Icons of Sound

Voice, Architecture, and Imagination in Medieval Art

Bissera Pentcheva, Bissera V. Pentcheva

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000207446
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Medieval Art

Icons of Sound: Voice, Architecture, and Imagination in Medieval Art brings together art history and sound studies to offer new perspectives on medieval churches and cathedrals as spaces where the perception of the visual is inherently shaped by sound. The chapters encompass a wide geographic and historical range, from the fifth to the fifteenth century, and from Armenia and Byzantium to Venice, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela. Contributors offer nuanced explorations of the intangible sonic aura produced in these places by the ritual music and harness the use of digital technology to reconstruct historical aural environments.

Rooted in a decade-long interdisciplinary research project at Stanford University, Icons of Sound expands our understanding of the inherently intertwined relationship between medieval chant and liturgy, the acoustics of architectural spaces, and their visual aesthetics. Together, the contributors provide insights that are relevant across art history, sound studies, musicology, and medieval studies.

1
SINGING DOORS

Images, Space, and Sound in the Santa Sabina Narthex

Ivan Foletti

The purpose of this essay is to reflect on a key monument from late antiquity from a fresh perspective, namely, the famous wooden doors of the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome, on the Aventine Hill (Figure 1.1). These doors were mostly likely made between the pontificates of Popes Celestine I (421–31) and Sixtus III (431–40).¹ I recently dedicated a monographic study to this object.² However, recent discoveries, made in collaboration with Roberto Saccuman—who directed the doors’ latest restoration—have led me to expand and partly modify the overview proposed in the 2015 monograph. I would first like to summarize the results of my research on the doors’ function and decoration, lending particular attention to liturgical and ritual practices. Then, I would like to focus on new findings, which have, unexpectedly, introduced musical and phonic aspects into the discussion.

Figure 1.1 Doors, the Church of Santa Sabina, Rome, 421–40, wood. Design: Petr Vronský, © Center for Early Medieval Studies, Brno.

The Doors of Santa Sabina in Their Context, a Liminal Area

For many centuries, the narthex doors of Santa Sabina have been the subject of regular and significant study. One of its first descriptions was written in 1588 by the Italian antiquary and author Pompeo Ugonio (died 1614), whereas interpretation first came in 1756 with the Italo-Greek Dominican theologian Tommaso Maria Mamachi (1713–92).³ It was around the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that the doors began to attract considerable attention, as shown in an article by the Russian art historian Nikodim Kondakov in 1876,⁴ followed by two monographs—one by Father Joachim Joseph Berthier (1892) and the other by Johannes Wiegand (1900).⁵ Reading between the lines, one can imagine the crucial role these doors played in the Orient oder Rom? debate that was so popular in those years.⁶ It is no surprise that the author of that book, the Austrian art historian Josef Strzygowski, had dedicated an essay to those same doors a few years earlier.⁷ In the following decades, the doors attracted less attention, consistent with the eclipse of studies on late antiquity, before returning to the spotlight in the 1950s and 1960s with the essays of Félix Darsy.⁸ A Dominican like Berthier, Darsy was the first to study the doors while at least partly taking into account the context of its construction. More recently, we have a monograph written by Gisela Jeremias in 1980, and a very important article, by Jean-Michel Spieser, published eleven years later.⁹ Both of these studies, with strong iconographic perspectives, seek out a “program” for the doors. In the first instance, we come to a dead end: after almost 200 pages of text, Jeremias concludes that the doors cannot be understood as a whole, given the ten missing panels. Spieser, meanwhile, attempts to reconstruct the missing parts by proposing a typological reading for the entire doors.

In a book about the narthex of Santa Sabina—which I co-authored with Manuela Gianandrea and was published in December 2015—the basic premise was very different.¹⁰ Though the doors had been studied as isolated objects for years, self-sufficient and only considered as an important feature of the narthex, my starting hypothesis was that understanding the doors could be possible only after the function of the narthex itself had been established. By collecting liturgical sources, and also on the basis of anthropological considerations, Manuela Gianandrea and I arrived at two basic conclusions: (1) the narthex had probably been conceived for the use of catechumens and penitents; and (2) the narthex was probably attached to a baptistery, and therefore some pre-baptismal rites must have been performed there.

I then tried to demonstrate how the initiatory function of this space was logical, considering the fact that, generally, catechumens would have been isolated during the Eucharistic liturgy. In some cases, they could stay—with their eyes covered—in the side naves, whereas in other instances they would be relegated to the atrium or the narthex. There is a famous exclamation in early Syriac liturgy that speaks literally of making the catechumens exit the church.¹¹ The presence of the baptistery, documented by the Liber Pontificalis as well as by later sources, confirmed the tendency to use the basilica in an initiatory function.¹² Finally, based on several sources, I was able to postulate that it was in Santa Sabina that the pope inaugurated fasting for catechumens and penitents, on Wednesday of the Quinquagesima (which would later become the Ash Wednesday).¹³ Based on these considerations, we proposed a reading of the decorations on the doors—active and “legible” only when it is closed—from the point of view of an initiate. The results of this analysis were interesting: on the one hand, they proved that the choice of the episodes depicted on the panels is incredibly close to patristic initiation homiletics, especially those by Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan and a fourth-century doctor of the church. On the other hand, the same choice of episodes also resembles that of the Roman Lenten readings documented between the fifth and eighth centuries.¹⁴ Given the clear proximity between Pope Celestine I (421–31)—who was in power at the moment of the doors’ conception—and Ambrosian theology, it is very plausible that Ambrose’s texts had a great impact on Rome in those years.¹⁵ Combining the Roman liturgical calendar with the practices of the surrounding diocese and with the sermons of Pope Leo the Great, it was also possible to hypothesize that, in all probability, the sequence of the readings during Lent in Rome was more or less the same in the fifth century as it was the oldest manuscript of the Gelasian Sacramentary, the Vaticanus Reginensis 316, written around 720.¹⁶ The choice of episodes illustrated on the doors becomes, then, a sort of macroscopic reflection on the major themes of baptism preparation, making the doors, conversely, a larger document of Roman liturgical practices.

In this respect, a second finding becomes interesting: the composition of the various scenes seems intentionally modified in order to be “read” in the same direction. The episodes of the Crossing of the Red Sea and the miracles of Moses are emblematic to that effect (Plate 1.1 and Figure 1.2). In the first example, the episode represented is traditionally read as foreshadowing baptism.¹⁷ In this instance, however, the iconography diverges radically from the usual practice: instead of a lateral representation—as on various sarcophagi or in the hypogeum of Via Dino Compagni in Rome (Figure 1.3)—the Israelites are depicted from behind.¹⁸ Between the spectator and the crowd, the sea is depicted, together with the drowning pharaoh. Despite its nineteenth-century restorations, the theatricality of this episode is unquestionable¹⁹: the viewer, a catechumen, is put in the position of identifying himself with those who have not yet passed through the waters. He is in danger, helpless in front of the devil (personified by the pharaoh), while his only hope is to join the people who have passed through the water and entered into the sacred space.²⁰ The observer thus becomes an active part of the represented, mentally experiencing what is narrated by the fathers, at least on an imaginary level. In this sense, then, the visual experience stimulates the imagination, with a highly effective composition.

In a very different but still emblematic way, we must recall the panel representing the miracles of Moses in the desert (Figure 1.2).²¹ At the bottom area of the panel, a miracle very common in the late antique world—that of the spring—is depicted, in a truly revolutionary manner: instead of being shown in the act of striking the rock, the patriarch points to a space of moving water, as if inviting the viewer toward a pool. Considering the clear baptismal significance of this episode—as illustrated by both patristic and liturgical texts—we are faced with an important exegetic method. The spring becomes a metaphor for the baptismal font.

Figure 1.2 Doors, the Church of Santa Sabina, Rome, 421–40, wood. Detail showing the Miracles of Moses. Photo: © Roberto Saccuman.

Figure 1.3 Hypogeum at via Dino Compagni, Rome, ca. 360. Fresco showing the Crossing of the Red Sea. Drawing: Anna Kelblová, © Center for Early Medieval Studies, Brno.

Even more interesting for this article, however, are the episodes on the upper register depicting the miracle of the manna and quails. The way that episode is told does not correspond to other known occurrences; however, the visual lexicon, more than recounting an episode in the desert, seems to illustrate a liturgical practice.²² In the baptismal catechesis, the tale is interpreted as foreshadowing the Eucharist. Yet the important fact here is that the two images can be considered allusions to the mysteries promised, allusions that are as much liturgical in the construction of the space as they are vague in content. This solution is logical for pre-baptismal practices. The catechumens are shown only metaphorically what awaits them when the initiation takes place. In other words, not only in the choice of episodes, but also in their graphic composition and their design, these panels seem suited to a very specific audience, those who have not yet passed all the stages of Christian initiation: the catechumen.

Dreaming of a Vision?

Preparation for baptism was a particularly important moment in which to create an eschatological waiting period: sermons, fasts, and the collective experience only served to emphasize the awaited encounter.²³ That waiting period often lasted for years—on average, in the first half of the fifth century, the catechumenate lasted three years—and did not necessarily have to emphasize the expectations of the catechumens.²⁴ The Lenten perio...