The Pantheon: From Antiquity to the Present
Page 49
48 Baccelli, text of speech entitled “Onorevoli Colleghi!” n.d. [ca. Dec. 1881], Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 120, fascicolo 172, sotto-fascicolo 37.
49 Letter, Anzino to Depretis, Feb. 14, 1883, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 1.
50 See letter, Azzurri, Presidente, Accademia Romana di S. Luca, to Ministro della Pubblica Istruzione [Baccelli], Apr. 18, 1882, and letter, Avv. Trotti to Fiorelli, Apr. 28, 1882, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 121, fascicolo 173, sotto-fascicolo 1. Regarding the front-page coverage, see L’Illustrazione Italiana, Apr. 15, 1883.
51 Maes 1881, p. 28.
52 Letter, Cardinal Francesco Bartolini to “Eminenza Reverendissima,” undated [ca. Oct. 1883], Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Segretario de Stato, 1883, Rubrica 165, fascicolo unico, p. 15. Original phrase: testa bistacco di ministro.
53 “Il Pellegrinaggio nazionale,” 1884, p. 22.
54 Quoted in Tobia 1991, p. 139.
55 Report, Commissione Permanente delle Belle Arti, Jan. 18, 1882, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 2.
56 Letter, Vecellio to Ministro della Pubblica Istruzione [Baccelli], Nov. 12, 1883, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 3.
57 Letter, Falconieri to Umberto I, Nov. 10, 1883, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 3.
58 Letter, Ministro della Pubblica Istruzione [De Sanctis] to Ministro della Real Casa, Dec. 6, 1878, Anchivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Concorsi Vari, busta 6, fascicolo “Roma. Progetti pel Monumento Nazionale al Re Vittorio Emanuele II.”
59 Letter, Ministro della Pubblica Istruzione [De Sanctis] to Ministro della Real Casa, Dec. 6, 1878, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Concorsi Vari, busta 6, fascicolo “Roma. Progetti pel Monumento Nazionale al Re Vittorio Emanuele II.”
60 James S. Ackerman, The Architecture of Michelangelo, rev. ed., Chicago 1986, pp. 163–164.
61 Alessandro Guiccioli, “Diario del 1881,” Nuova Antologia 71, fascicolo 1544, July 16, 1936, p. 184.
62 For an exhaustive analysis of the organization and significance of the national pilgrimage of 1884, see Tobia 1991, pp. 100–142.
63 Tobia 1991, p. 111.
64 Tobia 1991, pp. 113, 137–138.
65 Tobia 1991, p. 136.
66 See, for example, Ugo Pesci, “La Tomba del Gran Re,” L’Illustrazione Italiana, Jan. 22, 1882, p. 74.
67 Pesci 1882.
68 Letter, Anzino to Depretis, Feb. 14, 1883, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 1.
69 “Relazione a S.E.” [Depretis], on paper “Ministero dell’Interno: Gabinetto,” is a precis of the letter and its appended documents, Anzino to Depretis, Feb. 14, 1883, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero del Interno, Gabinetto, Atti Diversi, Ser. 1849–95, busta 8, fascicolo 9.
70 Note marked “N.B.,” unsigned and undated, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero del Interno, Gabinetto, Atti Diversi, Ser. 1849–95, busta 8, fascicolo 9.
71 Letter, Anzino to Depretis, Feb. 14, 1883, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 1.
72 “Relazione a S.E.,” ca. Feb. 1883, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero del Interno, Gabinetto, Atti Diversi, Ser. 1849–95, busta 8, fascicolo 9.
73 Letter, Ministro della Real Casa to Baccelli, Ministro della Pubblica Istruzione, Nov. 12, 1881, and letters, Baccelli to Ministro della Real Casa, Nov. 18, 1881, and Feb. 3, 1882, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 1.
74 Report of the Commissione Permanente di Belle Arti of Jan. 18, 1882, quoted in letter, Baccelli to Ministro della Real Casa, Feb. 3, 1882, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 1.
75 Note marked “N.B.,” unsigned and undated, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero del Interno, Gabinetto, Atti Diversi, Ser. 1849–95, busta 8, fascicolo 9.
76 Letter, Filippo Cerroti to Baccelli, Nov. 7, 1883, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 3.
77 “Belle Arti: Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele da erigersi in Roma. Lettera aperta a S.E. il Ministro Baccelli,” Gazzetta d’Italia, Dec. 18, 1882.
78 Letter, Filippo Gargano to “Eminenza Reverendissima” [Cardinal Bartolini?], Oct. 1883, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Segretaria di Stato 1883, Rubrica 165, fascicolo unico, p.14.
79 The details of this paragraph are drawn from the letter, Cardinal Bartolini to the deacon cardinal of the Pantheon, Sbarretti, Oct. 29, 1883, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Segretaria di Stato 1883, Rubrica 165, fascicolo unico, pp. 34–42.
80 Letter, Cardinal Bartolini to the deacon cardinal of the Pantheon, Sbarretti, Oct. 29, 1883, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Segretaria di Stato 1883, Rubrica 165, fascicolo Unico, p. 40.
81 Letter, Depretis to Baccelli, Jan. 29, 1884, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 123, fascicolo 174, sotto-fascicolo 5.
82 “Il Pellegrinaggio nazionale,” 1884, p. 22.
83 “Il Pellegrinaggio nazionale,” 1884, p. 22.
84 Note marked “N.B.,” unsigned and undated, ACS, Min. Int, GabAD, Ser. 1849–95, b.8, f.9.
85 Letter, Gori to Ministro della Pubblica Istruzione [Coppino], Jun. 18, 1879, ACS, DGABA, Vers.1, b.120, f.172, sf.34.
86 Letter, Depretis to Baccelli, Jan. 29, 1884, ACS, DGABA, Vers.1, b.123, f.174, sf.5.
87 Letter, Fiorelli to Ministro della Real Casa, Dec. 26, 1883, ACS, DGABA, Vers.1, b.123, f.174, sf.4.
88 Franco Borsi and Maria Cristina Buscioni, Manfredo Manfredi e il classicismo della nuova Italia, Milan 1983, p. 15. Letter, Fiorelli to Morelli, Jul. 11, 1884, ACS, DGABA, Vers.1, b.123, f.174, sf.1. Fiorelli invited Morelli to examine the models presented by Manfredi and to report the modifications he deemed necessary. Fiorelli did not mention any other architects’ projects, suggesting that the ministry had already awarded the commission to Manfredi.
89 “Al Pantheon,” La Voce della Verità, Dec. 18, 1885.
90 Borsi and Buscioni 1983, p. 95.
91 Kantorowicz 1957, p. 423.
92 The discovery was reported early on by Rodolfo Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, Boston 1892. See also Loerke 1982, pp. 40–55.
93 Loerke 1982, p. 43.
94 Loerke 1982, p. 42.
95 Baccelli had been reappointed as minister of public instruction, his fourth turn in this position, in December 1893 in the third government of Francesco Crispi.
96 Letter, Baccelli to Mocenni, Ministro della Guerra, Sept. 7, 1894, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Direzione Generale di Antichità e Belle Arti, Versamento 1, busta 121, fascicolo 173, sotto-fascicolo 1.
97 Quoted in Loerke 1982, p. 44.
98 Ciro Nispi-Landi, Marco Agrippa, I suoi tempi e il suo Pantheon, attualmente tomba dei Re d’Italia Vittorio Emanuele II–Umberto I di Savoia, Rome 1901, p. 109.
Thirteen The Pantheon in the Modern Age
Richard A. Etlin
Perhaps no other historical building has engendered such profound and varied echoes as the Pantheon in Rome. Because of this widespread and recurring influence, William L. MacDonald justifiably entitled his stu
dy of the Pantheon’s “progeny” with the epithet “the most celebrated edifice” – translated from the Latin inscription that Pope Urban VIII had placed near the entrance in 1632. MacDonald’s overview demonstrates how widely and how often the Pantheon served as a model for subsequent buildings.1 To complement MacDonald’s admirably encyclopedic survey, which focused on the plethora of edifices that took the Pantheon as its model, this chapter focuses on the ways in which the Pantheon repeatedly was favored to house new institutions of the modern world or to reflect the redefinition of traditional institutions in modern ways: the spread of religious tolerance, the birth of modern medicine and science, the embrace of a cosmopolitan spirit, the rise of democratic government, the creation of the public museum and public library, and the emergence of an aesthetic and psychological consciousness with peak experiences outside of the context of organized religion. This architecture emerged primarily during the Neoclassical period from the mid eighteenth through early nineteenth centuries and then again in the twentieth century with an appreciative rediscovery of this earlier era.
The Spread of Religious Tolerance
Whereas the Enlightenment certainly did not invent the phenomenon of religious tolerance, it did embrace it and make it a central feature of a cultural objective that gained increasing acceptance over the succeeding two centuries, such that it has become a commonplace in our notion of what constitutes a modern, civilized world. This principle was embedded within the founding documents of the two major democratic revolutions of the late eighteenth century. Article 10 of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, August 26, 1789) stipulated, “No person shall be persecuted or constrained because of his opinions, even religious, provided that their display does not disturb public order as established by the law.”2 Similarly, the opening clause of the first of the initial 10 amendments to the American Constitution, dating from December 15, 1791, also addressed this issue: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Centuries of experience with religious wars and religious persecution in Europe had made these provisions necessary. Yet even before these revolutions, the extension of religious tolerance had been reflected in the design of houses of worship in German lands, where the Pantheon became a favored prototype to be emulated.
It has been suggested that King Friedrich II of Prussia, also known as Frederick the Great, selected the Pantheon as the model for the Catholic Cathedral of Saint Hedwig in Berlin (Fig. 13.1) as a humanitarian gesture of religious tolerance accorded to Catholics after conquering the predominantly Catholic territories of Silesia.3 Thus, the ancient Roman temple of all the gods now became an example of universal Christian tolerance. Although the Berlin church, designed by the French expatriate architect Jean-Laurant Legeay in 1747, had a variegated history of construction, reconstruction, and redesign, it always presented on the exterior and interior a variant of the Pantheon.4 The Pantheon-inspired Saint Hedwig’s became the model for other German Catholic churches. These include Friedrich Weinbrenner’s Church of Saint Stephen in Karlsruhe (1808–1814), where the Catholics had been given religious freedom by Napoleon, and Georg Moller’s Church of Saint Ludwig in Darmstadt (1820–1827), where the Catholic community had been emancipated in 1790.5
13.1. View of the Forum Fredricianum, Berlin, with St. Hedwig’s Cathedral.
Legeay had won the Prix de Rome at the Académie Royale d’Architecture in 1732 and, hence, had spent the years 1737 to 1742 in the Eternal City where he had had ample opportunity to study the Pantheon itself.6 So taken was he with this Roman edifice that in 1766 he subsequently suggested that Paris, as the capital of France, had great need of a Pantheon-inspired church, which he designed as a church dedicated to the Trinity.7 Although ostensibly consecrated to the Catholic faith, Legeay’s Paris church project presents a paving pattern of interlocking triangles that may very well have been symbols of Freemasonry, a popular movement in the Enlightenment whose goals included religious tolerance among a host of humanitarian ideals.
Many Enlightenment Freemasons most likely were Deists, who believed that divinity could be found in Nature and, hence, who rejected traditional, religious sects. According to Alexis de Tocqueville, who in 1831 spent nine months traveling throughout the United States with his fellow Frenchman Gustave de Beaumont, the Unitarians whom they encountered in this country were, in effect, really Deists:
On the confines of Protestantism is a sect which is Christian only in name, the Unitarians. Among the Unitarians, that is to say among those who deny the Trinity and recognize only one God, there are some who see in Jesus Christ only an angel, others a prophet, others, lastly, a philosopher like Socrates. They are pure Deists. They speak of the Bible because they do not wish to shock public opinion, still entirely Christian, too deeply. They have a service Sundays; I was there. There they read verses of Dryden or other English poets on the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. A discourse is made on some point of morality, and it’s done.8
Given this typically Enlightenment approach to religion, it should not surprise that the French émigré Maximilian Godefroy recently had designed the interior of the First Unitarian Church (Fig. 13.2) in the manner of the Pantheon, which readily could become the symbol for the unity and divinity of Nature and of God as well.
13.2. Maximilian Godefroy, First Unitarian Church, Baltimore, 1818. (Photo: Courtesy of The Maryland Historical Society)
A distant echo of Godefroy’s church can be found in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple (Oak Park, 1906), which joins a cubical house of worship with a rectangular social hall. Although one can only speculate as to whether the Roman Pantheon or even Godefroy’s Pantheon-like house of worship had exerted an influence on Wright, the architect’s decision to design the place of worship in the temple as a centralized space, turned inward on itself and lit from the top by a combination of clerestory windows and coffered ceiling skylights, certainly adapts the principle of the Pantheon to a modern aesthetic. Whereas Wright selected reinforced concrete for Unity Temple ostensibly because of the financial constraints imposed by the budget and probably also because of the challenge to transform a lowly, utilitarian material from the world of engineering into the highest building program in society, that is, a house of worship, one also wonders whether this choice of material might not also have been a silent homage to the greatest concrete edifice of the ancient world.
Toward the end of Wright’s career when he designed the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, he commented that this museum was “my Pantheon.”9 How long had he had his eye on this Roman monument? Wright had a long-standing interest in classical architecture, from the classicizing frieze around the living room of his Oak Park House (1889–1911) to the Beaux-Arts Plan of the Imperial Hotel (1915–1922) to his unexecuted personal funerary chapel, which he named the Unity Temple and Cenotaph (1958).10
The Birth of Modern Science and Medicine
The Enlightenment was, in many respects, the epoch of the birth of modern science and medicine. William Harvey, “considered by many to have laid the foundation of modern medicine ... was the first to demonstrate the function of the heart and the complete circulation of the blood,” with findings and theories published in On the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals (1628).11 Similarly, Sir Issac Newton’s Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687) famously postulated the principle of universal gravitation to explain the motions of heavenly bodies, as well as of falling bodies on earth, but which also explained the phenomena of tides and more generally established principles for the fields of dynamics and fluid mechanics.12 Then, in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, Joseph Priestley and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier engaged in a race to explain the nature of oxygen and the mechanism of human respiration. Around the same time, Dr. Jan Ingen-Housz elucidated the complementary cycle in the plant world with the in
take of carbon dioxide and the release of oxygen.13 These theories and discoveries were reflected in the world of architecture through a variety of buildings and projects that honored the Enlightenment’s advances in science and medicine by reference to the Pantheon.
This engagement between science and architecture includes the anatomy amphitheater, the principal room in Jacques Gondoin’s new building constructed in Paris to house the École de Chirurgie (Fig. 13.3). The new School of Surgery owes much to its patron, Germain Pichault de la Martinière, since 1747 premier chirurgien (head surgeon) to the French king and a man who secured great prestige for the profession, which, already in 1731, had been separated from the fields of medicine and pharmacy through the creation of its own, independent academy. In the popular mind, “surgeons had for a long time been confused with barbers,” according to Sébastien Mercier’s often-trenchant commentary on commonplace subjects: “It was a harmful confusion, it had to end.” When the new academy was ratified in 1750, the act called for the creation of a new anatomy amphitheater to replace what one scholar has termed the already “impressive anatomy theater” dating from the early seventeenth century in the neighborhood where Gondoin’s edifice would soon be constructed.14