Posted by MadScientist (Düsseldorf, Germany) on 15 February 2008 in Art & Design.
Lying in bed, taking my pills and waiting for my infection to end, I'm browsing through my Rome collection and find this photo. It shows a painting in the apse above the altar of Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso, a church in Rome that we already have visited some weeks ago to have a look at Brandi's great nave painting. The painting I'm presenting you here is different: it's based on a concrete story - and it leaves many details out. The man with gloriole and crucifix is a venerated saint against the Black Death, the plague, that then had infested the city of Milan, where the man lived and worked in 1576. The Angel of Death (you can see him above the scenery) was haunting the city and that holy man with his crucifix is standing inmidst the dead, the sick, and the hopeless ones, praying for God's help. His success in overcoming the plague is undenied and doing this he severely risked his own health. So: who was this man?
Carlo (or Charles) Borromeo was an extremely influental clerk: he studied civil and canonical law, restored the then sordid Archdiocese of Milan, he was a main character of the Counter-Reformation, and was hunting for protestants up to the most remote Swiss villages (hence the strong influence of Jesuits in the catholic Swiss cantons. He became persona non grata among his own ranks, and he only barely escaped a murderous attack, executed by four clerks. He has been canonized in 1610. I won't dig deeper here. He was an enigmatic person in a cruel era.
One last curiosity: his colossal statue that was raised in Arona, Italy, in 1697, was the biggest mountable statue in the world until the Statue of Liberty had been deployed in New York.
Great history, great shot and I hope you get better soon
15 Feb 2008 10:33am
@Jen: Thanks Jen, that does my little heart good! Yes, I'm recovering slowly, a few days and I'll be back :-) Thinking about 'the saints' usually implies pious stories about early martyrs or well-known persons like Martin or Patrick. But sometimes there are these astonishingly 'modern' characters who were important for their era and whose influence is still noticeable.
Good detail in what had to have been an area with not much natural light, Hope you get better soon!
15 Feb 2008 11:49am
@Steven: Thank you very much, Steven! The side effects of my meds are slowly exceeding the symptoms of my infection, so my complete recovery is well underway :-) You are right: this was a quite dark corner. I've done some shots of nave and dome where you can see that it was a bright sunny day outside and quite dark inside. Thus every detail of the windows disappeared in a white blob. I could have done a series with different exposures but I was somewhat unexperienced with my camera, then. Best idea would be to visit places like this at different times and seasons and to find out when it's ready to reveal its treasures. No, really: these churches are like divas, they love you when you treat them respectfully (apart from all thoughts about sacred places etc.)
I hope you feel better soon.
That's such an amazing piece of art and you photographed it well.
15 Feb 2008 1:51pm
@Laurie: Thank you so much, Laurie, think I'm over the worst! I'm always catching a cold in February, but this infection virtually knocked me off! The meds I'm now taking just complete my beloved wife's efforts in cooling down my fever. I really appreciate your get-well wishes, and if you like this photograph, don't forget to drop in tomorrow :-)
Rome has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I visited there in October 07, we managed a visit to St. Peters and was compleatly blown away with what we saw. I hope to return one day and see more. You did a remarkable job capturing this, it is beautiful. Hope your in good health soon.
15 Feb 2008 6:56pm
@MaryB: Thank you very much - I'm already feeling better and I hope that next week I'm my old self again :-) St. Peters is indeed overwhelming, but I love how almost disrespectful people of Rome deal with all that glory: for them, St. Peter's and the Pope belong to Rome, it's theirs. I learned that when my wife and me attended a mass at St. Peter's at the end of 2004, when John Paul I was still alive. People were all elegantly dressed (well, Italians ;-), many of them were coming with the whole family and when the Pope finally arrived, rolling down the carpet in his wheelchair, people started applauding frenetically (something I saw before only at South Americans). Sometimes the Pope's sermon was interruped by their gentle laughter, and obviously people enjoyed their Pope and their cathedral. It was good to see St. Peter's as a place where people come together and where even the distance between believers and Pope was minimized. But for being so self-confident one probably has to be born in Rome :-)
Very well framed.
16 Feb 2008 7:21pm
@Brites: Thank you! Sunday you'll see the complete composition above the altar.
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