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Paradoxplace Rome and Central Italy Pages Medieval Popes in Paradoxplace
Anagni Lazio, South of Rome
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Anagni is known as the city of Popes - having produced four of them in the 1200s. It is also possible to drive up through its narrow hill town streets and park next to the cathedral in the Piazza Innocenzo Terzo at the top - a tradition long since forgotten in Tuscan hill towns.
The powerful Pope Innocent III (1161 - 1198 - 1216 (55)) was the first of the four, medieval Popes from Anagni, but has only secured naming rights on the piazza next to the Duomo (view right). The statue high on the the west wall of the Duomo (below) (whose axis is N - S) is of the fourth of the Anagni Popes - Boniface VIII. Boniface was criticized for putting up such an ostentatious monument during his lifetime, but it's now one of a very few surviving contemporary statues of a medieval Pope.
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The west wall of Anagni Duomo (the church is orientated north - south) with the contemporary statue of Boniface VIII well out of present day reach at the top. It's not in quite such an odd position as it seems, as, until it was demolished in 1839, there was a monumental stairway leading from Piazza Innocenzo III up to the doorway that can be seen just under the Pope's statue. The lower right part of the structure, now the Oratory of Saint Thomas Becket, was originally a Mithraic Temple (as indeed was part of the space on which Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome now stands - in fact many of the old church sites of Europe, not surprisingly, have histories as sites of worship stretching back more than 2000 years).
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Above the statue of Boniface VIII is a panel of mosaics. The top row consists of two shields showing the Caetani family crest (Boniface was a Caetani), separated by the outline of a tiara - the mosaics for which have completely disappeared. The shields on the lower row depict the two headed eagle of the Conti family of Anagni to which Gregory IX belonged.
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Above: This Boniface VIII statue (attributed to the Florentinian sculptor and church architect Arnolfo di Cambio) can be found in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence. From "The Papacy" by Paul Johnson.
Left: Close up of Boniface VIII (anon) enthroned high up on the West side of Anagni cathedral.
Below Left: Giotto's take on Boniface VIII - now a fresco fragment on his tomb by Borromini in Saint John Lateran (Rome). From "The Major Basilicas of Rome" by Roberta Vicci.
Below Right: Arnolfo again - this time in the Vatican Museums. From "Rome, Art and Architecture" by Marco Bussagli.
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Boniface VIII at work with his cardinals (illustration from "The Papacy" by Paul Johnson). Boniface was the first Pope to give a formal structure to the Curia - the Pope's Court and Administrators.
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The evocative south facing facade of the Duomo, which would look even more evocative with a bit of sunshine!
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Inside the Duomo, the promise of the ancient stonework outside evaporates into a pretty ordinary space, that is until you find someone to let you down into the large Crypt of Saint Magno, which lies under the "eastern" third of the church and was built at the same time as the latter (between 1072 and 1104).
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The crypt was frescoed everywhere by Benedictine monks in the 1100s and 1200s and uniquely still has its original 1200s unrestored Cosmati flooring. In the (postcard reproduction of the) crypt ceiling fresco below, Hippocrates debates Galen about the nature of the material world.
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There is another medium sized oratory under the "north west" corner of the church, which is dedicated to Saint Thomas Becket and which used to be accessible from the piazza outside. It was not open when we visited in 2005.
In fact the origins of the oratory predate Becket, the Duomo and indeed Christianity, as it was in ancient times a centre for worship of the originally Indo-Iranian "God of Light" - Mithra. Who knows, but it is within the grasp of the inventiveness of an untrained storico medievale to claim with certainty that the great(est) Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121 - 161 - 180 (59), who it is known used to come down here for his summer hols, trod these very stones.
Mithraism was one of the last major religions left standing in the Roman Empire alongside Christianity, and it is also arguable that in fact Christianity simply appropriated many things Mithraic like Christmas Day, Sundays, Bread and Wine etc, in the same way that several Celtic and other festivals were seamlessly adopted and rebirthed with Christian branding. Mithraism was also into zodiacs.
The single barrel vaulted Saint Thomas Oratory is also completely frescoed, though the paintings are not in such good nick as the ones in the (larger) Crypt of Saint Magno. The altar is at the oratory's "west" end.
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The Duomo Bookshop and Museum is also on the lower level. Sadly the museum had closed by the end of our 2005 visit - its exhibits include a valuable medieval textile collection, and a Limoges made Becket reliquary Chāsse plus one of Becklet's mitres (so they say).
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An interesting feature ot Anagni is that it does not appear to posses a single signposted hotel ! However, the spa town of Fuiggi nearby has dozens (and you can take the waters as well). Going towards the coast, the Hotel Cittą Dei Papi is near the Anagni turning off the A1 motorway, which could prove a good base for one or two interesting places in the area.
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All original material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission.
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