THE PAULINE CHAPEL
Thanks to
for the photo, which gives a remarkably good idea of the two Michelangelo murals on Paul (left) and Peter (right).
I was preparing to translate a couple of OR articles on the restoration but Dr. Robert Moynihan has a first-hand account of seeing the restored chapel on Monday, so let me start with him.
Being there...
by Dr. Robert Moynihan
Reporting from Rome
Newsflash
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Today began with the unveiling of the restored Pauline Chapel in the Vatican.
This was an extraordinary moment, for the Vatican, for world art, and even, perhaps, for theology — if we are permitted to allow Michelangelo to affect our theological reflection (as I think we are).
Where is the Pauline Chapel, and what is it?
Imagine you are in the Sistine Chapel. Over your head is the great painting of the creation of man. On the wall in front of you is the Last Judgment. Behind you is the back wall of the chapel. There is a door in that wall. You go out through that door. Now you are in a huge hall. You turn and look to your right.
The hall is called the Sala Regia, the Royal Room, where Popes once consecrated the kings of Europe. Enormous frescoes cover the high walls, showing the battle of Lepanto in 1571, the return of Pope Gregory XIII to Rome from Avignon, France, in 1376 (you can remember the date of the return because it was 400 years before 1776, the founding of America through the Declaration of Independence), and Pope Alexander III's reconciliation meeting with the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I.
At the far end of the hall, there is a door. The door opens into another chapel, not as large as the Sistine Chapel, but still the second-largest chapel in the Vatican.
It is the Pauline Chapel.
And for the last eight years, restorers have been cleaning it — after 400 years when hundreds of candles spread soot over the walls and ceiling.
And today, the chapel was opened again for the first time.
Inside the Pauline chapel are two enormous frescoes which Michelangelo did just after he finished the Sistine Chapel. One depicts the crucifixion of St. Peter. The other depicts the conversion of St. Paul.
And these two frescoes are among the most powerful works Michelangelo ever executed.
(Many artists would have depicted the death of St. Paul alongside the death of St. Peter; or the conversion of St. Paul alongside the calling of St. Peter; but Michelangelo chose to depict the conversion of Paul and the crucifixion of Peter — the beginning of faith, and its end in persecution and martyrdom.)
These are enlarged from the thumbnails Dr. Moynihan posted, so the reproduction is fuzzy. I am not sure, however, that they are necessarily the murals as they appear today because the color scheme for the Peter mural is different from that seen in the large chapel photo at the top of this post. The panel below comes from larger pictures of the pre-restoration murals (or rather, as they were restored in 1939, since when they fell into neglect until the recent chapel restoration project that began in 2002. An OR article gives details about these murals and how they were restored.
The striking thing is that Michelangelo painted the face of Peter in such a way as to have Peter's eyes look directly toward the doorway. When a Pope comes into that chapel, he has to look into Peter's eyes. And what does he see there?
Well, that is the question....
The director of the Vatican Museums, Antonio Paolucci, in this morning's press conference, spoke about the look in Peter's eyes.
He said the look was angry. And he said Peter's expression contained doubt about the meaningfulness of his sacrifice, his willingness to be executed for Christ.
I don't see any doubt in Peter's eyes.
I do see a challenge. The challenge is to those walking into the chapel, including every Pope. The challenge is: "Be ready to be as strong as I am, as I have to be, to die for the faith. Don't even think about holding back. Give everything, as I am doing."
In this regard, I was reminded of something which Pope Benedict said on the day he was crowned, in his homily on April 24, 2005.
I was in St. Peter's Square that day, and I listened very carefully as he spoke.
And there were only two sentences in his homily that really moved me, and have remained with me to this day.
The first was when he spoke about the deserts which can surround us and cause us pain, the deserts of confusion, the deserts of the loss of love. Benedict said:
"And there are so many kinds of desert. There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love. There is the desert of God’s darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast. Therefore the earth’s treasures no longer serve to build God’s garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction."
And the second was when he asked for our prayers. He directly asked us, right out in the open, on the first day of his papacy, for our prayers, for one thing:
"My dear friends – at this moment I can only say: pray for me, that I may learn to love the Lord more and more. Pray for me, that I may learn to love his flock more and more – in other words, you, the holy Church, each one of you and all of you together. Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves."
Those were the Pope's words: "Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves."
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The fresco depicting the conversion of St. Paul is striking in a different way. It shows the descent of a divine light, from the hand of Christ, upon St. Paul. The light, which is depicted like a white cloud or mist, doesn't seem harmful, but it blinds Saul.
This depiction reminds me of the God on the Sistine Chapel ceiling creating the world, and the Christ of the Last Judgment. Both are visions of a divine realm which contacts this realm, brings it into being, judges it, and, in the case of Saul, blinds it — in order to open its eyes to new light.
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The altar in the Pauline Chapel has been restored. Benedict made the decision in February this year.
Paul VI had selected a new, modern altar, and moved it away from the back wall of the chapel.
Benedict, when he came in to look at the nearly-finished restoration work in February, ordered that the old altar be put back closer to the wall, but leaving a small space so that the tabernacle could be reached (the tabernacle is directly behind the altar, and it would be too far for the priest to lean across the altar and open the tabernacle, so the Pope, instead of moving the tabernacle from the very center of the chapel wall, had the altar moved just about a yard away from the wall).
Mass will no longer be celebrated in this chapel with the priest facing toward the people, but with both priest and people facing the tabernacle, the cross above it, and the East.
Among the few photos of the restored murals so far are the two on the left below showing Paul and Peter as they are portrayed in the frescoes by Michelangelo. The panel on the right is a rarely seen detail showing Christ in the conversion mural, appearing near the top of the dramatic lightbolt that bisects the canvas - a somewhat older Christ than the Christ of the Last Judgment but just as muscular. This photo was probably a pre-restoration detail.
Below, I have a cropped the panel showing Christ from the presumably restored Paul mural, as well as the heads of Paul and Peter:
I posted previously available detail photos farther above on this page...
And yes, I must translate the two OR articles on the restoration .
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/07/2009 20:04]