any context and would not share take or share photographs even if given the opportunity. Thanks!
