Rome: Two Pigrimages

By Ailin Darling

I anticipated visiting Rome with what can only be called a reader’s enthusiasm, with the pages of art history textbooks constantly turning in my mind. But from the moment I climbed out of that first metro station, treasure trove museums and sun-filled ruins attacked my senses, replacing my painfully recounted facts with feelings. I quickly became enamored with the echoing sound of my footsteps on marble and the feel of grainy stone worn by thousands of years beneath my hands. Most poignant of all were two brilliant landmarks of Christianity: one a gleaming jewel, worn proudly by the Catholic Church, the other a dank, claustrophobic mess of old tombs. Over the course of our two days in Rome, the four of us became impromptu pilgrims, relentlessly trekking uneven streets and braving the antics of crazy bus drivers on twisting roads, all in search of two very different houses of worship

The Vatican is very clearly marked on any map of Rome, and visitors can reach the attraction simply by following the many yellow signs to S. Pietro. However, on a sunny Sunday morning, the way is somewhat chaotic. Ascending from the metro, we immediately met an immense river of people, all flowing in the same direction. We joined this living throng, filing behind a group of nuns in severe gray habits. After a couple of turns, we reached a long street flanked on either side by every kind of vendor. Sellers of knock-off purses and cheap rosaries called out “Hey lady!” as we passed, making me wish I knew the Italian for “very rude.” Then our human river flooded a new space, a basin bordered by curved rows of massive white columns. These rows form Gianlorenzo Bernini’s colonnade, two immense arms extending from an overwhelming structure at their center. My eyes followed a wide stairway up to the shining façade of St. Peter’s basilica. Morning was the perfect time to view such a place, whose light colored stone radiated sunlight and left me squinting to see more. A fountain near the center of the square was an island in a sea of heads, all pointed upward toward one corner of the colonnade. I turned my own head to match.

The stately building adjacent to the basilica seemed awkwardly placed to me, as if added as an afterthought to the symmetry of the grandiose church and its mighty tentacles. But today, it housed the highlight of everyone’s visit. As we waited, the square turned into a boisterous Babel of languages: Spanish, French, English, German… A cheer rose suddenly from the crowd, but was almost immediately stifled by one motion from the small white figure who appeared in the second window from the right of the Apostolic Palace.

The pope gave his blessing in five languages. His Spanish was better than his English, which he spoke with a strong yet pleasant German accent. During the speeches I couldn’t understand, I let my eyes wander through the jungle of columns nearest to me. Men dressed in dark blue uniforms dotted the space between St. Peter’s and the outside. These were polizia, looking slightly more formidable than the flamboyantly traditional Swiss Guard. At the top of the colonnade, the pope had other guardians: Bernini’s stone statues of saints in shrouds with eyes that peered down into the crowd or up into heaven. The pope said his goodbye, and a gradual exodus from the square began.

When we returned to the Vatican the next day to visit its museums and the basilica, we found the square nearly as crowded as the day before. This time, visitors formed a coiling snake of a line, waiting to enter the Vatican’s buildings. The line moved quickly, and we soon found ourselves crossing beneath an arched doorway edged with comical signs bearing cartoon examples of inappropriate dress.

St. Peter’s is itself a living museum. In every nook, every corner of floor, wall and ceiling are artistic flourishes worth exploring. Enraptured angels and saints seem ready to fly out of ivory panels, while statues of the popes look on with stern expressions, or kindly ones, perhaps mirroring their temperaments in life. The floor is a marble chessboard of deep red, sky blue, rosy pink and sunny yellow. Groups of tourists near me gasped with surprise as they discovered displays containing the preserved bodies of dead popes, somber tombs surrounded by golden cherubs and polished Madonnas in flowing stone gowns. Michelangelo’s Pieta is now safe from the hammers of madmen behind its wall of Plexiglas, one of a few modern amenities that seemed dreadfully out of place.

After making several circles around the long aisles, I reached the papal altar beneath its colossal baldachin, a larger-than-life bronze canopy I had found unimpressive in textbook pictures. Its four twisting posts guide the eye up to an off-center view of the dome. The presence of an altar reminded me that this opulent palace was actually a church. I tried to picture a silent congregation before this altar, listening to mass or bowed in prayer, but each splendorous monument seemed to command attention, calling over its neighbors like the street vendors of the day before.

I was the driving force for our group’s visit to the Catacombs of St. Domitilla. They were out of the way, with limited hours of operation that cut our day in half. Armed with instructions from my travel guide and a map, I led my companions to one of the farthest metro stops from the city’s center. We ascended again, this time to a seedy urban neighborhood. The bus stop in front of us was covered in graffiti. I couldn’t find our bus on any schedule. I crossed the busy street to question a man in a newsstand, narrowly dodging a speeding bus. Our bus left from another stop a few blocks away. One of my companions was already glaring at me.

The bus took us down the seemingly endless Via Appia Antica, and dropped us off in front of the Catacombs of St. Callisto. After peering around the next road, I pointed with a triumphant “aha!” at a sign indicating St. Domitilla. We followed an old highway for at least a mile until another sign beckoned us up a hill. The entrance to our destination was obscured by a bus-filled parking lot, and the antechamber of the tombs is a gift shop. We purchased our tickets (5 euro), and were told to wait for our guide in the adjacent gardens. We sat at wooden picnic tables, enjoying a few minutes of silence in the afternoon sun. A manicured garden surrounded by pits of white pebbles and sandy-colored stepping stones gave the impression of a rustic Italian villa.

We were soon greeted by our guide, Kacia, a cheerful woman wearing stylish buckled boots. She led us down into a sunken church, the gateway to the longest catacombs in Rome. The rotund little chapel was cluttered with bits of old statues and columns with simple wooden chairs pointed at a modern alter. Kacia’s voice became reverently soft as she told us that this church was dedicated to two martyrs, both warriors who had been killed after confessing their faith. She went on to describe the “beautiful myth” that led to the building of the catacombs. The early Christians could not have their bodies burned or thrown in the river, as was customary in ancient Rome, because they believed that Christ would return to resurrect them very soon. As Kacia explained, “for them the second coming was tomorrow, or, if not tomorrow, then the next day.” They needed their bodies to be able to rise from the grave. The tombs also became a blessing for early Christians in times of persecution. The plain underground church was a place to meet in secret and share what they dared not share outside its walls.

The grimy tunnel smelled like damp earth. It got warmer as we descended in our single-file parade. Niches had been carved along every wall on either side, too small to accommodate the body of a modern adult. We ventured deeper and deeper, viewing ancient trinkets such as the tiny oil lamps used to light the tunnels and seashells used to mark specific graves for those who could not read. Kacia explained that Christianity accepted people of every social class, accounting for the wide range of materials and languages used to construct grave markers. After a few winding turns, we reached a cavern with larger holes under carved arches. These are the family graves. Generations were buried, one body on top of another, in a single big hole. In the dim, shadowy light, I could picture the completion of their “beautiful myth,” with fathers, brothers and sons leaping out of these holes to join the angels. Only one of the arches still bore a decoration: a crude fresco, probably painted by grave diggers. It depicts a balding St. Pau and a white-haired St. Peter surrounded by rows of faded saints and bright strokes of red, yellow and blue paint. Compared to the regal embellishments of St. Peter’s, this looked like a child’s finger painting. But the simplicity of the monument gave it an air of sacred silence; it was real. Here, deep underground, surrounded by dust I felt I had touched the roots of a faith. It was easy to pray.

Ailin Darling, a University of Oregon journalism student from California, studied in the CIMBA undergraduate program in Paderno del Grappa in spring, 2009.