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Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKEMEDEarly Medieval Europe0963-9462© 2007 The Author. Journal Compilation © Blackwell Publishing LtdXXXOriginal Article

The basilica of S. Cecilia

Caroline J. Goodson

Material memory: rebuilding the basilica of S. Cecilia in Trastevere,

Rome

C

J . G

Examining Pope Paschal I’s early ninth-century architectural project ofS. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, brings to light the diversity of functionsof

tituli

in early medieval Rome. Not only was the church a papal basilicaand site of the stational liturgy of Rome, but it was also a shrine to thesaint Cecilia, a popular Roman martyr. The architectural arrangementmakes clear that the papal project incorporated both the papal cult andthe popular cult of the saint by manipulating the archaeology of the siteand translating corporeal relics to the urban church.

The basilica of S. Cecilia in Trastevere was made by many men and onewoman. Legend holds that a noble Roman woman and soon-to-bemartyr Cecilia dedicated her home as a church, which was arranged andadministered by Pope Urban I (222–30).

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Most of the structures that

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I thank Fabio Barry, Dorigen Caldwell, Tobias Kämpf, Steven Ostrow, Tina Sessa and EmmaStirrup for their thoughts, suggestions and corrections to my work on S. Cecilia in Trastevere.Monsignor Guerino di Tora, Badessa Giovanna and the Benedictine nuns of S. Cecilia, inparticular Suor Letizia, generously facilitated my research by extending permission to documentthe Cappella del Bagno and other parts of the church and excavations. A debt of gratitude isowed to Emma Stirrup for her assistance measuring the chapel in the sweltering summer of2003. Early versions of this article were read at the 2005 Renaissance Society of Americameeting, University of Delaware, and Northwestern University, and I thank those audiencesfor their critical comments, especially Hugh Kennedy who heard it more than once, and JuliaHillner for her precision.

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The story of Cecilia’s life, death and her foundation of the church is recorded in the

PassioSanctae Ceciliae virgina et martyris

, a narrative composed probably in the late fifth century.Société des Bollandistes (eds),

Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis

(Brussels, 1949), no. 1495, edited by H. Delehaye,

Études sur le légendier romain: Les saintsde novembre et de décembre

, Subsidia hagiographica XXIII (Brussels, 1936), pp. 73–96, 194–220. Delehaye used an eighth-century manuscript from Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale,lat. 10861) and a tenth-century manuscript from Chartres (Bibliothèque Municipale deChartres, 144) for his edition of the

Passion

. Other published editions used the eleventh-century legendary of the monastery, discussed below, p. 50; A. Bosio,

Historia passionis beataeCaeciliae virginis,

Valeriani, Tiburtii, et Maximi martyrum

(Rome, 1600), pp. 1–26. It is not


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stand today were built on the orders of Pope Paschal I (817–24). Theyunderwent restorations in the third quarter of the eleventh century,under the cardinal Desiderius, abbot of Montecassino, cardinal ofS. Cecilia, and later Pope Victor III (1086–7), and at the end of thesixteenth century, under Paolo Camillo Sfondrato,

cardinale nipote

ofPope Gregory XIV (1590–1) and cardinal of the church from 1591–1618.Through these transformations, the life of the building was tied to thedeath of Cecilia. In the early ninth century, Paschal’s church was builtto incorporate the remains of structures that coincided with

loca sancta

(holy or sanctified sites) described in the

Passion

of Saint Cecilia, thestory of her life and martyrdom. Paschal’s building project consolidatedthe site of a saint’s life and martyrdom within the fabric of an urbanpapal church, incorporating the veneration of a saint with the papalmass. At the centre of his new church, beneath the main altar, Paschalplaced the body of Cecilia herself, returning the saint to her home andher holy relics to the place of her martyrdom. The subsequent rebuild-ings of the church recapitulated key events: the death of Cecilia, thediscovery of her body and its placement under the altar. In each of themajor building campaigns at the church, in the ninth, eleventh andsixteenth century, the historical texts about and the archaeology of thesite were key elements in shaping the renovations.

2

In many ways, S. Cecilia is typical of the churches of early medievalRome. Like many of the

tituli

, early neighbourhood churches, thebeginnings of the church are shrouded in legend.

3

The character of thesaint may very well have emerged from the name of the church, reflect-ing its original donation of property from a perhaps rather more mun-dane Caecilia.

4

The

titulus s. caeciliae

was said to have been founded by

clear which manuscripts were used by the fifteenth-century hagiographer Mombritius; B.Mombritius,

Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum

, 2 vols (Paris, 1910), I, pp. 332–41.

2

For an introduction to the church, see R. Krautheimer

et al.

,

Corpus basilicarum christianarumRomae

, 5 vols (New York and Vatican City, 1937–77), I, pp. 94–111. On the

c

.1600 renova-tions, see E. Stirrup, ‘The Altar Sculptures of Virgin Martyrs: The Ideal of Chastity and theDecorous Treatment of Relics in Tridentine Rome’, D.Phil thesis, University of Oxford(2002), pp. 112–67; T. Kämpf, ‘Framing Cecilia’s Sacred Body: Paolo Camillo Sfondrato andthe Language of Revelation’,

Sculpture Journal

6 (2001), pp. 10–20; A. Nava Cellini, ‘StefanoMaderno, Francesco Vanni e Guido Reni a Santa Cecilia in Trastevere’,

Paragone

20 (April1969), pp. 18–41; E. Loevinson, ‘Documenti di S. Cecilia in Trastevere’,

Archivio della R.Società romana della Storia Patria

49 (1926), pp. 356–401.

3

F. Guidobaldi, ‘Chiese Titolari di Roma nel tessuto urbano preesistente’,

Quaeritur InventusColitur

, Studi di Antichità Cristiana 40, 2 vols (Vatican City, 1989), I, pp. 383–96; C. Pietri,‘Donateurs et pieux etablissements d’après le légendier romain (V

e

–VII

e

s.)’, in

Hagiographie.Cultures et sociétés IV–XII siècle. Actes du Colloque organisé à Nanterre et à Paris 2–5 mai 1979

(Paris, 1981), pp. 435–47; R. Vielliard,

Recherches sur les origines de la Rome chrétienne

(Macon,1940); J.P. Kirsch,

Die römischen Titelkirchen im Altertum

, Studien zur Geschichte und Kulturdes Altertums 9:1/2 (Paderborn, 1918).

4

V. Saxer, ‘La chiesa di Roma dal V al X secolo: amministrazione centrale e organizzazioneterritoriale’, in

Roma nell’alto medioevo

, Settimane 48 (Spoleto, 2001), pp. 493–633, at pp. 558–60.


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Caroline J. Goodson

Cecilia herself in her own home in the days before she succumbed tomartyrdom.

5

Whether or not that is true, there is consistent evidenceattesting to a church dedicated to S. Cecilia within the city of Romefrom the sixth century onwards, and perhaps before.

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Though we donot know when it originated or what it looked like, we can be fairlycertain it was always located in the area where it still stands, in the busyneighbourhood of Trastevere across the river from the majority of theancient monuments of the city. A late eighth-century visitor to Romenoted the location of the earlier church, prior to Paschal’s rebuilding,as one of the sights to see along the route from the Porta Aurelia acrossthe Tiber River to the city centre, where he then visited monuments suchas the Colosseum and the Baths of Diocletian.

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Among the early medievalurban churches of Rome, Paschal’s S. Cecilia is a very well-preservedexample and its study illustrates the ways in which ecclesiastical build-ings served in the life of the city as points of intersection between sacredhistory, historic topography and papal politics.

The story of the relationship between Saint Cecilia and S. Ceciliaand the popes and cardinals who shaped that relationship has not beentold. The conventional view of the church is still that presented byRichard Krautheimer, the much-acclaimed architectural historian ofRome. Krautheimer made S. Cecilia and the other churches of Paschallandmarks in western architectural history by holding them up as amedieval revival of Rome’s fourth- and fifth-century basilicas.

8

Accord-ing to his interpretation, the basilicas erected by Paschal I in the first

5

Delehaye,

Études sur le légendier romain

, p. 219.

6

There exists a funerary inscription referring to what may be the

titulus sanctae Caeciliae

whichhas been dated between 379–464: G.B. De Rossi,

Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae

(Rome,1857–88), no. 816. Another inscription names a presbyter from the

titulus

, though its datinghas been contested: A. Ferrua and A. Silvagni (eds),

Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romaeseptimo saeculo antiquores

, ns (Rome, 1922–), no. 116, assign a date of the sixth century, andprovide references for earlier scholars’ earlier chronologies. Presbyters from the

titulus Caeciliae

and the

titulus s. Caeciliae

signed the acts of the Roman council of 499 and 595, respectively,and these signatures have been held to reflect the transition from actual property donor toinvented saint in the names of some Roman

tituli

, see for example Saxer, ‘La chiesa di Roma’,pp. 605–6, 607. An episode in the life of Pope Vigilius (537–55) took place in the

ecclesiasanctae Caeciliae

,

Liber Pontificalis

[hereafter

LP

], 61: §4, L.M. Duchesne,

Le Liber Pontificalis:texte, introduction et commentaire

, 3 vols (Paris, 1886–92), I, p. 297, 300 and n. 12, thoughthis section of the text is part of the second edition, dating from around 640, R. Davis,

TheBook of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishopsto AD 715

, Translated Texts for Historians 6, rev. edn (Liverpool, 2000), p.

.

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For a discussion of the Einsiedeln itinerary, see recently F. A. Bauer, ‘Das Bild der StadtRom in karolingischer Zeit: Der Anonymus Einsiedlensis’,

Römische Quartalschrift

92 (1997),pp. 190–229, with bibliography.

8

R. Krautheimer, ‘The Carolingian Revival of Early Christian Architecture’,

Art Bulletin

24:1(1942), pp. 1–38, at pp. 20–1. Reprint of article and postscript in R. Krautheimer,

EarlyChristian, Medieval, and Renaissance Art

(New York, 1969), pp. 203–56; 2nd postscriptin R. Krautheimer,

Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur europäischen Kunstgeschichte

(Cologne, 1988),pp. 272–6.


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quarter of the ninth century were a little ‘renascence’ after centuries ofthe ‘Dark Ages’, during which period the very few buildings in Rome thatwere built had non-basilical plans, perhaps reflecting foreign, non-Romaninfluence. He argued that the significance of medieval churches such asS. Cecilia lies in the way in which they resemble in plan and elevationthe great basilicas of Christian antiquity such as St Peter’s and St Paul’s.Krautheimer saw S. Cecilia and Paschal’s other buildings as a great breakin the pattern of church building in Rome, from an era of non-basilicalstructures to a resurrection of an ancient architectural splendour, theChristian basilica. Further, Krautheimer saw a political message in thisrevival; he suggested that Paschal was seeking to stake out an ‘elementof importance’ for Rome and to claim imperial grandeur for himself byreplicating the basilicas of great ancient emperors, especially Constan-tine’s basilicas.

9

This argument was part of Krautheimer’s theory of theIconography of Medieval Architecture, whereby he demonstrated thatarchitectural plans and elevations were copied from earlier buildings forsymbolic purposes.

10

Aspects of the shape of a building, such as continu-ous transepts or domes surrounded by annular colonnades, linked a newbuilding to great historic prototypes, such as the Constantinian basilicaof St Peter’s or the fourth-century complex at the Holy Sepulchre,Jerusalem. For the medieval audience, Krautheimer argued, the inclu-sion of some of these salient architectural features in a new buildingwas enough to associate it with the ancient one and the new patronwith the historic one. This theory has been an extremely pervasive andcompelling interpretative scheme and is still very present in the studyof medieval architecture.11

One reason for the endurance of Krautheimer’s theory is that it isbased on close examination of the evidence. He advocated close lookingat textual and archaeological sources and the data behind his synthesisconstitute an expansive corpus of empirical observation and meticulousarchival research, still an important resource today.12 Yet at its core,Krautheimer’s theory is a largely formalist interpretation of architecture,

9 Krautheimer, ‘The Carolingian Revival’, p. 14.10 R. Krautheimer, ‘Introduction to an “Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture” ’, Journal of

the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), pp. 1–33. Reprint of article and postscriptin Krautheimer, Early Christian, pp. 149–50; 2nd postscript in Krautheimer, Ausgewählte,pp. 142–97.

11 For recent critiques, see C. Goodson, ‘Revival and Reality: The Carolingian Renaissance inRome and the Case of S. Prassede’, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia 15(2005), S. Sande (ed.), Atti del seminario in onore di Hans Peter L’Orange, Istituto di Norvegia,Roma, 2003, pp. 61–92; V. Pace, ‘La “Felix Culpa” di Richard Krautheimer: Roma, SantaPrassede e la “Rinascità Carolingia” ’, in F. Guidobaldi and A. Guiglia Guidobaldi (eds),Ecclesiae Urbis. Atti del congresso internazionale di studi sulle chiese di Roma (IV–X secolo).Roma, 4–10 settembre 2000, Studi di antichità cristiana 59, 3 vols (Vatican City, 2002), I,pp. 65–72.

12 Still fundamental to the study of Roman churches is Krautheimer et al., Corpus.

Early Medieval Europe ()© 2007 The Author. Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

6 Caroline J. Goodson

where form, almost exclusively, generates meaning. Too little attention,it might be argued, is paid to function, materials and, most importantly, tothe diverse cult activities that coexisted in a medieval church, and the waysin which they generated meaning in architecture. In the decades sinceKrautheimer’s theories were published, the field of architectural historyhas concerned itself with identifying diverse cult functions coexisting inbuildings and the ways in which these might have registered withdifferent constituencies. Additionally, the increasing intersections betweenmedieval archaeology and architectural history have encouraged theconsideration of buildings within their urban contexts, as ensemblesof structures, images and performance, rather than isolated plans andelevations that refer to each other.13

There are greater questions to be asked of S. Cecilia than are imaginedin Krautheimer’s philosophy: why did Paschal rebuild this church asopposed to another? What, if anything, did the building have to dowith Saint Cecilia? And on a more general level, what was an earlymedieval viewer’s sense of the building history of Rome? The answer tothese questions can be found in an examination of the building withrespect to its planning, adornment and cult function. Considering thesebuildings as ensembles of spatial structures, images and stages for ritual,sheds light on a different quality of the church, beyond the building’sformal classicism. In the case of S. Cecilia, the builders and patron hada concern for tradition, heretofore demonstrated with respect to thearchitectural plan of the building, but it will be argued that differentkinds of tradition, not just architectural, contributed to this building’simportance in early medieval Rome. In the construction of the basilica,textual and material sources were jointly employed to lend sacralauthenticity to the church and thus to create a shrine for a Romanmartyr and a monument to papal and saintly interaction.

The church of S. Cecilia, as Pope Paschal constructed it, takes the formof a basilica with a wide nave, two side aisles, and a single apse (Fig. 1).The original columns of the nave are almost all covered over bynineteenth-century stucco and the originally open roof trusses are like-wise covered by an early modern ceiling.14 The columns and capitals,

13 Recent examples of these kinds of approaches to the study of medieval architectureinclude P. Fergusson, Architecture of Solitude: Cistercian Abbeys in Twelfth-Century England(Princeton, 1984); E. Fentress et al., Walls and Memory: The Abbey of San Sebastiano at Alatri(Lazio) from Late Roman Monastery to Renaissance Villa and Beyond (Turnhout, 2005); andC. Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples: Church Building in Angevin Italy, 1266–1343 (New Haven,2004).

14 On open ceilings, see P. Liverani, ‘ “Camerae” e coperture delle basiliche paleocristiane’,Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome: Historical Studies 60–1 (2004), Atti delColloquio Internazionale ‘Il Liber Pontificalis e la storia materiale’ (Roma, 21–22 febbraio 2002),pp. 13–28.


The basilica of S. Cecilia 7

where they are visible beneath their Neoclassical shroud, are a diversemix of marble and granite shafts with capitals of different orders. All ofthese, like the columns and capitals of most early medieval buildings,were reused construction materials from ancient buildings, that is spolia.The church of S. Maria in Domnica, also constructed by Paschal, issuggestive of how the interior of S. Cecilia might have looked withrespect to its regular, ordered plan and varied stone capitals (Fig. 2).S. Maria in Domnica, however, has a matched set of granite columnswhich S. Cecilia did not have; the few visible columns and capitals ofS. Cecilia are a mix of granites, marbles, smooth shafts and flutedones.15

The focal point of the basilica’s interior is the presbytery at the endof the nave. For the most part, the presbytery of the church is theproduct of renovations to the church c.1600, which will be discussedbelow. Working back through the records and descriptions of thebuilding prior to the renovations, key aspects of the ninth-centurypresbytery can be reconstructed, including the fact that it was revetted

15 For the spolia of S. Maria in Domnica, see P. Pensabene, ‘Il riempiego a Santa Maria inDomnica’, in A. Englan (ed.), Caelius I: Santa Maria in Domnica, San Tommaso in Formis eil Clivus Scauri, Palinsesti Romani 1 (Rome, 2003), pp. 166–95.

Fig. 1 S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. 817–24 (Photo: author)



with marble panelling and raised above the floor of the nave by severalsteps.16 In the ninth century, the altar was crowned with a ciborium,probably a smaller version of the current late thirteenth-century ciboriumby Arnolfo di Cambio, which has a set of rare bianco e nero antico marblecolumns, perhaps reused from its predecessor.17 The ciborium was apiece of architectural furniture common to most Roman papal churchesof the Middle Ages and served to enshrine the altar and the spacearound it.18 It monumentalizes the space at the altar for the celebrant– in this case the pope, permanently fixing the altar’s function as

16 Krautheimer et al., Corpus, I, p. 107 cites A. Bertolotti, ‘Curiosità storiche ed artistiche,raccolte negli archivi romani’, Archivio storico artistico, archeologico e letterario di Roma 4(1880), pp. 110–25, at p. 116.

17 P.C. Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300, Corpus Cosmatorum 2.1,Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte und christlichen Archeologie 20 (Stuttgart, 2002), pp. 227–64. For the columns of the ciborium, see G. Borghini (ed.), Marmi antichi (Rome, 1989),pp. 154–6.

18 For the ciboria of Rome, see L. Pani Ermini, ‘Note sulla decorazione dei cibori a Romanell’altomedioevo’, Bollettino d’arte, 5th ser. 59 (1974), pp. 115–26, and in general s.v. ‘ciborium’,Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie, 15 vols (Paris, 1907–53), 3.2, col. 1588–1612.

Fig. 2 S. Maria in Domnica, Rome. 817–24 (Photo: Archivio Fotografico Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Romano, no. 214306)



the site of the Eucharistic meal, the bread made flesh by the bishop ofRome.

The raised presbytery, opulently adorned, and the architectonicstructure over the altar call attention to the primary function of thechurch as the house of the papal liturgy of the Eucharist. Pope Paschal,indeed every medieval pope before and after, celebrated mass at thischurch on the Wednesday after the second Sunday of Lent, as part ofthe stational liturgy.19 The stational liturgy is the pattern by which thepope circulated through the city throughout the year, visiting thetwenty-five tituli and the major basilicas of Rome. For each stationalcelebration, the pope and his entourage processed through the city toarrive at the church, where they were joined by the faithful of Rome,who had processed from another church. The groups then reorganizedand processed into the church to begin the mass.20 Just as the ciboriummarks the place of the Eucharistic celebration within the church, so thetopography of these churches marked the city of Rome with papalpresence. These station churches were the sites of occasional papalliturgy but were permanently emblazoned with papal insignia andimagery.21 Even outside the scheduled services, the buildings inscribedthe city with episcopal presence. The architecture of these majorchurches was often, though not always, like that of S. Cecilia: a lon-gitudinal basilica form, with a wide central nave with a chancel barrierto accommodate the papal entourage during a Mass, and a gloriousraised presbytery lined with marble and mosaics. The basilica of S.Cecilia described papal authority and invoked the presence and potencyof the pontiff even in his absence. The basilica plan of the building andthe magnificence of the materials underscored the papal presence witha degree of ancient grandeur.

Paschal’s church owes much of its splendour to reused ancient build-ing materials, both elements taken from other contexts and used in thenew building and in situ structures on the site. The ninth-centurybasilica sits atop ancient buildings and reuses, in part, the ancient wallsas foundations for the medieval ones (Fig. 3). These areas below thechurch were brought to light in a nineteenth-century excavation of

19 A. Chavasse, La liturgie de la ville de Rome du V eau VIII esiècle, Analecta Liturgica 18 (Rome1993); J. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development andMeaning of Stational Liturgy, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 228 (Rome, 1987).

20 Additionally, for certain public processions, the tituli served as meeting points for parts ofthe city’s population. S. Cecilia was where the poor and children gathered to join the septi-form Letania, according to a tenth-century liturgical document, the so-called Ordo RomanusL. See Baldovin, The Urban Character, pp. 139, 158.

21 At S. Cecilia, for example, the apse mosaics depict Pope Paschal’s person and name him inthe inscriptions and his papal insignia crowned the intrados of the apsidal arch.



Fig. 3 S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. Plan of building in the ninth century (in blue for ground level and light blue for subterranean levels), with the earlier structures underlying the edifice in grey. Modern constructions are in rose (Drawing: Author) Scale 1:400



the site aimed at locating remains of the titulus which had existed priorto the ninth-century rebuilding.22 The excavators claimed to have identifieda basilica of much the same shape and scale as the present one, whichthey dated to the sixth century, however their conclusions were subse-quently refuted by a reanalysis of the remains.23 What the archaeologistsdid convincingly bring to light was a second-century BCE domus thathad been rebuilt as an insula (tenement) in the second and again in thethird century CE. It may well be that the titulus which must haveexisted on this site was literally built into the domestic architecture, asthe Passion stated.24

Excavations were reopened in the 1990s, slightly to the east of thebasilica and revealed auxiliary structures to be associated with the titulus,though frustratingly nothing to be identified as the main church.25 Theexcavations unearthed a baptismal font located in the end of a smallapsed hall lying next to but not underneath the later basilica. Thepolygonal form and size of the font is typical of baptismal fonts of thefourth or fifth century in Rome, and the excavators date the structureto the early fifth century on the basis of the stratigraphy of the site.26 Alead fistula leading to the font was discovered in the excavations and theinscription on the pipe makes clear that the font pertained to a church

22 P. Crostarosa, ‘Scoperte in S. Cecilia in Trastevere’, Nuovo bullettino di archeologia cristiana5 (1899), pp. 261–78; and idem, ‘Scoperte in S. Cecilia in Trastevere’, Nuovo bullettino diarcheologia cristiana 6 (1900), pp. 143–60, 265–70; G-B. Giovenale, ‘Scavi innanzi alla basilicadi santa Cecilia in Trastevere’, Nuovo bullettino di archeologia cristiana 3 (1897), pp. 247–54;idem, ‘Ricerche architettoniche della basilica’, Cosmos Catholicus 4:20–5 (15 November 1902),pp. 648–61; O. Iossi (aka Iozzi or Jossi), Cryptae Sanctae Caeciliae trans Tiberim descriptio(Rome, 1902). Records of the excavations are held in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome,Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, II vers. II ser. b. 390, fas. 4379.

23 On the excavations, see s.v. ‘Domus Caecilii’, E.M. Steinby (ed.), Lexicon TopographicumUrbis Romae, 6 vols (Rome, 1993–5), II, pp. 71–2; Krautheimer et al., Corpus, I, pp. 99–103.Krautheimer and his team analysed the masonry of the excavated walls to generate a differentand more plausible chronology from that provided by the original excavators, associating theprivate bath with the second-century interventions, though those dates have been revised bysubsequent study, on which, see n. 25 below.

24 On the reuse of structures for the earliest tituli, see Guidobaldi, ‘Chiese Titolari’, and p. 387for S. Cecilia in particular.

25 For the recent excavations and discussion of earlier excavations, see N. Parmegiani and A.Pronti, S. Cecilia in Trastevere. Nuovi Scavi e ricerche, Monumenti di antichità cristiana 16(Vatican City, 2004). The titulus must have occupied some of the structures of the insula.The excavators suggest that the titulus must have been large enough to hold a sizable congre-gation, which the congregation of S. Cecilia ought to have been, given the ‘maestosità’ of thebaptistery. They suggest that no trace of it has been found because it was located very muchin the same place as Paschal’s later basilica, thus nearly entirely destroyed by the ninth-centurybuildings, pp. 100–1. It seems more likely, however, given the structures that do exist on thesite, that the residential buidings were modified to accommodate the ecclesiastical needs ofthe titulus, much as the baptistry was created. The twentieth-century excavators, much astheir nineteenth-century predecessors, were seeking to find a basilica where there may wellhave been none.

26 Parmegiani and Pronti, S. Cecilia, p. 96.



of S. Cecilia; it is inscribed PET[ia] S[an]C[t]OR[um] CHRY[sogonis]S[anctae]CECE[liae] (One parcel of San Crisogono and Santa Cecilia).27

Also at the site of the ninth-century church was a small-scale privatebath dating from the third or fourth century. The caldarium of the bathhad been built into an upper story of the insula, so it sits nearly on thesame level as the basilica that Paschal built, while its praefurnium andbronze water tanks lie below the floor level.

The masons of Paschal’s basilica made use of these structures on thesite in the construction of the ninth-century church. Paschal’s basilicais centred over the atrium of the domus below, reusing some of its wallsas foundations and thus conforming to the orientation of other ancientbuildings in the neighbourhood.28 On the south side of the basilica, incontrast, new foundations were laid in large blocks of Capellacio tufostone bonded with ashy mortar; materials and techniques common toearly medieval papal buildings and elite architecture.29

The main above-ground walls of S. Cecilia today are those of Paschal’schurch, as can be confirmed by analysis of the masonry of the build-ing.30 The masonry of the wall is recognizably early medieval in date

27 Parmegiani and Pronti, S. Cecilia, p. 90. The inscription probably refers to shared watersupply, the parcel of water perhaps designated by contractual agreement between S. Ceciliaand the neighbouring church of S. Crisogono. It is difficult to determine the date of such anobject, as few of them have inscriptions that can be dated, and the form and manufacture ofthese pipes is identical throughout the classical and medieval period. The fact that it refers tothe institutions of S. Cecilia and S. Crisogono supplies a terminus post quem of the fifth century.

28 The walls that formed the north and south walls of the domus’ atrium correspond preciselyto the colonnades of the aisles above. The exterior walls rest on other ancient walls: on thenorth side of the basilica, the long side wall stands atop the remains of second-century brickwalls, restructured in the fourth century, and the north-west corner appears to be located incorrespondence to a stairwell rising from a street to the insula. The line of the wall runs flushwith the line of the pre-existing street, suggesting that even in areas not excavated, themedieval walls follow earlier ones.

29 Crostarosa, ‘Scoperte’ (1900), p. 158 noted that many such tufo blocks were found in theexcavations, giving their measurements as 1.00 × .60 m each. These blocks are often knownas ‘Servian’ blocks, as they indeed resemble the building materials of the Republican-era citywalls of Servius Tullus, though there is little to suggest that they came from that specificsource. The most visible example of this construction technique in an early medieval contextis the east wall of the church of S. Martino ai Monti, but large tufo blocks are also visible atmany eighth- and ninth-century churches including S. Marco, S. Prassede, S. Angelo inPescheria, and SS. Quattro Coronati, and known at S. Eusebio, and S. Silvestro in Capite. Fortheir use in walls, see R. Coates-Stephens, ‘The Walls and Aqueducts of Rome in the Early MiddleAges’, Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998), pp. 166–78, at p. 169; S. Gibson and B. Ward-Perkins,‘The Surviving Remains of the Leonine Wall’, Papers of the British School at Rome 47 (1979),pp. 30–57, at pp. 50–1; and N. Christie, Three South Etrurian Churches: Santa Cornelia, SantaRufina and San Liberato, Archaeological Monographs of the BSR 4 (London, 1991), p. 177.For an example from a house, see the lower level of the house in the Forum of Nerva (secondhalf of the ninth century) and in the Forum Romanum (ninth or tenth century); R. SantangeliValenzani, ‘I Fori Imperiali nel Medioevo’, Römische Mitteilungen 108 (2001), pp. 269–83.

30 This masonry is identifiable in each stretch of wall, with the exception of part of the southernflank, which was examined by Krautheimer in his survey of the building in the 1930s,Krautheimer et al., Corpus, I, p. 107.



because of the materials and technique of their construction. Theymake use of bricks of widely ranging sizes, as well as lumpy mortar,which create walls of undulating, sometimes overlapping, brick coursesas seen at S. Cecilia.31 The main four walls of the basilica have thistypically early medieval masonry, as does a wall from the baptisteryexcavated below the basilica. The early medieval wall in the baptisteryforms a corridor running parallel to the walls of the basilica and open-ing into the baptistery (Figs 3, 4 and 5). Part of its original plasterremains, as do traces of the painted fictive drapery, a typical decorationfor ecclesiastical spaces in Rome in the early Middle Ages, clearly emu-lating the actual draperies that were hung in the church above.32 Theadornment of the walls suggests that this part of the church was meantto be visible to visitors, and further, that it was decorated as a sacred space.The church incorporated this baptistery for some reason beyond thepure economics of reusing a wall for foundations, and the subterraneanarea was accessible after Paschal constructed his church. This space waseither a working baptistery, preserved some three metres below the newchurch, or another kind of space, a point we shall consider shortly.

In the ninth century, Cecilia was one of Rome’s most popular earlysaints.33 She was a noble Roman matron, so the legend goes, whoremained chaste though married to Valerianus, and converted him andhis brother Tiburtius to the Christian faith.34 Pope Urban baptized thebrothers, as he had earlier baptized Cecilia. Valerianus and Tiburtiusburied many Christian martyrs themselves, a popular act of piety

31 The classic text on brick construction techniques in Rome in the early Middles Ages isG. Bertelli, A. Guiglia Guidobaldi and P. Rovigatti Spagnoletti, ‘Strutture murarie degli edificireligiosi di Roma dal VI al IX secolo’, Rivista dell’ Istituto nazionale d’archeologia e storia dell’arte 23–24 (1976–7), pp. 95–172. For more recent studies of brick production and reuse, seeP. Novara and S. Gelichi, I laterizi nell’alto medioevo italiano (Ravenna, 2000), and E. de Minicis(ed.), I laterizi in età medievale: dalla produzione al cantiere: atti del convegno nazionale di studi,Roma, 4–5 giugno 1998 (Rome, 2001). Krautheimer believed these wavy and lumpy qualities tobe the products of masons’ lack of skill or familiarity with ‘simple tools’ such as masons’ levelsor plumb bobs, Krautheimer et al., Corpus, III, p. 109. I however would suggest that the effect isgenerated by the use of bricks of different sizes and poorly slaked mortar which set in lumps.

32 J. Osborne, ‘Textiles and their Painted Imitations in Early Medieval Rome’, Papers of theBritish School at Rome 60 (1992), pp. 309–52.

33 The relics of Cecilia are recorded in all of the itineraries of early medieval Rome, includingthe late sixth-century Pittacia of Monza, the seventh-century ‘Notitia ecclesiarum urbisromae’ and ‘De locis sanctis martyrum quae sunt foris civitatis romae’, and the seventh- oreighth-century itinerary used by William of Malmesbury; Codice topografico della città diRoma, Fonti per la storia d’Italia 81A, 88, 90, 91, eds R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti (Rome,1940–3), LXXXVIII, pp. 40, 87, 110, 149. Her portrait is among the female saints decoratingthe exterior walls of S. Maria Antiqua. The frescoes were dated by Wilpert to Paschal’spapacy, though the condition of the frescoes renders any dating difficult; Josef Wilpert, Dierömischen Mosaiken und Malereien der kirchlichen Bauten von IV bis XIII Jahrhunderts, 4 vols(Freiburg, 1916), II, p. 716.

34 Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, pp. 198, 207.



among early saints.35 They were soon condemned to death for theiractions.36 A soldier, Maximus, was sent to kill them, and he too wasconverted by Cecilia, baptized in the night by Cecilia and a priest andsubsequently martyred for his faith.37 Cecilia honourably buried allthree, and excited the conversion of Christians who were baptized ingreat numbers by Pope Urban in Cecilia’s home.38 Eventually, she

35 Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, p. 207.36 Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, p. 212.37 Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, p. 213.38 Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, pp. 214, 216.

Fig. 4 Wall painted with fictive drapery in subterranean baptistery, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. 817–24 (Photo: Author)



herself was condemned to death.39 She was ordered to her house andtaken into the bath, where a great fire was lit and she was locked inside.She did not succumb to the heat, however, and it was then ordered thatshe be decapitated.40 After three attempts her head was not severed andshe was left half-dead and suffering for three days before she succumbed,during which time she dispersed her possessions to the poor andpersuaded Pope Urban to dedicate her private home as a church in hername.41

According to a passage in Paschal’s biography in the Liber Pontificalis(hereafter LP), Saint Cecilia came to the pope during a night vigil anddiscussed with him his fruitless search for her body.42 The saint toldhim that the body had not been stolen by the Lombards (who had heldthe city under siege some sixty years prior), but that the body washidden elsewhere. The saint instructed him to go to the cemetery ofPraetextatus across the street from where it had been believed thatshe was buried. Searching there, Paschal found Cecilia’s remains still

39 Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, p. 219.40 Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, p. 219.41 Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, p. 219.42 LP 100: §15–17.

Fig. 5 S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. 817–24. Longitudinal section (Drawing: Author). Scale 1:400



wrapped in a blood-soaked shroud some 600 years after she had died.Carrying her body with his own hands and with the divine sanction tomove it granted by the saint herself, Paschal relocated Cecilia to thechurch he was rebuilding in her honour in Trastevere. He also trans-ferred the bodies of Valerianus, his brother Tiburtius and Maximus, allconverted by Cecilia’s fervour, as well as the remains of Popes Urbanand Lucius (253–4), who had been buried across the Via Appia in thecatacombs of Callixtus, in the Crypt of the Popes.43 Early documentsattesting to the veneration of saints in Rome describe the bodies ofValerianus, Tiburtius and Maximus grouped together at the catacombsof Callixtus, on the Via Appia, in the same cemetery complex as theCrypt of the Popes, near to which was the traditional burial place ofCecilia.44

As part of his rebuilding of the church, Paschal personally collectedthe body of one highly venerated Roman virgin, along with those of thecast of characters from her Passion story.45 It will be useful here to lookbriefly at the ways in which saints were venerated in Rome, to appreci-ate the nature of the change that Paschal brought about and the waysin which he maintained key aspects of the traditions of veneration whenbuilding the new church.46 At Rome, attitudes towards relic venerationwere very different from elsewhere in the Mediterranean and Europe.The sites of the cult of saints at Rome were located outside the city,outside the walls, in catacomb chapels, oratories, or basilicas constructedover cemeteries.47 These sites were administered by suburban monas-teries, and enjoyed a combination of individual veneration and group

43 LP 100: §17. Another source for the translation is a spurious letter, purported to be fromPaschal, though based on the LP, in Bosio, Historia passionis, pp. 42–5 (notes on pp. 132–52) also in G.D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova, et amplissima collectio, 54 vols (Venice,1759–98), XIV, pp. 374–5. Bosio stated that Cardinal Paolo Sfondrato discovered a copy ofthe letter from Paschal I among the papers left to him by his uncle, the previous cardinal,Niccolò Sfondrato (later Pope Gregory XIV), p. 154. See below, n. 85.

44 Early sources for saint veneration at Rome locate the bodies of Tiburtius, Valerianus andMaximus at the catacombs of Callixtus, on the Via Appia, and give the dates for theirveneration. They are the ‘Notitia ecclesiarum urbis romae’, and ‘De locis sanctis martyrumquae sunt foris civitatis romae’, both dated to the second quarter of the seventh century,Codice topografico, LXXXVIII, pp. 86, 111. On the vexed question of Saint Cecilia’s burial, seeibid., LXXXVIII, p. 110, n. 3; and Bosio, Historia passionis, pp. 139–42; Duchesne, Le LiberPontificalis, I, pp. 65–6, n. 20; Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, pp. 91–2.

45 Paschal also translated the relics of over two thousand martyrs to the church of S. Prassede,which he rebuilt on the Esquiline hill. On Paschal’s relic translations, see C. Goodson, ‘TheRelic Translations of Paschal I (817–824): Transforming City and Cult’, in A. Hopkins andM. Wyke (eds), Roman Bodies (London, 2005), pp. 123–41.

46 For an introduction to the medieval cult of saints, see N. Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques dessaints. Formation coutumière d’un droit (Paris, 1975); F. Grossi-Gondi, Principi e problemi dicritica agiografica: Atti e spoglie dei martiri (Rome, 1919).

47 L. Reekmans, ‘L’implantation monumentale chrétienne dans le paysage urbaine de Rome de300 a 850’, Actes du XI Congrès Internationale d’Archéologie Chrétienne (Lyon, Vienne, Grenoble,Genève et Aoste, 21–28 septembre 1986) (Vatican City, 1989), pp. 861–915.



remembrance and celebration of the saint, mostly on their feast days,but also throughout the year. Bodies of Roman saints were not trans-lated into the city, or even into churches outside the walls, with anyregularity until the ninth century.48 This is a very particular fact of earlymedieval Rome: despite numerous requests and no little incentive,Roman clerics did not relocate the corporeal remains of Roman saints.

To understand this peculiarity of not translating relics, it might be usefulto look at papal attitudes to stories and Passions of the saints, a new andvery popular genre of literature in the early Middle Ages. A sixth-century decretal, perhaps associated with a papal source, states that ‘thestories of the martyr saints are not read in the Roman church, accordingto ancient custom. This is both because the names of those who wrotethem are completely unknown, and through the agency of the unfaith-ful and uneducated [the gesta] are thought to be excessive or less fittingthan the actual order of the event.’49 Indeed, Pope Gregory (590–604)was unable to find more than one collected book of the lives anddeaths of Roman martyrs during his search of Roman archives andlibraries.50

Around the time of Hadrian I, the reading of saints’ Passions cameto be permitted in St Peter’s, a practice apparently not common to theRoman churches prior to this date. Masses were celebrated on thenatalicia of saints at their shrines and then collectively at certain sitessuch as the oratory Pope Gregory III (731–41) set up at St Peter’s.51 Theconclusion of Ordo XII mentions that ‘the Passions of the saints or thedeeds of them up to the time of Hadrian were only read at the churchof the saint or where his titulus was. During his time, Hadrian ordered

48 An important exception to this rule is Pope Paul’s translation of the relics of some fifty saintsto the monastery constructed in his house in the mid-eighth century. For discussion of thisand the half-dozen or so instances of relic translations into the city and the state of saintveneration in Rome up to the ninth century, see C. Goodson, ‘Building for Bodies: TheArchitecture of Saint Veneration in Early Medieval Rome’, in É. Ó Carragain and C. Neumande Vegvar (eds), Roma Felix: The Production, Experience and Reflection of Medieval Rome(Aldershot, forthcoming).

49 The De Libris Recipiendis reads: ‘Gesta sanctorum martyrum . . . secundum antiquamconsuetudinem singulari cautela in sancta Romana ecclesia non leguntur, quia et eorum quiconscripsere nomina penitus ignorantur et ab infidelibus et idioitis superflua aut minus aptaquam rei ordo fuerit esse putuntur’, Das Decretum Gelasianum de libris recipiendis et nonrecipiendis in kritischem Text, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichenLiteratur, ser. 3, vol. 8, part 4, ed. E. von Dobschütz (Leipzig, 1912), p. 9, and for a recentdiscussion concerning its date and place of writing, see C. Pilsworth, ‘Dating the Gestamartyrum: A Manuscript-Based Approach’, EME 9 (2000), pp. 309–24, at p. 315. For furtherdiscussion of the collection and reading of Passions, see C. Vircillo Franklin, ‘Roman Hagio-graphy and Roman Legendaries’, in Roma nell’alto medioevo, Settimane 48 (Spoleto, 2001),pp. 857–91; B. de Gaiffier, ‘La lecture des passions des martyrs a Rome avant le IXe siècle’,Analecta Bollandiana 87 (1969), pp. 63–78, at pp. 63–4, 66.

50 MGH Gregorii I papae Registrum epistolarum, II, 8, p. 29, discussed by Pilsworth, ‘Dating theGesta martyrum’, p. 313.

51 LP 92: §6, 17; Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis, I, pp. 417, 421.



the reform, and in the church of St Peter he instituted readings.’52

Within his long and articulate letter concerning the Second Council ofNicea, Pope Hadrian told Charlemagne that the lives of the churchFathers were little read and that it was permitted that the Passions ofthe martyrs be read as well, also on their feast days.53

To read the decretal, popes tended to avoid the liturgical use andpromotion of stories of the Roman martyrs because they risked doctrinalerror, only including them gradually in the papal liturgy in the late eighthcentury. For the same reasons, I believe, popes conserved the bodies ofthe saints where they had originally been buried in order to assure thefaithful of the authenticity and uniqueness of the relics, commandingtheir sacred capital. It was indeed the Roman bishop’s special concernto safeguard dogmatic orthodoxy and popes often sought recourse indistant Apostolic or early papal tradition.54 The papacy had to ensureorthodoxy and the tricky relationship between saint, relic and miracle-working power was notoriously difficult to control.55 Roman bishopsnegotiated that relationship by insisting upon the unique and immov-able body of the saint, where it lay in cemeteries. Papal efforts toinvigorate saint veneration were largely dedicated to encouraging peopleto venerate out at suburban shrines.56 Popes built oratories, shrines andbasilicas to accommodate crowds of people and established monasteriesto administer the sites and the spiritual care of the bodies of the saints.

52 ‘Passiones sanctorum vel gesta ipsorum usque Adriani tempora tantummodo ibi legebanturubi ecclesia ipsius sancti vel titulus erat. Ipse vero tempore suo renovere iussit et in ecclesiasancti Petri legendas esse instituit.’ M. Andrieu, Les Ordines romani du haut moyen age, 5 vols(Louvain, 1931–61), II, pp. 459–66, at p. 466.

53 ‘. . . Vitas enim patrum sine probabilibus auctoribus minime in ecclesia leguntur. Nam aborthodoxis titulatas et suscipiuntur et leguntur. Magis enim passiones sanctorum martyrumsacri canones censuentes, ut liceat etiam eas legi, cum anniversarii dies eorum celebrantur’; MGHEpistolae Karolini aevi V (Berlin, 1899), pp. 5–57, esp. p. 49. See also B. de Gaiffier, ‘Hagiographieet historiographie, Quelques aspects du problem’, in La storiografia altomedievale, Settimane17 (Spoleto, 1970), pp. 139–66; Gaiffier, ‘La lecture des passions’. For discussion of Hadrian’sletters on the Council, see K. Hampe, ‘Hadrians I. Vertheidigung der zweiten nicänischenSynode gegen die Angriffe Karls des Großen’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutscheGeschichtskunde 21 (1896), pp. 83–118.

54 On the popes as ‘the guardians of the catholica fides’ and their insistence upon tradition, seeT.F.X. Noble, ‘The Papacy in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries’, in R. McKitterick (ed.), NewCambridge Medieval History II c.700–c.900 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 563–86, quotation from p. 580,and K. Morrison, Tradition and Authority in the Western Church, 300–1140 (Princeton, 1969).

55 The question of authenticity of saints’ relics was a concern for many rulers and bishopsin the period around the end of the eighth century and the beginning of the ninth century,M. Van Uytfanghe, ‘Le culte des saints et la prétendue “Aufklärung” carolingienne’, inR. Favreau (ed.), Le culte des saints aux IXe–XIII e siècle: Actes du colloque tenu à Poitiers les15–16–17 septembre 1993 (Poitiers, 1995), pp. 151–66.

56 This was a tendency that began as early as the fourth century and continued to the earlyMiddle Ages, J. Osborne, ‘Roman Catacombs in the Middle Ages’, Papers of the British Schoolat Rome 53 (1985), pp. 278–328; Reekmans, ‘L’implantation monumentale chrétienne’; D.Trout, ‘Damasus and the Invention of Early Christian Rome’, Journal of Medieval and EarlyModern Studies 33:3 (2003), pp. 517–36; J. Guyon, ‘Damase et l’illustration des martyrs’, inMartyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective. Memorial Louis Reekmans (Leuven, 1995), pp. 157–79.



They paved roads and built porticos passing through the city walls tolink Rome to the city of saints built up around it.57 Until Paschaltranslated relics into the city, the majority of Roman relic venerationtook place outside the city walls, at the places of each saint’s burial.58

As Pope Paschal subverted this pattern, he was careful to preservecertain key aspects of traditional saint veneration: the veneration of amartyr identified by name and associated with a specific Passion, andthe veneration of the body, more or less intact. The LP and the apseinscription of the church name Cecilia as the saint translated fromthe catacombs to the church and the apse inscription mentions hercompanions while the LP names them explicitly (Fig. 6):

He joined the bodies of Saint Cecilia and her companions; youthblushes in its bloom. Limbs that rested before in crypts . . .59

handling all these things [the fabric soaked in Cecilia’s blood and hergolden garments] himself, he gathered them and with great honourplaced that virgin’s body with the martyrs her dear husband Vale-rian[us] and Tiburtius and Maximus, also the pontiffs Urban andLucius, under the sacred altar . . .60

The dialogue recorded in the LP between the saint and the popegives numerous details which would have lent Paschal’s translation anair of credibility for the saint-venerating population of early medievalRome. The conversation alludes to the confusion about the location ofSaint Cecilia’s burial, a confusion that is reflected in contemporary

57 Goodson, ‘Building for Bodies’; Hermann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints; Reekmans,‘L’implantation monumentale chrétienne’.

58 Reekmans, ‘L’implantation monumentale chrétienne’. Until the ninth century, saints wererarely venerated collectively at Rome, but were celebrated more or less individually at theirplace of burial on their feast day. More work remains to be done on the issue, but seeP. Jounel, ‘Le culte collectif des saints de Rome du VIIe au IXe siècle’, in Le Jugement, le ciel etl’enfer dans l’histoire du christianisme, Université d’Angers Publications du Centre de recherchesd’histoire religieuse et d’histoire des idées 12 (Angers, 1989), pp. 19–31.

59 The inscription reads: HAEC DOMVS AMPLA MICAT VARIIS FABRICATA METALLIS OLIM QVAE FVERAT CONFRACTA SVB TEMPORE PRISCO CONDIDIT IN MELIVS PASCHALIS PRAESVL OP[t]IMVS HANC AVLAM DOMINI FIRMANS FVNDAMINE CLARO AVREA GEMMATIS RESONANT HAEC DINDIMA TEMPLI LAETVS AMORE DEI HIC CONIVNXIT CORPORA SANCTA CAECILIAE ET SOCIIS RVTILAT HIC FLORE IVVENTVS QVAE PRIDEM IN CRYPTIS PAVSABANT MEMBRA BEATA ROMA RESVLTAT OVANS SEMPER ORNATA PER AEVVM.

60 ‘Quae cuncta suis pertractans manibus collegit et cum magno honare eiusdem virginis corpus,cum carissimo Valeriano sponso atque Tyburtio et Maximo martyribus, necnon Urbano etLucio pontificibus, sub sacrosancto altare collocavit’, LP 100: §16; Duchesne, Le LiberPontificalis, II, p. 56; trans. R. Davis, The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes, Translated Textsfor Historians 20 (Liverpool, 1995), pp. 16–17.



hagiographic sources.61 The named saints translated are characters in thelife and death of Saint Cecilia as reported in the Passion: her husband,converted to Christianity by her and baptized by Pope Urban, herbrother-in-law, likewise converted and baptized, the Roman soldierconverted by the saints, and Pope Urban himself, Cecilia’s confessorand co-founder of her church.62 The description in the LP of Paschal’s

61 See above, n. 44.62 The inclusion of Pope Lucius among these saints and confessors is obscure, as he does not

appear to have been involved in Cecilia’s life or death. According to a guide to Rome and itscatacombs, written in the twelfth century using a mid-seventh-century source, Pope Lucius wasone of the saints buried near Saint Cecilia, on the one hand, and near Tiburtius, Valerianusand Maximus, on the other, all on the Via Appia. Codice topografico, LXXXVIII, pp. 148–9.

Fig. 6 Apse and presbytery, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. 817–24 (Photo: Archivio Fotografico Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Romano, no. 235)



discovery of the body includes reference to the swath of cloth wrappedaround the saint, ‘soaked in sacred blood from the executioner’s threestrokes’, a direct reference to the Passion narrative.63 This intertextualreference is an important signal of the pope’s close familiarity with thePassion story of Cecilia, or at least the intention of his biographer toconvey Paschal’s familiarity with the story of Saint Cecilia.64 Thisexpression of Paschal’s knowledge of the Passion reflects a change inpapal attitude towards these kinds of stories, a change that had beengradually coming about in the eighth century.65 Such a reference mighthave been intended to assure pilgrims and the faithful of Rome that therelics he moved were indeed those of Saint Cecilia and her companions.

Other evidence worked to create this effect of veracity and authen-ticity. Along with the relics, it appears that Paschal brought a votiveinscription from the catacombs of Callixtus to the church of S. Cecilia.Presently immured in the restored crypt of S. Cecilia is a votive inscrip-tion to Saints Tiburtius, Valerianus and Maximus, naming their feastday66 (Fig. 7). The paleography of the inscription would suggest a datein the fifth century, and it is likely that the inscription was originallylocated at the saints’ shrine on the Via Appia. It may be that when therelics of those saints were translated into Trastevere, the associatedparaphernalia of their veneration such as this votive inscription wasbrought along with the bodies to serve as authenticators of the identityof the relics, with their names and the feast days when they had beencelebrated at the catacombs.

63 ‘Quibus et linteaminibus sanguis sanctae martyris abstersus, involuta ad pedes illius corporissacratissimo cruore plena, de trina carnificis percussione reperta sunt.’ (‘These linens had beenused to wipe away the holy martyr’s blood; soaked in sacred blood from the executioner’sthree strokes, they were discovered wrapped at the feet of her body.’) LP 100: §17; Duchesne,Le Liber Pontificalis, II, p. 56; trans. Davis, Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes, p. 17. Cf. ‘Quamspeculator tertio percussit et caput eius amputare non potuit. Sic vero seminecem eam cruen-tus carnifex dereliquit; cuius sanguinem bibleis linteaminibus populi qui per eam crediderantextergebant’, Delehaye, Études sur le légendier romain, p. 219.

64 It is difficult to know how the texts of the LP were disseminated and who might have readthem. There were many copies of the text circulating in monastic circles, though most ofthese date from the tenth century or later. On the manuscript tradition, see Duchesne, LeLiber Pontificalis, I, pp. –.

65 See above, n. 48. On the possibility of lay reading of the Passions, see Pilsworth, ‘Dating theGesta martyrum’, pp. 17–18.

66 SANCTIS MARTYRIBVS TIBVRTIO BALERIANO ET MAXIMO QUORUM NATALES EST XVIII KALE()DAS MAIAS (‘To the saints and martyrs Tiburtius, Valerianus and Maximus, whose birthday is 14 April’);Ferrua and Silvagni (eds), Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae, I, no. 93. The inscription isdescribed as being at the church in Laderchi, Sanctae Caeciliae acta et trans-tyberina basilica(Rome, 1722–3), p. 154. De Rossi (as reported by Ferrua and Silvagni) dated it to the sixthor, at the outside limit, the fifth century. The author of a recent revision of De Rossi’s datingsituates the inscription firmly in the fifth century on the basis of the letter forms. LucaCardin, pers. comm.



Textual and material evidence was employed to make clear that thebodies of Saint Cecilia and her companions had been translated in theirentirety, not merely partially, and that they were not contact relics,pieces of fabric consecrated by contact with (or proximity to) a saint’sbody.67 The textual sources for the translations are very explicit aboutthe corporeality of the relics that were moved, referring to the relicswith words like corpora (‘bodies’) and membra (‘limbs’) in the apseinscription, and corpus (‘body’), sanguinis (‘blood’), and cruore (‘bloodof a wound’) in the LP.68 In the new shrine, Paschal placed the bodiesof the saints in ancient marble sarcophagi, out of view and out of reach,as they had been in the catacombs (Fig. 8). The bodies of Cecilia andher companions were placed in three different ancient sarcophagi: thefirst one held the body of Saint Cecilia, and in the sarcophagus belowlay Popes Urban and Lucius. Behind these two sarcophagi was another,holding Valerianus, Tiburtius and Maximus, placed head-to-toe atopeach other.69 The body of Cecilia was placed by itself in the sarcophagusclosest to the door of the church, so that it was the first one seenthrough the fenestella confessionis. Fenestellae, or little windows, wereopenings into the relic chambers, sealed with grates and often lined

67 On contact relics at Rome, see J.M. McCulloh, ‘The Cult of Relics in the Letters and“Dialogues” of Pope Gregory the Great: A Lexicographical Study’, Traditio 32 (1976), pp. 145–84; idem, ‘From Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Continuity and Change in Papal Relic Policyfrom the 6th to the 8th Century’, in E. Dassmann and K.S. Frank (eds), Pietas: Festschrift fürBernhard Kötting, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum Ergänzungband 8 (Münster, 1980),pp. 314–24.

68 Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis, I, p. 56. Definitions derive from P. Glare (ed.), Oxford LatinDictionary (Oxford, 1996).

69 The placement of the bodies is known from the records of their later rediscovery, Bosio,Historia passionis, pp. 155–8.

Fig. 7 Votive inscription dedicated to the saints of the church (Photo: ICCD E 104811)



with gold or silver plate. In the formal language of Roman churcharchitecture, these structures proclaimed the presence of the relics in thebuilding, but kept them out of reach, and out of harm.70

Paschal placed the bodies of the saints underneath the main altar ofthe church. Pilgrims could see the sarcophagi through the fenestellafacing the front of the church as well as circumambulate the relics bypassing down below the presbytery and into the annular crypt thatfollowed the walls of the apse of the church.71 The form of this cryptfollows closely on the model of the crypt in St Peter’s, built there atthe very beginning of the seventh century. Gregory the Great builttwo crypts at major Roman pilgrimage churches, the annular crypt at

70 On structures that housed relics in the early Middle Ages, see C. Hahn, ‘Seeing and Believing:The Construction of Sanctity in Early-Medieval Saints’ Shrines’, Speculum 72 (1997), pp. 1079–106; and on issues of proximity and distance to saints’ relics, see P. Brown, The Cult of theSaints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981), esp. p. 88.

71 LP 100: §19; Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis, I, p. 57.

Fig. 8 S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. Axonometric drawing of the crypt and placement of the sarcophagi and relics under the presbytery in the ninth century (Drawing: Author)



St Peter’s (which might in fact have been begun by Pelagius II (579–90))and the sunken chamber constructed at St Paul’s when Gregory re-located the main altar to sit directly over the body of the apostle, creatingthe alignment between relic and altar that came to characterize latermedieval altars.72 In the case of the crypt at St Paul’s, we have testimonyof Gregory’s desire to ‘improve the situation at the body of the ApostlePaul’,73 and it is generally agreed that the purpose of the annular cryptis to locate the body of the saint directly beneath the Eucharistic altarwhile preserving the axis of cattedra and altar at the centre of the nave.Of the two models of crypt employed by Gregory, the annular cryptof St Peter’s is the one most often replicated in the early Middle Ages.By the ninth century, there were a handful of other annular crypts inRoman churches, some of which were associated with relics of saints,constructed around saints’ tombs or translated relics, such as at S.Prassede, where Paschal had translated her and other saints’ relics.74

A monumental inscription in the apse also identified the relics for avisitor to the church (Fig. 6). The mosaic inscription describes Paschal’stranslations and describes his intentions in the construction of thebasilica, if in poetic language. It reads:

This spacious house, built of varied materials, shines; once in timepast it had been ruined. The generous prelate Paschal built this hallof the Lord anew, reinforcing it on a bright foundation; these goldenmysteries resound in the jewelled precincts of the temple; serene inthe love of god. He joined the bodies of Saint Cecilia and her com-panions; here youth blushes in its bloom. With blessed limbs thatrested before in catacombs, Rome is joyous, triumphant always,adorned forever.75

As much as this inscription participates in conventions of early medi-eval poetry and epigraphy in Rome – and it does – it also sheds light on

72 On the crypt at St Peter’s, see S. de Blaauw, Cultus et decor: liturgia e architettura nella Romatardoantica e medievale: Basilica Salvatoris, Sanctae Mariae, Sancti Petri, Studi e testi 355–6(Vatican City, 1994), pp. 530–48; for St Paul’s see S. de Blaauw and G. Filippi, ‘San Paolofuori le mura: La disposizione liturgica fino a Gregorio Magno’, Mededelingen van het Ned-erlands Instituut te Rome, Historical Studies 59 (2000), Atti del colloquio internazionale ‘Arredidi culto e disposizioni litugiche a Roma da Costantinio a Sisto IV’. (Roma, 3–4 dicembre 1999),pp. 4–26, at pp. 19–21.

73 ‘Sed et ego aliquid similiter ad sacratissimum corpus s. Pauli apostoli meliorare volui’. S.Gregorii Magni Registrum Epistularum, ed. D. Norberg (Turnhout, 1982), 4.30, p. 248.

74 They included S. Pancrazio, S. Valentino, S. Crisogono, S. Susanna (?) and S. Stefano degliAbessini. S. de Blaauw, ‘Die Krypta in stadtrömischen Kirchen: Abbild eines Pilgerzeils’, inAkten des XII. Internationalen Kongresses, II, pp. 559–68; B.M. Apollonj-Ghetti, ‘Le Confes-sioni semianulari nelle basiliche romane’, in R. Lucani (ed.), Roma sotterranea (Rome, 1984),pp. 203–13. On S. Prassede, see Goodson, ‘The Relic Translations’.

75 See above, n. 59.



Paschal’s aims and ambitions in building the church.76 This inscriptiondeclares very specific interests on Paschal’s part, which do not coincidewith the old theories about Paschal’s desire to revive early Christianarchitectural form for imperial authority. To read the inscription in theapse of the church, Paschal’s interest lay in the bodies of Saint Ceciliaand her companions, celebrating the sacred history of Rome. Theinscription makes mention of the walls and the material fabric of thenew church, invoking the splendour of the new setting, including areference to the ‘bright foundation’, fundamine claro.77 Considering theattention that Paschal’s biographer took to making clear that Paschalwas very familiar with the details of Cecilia’s Passion and veneration, itmay be that this choice of phrase, too, refers to the Passion and reflectssome of Paschal’s understanding of the history of the site.

The ‘bright foundation’ (or alternately ‘famous foundation’) is argu-ably the domestic architecture preserved below the basilica, built anewby Paschal.78 Re-examining underlying structures used as foundationsin the early medieval basilica in the light of the Passion narrative of thesaint with its recurring themes of baptism by bishops: first the baptismby Pope Urban of Cecilia’s companions, then the faithful baptized inher house, suggests that Paschal might have preserved the baptisteryunderneath the church because he believed it to be the baptistery thatPope Urban used in the house of Saint Cecilia. The baptismal fontrecently excavated sits in the centre of an apsed room that was part ofthe Roman insula. It may have been believed that it was the verybaptismal font that Pope Urban and Saint Cecilia installed in her house.When Paschal constructed the basilica, the early medieval wall in the

76 The vocabulary of gleaming buildings and variety of materials employed in this inscriptionfinds parallels in contemporary poems by Carolingian authors such as Paul the Deacon,Alcuin of York, Angilbert of S. Riquier, the author of the Versus Sangallenses, earlier texts thatcirculated in the Carolingian age, such as the Carmen Paschale by Coelius Sedulius, as wellas Roman precedents in apse mosaics and building dedications. For poetic comparanda, seeMGH Poetae Latini medii aevi. Apse inscriptions at Rome often refer to the structures of thechurch, either directly (e.g. aula) or poetically (e.g. templum) and they are often described asgleaming, glowing or sparkling, and the predecessors that they replace are often described asruinous. Examples of this can be seen at S. Andrea at St Peter’s, SS. Cosma e Damiano, S.Pancrazio, S. Agnese fuori le mura, S. Maria in Domnica and S. Prassede, among others. Forthese, see the sylloges in De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae, II. For a brief discussion of theprecedents of this inscription, see R. Favreau, Èpigraphie médiévale, L’Atelier du Médiéviste5 (Turnhout, 1997), pp. 116–19.

77 On early medieval uses of the word fundamens with reference to actual construction, seeR. Coates-Stephens, ‘Dark Age Architecture in Rome’, Papers of the British School at Rome 65(1997), pp. 177–232, at pp. 224–7. The language of the inscription, and the LP, are notori-ously vague about building vocabulary.

78 For alternate translations of the inscription, see M. Webb, The Churches and Catacombs ofEarly Christian Rome: A Comprehensive Guide (Brighton, 2001), p. 269, and Favreau, Èpigraphiemédiévale, pp. 118–19.



baptistery formed a corridor decorated with fictive drapery leading fromthe basilica above. It led to the baptistery below, which might havebeen believed to be the locus sanctus of the baptism of Roman martyrswithin the house of the saint, an ancient holy place annexed to thecontemporary basilica above. Thus for visitors to the church in theninth century, the ‘foundation’ of the basilica may have been actuallythe ancient titulus sanctae Caecilia, founded by the saint herself.79

The baptistery was not the only earlier structure enshrined andpreserved at the site; there was also the private bath. It may be arguedthat this too formed part of Paschal’s basilica and acted as a secondsanctified space attached to the medieval basilica memorializing thePassion of Saint Cecilia, in this case the site of her martyrdom in thecaldarium of her private bath. Determining whether this structure wasaccessible to Paschal’s church is not as straightforward as it was todetermine that the baptistery had an early medieval phase. Thedifficulty arises from the major renovations to the bath by CardinalSfondrato around the year 1600, though it will be shown that reviewingSfondrato’s renovations provides glimmers of evidence for Paschal’schurch, and more to the point, a useful comparison for understandingPaschal’s attempts to benefit from sacred history.

Cardinal Sfondrato was the titular cardinal of S. Cecilia, a role hetook over from his uncle when the latter became Pope Gregory XIV in1591 and then kept until his death in 1618.80 He was a member of theCongregation of the Oratory, a group led by Filippo Neri, amongwhose aims was the return of the Roman church to the early church adfontes (‘at the sources’), prior to the heresies of Protestantism, and priorto the problems that led to the Protestant reformation. In the 1550s,Neri reinvigorated interest in the pilgrimage to the Seven Churches ofRome, a circuit of visits to ancient churches that on the one handrepresented a reprisal of medieval stational liturgy, but on the other handestablished, in a very direct way, lay and clerical physical and direct

79 It is not clear whether the font was in use as such through the Middle Ages. The limitedexcavation reports are frustratingly silent on this issue, suggesting inconclusive archaeologicaldata. The ninth century was precisely the moment when baptismal practices were changingtowards infant baptism in small basin fonts from the adult-sized immersion fonts such as thatat S. Cecilia. However, a contemporary site, S. Cornelia, Capracorum, to the north of Rome,has a clearly dated example of a monumental baptismal font in use in the late eighth centuryat a papal church in the countryside, Christie, Three South Etrurian Churches, p. 180. Therestoration and preservation of the baptistery at S. Cecilia, however, need not have beenaimed exclusively at its functional use as a baptismal font. Perhaps its being old-fashionedwas desirable to Paschal and his church planners, as the baptismal font seemed more ancient,and thus more like Saint Cecilia’s.

80 C. Eubel and G. van Gulik, Hierarchia Catholica Medii et Recientoris Aevi, 8 vols (Munich,1910), III, pp. 60, 197.



contact with ancient buildings.81 Rome’s most ancient churches becameimportant for their antiquity, and among a certain clerical intellectualmilieu, there was an eye to the ways in which that very antiquity couldreturn the Roman church to original grace.82 Cesare Baronio, one ofNeri’s favourite penitents and followers, devoted decades to the massiveproject of the Annales ecclesiastici, his universal history of the churchand the Christian world.83 Baronio contextualized Neri’s aims in termsand language of the early church: the reading of approved lives of thesaints, the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers. The telling andretelling of the history of the Roman church in the Oratory’s meetingswas an important part of the education and communal awareness of thespiritual sons of Neri, including Sfondrato.84

When Sfondrato took the office of cardinal, he found a letter amongthe papers left by his uncle who became Gregory XIV.85 Antonio Bosio,another member of the Oratory and a dedicated archaeologist himself,who chronicled the events at S. Cecilia during these years, indicatedthat the letter was from Pope Paschal I and that it described the eventsthat we know already from the LP : the appearance of the saint to thepope, his retrieval of her body from the catacombs, and his subsequentcollection of the bodies of her companion saints, and their depositionunder the altar of the church.86 On the basis of this letter, and withan eye to the coming Holy Jubilee of 1600, Sfondrato undertookrenovations to the presbytery of S. Cecilia beginning in 1599, and in sodoing rediscovered the bodies of Saint Cecilia and her companions intheir sarcophagi beneath the main altar.87 The sarcophagi were opened

81 For a general introduction to the period, see most recently S. Ostrow, ‘The Counter Reformationand the End of the Century’, in M. Hall (ed.), Rome (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 276, 316, n. 73.The bibliography on Neri and the Oratory is immense. For a fundamental biography of Nerisee L. Ponnelle and L. Bordet, St. Philip Neri and the Roman Society of His Times, trans. R.F.Kerr (London, 1932) and more recently, the essays in A. Lo Bianco, La regola e la fama: SanFilippo Neri e l’arte (Milan, 1995).

82 A. Mengarelli, La metodologia nell’azione pastorale di S. Filippo Neri (Rome, 1974), pp. 62–4.83 C. Baronio, Annales ecclesiastici, 2nd rev. edn (Lucca, 1738–59). On Baronio and the Annales,

see Ostrow, ‘The Counter Reformation’.84 A. Herz, ‘Cardinal Cesare Baronio’s Restoration of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo and S. Cesareo de’

Appia’, Art Bulletin 70:4 (December 1988), pp. 590–620, at p. 591.85 The letter as transcribed by Bosio, Bibliotheca hagiographica latina, n. 1499 is very much based

upon the text of the LP, Bosio, Historia passionis, pp. 42–5, notes on pp. 132–54. However,there are four known manuscripts of such a letter which predate Sfondrato’s cardinalate, andso while Sfondrato and Bosio were not working from a letter in Paschal’s own hand, theycould well have been looking at a (relatively) ancient forgery. On the manuscripts of Cecilia’sPassion, see the database at <http://bhlms.fltr.ucl.ac.be/>.

86 On Bosio’s interest in history and archaeology, see his own posthumous work, A. Bosio,Roma Sotterranea (Rome, 1632), and S. Ditchfield, ‘Text Before Trowel: Antonio Bosio’sRoma Sotterranea Revisited’, in R.N. Swanson (ed.), The Church Retrospective, Studies inChurch History 33 (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 343–60.

87 Bosio, Historia passionis, pp. 155–7. On Sfondrato’s presbytery, see Stirrup, ‘The Altar Sculptures’,pp. 136–45; Kämpf, ‘Framing Cecilia’s Sacred Body’.



and the body of Cecilia was found miraculously intact and incorrupt.88

Cecilia’s body was put on display in the church, and crowds of Romanscame to see it. She was reburied under the altar on 22 November 1599,her feast day. Sfondrato commissioned the sculptor Stefano Madernoto sculpt a likeness of the saint’s body as it appeared and the result waspresented in 1600.89

If Sfondrato used textual sources to guide his excavations for therelics, in his restorations to the Cappella del Bagno he relied upon thematerial remains of the ancient bath structures to shape his rediscoveryof the relics of Cecilia’s bath. The chapel sits on a level less than half ametre below the floor level of Paschal’s basilica, joined to it by a corridorthat was part of the ancient insula on the site (Figs 9 and 10). Preserved inthe walls of the chapel, up to a metre’s height, are the square tubi of thebath, terracotta pipes that brought steam up from the bronze testudostill preserved below the floor of the chapel to heat the room.90 In therenovations, these were covered with bronze sheets, forming a dadopanel. Above them, identical inscriptions run around each half of thechapel, reading ‘Pipes through which the steam and hot air came thatheated the bath’, identifying them as part of the ancient bath.91 Abovethe dado, on the walls and the vaults of the chapel, are paintings bothal fresco and in oil depicting the life and martyrdom of Saint Cecilia.92

The pavement of the floor, as well as the walls, showcase the pre-served remains of the earlier structures. At either end of the longitudinalchapel are grilles which let into the praefurnium of the bath (the easternsquare grille) and the bronze tub which heated the water (the westernround grille). They are labelled with inscriptions describing their function

88 It should be pointed out that Sfondrato was not the only cardinal finding incorrupt bodies inRome around the year 1600: Stirrup, ‘The Altar Sculptures’; G. Wolf, ‘Caecilia, Agnes, Gregorund Maria. Heiligenstatuen, Madonnenbilder und ihre kunstlerische Inszenierung im römischenSakralraum um 1600’, Zeitsprünge. Forschungen zur Frühen Neuzeit 1 (1997), pp. 750–95. On thedevelopment of the idea of incorrupt bodies of saints, see A. Angenendt, ‘Corpus incorruptum:Ein Leitidee der mittelalterlichen Reliquienverehrung’, Saeculum 42 (1991), pp. 320–48.

89 On the statue, see Kämpf, ‘Framing Cecilia’s Sacred Body’, pp. 145–50; Stirrup, ‘The AltarSculptures’, and, less reliably, M. O’Neil, ‘Stefano Maderno’s Santa Cecilia’, Antologia di BelleArte, ns 25–6 (1985), pp. 9–21.

90 A general introduction to Roman bath forms can be found in F. Yegül, Baths and Bathing inClassical Antiquity (Cambridge MA, 1992).

91 CANALI PER I QUALI VENIVANO SU I VAPORI ET AERE CALDO CHE RISCALDAVANO IL BAGNO.

92 There is very little recent literature on the decorative programme of the Cappella. SeeG. Serangeli, ‘Roma, basilica di Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. Cappella del Bagno’, Bollettinod’Arte, 6th ser. 72 (1987), pp. 103–8; Cellini, ‘Stefano Maderno’; S. Pepper, ‘Baglione, Vanniand Cardinal Sfondrato’, Paragone 18:211 (1967), pp. 69–74. The corridor to the chapel isdecorated with landscapes by Paul Bril that include saints. On Bril’s work at S. Cecilia, seeP. Jones, ‘Two Newly Discovered Hermit Landscapes by Paul Bril’, Burlington Magazine 130(1988), pp. 32–4 and n. 15; A. Mayer, Das Leben und die Werke der Brüder Matthäus und PaulBrill (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 29–33.



in the ancient bath. The grille to the praefurnium reads ‘Room of thefire by which the bath was heated’,93 and the tub is labelled ‘Aroundthis vessel, as large as the pavement, there was a square tub to holdwater.’94 Between these two grilles, in the centre of the floor of theancient structure, are four panels of opus sectile pavement, a centralpanel of a square enclosing four semicircles, and three rectangular panels

93 CAMERA DEL FUOCO PER DOVE SI SCALDAVA IL BAGNO.

94 INTORNO A QUESTO VASO QUANTO E TUTTO IL PAVIMENTO VI ERA QUASI UNA TINOZZA QUADRA DA TENER AQUA. There is an intriguing possibility that the square tub mentioned is the bronze tub presentlyheld at the Antiquarium comunale on the Celio. According to records in the Antiquarium,the large bronze tub measuring roughly 2 m × 1.5 m × 0.30 m deep was discovered near S.Cecilia in the nineteenth century. Perhaps during the c.1600 restorations it was removed fromthe chapel and stored nearby, though this cannot be confirmed.

Fig. 9 Cappella del Bagno, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. Renovated 1597–1602. Plan (Drawing: Author and Marshall Hopkins). Scale 1:400



of small geometric patterns. The opus sectile panels were surrounded byother marble pieces in the restoration of the floor, preserving them tooas material evidence of the ancient structures.95 Contemporary sourcesdescribe the renovations as a restoration of the bath of the saint herself.

95 Two of the reused marble elements are pieces of late medieval furniture, so the repaving ofthe floor must post-date the creation of the opus sectile panels, and it is most probable thatthe repaving took place during Sfondrato’s restoration.

Fig. 10 Cappella del Bagno, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. Renovated 1597–1602. NE side wall of chapel (Photo: Archivio Fotografico Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Romano, no. 75480)



Sfondrato was lauded for having brought to light the physical elementsthat witnessed the martyrdom of Cecilia.96

What is significant about Sfondrato’s restoration is the attention tothe material remains, his use of the archaeology in the fabrication ofa sacred space. Some of Sfondrato’s contemporaries, such as CesareBaronio and even Sfondrato himself in the restoration of the presbytery,refurbished ancient churches on the basis of careful textual analysis ofassociated documents and literature.97 In the restoration of the bath ofCecilia, Sfondrato put the archaeology of the site on display.

Sfondrato may well have believed that the medieval opus sectile pave-ment of the chapel floor was the original Roman pavement of Cecilia’sbath, or perhaps the floor that Paschal laid in the chapel. Based on ourcurrent understanding of the technique and patterns employed, however,it is an eleventh-century floor.98 In the eleventh century, other renovationstook place to the bath of Cecilia which point to the same kind ofattention that Paschal had paid to the relationship between Passion text,liturgy and archaeology. An eighteenth-century source describes a now-lost inscription from an altar dedication in the chapel. It records thatan altar to Saint Cecilia was consecrated in 1073 ‘in her bath’, presumablythe Cappella del Bagno.99 From 1059 the cardinal responsible for thechurch was Desiderius, abbot of Montecassino, who later became PopeVictor III. During Desiderius’s tenure, six altars were consecrated byvarious bishops and Pope Gregory VII, indicating a focalization ofepiscopal attention to the church in these years.100 A cycle of paintings

96 ‘[Sfondrato] Ricacciò dalle tenebre il bagno, in cui S. Cecilia fù dal carnefice per la santa fedeuccisa, e che prima si diceva il suo Oratorio, e fece comparire i canali, per gli quali simandavano li accesi vapori, e lo ridusse in forma d’una bellissima cappella ornata di vaghe,e devote pitture.’ (‘[Sfondrato] raised from the shadows the bath, in which Saint Cecilia hadbeen killed by butchery towards the faith, and which was first called her oratory, and he madeappear the tubes, through which the vapours arrived, and he shaped it into a beautiful chapel,ornate with pretty and pious pictures.’) O. Pancirioli, Tesori nascosti dell’alma città di Roma:con nuovo ordine (Rome, 1625), p. 611.

97 M.G. Turco, Il titulus dei Santi Nereo ed Achilleo emblema della riforma cattolica (Rome,1997); A. Herz, ‘Cardinal Cesare Baronio’s Restoration of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo and S.Cesareo de’ Appia’, Art Bulletin 70:4 (December 1988), pp. 590–620.

98 Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom, pp. 227–49.99 ‘Dedicatum est autem per Ubaldum Savinensem Episcopum. Die XVII. mensis Septembris,

tempore Gregorii VII. Papae. Anno Domini millesimo septuagesimo tertio, Indictione duo-decima.’ Laderchi, Sanctae Caeciliae, p. 12, corrected the year of the indiction to ‘undecima’.

100 The inscription of the dedication of the main altar is preserved in the underground chapel: † DEDICATV[s] EST HOC ALTARE DIE III MENSIS IVNII PER DOMNV(m) GREGORIV(m) PP VII ANN[o] D[omi]NI MILL[e] LXXX IND[ictione] III V. Forcella, Iscrizioni delle chiese e d’altri edificii di Roma dal secolo XI fino ai giorni nostri(Rome, 1873), II, p. 19. The other altars were dedicated to the Saviour (1060), the VirginMary (1071), John the Baptist (1072), and Sant’ Andrea (1073). After the altar dedication of 1080,however, there is no record of another altar dedication until 1098, suggesting that Desiderius



narrating Cecilia’s martyrdom and Urban’s consecration of her homeinto a church, concluding with a scene of Paschal’s vision of Cecilia,was painted in the atrium of the church.101 The near total destructionof these paintings makes assessment of their chronology impossible, butit has been suggested that they might date from this period of vigorousattention to the basilica and the life, death and veneration of thesaint.102 These renovations may be seen in light of the composition ofa major legendary compiled in the 1060s or 1070s at the monastery ofS. Cecilia in Trastevere and now located in Cape Town, South Africa.103

That manuscript collection of Passions of saints venerated in theliturgical calendar of S. Cecilia originally included more than 150 entries,among which of course are the Passion of Saint Cecilia and the life ofPope Urban. It may be that the compilation of the legendary, therenovation of the Cappella del Bagno and the consecration of altars,one in the bath itself, were all part of the same initiative of CardinalDesiderius to invigorate the veneration of saints at the church and,perhaps, project the image of the properly pastoral bishop that Urbanrepresented in the Passion and even Pope Paschal might have representedin Gregorian Rome.104

While the eleventh-century marble floors cannot attest to Paschal’sarchitectural treatment of the bath, these pieces of medieval flooring arenonetheless important evidence for the presence of the chapel of thebath in the central Middle Ages, allowing us to dismiss the Sfondrato’sclaims to have discovered the archaeology of the loca sancta himself.Unfortunately, subsequent restoration has obliterated or obscured anytraces of an early medieval phase of the chapel of the bath. It is nonetheless

was very active in encouraging bishops from other Italian dioceses to contribute to therenovations of the church, much more than his immediate predecessors and successors. Thesaints to whom the altars are dedicated are biblical saints and Santa Cecilia, indicating the sameconcern for orthodoxy in saint veneration that characterizes Paschal’s patronage.

101 Wilpert, Die römischen Mosaiken, II, pp. 985–90; S. Waetzold, Die Kopien des 17. Jahrhundertsnach Mosaiken und Wandmalereien in Rom (Vienna, 1964), pp. 30–1.

102 V. Pace, ‘Riforma della chiesa e visualizzazione della santità nella pittura romana: I casidi Sant’Alessio e di Santa Cecilia’, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 46/47 (1993/1994),pp. 545–6.

103 Cape Town, National Library, Grey MS 48 b4, b5. On the legendary, see Franklin, ‘RomanHagiography’, pp. 866–7 with citations of relevant bibliography.

104 Desiderius, famous as a patron of the arts and for his rebuilding of the abbey church ofMontecassino, imported artisans to make the opus sectile marble floors there. It has beensuggested that the floor of the Cappella del Bagno might actually be a link in the chainbetween Desiderius’s artisans and the early Roman floors of the Cosmati family workshop.Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom, pp. 243–6. On Roman churches and the GregorianReform, see Peter Cornelius Claussen, ‘Renovatio Romae. Erneuerungsphasen römischerArchitektur im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert’, in B. Schimmelpfennig and L. Schmugge (eds), Romim hohen Mittelalter, Studien zu den Romvorstellungen und zur Rompolitik vom 10. bis zum 12.Jahrhunderts (Sigmaringen, 1992), pp. 88–94.



distinctly possible that Paschal incorporated the bath into the basilica,just as he made the baptistery below part of his church.105

In addition to this construction work on the church complex, Paschal– we can be certain – brought the bodies of Saint Cecilia and hercompanions to the church. His translation of the bodies was not onlythe relocation of the saints’ bodies into an urban shrine, but also thereturning of the saints to their home, Cecilia to her place of martyr-dom, Urban to the site where he performed the baptism of the faithfulin accordance with Cecilia’s wishes. Further, Paschal’s reuniting thebodies of the saints in their ancient home is a gesture by which the popeinserted himself into the sacred history of the saints. Among the goodworks of Cecilia, Valerianus and Tiburtius, as well as a great numberof other saints, was the collecting and properly burying of dead Christians.In the ninth century, Paschal undertook the same noble enterprise forsaints whose bodies ‘had lain in destroyed cemeteries, with dutifulconcern that they should not remain neglected’.106 As pope, Paschal alsoemulated the venerable example of his predecessor Urban, who, withthe agreement of Saint Cecilia, established the first titulus Caeciliae. ForCardinal Desiderius in the eleventh century and Cardinal Sfondrato inthe late sixteenth century, renovating the loca sancta of Cecilia andredistributing the texts of the saint’s Passion effectively included thelater cardinals in Paschal’s chain of sacred history of venerable papalbeneficence.107

Comparing the renovations of Sfondrato and Desiderius with thereconstructions of Paschal provides an answer to the question of whyPaschal was so interested in S. Cecilia. His attention had everything todo with the veneration of saints, and meticulous attention to theseparticular saints’ lives. While earlier popes had avoided saints’ Passiontexts as problematic because of their questionable authorship, and werepart of a popular, extraneous religious veneration, Paschal was demonstrablyfamiliar with these saints’ Passions, and he counted on contemporaryvisitors to the church to know the story of the saint in some detail. Thissuggests that by the ninth century, saints’ stories had become a prominentpart of the landscape of Christian experience in Rome. Unlike papalceremony, saint veneration was a popular practice: unscripted andindividual, sometimes even spontaneous. Yet in Paschal’s architectural

105 The orientation of the basilica and its placement adjacent to the bath structure would furthersuggest that the incorporation of the bath was part of Paschal’s project.

106 ‘. . . multa corpora sanctorum requirens invenit, quos et diligentius intro civtatem ad honoremet gloriam Dei honeste recondidit’, Duchesne, Le Liber Pontificalis, II, p. 52; trans. Davis, TheLives of the Ninth-Century Popes, pp. 10–11.

107 The event was so important within the clerical career of Sfondrato that the central relief ofhis tomb, now located in the entrance to the church, shows him before the body of Cecilia,in its sarcophagus before the altar of the church, revealing her body to the pope.



project of S. Cecilia, he melded the popular with the highly organized,top-down celebration of the papal liturgy. The texts around Paschal’sproject carefully describe his actions as having been encouraged by thesaint herself, and in keeping with the traditions of previous popes andold patterns of veneration. His translation of the body of Pope Urban,Cecilia’s confessor, and the original pope who built the church, mighthave been an attempt to underscore episcopal authority and tradition.108

In conclusion, the Paschal’s basilica of S. Cecilia incorporated traditionand innovation in form and function to create a new kind of institutionin the city of Rome. As Krautheimer pointed out long ago, the churchformally recalls ancient buildings, such as the fourth-century basilicasof St Peter’s and St Paul’s, expressing the prestige of the papal officethrough long-standing architectural traditions of long basilicas withcolonnades of ancient marbles. The interior architecture of S. Ceciliaconveyed the importance of the church as a papal basilica and a stationin the liturgy of Rome. Yet the church complex also included sitessacred to the cult of Saint Cecilia, and the papal basilica became asaint’s shine with the inclusion of the bodies of Cecilia and her com-panions. The architecture of the building combined the expression ofpapal presence and also saintly praesentia. This particular combinationof saint’s body and papal basilica was not completely new, the prototypeof St Peter’s had combined the papal liturgy and the shrine of the bodyof the Apostle since the fourth century. The innovative and uniqueaspect of Paschal’s project at S. Cecilia is the considerable attention tothe gesta of a Roman martyr and the coordination of the new basilicawith the archaeological remains and corporeal relics of the saint. Thissame kind of integration of text, material and relic conditioned Car-dinal Desiderius’s eleventh-century restoration and Cardinal Sfondrato’srestoration of the church nearly eight hundred years later and hisproject recapitulated Paschal’s own gesta in the lamination of the siteand shrine.

Birkbeck College, London

108 For a similar use of foundation legends of Roman churches for medieval papal politics, seeK. Cooper, ‘The Martyr, the matrona and the Bishop: The Matron Lucina and the Politicsof Martyr Cult in Fifth- and Sixth-Century Rome’, EME 8 (1999), pp. 297–317; P. Llewellyn,‘The Roman Church during the Laurentian Schism: Priests and Senators’, Church History 45(1976), pp. 417–27.