Being classicists, when we think of Rome we think of ancient Rome: Colosseum, Forum, Baths, tons of inscriptions and sculptures. And of course a classicist can be in Rome for decades and not see everything. But Rome is not just a city with a classical past. It has several other pasts as well, including a medieval past (which is not much on display), a Renaissance past, a Baroque past, a … well, you get the idea. And the presence of the various popes in Rome winds through it all. There is, of course, the Vatican and St Peter’s square, which are full of visitors day and night. And there are the other papal basilicas besides St Peter’s. The pope’s picture is to be found everywhere (in restaurants, businesses, etc.,) as are pictures of previous popes. But that’s not quite what we’re talking about here.
We’re thinking instead of how earlier popes have left their marks in virtually every corner of this city. For people who were supposed to be focused on the next life, many of the popes seemed very keen to make sure they were remembered in this one. You expect to see something about a pope in a church, after all. But the marks of the popes in Rome are everywhere. Everyone goes to the Trevi fountain (top photo). How many, we wonder, notice the inscription over the fountain? Here Pope Clement XII notes that he adorned with great care the fountain of pure water noted for its abundance and salubriousness. Pope Benedict XIV also gets his name in there, noting that he’s the guy who actually finished the adorning.
The popes like to remind bystanders that they Christianized pagan monuments. For example, there’s a great obelisk at the centre of St Peter’s Square. Obelisks come from Egypt; Roman emperors brought them over to adorn public spaces. (Now you see where the popes got the idea!) Many popes took them over, moving them and/or adding inscriptions as if they themselves erected them. The Vatican obelisk stood in Alexandria, Egypt before Caligula brought it to Rome, to the Circus of Nero. In the late 16th century Pope Sixtus V moved it to its current location. And he had an inscription placed on the base, noting that he transferred it with great effort to the ‘threshold of the apostles’. Naturally, it was a team of nearly a thousand men who did the actual moving. The engineer who accomplished this marvel does have his own inscription, though, much lower down and much smaller.
Also, when you’re in St Peter’s Square and you look at Bernini’s magnificent colonnade, you see at regular intervals around the colonnade small (but prominent) plaques with the name of Pope Alexander VII on them, to remind you who commissioned the colonnade.
How about the Colosseum? Emblem of ancient Rome, right? Sure, but a few popes had to get their names on it as well. Pope Pius VII commissioned supporting walls for the parts in danger of falling. There is a modest inscription on one of those walls with his name on it. Somewhat grander is the adjacent inscription of our old friend Benedict XIV. It mentions his predecessor Clement X (in smaller letters) who had consecrated the building as a Christian shrine and installed a cross in the Colosseum (not the one you see today: that was installed under Mussolini). And Benedict’s achievement commemorated in the inscription? It was the inscription itself: Clement marked the consecration by an inscription painted on the walls, which by the time of Benedict had faded. So he had the inscription redone, in marble.
And really, this just scratches the surface. On nearly every block in Rome, in nearly every piazza, large or small, you see the marks of left by the various popes in Rome. They even marked the years of their reign as if they were Roman emperors. Which, of course, in a way they were!
