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UGS 302: The Pope’s City: (63780) The Vatican and St. Peter’s through the Millennia First Year Experience Signature Course, Fall 2012 Professor: Dr. Ann Johns Meeting place and time: DFA 2.204, MWF 12-12:50 email: [email protected] (best way to reach me), phone 471-1936 Office Hours: DFA 2.520, MW 11:00-11:45, F 1-3 and by appointment (M/W/F only) Mailbox: DFA 2.526 Course Description and Objectives: In this interdisciplinary signature course, we will examine St. Peter’s, the papacy, and the Vatican City from its origins in Ancient Rome through the contemporary Papal City with its global presence and reach. Tradition, history, and authority, while important for the development of most any city or state, are particularly critical in the case of the Vatican, as the papacy based (and continues to base) its legitimacy as the center of power of the Catholic Church on the longevity of the Vatican and its direct link to St. Peter. These traditions are most evident in the art, architecture, and liturgical ritual created and developed through the centuries, including such monuments as the Sistine Chapel, Bernini’s St. Peter’s Square, and the long, complicated construction of St. Peter’s itself. Throughout its history, the papacy has also envisioned itself as a political center of power. Christianity, after all, was legitimized by the Roman Emperor Constantine, and many of the most important early Christian basilicas had imperial origins and stylistic affiliation with the art and architecture of the Late Roman Empire. Papal political ambition continued in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when popes donned their military garb and rode into battle in order to retain and augment the Papal Territories of central Italy. And now in the 20th and 21st centuries, the popes have extended the political and moral authority of the papacy through the sheer numbers of new Catholics, particularly in the developing world. In the 20th century, John Paul II gripped the imagination of the world with his concerted efforts to bring down Communism and reunite Eastern and Western Europe. Today, the Vatican is visited by record numbers of both tourists and religious pilgrims. We will examine this ecclesiastic city-state in a chronological fashion, weaving together cultural and political history, religious studies, and—most importantly—the splendid history of papal art and architecture. We will begin by examining the translation of early Christianity as it 1 moves from the Holy Land to Rome. We’ll examine the important Constantinian basilicas that even today retain their extraterritoriality from the city of Rome and the state of Italy: S.M. (Santa Maria) Maggiore, St. John Lateran, St. Paul’s outside the Walls, and, of course, the Vatican and the original basilican St. Peter’s, known as Old St. Peter’s (a name we use to distinguish the older edifice from the Renaissance and Baroque structure we see today). We’ll discuss the burgeoning centralization of power in the later medieval papacy, the devastation of the incursion of various Germanic migratory groups, and the subtle but steady shift in power away from St. John Lateran (the Cathedral of Rome and the pope’s episcopal see [the site of his bishopric, as the Bishop of Rome]) to the Vatican hill. Vast reconstruction efforts take place, once again, in many of Rome’s major churches. The years from 1100-1300 saw the growth of the medieval pilgrimage, and Rome, along with Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostella, was an important destination for the religious pilgrim seeking indulgences. After the Avignon years, Rome once again begins to flourish as a political, religious, and artistic center in the later 15th century. Popes from Nicholas V in the 15th century (Fra Angelico) to Julius II in the early 16th century (Michelangelo and Raphael) to Alexander VII in the late 17th century (Bernini) were keen on leaving their artistic and architectural imprint on both the Vatican and Rome. Rome’s heyday as the artistic capital of Europe paradoxically coincides with its decreasing political stature in the wake of strong European monarchies, burgeoning nation-states, and the discovery of the New World. In a far-reaching move, the popes during these years begin to amass important art collections and—even more significantly—they open these collections to non-clerical visitors. In other words, the modern art museum emerged from the papal collections of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. By the end of the 17th century, the papacy was bankrupt and Italy was under the domination, at various times and in various places, of the Spanish, the French, and the Habsburg Empire, based (primarily) out of Vienna. Throughout this period, the Vatican maintained its independence from Rome and the rest of Italy, even in the wake of the Risorgimento and the formation of the new Italian state in the 19th century. We will examine the papacy’s mixed record regarding Mussolini, the rise of Fascism, and the final barbarous architectural project of the tiny state: the destruction of the Borgo and the construction of the hideously banal Via della Conciliazione, which links the city of Rome with the Vatican City. As we turn to the modern Church, we'll discuss the Vatican’s role in and responses to the fall of Communism, the rise of capitalism and the changing demographics of the church due to intense missionary efforts in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Recent demographic changes in Texas—in particular the rapid growth of Spanish-speaking immigrants—have dramatically increased the Catholic population in our own state. On several occasions throughout the semester, we will visit the Blanton Museum of Art. The Blanton has particularly rich collections of art in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods, including the Suida-Manning Collection and the many fine Italian prints in the Blanton Prints and Drawing room. These collections will give us direct contact with the type of work that was commissioned by wealthy churchmen in the papal court or curia throughout the span of several centuries in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. We will also visit the HRC (Harry Ransom Center), which has a number of fine Italian maps and manuscripts of interest to us. 2 Required Textbooks and Readings: You will be required to purchase 2 books for this course: John Julius Norwich’s recent popular historical account, Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy (Random House, 2011); and Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s short but useful They say/I say: the moves that matter in academic writing (W.W. Norton & Company, 2010). Other readings for the class will be available as pdfs on Blackboard or as links. You will be responsible for all reading material on exams, even if we haven’t covered it in class (although, clearly, the more important issues WILL be covered in class). Please read with a critical eye and ask lots of questions!! Discussion of the readings is a critical component of this class. You will NOT, of course, be responsible for the myriad of tiny details that are a major component of our reading. You will be reading for an overall sense of the sweep and scope of the papacy over time. I will also be making other resources available to you, and they will all be posted on Blackboard. Also, you have almost unlimited electronic resources through our Library. A particularly useful resource is Oxford Art Online, which you need to access through UT Direct (https://login.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.oxfordartonline.com%2f). If you are interested in art, you may find it useful to consult Sylvan Barnet’s A Short Guide to Writing about Art (at the Coop or other bookstores, or in the Fine Arts Library Reference section, N 7476 B37 1993) or Henry Sayre’s Writing about Art. We cannot stress enough how useful UT’s own Undergraduate Writing Center can be for students (http://uwc.utexas.edu/ ). They are very used to helping students with art history papers, and they also have some online assistance for art history papers. You pay for these services in your fees, so you may as well use them! This is especially important if English is not your first or principal language. I will place useful texts on reserve at the FAL (Fine Arts Library). You do NOT need to bring your books to class unless told to do so. Class structure: This course is organized around 3 units. In unit one, we will examine the ancient and early Christian origins of the papacy and St. Peter’s basilica, as well as the consolidation of pontifical power in the Middle Ages. In unit two, we will explore the artistic highlights of the Vatican and St. Peter’s created during the Renaissance and Baroque periods (15th through 17th centuries). In unit three, we will examine the vicissitudes of the papacy and the Vatican City in the wake of nationalization, world war, Communism, and globalization. You will be tested on the key images and fundamental concepts for each of these units on the basis of 3 in-class essay tests, each worth 10%. All of the images for which you will be responsible will be available on UT’s DASe data base (more information below). 3 You will write 2 papers for this class. Each of these papers is broken down into 2-3 components, with each component having a separate due date. For the first, 3-part paper, you will select one of several works at the Blanton Museum of Art; I will chose these works based on their pertinence to the lectures, readings, and class discussions.

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