Learning from San Clemente

by D. V. Marcantonio

There is much talk nowadays about restoring selected liturgical practices of the primitive Church so as to uncover an original purity, obscured by centuries, it is claimed, almost millenia, of extraneous accretions. So far as the Church’s building program is concerned, this is also true. Typically the archi-liturgical reform program is marked by an appeal to evoke the domestic setting of the early Church’s liturgy. As Christians were either persecuted or, at best, de facto tolerated until Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., they were indeed forced to meet secretly. However, there is still heated debate, fueled by comparatively little evidence, as to precisely what were the physical arrangements. We know that some churches were built before the end of the persecutions; however, none have survived so we know next to nothing about them. We do have evidence that Christians gathered in the tituli, or private properties donated to the Christian community by sympathetic patricians. But, again, very little is known about the architectural modifications that were made to accommodate religious services.i For all we know, these places were used in such a way as to imitate as much as possible the Temple and synagogal forms of the Jews. Indeed, what would one expect of the early Church, which grew directly from the Hebrew tradition. In any case, we should not be surprised at the lack of evidence as the primitive Church was convinced of the imminence of the Second Coming, a significant disincentive to investment in lasting church buildings.

Despite the paucity of remains, however, there is a suggestion in the liturgical reform program that a domestic setting per se is most fitting for the liturgy. Hence contemporary churches ought somehow to imitate this domestic intimacy, principally by designing horizontally proportioned spaces, and arranging the seating “in-the-round” in order to focus attention on the assembly. The proposed imitation of the ancient liturgical setting ends there, however, as the program for archi-liturgical reform, broadly speaking, also promotes the adoption of architectural forms which are decidedly untraditional, namely those modernist forms which are currently the fashion in the architectural profession today. In support, one often hears the phrase from Sacrosanctum Concilium “The Church has not adopted any particular style of art as her very own” (123) repeated with a depressing lack of finesse, as though the Church were obliged to adopt every trend without distinction.

There is every reason to believe, however, that an examination of the early basilicas built under Constantine and soon after would be very instructive regarding the primitive Church’s attitude toward the architectural setting for the liturgy, for a serious argument could be made that there was no radical shift in the Christian mentality regarding building after 313. It must be remembered that the construction of these early basilicas was a delicate political affair. Most of the aristocracy and the general population were still pagan, and would have been offended had Constantine pursued a triumphalist Christian building program ordered to the purposes of the state, possibly provoking an unstable political situation. For this reason, he proceeded very cautiously. The early basilicas were all constructed on private land on the outskirts of town, most outside the city walls (fuori le mura), and their exteriors were highly austere, even plain, so as not to attract attention. Only the interiors were richly decorated, and those would only be seen by the faithful.ii With this in mind one would expect these new church buildings to have been designed in organic continuity with the more secretive architectural settings which preceded them. Whatever was novel (permanent altars, elaborate decorations, etc.) represented the release of a longing that had been growing for generations, and the faithful who lived through the construction of the churches would not have been surprised, much less offended, by anything built.

One of the most important of these first churches to be built is the Minor Basilica of San Clemente. Not only is it very old, but it has also been repeatedly embellished and faithfully renovated over the past two millennia, each intervention the logical issue of that which preceded it. Hence, it provides us with a picture of the mind of the Church as a whole rather than a snapshot of the trendy ideas of a few of Her members. It is an object lesson in the sensitive architectural reworking of a church.

The original church was erected in 385 literally on top of a titulus, a privately owned property apparently donated to the Christians by the Roman Consul Titus Flavius Clemens in the first century, and converted into a clandestine meeting house. (At one point the future Pope St. Clement was a part of the community that lived there.) This new construction served the Church without major alteration for the next 700 years until its destruction in 1084 by the invading Normans. Soon after, Pope Pascal II ordered a reconstruction again literally over top of the old church (which was filled in with earth), completed in 1128. The only significant modification to the original basilican plan (i.e., a longitudinal nave with side aisles and an apsidal end) was a slight narrowing of the nave. For close to another 600 years it served without major alteration. By 1715 the church was finally in need of structural and decorative renovations, so Clement XI commissioned the architect Carlo Fontana, ordering him to remain faithful to the original plan. Among other things, Fontana remodeled the medieval facade and the interior wall treatment, and added a tiny chapel dedicated to St. Dominic. And so stands the church that we see today. What a powerful sense of the permanence of the Catholic Faith is exuded by this ancient building, practically as old as the Church Herself!

Its design is typical of a paleo-Christian church. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, it fits seamlessly into the surrounding urban fabric, like one piece in a larger puzzle (Figure 1). The city of Rome is celebrated for its articulateness–it communicates with crystal clarity the hierarchy and purposes of the institutions housed within. For the Catholic, who understands that the city is the place where man seeks to live the good life, that is, a life ordered to his supernatural end, such articulation is particularly important, for Catholicism is an incarnational religion. Hence material things, especially buildings, are properly to be used to preach, to edify, and to give glory to God. Even a stranger parachuted in from an utterly alien world would detect, after a simple walk through the city, that the Faith was the most important thing to the Romans, for the churches occupy the most prominent sites, they are the most lavishly decorated, and their decorations speaks explicitly of eternal things. All other institutions, from the civic to the domestic, defer to the churches, and by implication the Church, according to their station.

A few generations ago, no one would have thought to bring out this point. However, after over half a century of fruitless experimentation with urban design, which has now been boiled down to solving the problem of parking, architects and urban planners are realizing just how important it is for a city’s buildings to coordinate with one another to shape public space, to be scaled to the measure of man rather than the automobile, to convey an institutional hierarchy, and to communicate purpose. Rome and San Clemente do all this beautifully. Rather than being surrounded by a meaningless moat of asphalt, San Clemente defines the public spaces of the street and piazza out front. And far from being unidentifiable, San Clemente looks like a church, and it is a handsome one at that.

From the Piazza di San Clemente, a stone’s throw from the Colosseum, one passes through the protiro, or porch, decorated with ionic and corinthian columns to indicate an institution of importance, into the atrium (Figure 2). The atrium, likely a reprise of a fourth century atrium directly belowiii, serves several purposes. An imitation of the Court of the Gentiles of the Temple at Jerusalem where the uninitiated were permitted entry, it symbolizes life before Baptism and entry into the Church. At the center there is a fountain, a traditional symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary through whom Our Savior came into the world. In like manner, the world now approaches Him through her. The facade dominates the atrium, almost as though it were exercising its authority over it. It is traditional for the buildings of important institutions within the urban fabric to pull away from the street this way. This holds true even in North America, where the court has been translated into the green.

Fontana’s facade, likely much less reserved than the fourth century facade, is a variation on a theme begun in the 15th century with Fr. Alberti’s church Santa Maria Novella in Florence, and developed later on in Rome at such churches as the Gesú, and Santa Susanna. It is essentially a two-story composition with columnar orders super-posed, crowned with a pediment, and a scroll motif on either side of the upper story to conceal cleverly the roofs of the nave’s side aisles, and to provide visual stability to the whole. The lower ionic columns of the elegant arcuated porch support the corinthian columns above, a standard arrangement due to the slightly stockier proportions of the ionic. While admittedly not as breathtaking as the Gesu and Santa Susanna (this was a renovation so one might expect that the architect was handicapped by the existing conditions), the facade is attractive, noble, and suited to its purpose.

From the atrium we pass through the exo-narthex, or porch, in the facade into the nave. Like a boat, the navis has direction–our attention is focused immediately on a clearly defined sanctuary at the end of a long procession, like heaven at the end of our earthly pilgrimage. Along the way, the walls are decorated with images describing the life of St. Clement, the one closest to the sanctuary depicting his martyrdom. These images act as encouragements along our metaphorical way, providing us with a specific example to follow. The fourth century church below is similarly frescoed.

Half way up the sanctuary is the 6th century schola cantorum, which was transferred up in the twelfth century from the original church. Essentially an extension of the sanctuary, here the clergy chanted the Liturgy and the Divine Office. From the left one gains access to an elaborate ambo or tribune for the reading of the Gospel, designed to accommodate a procession up one side, and down the other. An exquisitely elaborate candelabrum for the Paschal candle sits atop a pedestal in the knee-wall surrounding the schola. Its shaft, a column of the composite order, is encrusted with colored marble pieces, and spirals upward in imitation of the columns Joachim and Boaz of the Temple of Solomon (3 Kings 7:21). To the right is a comparatively modest ambo for the Epistle. The more prominent book stand, at the top of several steps, faces the altar, while a more humble one at floor level faces the nave.

The church is not geographically orientated in the manner of later churches, that is, we enter from the east and the altar is situated at the western end of the nave. This arrangement is apparently an imitation of that at St. Peter’s Basilica, likewise built over the tomb of a martyr, and where the inherited siting was not ideal. Precisely how the altar, which is free-standing, got to be in a position which suggests to modern eyes the Missa versus populum posture is a matter of some complexity outside our scope. Suffice it to say that the arrangement was not at all perceived as contrary to the apostolic Missa ad orientem posture which was standard for all prayer: the faithful simply turned to the east (toward the front doors) with the priest at the appropriate moments in the liturgy. Here at San Clemente, the faithful had their backs to the priest during the Eucharistic Prayer! There were no pews at that time for the assembly, of course, so turning around would not have been the ordeal it would be today in your typical parish church. (Only the clergy had seating as a sign not only of their hierarchical status, but also of the clear ontological distinction between the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood.) At some point the practice of orientating churches was established (more firmly so in the East), such that prayer ad orientem was better accommodated, and the very act of entering the church was a movement from west to east, from darkness to light.

The location of the Gospel and Epistle ambos are perhaps the reverse of what one would expect. Traditionally, the Gospel side is liturgical north and the Epistle side is south, while here the reverse is the case. Jungmann arguesiv that the determining factor in this early period was the Gospel’s position relative to the bishop’s throne, traditionally located against the back wall of the apse. It was most fitting that the Gospel be read to the bishop’s right, which is the position of honor. The priest or deacon reading the Gospel was then not facing away from the assembly, as would be the case if this were an orientated church, but rather toward the assembly, toward geographical north.

The altar (Figure 4) is sheltered by a ciborium, an exemplary product of the 12th century Roman Renovatio. There was at that time a heightened desire to recover knowledge of and maintain clear continuity with the Greco-roman architectural tradition that had been obscured as the Empire and its component institutions fell into decline–in fact this period is sometimes called “the first Renaissance.” Already one can see progress is being made. The Corinthian columns are more clearly delineated than they would have been had they been built two centuries before (assuming they were built in the 12th  century rather than the 5th as some have surmised). Nevertheless, the full order lacks the lucidity of examples produced by Italian architects in the 15th and 16th  centuries (when the second Renaissance occurred), after Brunelleschi of Florence, Bramante of Rome, and Palladio of the Veneto had so thoroughly studied the ancient monuments, and disseminated their acquired knowledge. For example, there is no abacus, the flat piece on top of a capital which traditionally mediates between the more floral details below and the structural beam above. Above the gilt caps of the columns, the architrave (the beam), which may come from the original 6th  century ciborium, betrays some naivete in its profiles and in its cantilevering over the columnar line of structure. The colonnettes, where one would expect to find a solid frieze, are a typical motif lending the whole an airy, almost weightless, quality. And the pediment above (decorated appropriately with an anchor, and crowned with a cross) is, again, a bit uninformed, the pitched roof not quite making it out to the edge where it ought to be. But in spite its minor flaws, the ciborium was state-of-the-art traditional for its time. More importantly, its legibility for the faithful, and the evident devotion and care that went into its design and construction, are more than enough to make it worthy of preservation for the next 800 years.

Below, the richly profiled altar is inscribed with a dedication to St. Clement, whose relics, along with those of St. Ignatius, lie directly underneath in the confessio. Here is a beautiful detail, common in paleo-Christian churches, yet never seen today. The confessio, which is simply a chamber for relics below an altar, also helps explain the situation of the altar at the western end of the church, as in Rome’s other stational churches: had the altar been placed at the eastern end, the priest would have stood between it and the faithful as he said Mass, thus obscuring visual access to the grave below. As a unit, the confessio and altar form a cube, which is the ideal geometry of an altar. For a cube is the traditional symbol of the earth, and by Christ’s sacrifice upon it, the world is remade and sanctified. Additionally, the confessio reminds us that the altar is also Christ’s tomb, and that the saints mysteriously have a share in His Divine Life.

The altar sits just proud of the center of the half-dome, the apse. Covered with a spectacular golden mosaic of iconography, the apse is a symbol of heaven itself. Our attention is focused immediately upon Christ crucified at the center, Our Lady and St. John to either side. From the Cross grows a sumptuously poetic Tree of Life, filled with symbols (doves, peacocks, phoenixes) and images of various saints. From its base spring four rivers: the Phison, the Giho, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, which water paradise and the whole world (Gen. 2: 10-14). Above the Cross is the crowned Hand of God the Father, and below the scene is the Lamb of God surrounded by twelve lambs, the apostles, each with a corresponding portrait on the wall below. This is just the tip of the iconographic iceberg–one could probably take up a chapter of a book describing the apse fully.

Below the apostles, appropriately, is the throne of a successor, the bishop (now the titular Cardinal, as in all the stational churches). As is traditional, because the bishop’s cathedra is in this church, there is no Tabernacle on the main altar. Presumably, this is because in a place designed partly for the bishop to exercise his authority as pastor of his flock, there would be a certain tension between the bishop’s exercise of that authority, and the bishop’s necessary worship of Christ’s physical presence in the Blessed Sacrament. This problem is compounded in those churches where the high altar is located against the back wall of the apse, for during choir functions, the bishop is seated on the predella (the three-stepped platform for the altar), and he would have his back to the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle. To resolve these problems, the old book of Canon Law strongly suggested that the Blessed Sacrament be reserved on another altar, in a separate chapel, out of view of the main sanctuary. Otherwise, as is typical in the United States where choir functions rarely take place at the high altar, the Tabernacle is almost always on the high altar, and the Blessed Sacrament is simply reposed when necessary. Whichever altar held the Tabernacle, though, was always the most lavishly decorated, for obvious reason.

The Tabernacle at San Clemente sits on the altar in the Chapel of the Rosary to the south of the main Sanctuary. It would not have been introduced until the 12th century renovation, in all likelihood, as it took all that time for the Church to become fully conscious that the Eucharistic species, which persists after the Mass, is owed our worship, and that its maintenance in public was a way of extending the Mass itself. Because the reserved Blessed Sacrament is as extension of the celebration of Mass, it naturally made sense to locate it on an altar of celebration (in media parte altaris). Thus, the Tabernacle is really just an extension of the altar.

The floor of the whole church is another marvel. This Cosmatesque pavement, so named because the Cosmati family were the principal craftsmen, is a geometric extravaganza added to the church in the 12th century as part of an ornamental program to assert the authority of the papacy, then at the zenith of its temporal power. The Lazio region of Italy is replete with examples of this kind of pavement. The Cosmati, exponents of the broader conscious attempt at that time to maintain and clarify continuity with antiquity, adopted and extended many of the ancient geometric conventions for floor design, and merged them with iconography which developed specifically to serve Christianity.v The floor is designed to underscore the movements of the liturgy, from those which form part of the consecration of the church, to those of daily Mass. The elaborate guilloche (the sinusoidal rope pattern) for example, marks a cross in the nave and the processional axis in the schola cantorum. (Note that there are twelve roundels of valuable porphyry and serpentine marble in the schola.)

We could not possibly cover all the meaning contained in this venerable church in a short essay such as this. What is important to recognize, however, is that even the early Christians were interested in conveying the specifics of their faith. At a time when there was a great deal of competition with paganism, Christians knew they had to do more than simply build churches which evoked a vague sense of mystery. Other religions offered mystery. (The apse is partially built upon the remains of a Mithraic temple, as a matter of fact, arrayed with its own iconographic program.) What made Christianity different? While San Clemente does speak to us at an abstract level in order to elicit a subjective response, inspiring a sense of awe and of the transcendent, it goes much further by preaching, almost nagging, about specific doctrines: the Cross, the Resurrection, the saints, the priesthood. It unabashedly gives Sacred Tradition physical form.

Furthermore, San Clemente is testament to the beauty, indeed the very necessity, of the continuity of tradition (lower case “t”). Though the church was rebuilt and added to over the course of a very long time, it would be a distortion to describe the resulting building as a hodge-podge of historical styles. Despite the varieties of understanding, of skill, and of emphasis, which are really all that define a style, each intervention is firmly planted in the Greco-roman tradition. The basilican plan is an adoption of the Roman building type (the Jews had already adopted the basilican type for their synagogues by the time of the founding of the Church); the architectural elements, specifically the columnar orders, also come from Greece and Rome;vi the floor is a revival of ancient Roman mosaic; etc. For two millennia, the architects who worked on the church struggled to maintain that which was handed down to them. Thus, while the Church is not wed to a particular style any more than she is wed to a particular spirituality of a particular period, nevertheless She is wed to a tradition–a tradition that has developed as organically as has the Tree of Life. Now imagine how much would be lost if the next architect to renovate San Clemente did not share the love for that tradition that his forebears have clearly shown to the benefit of the faithful? Imagine how much would be lost if the next architect to renovate San Clemente removed what he considered to be extraneous accretions in order to get back to what he thought was the church’s original purity?

iLiturgy and Architecture, Luis Bouyer, 1967, p.41.

iiRome: Profile of a City, 312 - 1308, Richard Krautheimer, 1980.

iiiExcavations have not got as far as the atrium as yet; however, there is every reason to believe that the fourth century church, like old St. Peter’s, had an atrium

ivThe Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, Joseph A. Jungmann, S.J., 1950, Vol. 1, p. 414 ff.

vCosmatesque Ornament: Flat Polychrome Geometric Patterns in Architecture, Paloma Pajares-Ayuela, 2002.

viIn fact, many of the columns are actually spolia, recovered fragments of ancient Roman buildings, a sign not only of Christianity’s triumph over paganism, but perhaps more importantly, as a sign of cultural continuity. The Christians happily adopted that which was good in pagan Rome. As the tradition declined, and it became more difficult to find the architects and craftsmen who could produce fine architectural details, it was natural that they should “recycle” elements from the decaying pagan monuments around them.