Note: this topic is from 4/12/2004.Destro: Santa Maria Antiqua's art can be viewed @ http://www.archeorm.arti.beniculturali.it/sma/eng/history.html.
Posted on 04/12/2004 10:48:56 PM PDT by Destro
Sat 10 Apr 2004
Buried church gives up secrets of Byzantine art in Rome
AIDAN LEWIS IN ROME
BURIED for 12 centuries by a landslide and closed to the public for 24 years, the oldest Christian church in the Roman Forum has been reopened, offering glimpses of Byzantine frescoes that changed scholars’ views of medieval art.
Guided tours of the Santa Maria Antiqua, nestled under the imperial palaces of the Palatine Hill and facing the main ruins of the Forum, begin this weekend and continue through May.
Werner Schmid, a restoration expert for the project, says visitors will get a chance to see a collection of unique frescoes from the mid-6th century AD to the mid-8th century.
Standing in the nave of the church amid scaffolding, Mr Schmid explained the frescoes are unusual because they exist at all and show a loose, classical style once considered alien to medieval Rome.
Many similar works in other churches of the same era were painted over or destroyed as the buildings were adapted over the centuries to different styles, he said.
In AD847, with several cycles of paintings in the church completed, an earthquake triggered a landslide that covered the church with rubble from the Roman buildings on the hill above.
It remained underground until an Italian archaeologist began excavations in 1900.
Like many early churches in Rome, Santa Maria Antiqua was adapted from an existing Roman structure - possibly a guardroom at the foot of the Palatine, the preferred home for Roman emperors and later the Byzantine governors.
While paintings in other churches were adapted and repainted in new styles, "This church was mute for 12 centuries," says Maria Andaloro, professor of art history at the University of Viterbo and part of the team that has been restoring the frescos.
Only when excavations began were the paintings of Santa Maria Antiqua seen again - and they took art historians completely by surprise.
Prof Andaloro said the style of painting, compared with what art historians had once taken to be the standard of the time, was "more impressionistic, organic, loose; more alive".
She says the pictures are extraordinary examples of Byzantine art, but also proved the continuity of classical Greek art in Rome at a time when the city was thought to be struggling through the Dark Ages.
Most impressive is a wall in the apse that shows overlapping paintings of different styles done between the mid-500s and early-700s.
The last time the church was open to the public was in 1980.
Note: this topic is from 4/12/2004.Destro: Santa Maria Antiqua's art can be viewed @ http://www.archeorm.arti.beniculturali.it/sma/eng/history.html.
Seems that something survived the Iconoclasts. Much that was good was destroyed in that period.
I blame the influence of Islam for that.
Oh, and sorry all, I carelessly neglected to actually *check* that old link, it goes nowhere..
Thanks, Civ
Another treasure uncovered!
Be sure to see the new topic, which is what got this one revived.
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