Hiding horses, cows, Badoglio's sedan--and Jews: Basilica SS. Quattro Coronati and the Strange Career of Pius XII

SS. Quattro Coronati sits perched on a narrow road.

In Rome's "overlooked churches" category, we offer the lovely Basilica Santi Quattro Coronati, perched on a narrow street between San Giovanni in Laterano and the Coliseum. Overlooked perhaps because it's too near both of those as well as the much more popular (with tourists) Basilica San Clemente, and because the public can see only a fraction of the Augustinian convent complex that encompasses the church. I've always felt a tie to it because it was on one of my routes to the hospital where my broken shoulder was repaired in 2009.

The small courtyard beyond the public entrance doesn't
give one a feel for the beauty of the complex.

A few years ago I found a rather dated article (2008) describing how the nuns of the convent hid Jews from the Fascists and Nazis in World War II, under - according to the article - orders from Pope Pius XII. Knowing a bit about the controversy surrounding Pius XII's road to sainthood, I checked the article more and noticed (for the first time) that its venue was "30 giorni" ("30 Days") and, per my trusted source, Wikipedia, that 30 giorni was an Italian  monthly magazine of ecclesiastical geopolitics that [was] widely read in the Roman Curia. It existed between 1988 and 2012..." and "fully reflected the politics of Vatican diplomacy." 

Recently, we reviewed the documentary, "Syndrome K," about Jews hidden in the Ospedale Fatebenefratelli on Isola Tiburina in Rome during the Fascist/Nazi era. We questioned, in that review, the statements of a representative of the US Holocaust Museum defending the pope's (in)actions during the rounding up of the Roman Jews as attributable to realpolitik. That is, the Vatican viewed itself as  incapable of helping the Jews in any significant way by its fear that the Germans would bomb, raid, or even occupy Vatican City. [We also published in RST, earlier in 2020, an excerpt from one of the brave hospital doctor's books, here.]

I was skeptical of the 30 giorni article's claim of the Pope's order, for several reasons, including the clearly biased source. I was also influenced by an excellent talk we heard in Los Angeles, by the Italian historian Guri Schwartz, then visiting at UCLA, titled, "The ‘Myth of the Good Italian’: Origins and Evolution," which we wrote about on RST in 2014, here.

In addition, I had read in the past several books by David I. Kertzer,  a renowned historian of 20th-century Italy. We wrote a post, in 2016 here, on his Pulitzer Prize winning book, "The Pope and Mussolini," [about the predecessor Pius XI]. Another of his works is "The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism" (2001). [More below about Kertzer's work in the newly - 2020 - opened Vatican archives.]

Pius XII - photo from The Times of Israel with
the caption: "Documentary confronts cost of
Pope Pius XII's 'Holy Silence'
during Holocaust."

In response to my query about the claim in the 30 giorni article, Kertzer recommended Susan Zuccotti's 2002 book: "Beneath His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy." Zuccotti's critical analysis of documents from the Vatican archives, which were expurgated before being opened somewhat in those years (in what looks like an attempt to defend Pius XII), is unrelenting in drawing the conclusion that Pius XII and the Vatican were sorely lacking in words, actions, and moral authority. According to Zuccotti, had the Pope exercised moral leadership, thousands of lives could have been saved. 

Photo from 30 giorni article,
captioned "Two nuns in the cloister
of  the Santi Quattro Coronati in a photo
 from the early ’forties."
[They are small figures in
the back right, visible
with their white bib collars.]

At the same time, Zuccotti concludes in the last sentence of her book, "In Italy, at least, large numbers of priests, nuns, monks, and Catholic laypersons risked their lives to save Jews with little guidance from the pope." Those "large numbers" include, clearly, the Augustinian nuns of Santi Quattro Coronati. The 30 giorni article cites the number of 17 Jews being harbored in Santi Quattro Coronati, based on a 1961compilation by noted Italian historian Renzo De Felice. Zuccotti, while offering respect to De Felice, deconstructs his statistics, pointing out convents he missed, and the fact that some of the grand totals may be duplicates: Jews who moved from one hiding place to another (as did the Jews in Ospedale Fatebenefratelli). 

De Felice, she points out, "published an impressive list of 100 female convents" (and other male-operated monasteries, schools, etc.). These, she notes, were out of 1,120 religious institutions for women in Rome. "Given that surprisingly large number, the statistics of 100 female convents….that sheltered Jews become less impressive….What is certain is that we will never really know [the number]."

Despite its suspect history, the 30 giorni piece provides other insights into SS. Quattro Coronati. "In a large area next to the garden the nuns hid no less than eleven cars, including that of Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the head of the Italian military government, who had fled from Rome the day after 8 September [1943, when the post-Mussolini Italian government signed an armistice with the Allies and the Germans moved in to occupy Rome]. And then seven mares, four cows as well…" An aerial view of the complex shows how it had room for all these vehicles, animals, and people.

The Mother Superior at the time, whose words are paraphrased by another nun to comprise the "facts" of the article, "was in constant contact with Antonello Trombadori, a Communist party leader and head of the Armed Partisan Groups in Rome, and with many other opponents of Nazi Fascism." This detail is interesting because the popes were virulently anti-Communist. They preferred Nazism and Fascism (with which they felt they could negotiate) to anti-religious Communism. It's hard to believe Pope Pius XII ever approved of contact with Communists.

I will look differently at lovely, peaceful, seemingly small Santi Quattro Coronati when I return to Rome, thinking about all that went on behind its walls, and the raging controversy to which it is still contributing.

Dianne

A note on David I. Kertzer's work: the Vatican opened more of its archives in early 2020, just before Covid shut down or severely limited research everywhere. [Interesting Washington Post article headline: "Pope Pius XII was silent during the Holocaust. Now Vatican records may reveal whether he collaborated with the Nazis."] With the help of an Italian researcher, Kertzer was able to publish a lengthy article in The Atlantic, based on the newly opened archival material. The article tells the story of two French Jewish boys, hidden by Catholics and baptized, and the struggle to return them to their Jewish relatives. The story bears many similarities to Kerzer's superb book, "The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara," which we found so riveting, and so helpful in understanding Italian politics in the 19th century (as the country was being liberated from the popes), that we've given it to many people.

Things SHE misses in Rome - Part 2 of a series

 1. The Spanish artist Borondo's artwork where one least expects it - in an abandoned store window.

(We featured another one of his works - now painted over - here.)    

2. Threatening  political posters ("Liberate us from the 'liberators'") 

We explained this poster in an earlier post.  No al TTIP refers to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a proposed trade agreement between the EU and the United States that was finally killed off in 2019. The anti-TTIP folks were concerned that the nation states of Europe would have been victimized by transnational corporations--especially, according to the poster's graphic, American companies. Nice "Uncle Sam" look!

3. Creative use of bread (this restaurant is in Ariccia)

4. The mystery of what's being protected with orange plastic fencing

Dianne

The Mausoleum of Augustus--You CAN go there, if you can get a ticket

 

What Emperor Augustus's tomb looked like in ancient Rome (image by 3D Warehouse).

Larry Litman at entrance to the Mausoleum

 of Augustus (there's probably a 

smile under that mask).

     One of the astonishing openings in Rome—as Covid continues to haunt the globe—is the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome’s Piazza Augusto Imperatore. Since World War II, this ancient Roman site--the largest circular tomb of the Roman world, as noted below--has sat, neglected, overrun with weeds, and closed to the public. After fits and starts for the past decade-plus, the Mausoleum was opened to visitors just this Spring (Covid be damned). Our Roman friend and guest blogger, Larry Litman, managed to snag a now-sold-out ticket. Below is his rare first-person account of a visit to this important piece of history (from tomb for Augustus to music hall to proposed tomb for Mussolini – you get the picture).

   Larry Litman wrote eloquently in March 2020 about being in Rome under one of the first lockdowns, and, since we still couldn’t be in Rome for the Christmas holidays, he gave a virtual tour on this blog of the unusual presepi or crèches in Piazza San Pietro (St. Peter’s Square).

    Larry grew up in Southern California (unknowingly, we recently visited his old neighborhood) and lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, before moving to Rome in 2007. In the early 1970s he studied at Loyola University of Chicago's Rome Center, now the John Felice Rome Center on Monte Mario. "That was when I fell in love with the city of Rome," Larry writes, "and then I had the dream of making Rome my home."

 Larry is a retired teacher/librarian from Ambrit International School and is active at St. Paul's Within the Walls (the Episcopal Church on via Nazionale).  He also volunteers at the Non-Catholic Cemetery. He has two adult children and two grandchildren living in New York City.​

 

As one enters the Mausoleum, one can see evidence of many
different construction and rehabilitation efforts
over the centuries, typical of Rome.

The Mausoleum of Augustus (Il Mausoleo di Augusto), constructed in 28 BC, was closed to the public after World War II. In March of this year it was officially reopened to the public after five years of restoration work significantly funded by TIM, the Italian telecommunications company. However, the monument’s opening was cut short by Covid restrictions which closed Italy’s museums and archeological sites. In May the Mausoleum opened again for guided groups of ten visitors at a time. Online reservations were filled almost immediately. We were fortunate to obtain reservations to visit the site on a rainy Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m.

Our group was met at the entrance by a knowledgeable archeologist who shared the features and history of this monument, the largest circular tomb of the Roman world. After descending a ramp to several meters below the modern street level we stood before the entrance to the tomb. Originally this entry was flanked by two obelisks that now stand in front of the Quirinale Palace and in the Piazza del’Esquilino behind the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore [the prior post on this blog; obelisk photos below]. 

Our guide points out inscriptions praising Emperor Augustus, inside the tomb.

The Mausoleum had a diameter of 87 meters (almost 300 feet) and a height of around 42 meters (about 140 feet). At the center of the mausoleum were a series of chambers which until 217 AD held the urns of the Julio-Claudio emperors (except Nero) and their families. The innermost chamber held the remains of the Emperor Augustus, and the surrounding chambers held the urns with the ashes of the others.

This future performance space is visible looking out from the
upper level to the center of the Mausoleum.

 

 

 

Many monuments in Rome have been used over the centuries for numerous purposes other than the ones they were built for. The Mausoleum of Augustus is no exception. Our archeologist shared some of these as she led us through the various levels and chambers of the site.

-       In the 12th century the Mausoleum became a fortified castle of the Colonna family.

-       In 1241 Pope Gregory IX expelled the Colonna family and destroyed their castle. Urban gardens started growing on the abandoned Mausoleum.

-       During the 16th - 18th centuries there were hanging gardens with a collection of Roman antiquities displayed inside the Mausoleum, then an arena for bullfights, and eventually a stage for plays and circus performances.

-       Between the years 1907 - 1936 the inner part of the structure was converted into a concert hall holding about 3,500 people, with performances by the National Academy of Santa Cecilia.

-       On May 13, 1936, Mussolini ended the concerts and initiated a plan to turn the Mausoleum of Augustus into a tomb for himself. World War II put an end to those plans.

 

The Mausoleum as seen from the street (weeds mostly cleared away).                  

    

The Mausoleum of Augustus then was abandoned until 2007 when studies began to restore and repurpose the ancient site. Today, even as it has been opened to the public, work continues on the Mausoleum’s restoration. A museum, as well as a performance stage, is being developed within the monument. The surrounding area is also being developed as a pedestrian piazza with stairs and ramps to the street level. The Mausoleum of Augustus is now becoming a part of urban life in contemporary Rome, one of the many places in this great city where the past meets the present.

Upward looking views here and below, left.

 Note: The installation of an elevator has not been completed. To tour the Mausoleum a visitor must climb multiple levels of steps.

Larry Litman

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A few items of note: More photos follow here and at the end of this post.

The official website, which includes, in English, "Book Here,"  is here: https://www.mausoleodiaugusto.it/en/booking/

For now the tickets are sold out through June 30. The last two times they were available, they sold out in 24 hours each time. We are not certain when they will next be made available.

The Mausoleum is in the same piazza as the Ara Pacis, which is one of the most visited sites in Rome (pre-Covid, anyway). And Bulgari is planning a 5-star hotel in the piazza, in a large, interesting (to us) Fascist-era building facing the Mausoleum. Note this piazza was one of RST's "Top 40," even with the Mausoleum in disuse and disrepair; we called it "Rome's most abused piazza."

The two displaced obelisks are pictured below in their current locations. We (RST) had no idea they once graced the Mausoleum. The first is the obelisk at the Quirinale, and the second at Piazza del'Esquilino, in back of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Dianne

 

 

The loggia of Santa Maria Maggiore - its almost hidden mosaics

If Church Lady were in Rome... she would direct you to the loggia of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of only four papal basilicas in Rome. The 13th-century mosaics here are magnificent. They were originally on the facade of the church, but were made more difficult to see from the street when, in the 18th century, a new portico was created, along with the loggia where the mosaics now seem almost hidden.

The top half of the mosaics are traditional depictions. For example, the Christ figure in Byzantine style in the upper half of the mosaic wall. That wall also curves slightly, apparently so that the mosaics were not foreshortened for someone viewing them from the outside (when they were originally the outside facade).

Other mosaics elaborate on the founding of the church - these stories are always fun. The photo at right show mosaics depicting a Pope and a patrician, John, dreaming.

The basic legend of the church is that it was founded on the spot of an August snowfall, a miracle if there ever was one. Mary predicted this snowfall in John's dream, and the patch of snow was found the next morning. So, of course, childless John and his wife then needed to fund the building of the church. This is a 4th century event that was first recorded in the 1200s.

Another mosaic (below) shows the snowfall. The snowfall continues to be celebrated each August 5 with the dropping of white rose petals from the basilica's dome, which we - who avoid the heat of Rome in August (although we might make an exception this year if Italy would get Covid under control and let us in) - have never seen.

One might wonder about the rather odd angel at the side of the photo at left. There are four angels in the loggia by Pietro Bracci. They date from the 18th century and were moved from their positions inside the church where apparently they blocked the view of the apse (another photo of them below). It's almost as though the church decided to use the loggia as a storage place for surplus artworks.

Another oddity from the original positioning of the back wall of the loggia as the outside wall of the church is the "oculus" or round window - that would have been a window on the facade of the church. Bill took the photo below that shows the column topped by the Virgin in the piazza in front of the church - a reflection in the oculus.

The column itself is, like most of Rome's columns, an ancient one from the Forum, moved here in 1614 and then crowned with the statue of Mary and Child. It's also known as the Column of Peace, and it's an archetype for Marian columns around the world. In the photo, there's a mosaic of a column as well, meaning the Colonna family must have been involved in the church's funding at some point.

One can only see these mosaics and the other features of the loggia with a paid tour, which costs very little. Euro 5 a few years ago. Our tour guide was excellent. As a bonus, he took us into the Papal "back rooms" where almost everything has Pope Paul V's (1605-21) name on it. (Photos at end of post.)

A final bonus from the guide was the great sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini's burial site in the church, a modest floor plaque here:

There is much, much more to see in the basilica. This post focuses almost solely on the loggia, itself a taste of what's inside, and a reminder of the richness of art and culture in the hundreds of churches in Rome, or... part of what we miss in Rome.

Dianne (aka, Church Lady)

Simone de Beauvoir in Rome

 

While reading Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Cafe, I learned that Simone de Beauvoir and her life-long companion, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, had spent a good deal of time in Rome--a month or two every summer in the 1950s and 1960s, and some summers before and after, about which I have less knowledge.  I was intrigued.  I ordered two volumes of de Beauvoir's autobiography (each 400 pages): Hard Times: Force of Circumstance II, covering the years 1952-1962, and All Said and Done, covering 1962-1972.  

What I learned was not what I anticipated. Both Sartre and de Beauvoir were known as deep thinkers and careful, elaborate analysts, and I expected de Beauvoir to apply their considerable intelligence to the city of Rome, to enlighten me with one insight after another. It didn't happen. There's plenty of analysis in the autobiographies--of postwar Japan, or France's poisoned relationship with its Algerian colony (one of de Beauvoir's obsessions), of the social structure of Rio de Janeiro, and so on (the duo traveled relentlessly), and of the distress of growing old and contemplating one's death--but not of Rome, where they spent, cumulatively, several years of their lives. What was going on? What did Rome mean to these two brilliant intellectuals?

In some respects, Sartre and de Beauvoir related to Rome as other tourists--though they were not so fond of those "other tourists." Although de Beauvoir wrote that they had once enjoyed staying outside the city center, and did, in fact, once live in a hotel near Ponte Milvio, their preference was for the center (they would take a car from Ponte Milvio to walk in the old city).  One hotel was the Hotel d'Angleterre, just off Piazza di Spagna [named as such, because of its popularity with the British, and now known as "Hotel d'Inghilterra"]. Another was on the Piazza Montecitorio (the Albergo Nazionale), and still another, the Hotel del Senato, on the Piazza della Rotonda (overlooking the Pantheon). [All three are still operating.]

De Beauvoir (and sometimes Sartre) did some sightseeing, inevitably at sites frequented by those "ordinary tourists," and most of them in the city center. On the Aventine Hill, looking through the keyhole, de Beauvoir wrote: "so by fixing my attention upon a small corner of the earth, beyond it I see an entire country, together with its relationship with the world." With Sartre she visited the Castel Sant'Angelo, saw the city's Caravaggios, walked the Corso ("now made commonplace and ugly"), and waxed eloquent about the beauty of St. Peter's dome against the sky. 

Beyond the city center, they traveled to Hadrian's Villa, Ostia, Cerveteri, Orvieto, the Alban Hills and the new Roman suburbs ("a ring of concrete," in the words of Italian politician Giancarlo Pajetta, quoted approvingly by de Beauvoir). But seldom are these places worthy of more than a mention, of more than the name.  In 1968 and 1969, writes de Beauvoir, "we did not leave Rome at all, and it had never seemed to us more delightful....We walked about less than we had in other years because we had the feeling of being in all the streets and all the squares of Rome at one and the same time." 

Like other tourists--at least those of means--Sartre and de Beauvoir haunt the familiar squares. Coffee in the morning in Piazza della Rotonda; for a time, Piazza Sant'Eustachio (until it got too noisy and crowded); dinner in Piazza Navona or, later on, Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere; late evening whiskey in Piazza del Popolo; the "best ices in Rome" (a standard tourist trope) at a "little street near the hotel." In these volumes, at least, there is no mention of Piazza Vittorio, Monte Mario, the Gianicolo, Ostiense, Piazza Bologna, Monte Sacro, Garbatella, or EUR--Rome's marvelous 19th- and 20th-century neighborhoods. 

At the Pantheon--a favorite piazza 

De Beauvoir could be romantic, even poetic, about Rome.  In the early 1950s, she wrote:  

"Even when its bricks are being scorched by the heat of the ferragosto [the August 15 holidays when all of Italy shuts down], when the asphalt is  melting along the deserted avenues, occasionally punctuated by a solitary, useless policeman in a white helmet, we still feel comfortable there.  This great bustling, crowded city still calls to mind the  little town founded by Romulus.  'They should build cities in the country, the air is much cleaner,' goes the old joke; for me, Rome is the country.  No factories, no smoke; there is nothing provincial about Rome, but often in the streets, on the piazzas, one feels the harshness, the silence of country villages. The old designation 'people,' in which all factions were dissolved, really applies to the inhabitants of Rome, who sit in the evening along the Trastevere [her words], on the Campo de' Fiori, on the fringes of the old ghetto, at the tables on the wine merchant's terraces in front of a carafe of Frascati; children play around them; calmed by the coolness of the streets, babies sleep on their mothers' knees; through the fragile gaiety hanging in the air, impetuous cries rise up from below.  You can hear the popping of the Vespas, but a cricket sings as well." (There's more, but you get the idea.) 

De Beauvoir and Sartre were workaholics. Both were voracious readers (that was part of their "work") and prolific, usually every-day writers.  They were also well connected with various Italian and Roman left-wing networks--they knew Carlo Levi, Alberto Moravia (a terrible driver, by the way), artist Renato Guttuso, literary critic Mario Alicata, and journalists who pressed them for interviews--and these relationships took time. Their days were long but dominated by work: breakfast at ten (reading the newspapers, with the Pantheon as backdrop); writing or reading in the hotel until mid-afternoon ("we also spend many hours in our rooms"); a sandwich on the terrace; a brief walk; work until 5--and often into the evening.

Yet for de Beauvoir, Rome was a certain kind of workplace--a workplace melding into a vacation place, a retreat from frenetic travel and (sometimes) writing. "We were both," she wrote in the 1950s, "Sartre as well as myself, a bit worn out with all the traveling we had done; above all other countries we loved Italy, and above all other cities, Rome; so there we stayed."

For her, then, Rome was, at least in part, an escape. In Rome, she could ease up on being a committed (and exhausted) tourist, and ease up, too, on the writing. In the early 1960s she wrote: "[Writing] is still necessary for me, but sometimes I like giving myself a break from it: I do so when staying in Rome, for example, where I could have all the spare time I want to work....I read for hours when I am in Rome during the summer."  In language that sounds disarmingly simple, even simplistic, she describes Rome as "happy place....it's all so familiar, so happy, there's no need for words." "Rome" is for de Beauvoir a license to read (and not write) or, conversely, a license to return to writing: "Today," she wrote in 1958, "is very beautiful, very blue, I feel the happiness of being in Rome for a long time take hold of me again, and the desire to write. And I write." 

In All Said and Done de Beauvoir describes a variety of her dreams, including several that take place in Rome--"an agreeable place."  

Bill