Raphael’s Liberation of St Peter

The feast of St Peter’s Chains which we keep today originated as the dedication feast of a Roman basilica on the Esquiline hill, within sight of the Colosseum. We do not know precisely when it was first built, but according to a surviving dedicatory inscription, it was already considered old when Pope Sixtus III restored it in the 430s. Apart from the Vatican basilica, it is the only ancient church of note in Rome dedicated to the Prince of the Apostles, and has custody of one of the city’s most important relics, the two chains by which Peter was held in prison.

As such, it was long one of the most prestigious cardinalitial titles. In 1467, it was conferred upon the 37th Franciscan minister general, Francesco Maria della Rovere, who continued to hold it after his term expired less than two years later, until his election to the papacy with the name Sixtus IV in 1471. A few months later, in the finest traditional of papal nepotism, he bestowed it upon his nephew Giuliano, who held it for almost 32 years, until he was elected pope in 1503, taking the name Julius II. The building owes much of its current appearance, including its façade, to renovation work done at Giuliano’s behest. (It remained in the della Rovere family continually until 1520; 28 years later, it was given to his 13-year old grand-nephew Giulio, who held it for 22 years.)

Sixtus and Julius were major protagonists of the almost unfathomably chaotic political events that took place in Italy in the later 15th and early 16th centuries, but are certainly best known today as the patrons of some of the greatest artists of the later Italian Renaissance. In 1508, Julius commissioned Michaelangelo to repaint the ceiling of his uncle’s famous chapel, which had originally been just blue with stars.

A reconstruction of the Sistine Chapel as it would have appeared when it was first dedicated in 1481.

The Creation of Adam, the central panel of the new images added to the ceiling by Michelangelo from 1508 to 1512. 

He also brought in several other notable artists to decorate a new set of staterooms, among them, Raphael Sanzio, a native of the little town of Urbino, and a distant relative of his chief architect, Donatello Bramante. But when Raphael had painted a single wall, the pope was so impressed with his work that he fired all the others so that the whole project could be given to him. Raphael was therefore working on his first room, the Stanza della Segnatura, at the very same time that Michelangelo was working on the Sistine chapel ceiling; he finished his project, which was much smaller, first, in 1511.

Raphael’s first painting in the Stanza della Segnatura, the so-called Disputation of the Blessed Sacrament, which would be more properly called The Triumph of Theology.

When Michelangelo was about half-way done with the ceiling, Pope Julius prevailed upon him, though much against his will, to offer a sneak preview. In an age in which imitation, that is to say, imitation of the classical past, had become the very definition of art, there was no one who had a sharper eye than Raphael for seeing what was good about another artist’s work, taking it into his own, and improving upon it. In his second room, therefore, he immediately revised his style in imitation of Michelangelo’s, not just improving upon it, but making a challenge to his rival; a challenge, which, however, would go unanswered.

In the following description, it must be remembered that the first three paintings in the room are in part the work of assistants, as was normally the case in those days. The piece de resistance, however, The Liberation of St Peter from Prison, is basically all Raphael.

The first painting is the one that has given its name to the room, the Stanza of Heliodorus, the agent of the emperor Antiochus who in II Maccabees 3 is sent to Jerusalem to plunder the temple. On the far left, Pope Julius II is carried into the scene on the sedes gestatoria by Swiss guards. (The company was instituted by Julius in 1506, and this is the oldest picture of them as papal guards.) Next to them is a group of citizens of the holy city, anxiously looking on as the high priest in the middle prays for the safety of the temple, and of the treasures that keep it running, and are used to care for the poor.

Notice the very different style of these two group of figures. The pope and the Swiss guards look like they were painted 20 years earlier, by artists of the generation that trained Raphael. The onlookers, on the other hand, are very much in the style of Michelangelo, both in terms of color scheme and pose. The great Florentine was first and foremost a sculptor, and when he was constrained to paint, he painted his human figures (the only subject he was interested in) as if they were sculptures in the sunlight. The woman in the foreground, and the father and son who have climbed up on the pillar to get a better view, are very similar to many of the artfully posed figures in Michelangelo’s ceiling.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

NLM’s Twentieth Anniversary

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the New Liturgical Movement, and as always, we cannot let the day pass without a word of thanks to our founder Shawn Tribe for his years of dedication to the site, to our publisher, Fr Robert Pasley, to our parent organization, the Church Music Association of America, as well as to the rest of our team, new and old, and our many guest contributors, for all the work they have put into NLM over these many years. And of course, thanks to all of our readers for your support, encouragement and the inspiration you provide to continue our work. We also commend to your prayers our previous publisher Dr William Mahrt, a true giant in the field of sacred music, who passed away on January 1st of this year.

Shortly after I took over as managing editor in 2013, we received an email from a reader asking “What is the purpose of your website?” The purpose of NLM is summed up very neatly in the logo at the top of the page, which Matthew Alderman designed back in 2010, in the circular band around the thurible: “Dirigatur oratio mea sicut incensum.” These words are said by the priest at the incensation of the altar during the Offertory; in such a context, “oratio mea – my prayer” means the prayer of the whole Church, in whose name the priest prays the whole of the Mass. The Douay Bible translates them as “Let my prayer be directed as incense,” but the Latin word “dirigatur” can also mean “be set in order.”

The purpose of NLM, therefore, is to help set the prayer of the Church in order, for it is pointless to deny that in many respects it is not in order. Our very first post was a report on a liturgical conference held in England, at which Fr Mark Drew proposed (almost two years before Summorum Pontificum,) the lifting of restrictions on the celebration of the traditional liturgy, stating, “Don’t fear anarchy. … Anarchy is what we have already.”

To this purpose, we examine every facet of the Church’s liturgical life, historical and contemporary, and everything related to it, however marginally, in the hope of contributing to the process of setting the prayer of the Church in order. We share the essential goal of the first Liturgical Movement: to restore the liturgy in its entirety to pride of place in the Church as the highest and most perfect expression of Her life of prayer.

The words that follow, “sicut incensum – like incense” remind us that the prayer life of the Church is also the best example which She can offer to the world of Her service to God, “For we are the good odor of Christ unto God, in them that are saved, and in them that perish.” The thurible itself is also a reminder of the duty of charity, the greatest of the virtues, for when the priest returns it to the deacon, he says before he is incensed, “May the Lord enkindle within us the fire of His love, and the flame of eternal charity.” Let it serve as a reminder to all, in the midst of all the controversies and difficulties that inevitably result from such an enterprise, that the goal of the Church’s prayer is union with God in eternal charity.

For your amusement, here are a few screen captures of some of the early designs of the site; after the third one, we’ve stayed pretty much the same. (Click images to enlarge.)

2005-2006

2007

2010

The Te igitur

Lost in Translation #134

Last week, we devoted an entire post to the first letter of the first word of the first sentence of the Roman Canon. This week, we pick up the pace and examine the rest of the sentence:

Te ígitur, clementíssime Pater, per Jesum Christum, Filium tuum, Dóminum nostrum, súpplices rogámus ac pétimus uti accepta hábeas, et benedícas hæc dona, hæc múnera, hæc sancta sacrificia illibáta; in primis quæ tibi offérimus pro Ecclesia tua sancta cathólica; quam pacificáre, custodíre, adunáre, et régere dignéris toto orbe terrárum: una cum fámulo tuo Papa nostro N., et Antístite nostro N., et ómnibus orthodoxis, atque cathólicae et apostólicae fídei cultóribus.

Which I translate as:

Therefore, we suppliants pray and beseech You, most merciful Father, through Jesus Christ Your Son, our Lord, that You may have accepted—and may You bless—these gifts, these presents, these holy unspotted Sacrifices, which in the first place we offer to You for Your holy Catholic Church, that You would deign to grant peace to, and to preserve, unite, and govern her throughout the world, together with Your servant N. our Pope, N. our bishop, and all orthodox worshippers of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith.

Suspected Superfluity

Unlike the Orations (the Collect, Secret, and Postcommunion), which are renowned for their precise parsimony, the Roman Canon abounds in what a lesser mind might be tempted to call “useless repetitions.” Why the does the priest say that we are praying and beseeching instead of just praying? Why does he bother to ask that the gifts be accepted before they are blessed? Why does he call the gifts three things (these gifts, these presents, these sacrifices) when only one word would have sufficed? And why does he petition to God to “grant peace to, preserve, unite, and govern” the Church instead of something simple like “watch over” her? How, in other words, can we assent to the Catechism of the Council of Trent that there is nothing “useless or superfluous” in the Latin Mass when the Canon seems rife with verbal superfluities? [1]

The Council of Trent

The short answer, I believe, is that ornamentation is not superfluity because ornament is not ornamental. In Latin, ornamentum refers to equipment or furniture as well as decoration. In the theater it refers to the costume of a character; in rhetoric, to the make-up or style of speech. Cicero’s On the Orator elucidates four traits of a speech’s ornamenta:

that we should speak correctly and in pure Latin;

next, clearly and distinctly;

then, gracefully (ornate);

then suitably to the dignity of the subject, and becomingly, so to speak; [2]

The third and fourth traits are related in that the greater the dignity of the subject, the more suitable it is to have graceful or ornate speech. One need not channel the Bard when telling one’s child to take out the trash, but it is a different story when it comes to asking one’s God to turn bread and wine into the form and matter of His crucified and risen Son.

The “extra” words in the Canon, then, are not redundant or superfluous, but the apt response to a rhetorical necessity, namely, of the duty of matching the dignity of the language to the dignity of the subject. It is in this way that ornament is not ornamental, that is, it is not a dispensable option but a vital sign by which the importance of the thing is signified.

And the words have been carefully arranged. In the sequence haec dona, haec munera, haec sacrificia (these gifts, the presents, these sacrifices), the order is ascending. Dona can refer to any gift great or small; munera refers to more formal gifts or tributes, the word that the Secret uses the most for the oblations (bread and wine); and sacrificia refers to a total gift to God that transforms the gift itself. Such is the journey of bread and wine, which is: 1) given to the priest before the Mass or during an Offertory Procession, 2) offered to God by him, and 3) then turned into the Lamb that was slain.

Similarly, the petition for the Church, that it receive peace and be preserved, unified, and governed, has an ascending order. Imagine a Church at war with her enemies both external and internal. The first step for a remedy is to stop the war through peace. But since things can decay and dissolve even during peacetime, the next step is to preserve them. Having preserved members is a good thing (like specimens in formaldehyde), but even better is to have them unified into a single, living whole. And yet this unified Body will come to no good unless it is governed and guided by God.

Syntax

As a classicist friend of mine likes to joke, word order in Latin is not important—until it is. In this case, making Te the first word gives it prominence. And that word, of course, points to our most clement God the Father, to whom every Mass is offered, through the Son and with the Holy Spirit. The opening word of the Te igitur therefore underscores the theocentric focus of the Canon and of the Mass.

Diction

Finally, three brief remarks on word choice.

First, the adjective illibatus is a striking choice for modifying sacrificium. It is usually translated as “unspotted”—or, as in the 2011 ICEL translation, “unblemished”—which is understandable since in the pre-Christian era illibatus was paired with nouns like virginitas [3], and in the Christian era with words like victimae and fides. [4] Nevertheless, illibatus literally means “undiminished.” Illibatus is the past participle of in-libo; in here means “not” while the verb libo means to take a little from something. But libo also means “to pour out in honor of a deity”: in other words, to make a libation. [5] Could the word choice mean that the sacrifices being mentioned, which currently consist of sacralized but untransubstantiated bread and wine, have not yet been “poured out to God” because they are not yet His Precious Blood? In that case, the most accurate translation of haec sancta sacrificia illibata, albeit the least eloquent, would be “these holy and [at present] un-libationed sacrifices.” My sense is that the author’s intention was, as most translators think, to convey the sense of “unblemished,” but I also suspect that he deliberately chose a word with rich sacrificial connotations.

Second, the Biblical word for bishop is episcopus, but the Canon refers to the local ordinary as antistes, a word that originally designated a high priest of Rome’s old civic religion. [6] Perhaps this repurposing of Latin is a way of coopting the high parlance of the imperial court and putting it in the service of the heavenly court.

From here...

...To here

Third, the Canon refers to Christian worshippers as cultores, whereas other parts of the Mass use other terms such as the faithful (fideles) or members of God’s household (familia). Cultor was also a term used for pagan worshippers, but its origins are agricultural. The verb from which it is derived, colo / colere, means to take care of or tend; a cultor, then, is a cultivator, “one who bestows care or labor upon a thing.” [7] Keeping this etymology in mind, we can think of all orthodox believers as cultivators of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith. Only orthodox believers can be cultivators; heretical believers are not cultivators but destroyers who sow the field with cockles or weeds: of them does Our Lord say, “An enemy hath done this” (see Matt 13, 24-30). And orthodox believers, this noun reminds us, do not keep the Faith as if it were a butterfly in amber, but as if it were a garden in need of constant attention, protecting it from pests, nourishing it with love, and pruning its excrescences (such as wrong turns in developments doctrinal or liturgical or invasive innovations). May God bless His gardeners of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith. [8]

Notes

[1] Catechism of the Council of Trent, Ch. 20, §9: “Of these rites and ceremonies let none be deemed useless or superfluous: all on the contrary tend to display the majesty of this august sacrifice, and to excite the faithful, by the celebration of these saving mysteries, to the contemplation of the divine things which lie concealed in the Eucharistic sacrifice.”

[2] De Oratore 32.144

[3] See Seneca, Controversiae 1.2.12.

[4] See St Jerome, Commentarii in IV epistulas Paulinas, ad Titum 1,8-9.

[5] “Libo, -avi, -atum,” I.B.2, Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.

[6] See Christine Mohrmann, “Notes sur le Latin liturgique,” Études, Tome II, (1961), 104-105.

[7] “Cultor, -oris, m.,” II.B, Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.

[8] On a side note, the 2011 ICEL translation expresses a noble sentiment but it is not the one found in this passage: “and all those who, holding to the truth, hand on the catholic and apostolic faith.” (p. 635) The notion here is of tradition, of handing on, instead of cultivating. Also, “those holding to the truth” is, in my opinion, an inadequate and unnecessary translation of “orthodox,” which means both right belief and right praise. The latter meaning anticipates the next sentence in the Canon (the Memento) in its description of the faithful offering the sacrifice of praise.

Finally, all English translations (including my own) treat orthodoxis as the adjective of cultoribus but in fact it is a noun linked to cultoribus by atque. The most literal translation, therefore, is “and all orthodox [believers] and worshippers of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith.”