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4 September 1997 and today
2001.09.04 11:00
Architect Aldo Rossi died in a car crash 4 September 1997, exactly at a time when virtually all of the world was very aware of another car crash death, namely the death of the quondam Princess Diana, 31 August 1997. Although I did not learn of Rossi's death until a week or two after it happened, I nonetheless vividly remember something I did 4 September 1997, which was to unexpectedly find the essay "Passage to the City: The Intrepretive Function of the Roman Triumph" by Alan Plattus in Ritual (1983). Given the fact that I was then soon to see an actual reenactment of the ancient Triumphal Way via the televising of Diana's funeral 6 September 1997, this series of events has (for me at least) over time become more and more compounding (hence EPICENTRAL).
Four years ago tomorrow, 5 September 1997, was the death of Mother Teresa, and the present's 6 September will witness the memorial service for Steven Izenour at Irvine Auditorium on the University of Pennsylvania campus.
Sometime in 1998 I learned of the Eugene J. Johnson article "What Remains of Man -- Aldo Rossi's Modena Cemetery" in The Journal Of The Society Of Architectural Historians (March 1982), where Johnson adroitly demonstrates how Rossi's cemetery design closely compares with Piranesi's Bustum Hadriani as delineated within the Ichnographia of the Campo Marzio. What Johnson does not point out however, is that Rossi essentially reenacted the Ichnographia's axis of death, which actually intersects the Ichnographia's demarcation of ancient Rome's Triumphal Way. [Piranesi's plan delineations of the intersection of the axis of death and the Triumphal Way themselves manifest a reenactment of the ancient Roman camp/urban planed crossing of a cardo and decumanus.] As it happens, Aldo Rossi was born 3 May 1931, and because of a suppressive act of Pope John XXIII in 1960, May 3 is now more correctly the quondam feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross.
Triumph via death is not exactly considered a modern theme, yet it is nonetheless still quite capable of being pervasive in modern times. Without much exaggeration, it is indeed possible to view Diana's funeral as a modern event of very, very late antiquity. In starting my day, today, I browsed through Butler's Lives of the Saints, not something I do every day, but the book was (for good reason) next to my computer. I looked to see which Saints feast are celebrated today. One of them (surprisingly) is St. Rosalia, so just before 9 o'clock this morning I called my mother to wish her "Happy Namens Tag." It was nice to make my mother happy, and I told her a little about St. Rosalia (c. 1160?, from Sicily, and how the 1624 discovery of her bones, and their subsequent procession in reliquary "stayed" the then plague in Palermo). Then my mother told me a "fun" story. The other night on the TV game shoe Jeopardy, the "answer" was "She is the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine." The first two contestants to reply were incorrect, but the final contestant correctly asked "Who is Saint Helena?" My mother said Alex Trubek was much surprised that anyone knew the answer.
ps
Here's what I sent to the late antiquity list earlier today:
Mac offers a very interesting insight into early fourth century co-rulerships of the Roman Empire, and in the specific case of the Cathedral of Tyre, the date of dedication is still significant because of its closeness to the (so-called) Edict of Milan (313) enacted between Constantine and Licinius. [I'm writing on the fly here, so I don't have the exact date of the Edict at hand.] As I recall, it was at the same time in Milan that most scholars believe that Constantine's half-sister Constantia was betrothed to Licinius as well. In this light, I personally believe any three of the above personalities could have been directly involved with the renewed church building at Tyre. Constantia surely died a Christian, and was indeed very religiously active during and after the years of her marriage to Licinius. For example, I just recently learned that Constantia was both present and actively vocal at the Council of Nicaea. She was also very close (friends) with Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia (not to be confused with Eusebius of Caesarea who wrote the Vita Constantini).
My thesis all along is that Constantine of course was ruler during the Christian church building boom of the 310s and 320s, but that the real champion of the church building cause was indeed Helena, and, to a lesser extent, other high Imperial women like Eutropia, and perhaps even Constantia, and maybe later even Constantina, Constantine's daughter. The Helena and Eutropia chapters of the Vita Constantini Book Three are, I believe, indicative of what happened and how it (the church building) happened. In simple terms, Helena's activities had Constantine's automatic sanction, including full access to the imperial treasury, thus the expeditiousness of the church building in Rome during the 310s and the same expediency of church building in the Holy Land 325 and right after. Furthermore, a careful reading of Constantine's account of his letter from Eutropia regarding the holy site at Mamre (VC III 52) further discloses the outright gleefulness that the Imperials came to savor in their Christian church/architecture efforts.
I am looking at this distinct church building occurrence from the view point of a modern registered architect, and I'm most intrigued by how quickly it all happened. It doesn't matter what age or era we talk about when it comes to the real time it takes to erect buildings. That so much was very quickly accomplished, for example, in Rome in the years just after late October 312, implies, to me at least, that someone was there supervising, and even planning, the architectural activities, otherwise it just would not have happened with the obvious careful intentionality that it did. My candidate for the person "in charge" is Flavia Julia Helena Augusta. For context's sake, remember Constantine himself spent a total of only a few months in Rome during the years between 28 October 312 and 3 August 325.
So, back to the Cathedral of Tyre. What this church may represent is the (just pre-Constantinian)prototype for basilican church design of the early fourth century. That such a prototype should come from the East is also significant in that other architectural innovations at that time also seem to have come from the East. For example, the brickwork of the Aula Palatina, the Constantinian throne hall at Treves (Trier, Germany) circa 306-312, according the Ward-Perkins, exhibits masonry technique up until then only known in the East. So again, can anyone verify the date of the dedication of the Cathedral of Tyre in Phoenicia?
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