Trastevere
Swami Vivekananda and his traveling companions, James and Charlotte Sevier, spent several days in Rome during Christmas week 1896. This circa 1898 postcard of the river Tevere (Tiber), which shows the new Canevari embankment walls, appears to have been painted from the 1479 Ponte Sisto footbridge, which was one of the bridges leading to the Trastevere section of Rome. It is not known which bridges Swamiji, the Seviers, and their young friend Alberta Sturges, may have crossed going to and from Trastevere. If they came by carriage or by omnibus, they may have come across the new Ponte Palatino, shown in a previous post.
In 1910, eight years after Swamiji’s mahasamadhi, and ten years after James had passed away, Charlotte Sevier wrote some rather sketchy reminiscences of their time in Rome, stating that they went to two places in Trastevere on the west bank of the Tiber. The old port of Ripa Grande, seen in this 1905 postcard, is near the present day Ponte Sublico which was built in 1918.
A painting by Ettore Roesler Franz, circa 1890, of the Arco dei Tolomei looks along Via Anicia in Trastevere. The campanile of the church of St. Cecilia can be seen in the distance. Swamiji would have walked around some narrow lanes to the Piazza St. Cecilia. Their objective in Trastevere was to see two churches associated with two great saints.
There is an entrance to a courtyard from the Piazza St. Cecilia. Across the courtyard stands the Basilica Santa Cecilia, pictured in the 1905 postcard. It is a fifth century church with a twelfth century bell tower and an eighteenth century facade. According to tradition, the church was built upon the site of St. Cecilia's family home.
Charlotte wrote barely two sentences about their excursion to Trastevere, but these few details impart significant information about what they saw: "Interesting too is the church of St. Cecilia (the patron-saint of music) in which the white marble figure lies;" The niche holding St. Cecelia's white marble figure can just be seen under the altar in this postcard of the church interior.
Today, one reason to visit the church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere would be to view the Last Judgement, 1293, by Pietro Cavallini in the choir of the nuns. This masterwork was plastered over in 1725, and unfortunately its existence was unknown when Swamiji visited in 1896. The fresco was rediscovered in 1900.
Charlotte identified Saint Cecilia as the patron saint of music. There are numerous paintings of St. Cecilia playing musical instruments that were unknown in her lifetime. The legend told of her life was that while musicians played at her wedding she sang to God in her heart—to preserve her virginity—due to her pure and saintly Christian character. St. Cecilia has been a favorite subject of artists over five centuries, since Raphael painted the Ecstasy of St. Cecilia in 1514. This chromolitho postcard published by Stengel reproduces St. Cecilia at the Organ painted by Carlo Dolci in 1671.
In the late nineteenth century there was an increased romanticization of St. Cecilia's death. This "Luxochromie" postcard by the Musée du Luxembourg is from an 1878 painting by Etienne Gautier, now in the Musée d'Orsay. St. Cecilia was martyred during the rule of Emperor Alexander Severus. She died between 222-235 CE after a botched beheading, i.e., she was struck in the neck three times with a sword, but lingered, dying, for three more days.
Sainte Cécile was quite popular in France. Her life was represented in a series of twelve postcards staged as a theatre play. It seems that many societal issues of the nineteenth century concerning religion, science, government, etc., found expression when dressed up in the costumes of ancient Rome.
Swamiji and the Seviers saw the crypt of St. Cecilia in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus. She was interred in the catacombs until the year 821 when her body was transferred to Trastevere for safekeeping. This sketch is one page from an illustrated guide book to the catacombs from the previous post.
The marble sculpture of St. Cecilia by Stefano Maderno is said to represent the exact position of her body when it was discovered, allegedly incorrupt, in 1599 during renovations to the church. The 1878 painting by Gautier cannot match the tender pathos that Maderno achieved in this sculpture by not showing her face.
Staying on the topic of sculpture in Trastevere, in the church of San Francesco a Ripa is another important work of art which Swamiji must have seen. According to Baedeker's Handbook it was the only item of note in the church.
In a chapel in the left transept of the church is the Ecstasy of Beato Ludovicca Albertoni, 1674, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Bernini's more famous sculpture of St. Teresa in Ecstasy is in the Cornaro Chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. Bernini's representation of spiritual ecstasy probably seemed peculiar to Swamiji. St. Teresa wrote a vivid account of her spiritual experience, but ultimately the viewer of the sculpture must depend upon a male interpretation of a woman's interior experience with the result looking more sensual than spiritual. Yet how else could an artist of the seventeenth century have used stone to portray the ethereal?
Swamiji did not go to San Francesco a Ripa to see a sculpture by Bernini, however. Baedeker's Handbook merely noted: "St. Francis of Assisi resided for some time in the adjoining monastery." Charlotte was equally brief when she wrote: “adjoining, is the monastery where St. Francis of Assisi lived, and his portrait and a fragment of his clothing is still shown.” In addition to the portrait and precious piece of cloth, the monastery also keeps the stone pillow used by St. Francis.
Above is a rare vintage postcard of the church of San Francesco d'Assisi a Ripa. It is a thirteenth century convent church, with a 1682 facade by Mattia de Rossi, and interior reconstructed in 1603 by Onorio Longhi.
Here is a real photo postcard of the interior of the church of San Francesco a Ripa.
Curiously, even though there was much political suspicion of Catholics in America and England during the nineteenth century, admiration for the holy life and character of St. Francis grew considerably amongst non-Catholics. In 1893 the French Protestant theologian Paul Sabatier published the first modern biography of St. Francis. It was translated into English the following year. Did someone speak enthusiastically to Swamiji about Sabatier's Life of St. Francis of Assisi? Did someone who knew Rome well specially recommend to Swamiji that he see these sacred relics at the monastery at Ripa?
The main altar in the interior of the church was completed in 1764. The polychrome wood sculpture of Saint Francis with the crucifix and an angel is attributed to Fra Diego da Careri, before 1588. Although Swamiji did not promote image worship, I think he would have been glad to see this standing image, this murti, of St. Francis in the round. It made the saint—a monk, a true ascetic with divine wounds—tangible and approachable.
They probably had to ask permission to see the cell of St. Francis. It was through a corridor and up steep stairs. The original cell had been enlarged in 1603, and a beautiful paneled altar of walnut wood was made by a Franciscan cabinetmaker in 1698. The reliquary contains a piece of the saint's sackcloth garment, and a piece of bandage soaked with blood from his stigmata. The portrait is framed into the altar and flanked by portraits of other saints. A mechanism swivels additional reliquaries into view.
For Swamiji, seeing the reverence with which these relics were treated was surely an experience that he appreciated. It must have reminded him that some of his guru's shirts, dishes and shoes were carefully collected after his mahasamadhi on 16 August 1886.
It has been claimed that the portrait of St. Francis at San Francesco a Ripa is either a copy or (wishfully) the original of the painting, above, by Margaritone da Arezzo (1240-1290) in the Vatican Museum.
However the iconography of the portrait at San Francesco a Ripa more closely resembles Margaritone's portrait of St. Francis in the Museo Civico di Montepulciano, particularly with regard to the posture, the halo, and the red cross.
A 1981 postcard shows the portrait of St. Francis seen by Swamiji. The eyes do not quite resemble the other portraits of St. Francis by Margaritone. Nevertheless it is a venerable and much venerated work of art from the thirteenth century.
This postcard showing the full length portrait of St. Francis preserved in the church at Ripa attributes the artist as Margaritone da Arezzo. The shrine at San Francesco a Ripa can be viewed at this link.
Above, the picture of St. Francis receiving the Rule recognizing his Order from Pope Innocent III, is from a series of postcards on the Life of St. Francis.
St. Francis visited Rome several times between 1209 (the first visit after his conversion) and his death in 1226. It is unclear from surviving sources where he stayed on his first visit, but by 1223, after the approval of the Franciscan rule, it is known that he and his followers had made the hospice into a base for their Roman activities and visits. It is believed that an aristocratic lay disciple of St. Francis, "Fra Jacoba" Giacoma Frangipani de'Settesoli, persuaded the Benedictines to allow the new Order of Friars Minor to use their hospice.
The Franciscan convent was formerly a Benedictine chapel and hospice for pilgrims and travellers dedicated to St. Blaise. The hospice was near the Ripa Grande quay on the Tiber used by ships bringing pilgrims in the Middle Ages. The church was officially transferred to the Friars Minor in 1229, and after St. Francis was canonized in 1231 it was decorated with frescoes by Pietro Cavallini—now lost. In 1236 part of the monastery complex was granted to the Poor Clare nuns, and in 1249 the Friars Minor moved their Roman headquarters to Santa Maria in Aracoeli, where Swamiji would attend Mass on Christmas Eve.
Swamiji must have been glad to thread a connection with St. Francis. For some time he had been considering formally founding a new Order of monks. The historic growth of the Friars Minor, from such a humble beginning into thousands of dedicated, spiritually transformed lives, must have been an inspiration.
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