The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (in Bologna, Italy)

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Should you want to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, don’t go to Jerusalem.¹ The Jerusalem church will just confuse you. The modern pilgrim, expecting to see the sites of Jesus’ Crucifixion, Entombment and Resurrection, usually comes away from the church in Jerusalem more perplexed than reassured. Questions of authenticity mix with general bewilderment as crowds of the faithful stumble through the rabbit warren of historic rebuildings, scaffoldings and subdivisions, cluttered with relics, oversized candlesticks and overwhelmingly mediocre art. It is no wonder that in the 19th century, General Charles R. Gordon proposed an alternative site for the Tomb of Jesus, the so-called Garden Tomb, located in a tranquil spot outside the wall of Jerusalem’s Old City.² Although the identification of this site as Jesus’ Tomb is accepted today by almost no one, the Garden Tomb’s clean and natural aspect certainly seems more appropriate to the modern viewer and, in the words of Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “conforms to the expectations of simple piety.”³

So here’s my advice. If you want to see what the medieval Holy Sepulchre looked like, go to Bologna—to the seven churches of Santo Stefano. It’s much simpler and far less disorienting. Besides, you can’t see the original building in Jerusalem anyway. It hasn’t survived. It has been reconstructed almost out of existence.

Begun by Constantine the Great in 326, the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre was much simpler in design and decoration than the present 022building. The church was constructed on the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial—Calvary and the Tomb—as identified by Constantine’s saintly mother, Helena. Constantine’s biographer Eusebius describes the lavishly appointed church as “an illustrious memorial of the saving resurrection, bright with rich and royal splendor.”⁴

But we have only an approximate idea of how the fourth-century building looked, thanks to images like the sixth-century Madaba mosaic map of Jerusalem (photo, p. 25).⁵ We also have the descriptions of the complex recorded by early pilgrims and, most importantly, the details that have emerged from the archaeological explorations of the 1960s and 1970s, most convincingly explicated by Father Virgilio Corbo.⁶

The fourth-century complex enclosed the most significant holy sites (Calvary and the Tomb) and established basic architectural features to glorify them (see plan).^a The entry to the vast complex of buildings was on the Cardo, the main colonnaded street of the city. An atrium or courtyard connected the Cardo to a large five-aisled basilica, or hall, with a wooden roof and an apse oriented to the west. Behind the basilica was a porticoed courtyard with the rock of Calvary (also called Golgotha) in the southeast corner. Finally, at the western end of the complex, stood the great Rotunda of the Anastasis (Greek, “Resurrection”), housing the aedicula, or shrine, of the Tomb of Christ.⁷ In the Madaba map, the church is shown with a gabled roof and three doors opening on the facade. The golden dome of the Rotunda over Jesus’ Tomb rises behind the basilica. The Rotunda was actually D-shaped in plan, and its central space was surrounded by an ambulatory that broadened into transepts to the north and south. The aedicula itself was formed from a bedrock outcropping containing the rock-hewn Tomb chamber; it had been left standing as the bedrock was quarried away around it and was subsequently decorated with marble to resemble a small temple.

Eusebius claimed that all remains of an earlier Roman temple had been removed to purify the site.⁸ In fact, as Corbo has demonstrated, several Roman walls and foundations—relics of the earlier Roman temple—023were incorporated into the Constantinian complex, and these help to explain its numerous irregularities.⁹

But the Constantinian complex has not survived. Following damage and repair in the seventh and tenth centuries, about which little is known, the church was destroyed in 1009 by the fanatic Fatimid caliph al-Hakim,^b who was offended by the Easter ceremony of the Descent of the Holy Fire,^c which he regarded as completely bogus. Following the mysterious death of al-Hakim and decades of negotiations, the church was subsequently rebuilt with 025the financial support of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and completed in 1048.

This reconstruction of the Holy Sepulchre, which adhered to Byzantine architectural ideas, was probably directed by a master mason from Constantinople.¹⁰ Although the Rotunda and the porticoed courtyard between the tomb and the basilica remained much the same, neither the basilica nor the atrium was reconstructed. The new Anastasis Rotunda, which was provided with an apse and enveloped by numerous annexed chapels, became the focal point of the complex. Although short-lived, this phase of the Holy Sepulchre was particularly influential throughout history, as we shall see, corresponding to a period of intensive contact between the Holy Land and Western Europe.

Only part of the building from this period survives. Following the conquest of Jerusalem at the completion of the First Crusade in 1099, the complex was given a more unified appearance in accordance with western European standards.¹¹ The Crusaders began by remodeling the Tomb aedicula. Subsequently, the courtyard and its subsidiary chapels were replaced by a domed transept and a Romanesque pilgrimage choir (with an ambulatory and radiating chapels surrounding the apse, as at Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain). For the first time, all the holy sites were housed under one roof, with the monumental entrance at the south transept.

That’s more or less the building we see today. The belfry lost its top in an earthquake in 1545—it fell onto the dome of a neighboring chapel, which remains unroofed. Subsequently, the upper two stories of the belfry were removed in the 18th century. Large parts of the complex were reconstructed following a major fire in 1808, and the aedicula of the Tomb was entirely 026reconstructed. Stones damaged in the 19th-century fire have been systematically replaced in a massive ongoing restoration project.

There’s an old joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. The Holy Sepulchre is a camel, a compromise between the three competing medieval planning concepts—Early Christian, Byzantine and Romanesque. In fact, the present plan is so filled with disquieting disjunctions and jarring juxtapositions that it was once all too appropriately included as an illustration in Robert Venturi’s seminal work on postmodernism, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture.¹²

History provided one set of complications, modern usage another. The present interior of the building has been repeatedly subdivided by the various congregations it houses, so that the intended unity of the interior space is no longer evident. The ambulatory and gallery of the Rotunda have been partitioned; the transepts of the Crusader choir have been walled off. Adherence to the status quo established in the 19th century allows for replacement of existing elements when necessary, as well as for some elaboration, but not for any alteration in the design. As a result, temporary partitions have 027become permanent barriers, and within each sector of the building, new decorative elements proclaim the presence of special religious interests. The Crusaders’ dome in the transept, for example, originally intended to be left plain, was recently decorated with Greek mosaics of questionable artistic merit. The pavement of the chapel of St. Helena now bears representations of the sacred shrines of Armenia, and the chapel has been given a new, complementary dedication to the martyrs of Armenia. A visit to the Holy Sepulchre today speaks of religious partisanship more than ecumenical unity.

And this brings me—or, rather, should take you—to Bologna and Santo Stefano. Located in a quiet piazza just east of the due torre, the two tall medieval towers in the heart of the historic city, the church and monastery of Santo Stefano (Saint Stephen) are borne on one of the oldest foundations in Bologna. Rebuilt after 1141, apparently by returning Crusaders, the core of the sette chiese (seven churches) of Santo Stefano represents the most complete copy of the Holy Sepulchre to survive from the Middle Ages.¹³ Constructed of red brick decorated with the lively stone patterning characteristic of northern Italy, the evocative image of Santo Stefano affirms both the site’s antiquity and its religious significance. Although augmented over the centuries, the central churches of the complex clearly replicate, in a smaller scale, the main monuments of Jerusalem, while transforming them into an Italian Romanesque style.

The complex centers on the chapel of Santo Sepolcro, a copy of Jerusalem’s Anastasis Rotunda. Santo Sepolcro is an irregular octagon in plan, topped by a brick cloister vault composed of twelve flattened, wedge-shaped segments (see cover photo), with an internal colonnade of 12 supports. An extra column in the northeast is identified as the Column of the Flagellation, replicating a relic at the Holy Sepulchre. 028The unusual marble monument in the center of Santo Sepolcro is a much-reconstructed copy of the Tomb aedicula. Its main facade is decorated with late medieval sculptures of the Holy Women at the Tomb, and its low entrance is covered by a grille. Inside, a cenotaph corresponds to the position of the Tomb of Jesus; opposite are the relics of the patron saint of Bologna, San Petronio.

To the east of Santo Sepolcro lies a charming porticoed court, a replica of the porticoed court in Jerusalem (see photo). The basin at its center was apparently originally kept elsewhere in the complex and may have been used for the distribution of bread. However, it later became associated with the basin in which Pontius Pilate washed his hands. The court connects to a series of chapels: The central, cruciform chapel was dedicated to Santa Croce. Called Calvario, it was said to contain “copies” of the Mount of Calvary and of the True Cross, which were alleged to have been based on measurements taken in Jerusalem. The distance between Calvary and the tomb also corresponds to that at Jerusalem.

The Vita of San Petronio, written in 1180, proudly attributes the complex of Santo Stefano to the 029fifth-century patron saint of Bologna, claiming that he visited Jerusalem and returned with relics and measurements.¹⁴ More likely, the Bologna copy was the result of the First Crusade of 1099 and was meant to reproduce the 11th-century form of the Holy Sepulchre, with Rotunda, courtyard and chapels. We may assume that the alleged association with San Petronio was intended to add to its historical lustre.

Other sites in Bologna purported to have been founded by San Petronio have special associations with Jerusalem, including the Church of San Giovanni in Monte Oliveti, which is said to imitate the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, and the Church of Santa Tecla, alleged to be a “copy” of the Valley of Josephat and of the Field of Hakeldama (Potter’s Field).^d How a church could copy a valley or a field is not entirely clear; unfortunately the church no longer survives. A Pool of Siloam is also mentioned. Evidently the intent was to establish an extensive topographical connection between Jerusalem and Bologna.

To be sure, the churches of Santo Stefano were not without their complexities, but the message of the medieval complex was nevertheless clear: This is Jerusalem transported to Bologna.

Geography was a flexible concept in the Middle Ages. The “Jerusalem” in Bologna wasn’t simply a copy of the holy sites; it was believed that through the combination of image, dedications and devotional acts, the sacred topography of the Holy City could be relocated, re-created, as it were, at a new site. Bologna could become Jerusalem. This is how Santo Stefano was understood in the late Middle Ages.

The significance of Santo Stefano lay in the belief that sanctity or spiritual value could be associated with persons, places or objects, and that by being captured in matter, the numinous qualities could be carried away 030from the original location. Such transfers of holiness were common in the Middle Ages, although they were normally enacted on a smaller scale than our Bologna example, and were a routine component of Christian pilgrimage.¹⁵ Pilgrims to the Holy Land routinely returned with souvenirs—ampullae (flasks), amulets, pieces of stone or earth—all generally called in Greek eulogiai, or “blessings.”^e A good example is a sixth-century tin-lead ampulla from the Dumbarton Oaks collection in Washington, which is decorated with a scene of the Holy Women at the Sepulchre—the latter represented by a schematic rendition of the architecture of the Anastasis Rotunda and the Tomb aedicula. According to its inscription, the ampulla originally contained oil from a lamp that burned at the Tomb of Jesus. These “blessings” were believed to carry a portion of the sanctity of their point of origin, and the faithful believed that they could cure diseases, perform miracles and aid in salvation. Another sixth-century souvenir, a reliquary box from the Sancta Sanctorum in Rome, contains “blessings” in the form of rocks and earth from holy sites in Palestine. Its lid is decorated with scenes from the life of Christ.¹⁶

Related to this phenomenon was the practice of copying the architecture of holy sites, of which the “Jerusalem” in Bologna is perhaps the best-preserved example among many. The Holy Sepulchre was the most important Christian site and was thus copied dozens of times throughout western Europe during the Middle Ages.¹⁷ Frequently the copies were built by returning pilgrims and Crusaders, aided by verbal descriptions, visual images and rudimentary plans or measurements taken on-site. The Bologna copy was no more than a “blessing”—a pilgrim’s souvenir—of architectural dimension. The “Jerusalem” in Bologna was a sort of sacred stand-in that became the object of a pilgrimage by proxy. Indeed, visitors to copies of the Holy Sepulchre often received indulgences similar to those offered to Jerusalem pilgrims.

In most of the medieval European examples, only the Anastasis Rotunda was replicated. It was usually reduced in scale, simplified in form and reproduced in a local 031architectural style. At Neuvy-St.-Sépulcre in central France, for example, a rotunda was built in the 11th century by returning pilgrims. Like Santo Sepolcro at Santo Stefano, the French church was dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre and originally contained a copy of the Tomb of Jesus and relics from Jerusalem.¹⁸ Located on a major route to the tomb-shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela, in Spain, Neuvy became a popular “pilgrimage within a pilgrimage,” allowing the medieval traveler to visit Jerusalem by proxy on the way to Santiago.

An architectural copy could also take on broader associations. For example, the rotunda of St. Michael at Fulda, in central Germany, originally constructed around 820 and rebuilt in the late 11th century, also seems to have been modeled after the Anastasis Rotunda and originally included a tumulus—a mound representing the Tomb of Jesus. But it included relics from Bethlehem and Sinai as well.¹⁹ Thus, a reproduction of a single building forged an association with the entire Holy Land. In this instance, the copy functioned as a funeral chapel. The Jerusalem imagery thereby made spiritually present the life-giving powers of the Tomb of Jesus; at the same time, the faithful of Fulda could be buried “in the Holy Land.”

Medieval copies of the Holy Sepulchre served a variety of special functions that were enhanced by the architectural imitation. Neuvy was a pilgrimage church, Fulda a funeral chapel. Santo Stefano in Bologna was replete with distinctive services and ceremonies that were important components of life in medieval Bologna. The Bologna churches were the setting for special liturgical celebrations, such as a Palm Sunday procession that recreated Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem, apparently in imitation of services conducted in Jerusalem. The tomb aedicula in Santo Stefano may have been the setting for liturgical dramas during Easter that reenacted the Entombment and Resurrection.²⁰

Although these ceremonies were no doubt important in and of themselves, they can also be understood in a civic context. The New Jerusalem in Bologna might be best understood in relationship to urban development in Italy during the high Middle Ages. Jerusalem in its heavenly and earthly aspects was regarded as the 032ideal city in the Middle Ages. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the increased contact between western Europe and the Holy Land coincided with a period of rapid urbanization in the West. This period was also marked by the rebirth of civic consciousness. As urban entities attempted to define themselves, the image of Jerusalem, real and ideal, was incorporated into that definition. Throughout Italy, the emerging cities like Bologna were equated with Jerusalem or with Paradise. The medieval city could be simultaneously associated with both the heavenly and the earthly Jerusalem, and this is reflected in numerous writings and civic ceremonies of the period. As the city planners re-created the sacred topography of Jerusalem, the developing civic entity was mystically transformed into the ideal city.²¹

With a trip to Bologna, you can thus visit both Jerusalem and Bologna at the same time—two for the price of one. Make a culinary pilgrimage to sample Bologna’s famous North Italian cuisine and get a good impression of what the medieval Holy Sepulchre looked like. For the serious gourmand, expiation for the sin of gluttony can be sought straightaway with a pilgrimage to “Jerusalem,” barely five minutes from the Piazza Maggiore.

The idea of a topographical transfer, as represented by the re-creation of Jerusalem in Bologna, also affected the interpretation of medieval Jerusalem itself, as it became first a Christian and then a Muslim city. By the same process, the Israelite Temple of Jerusalem became associated with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.²² Medieval pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre saw there not only relics of Christendom, but the relic of the horn with which David was anointed, the ring with which Solomon sealed the demons (according to legend, to control them, so that they would build the Temple for him), the altar of Abraham on Mount Moriah, the tomb of Adam, and the site of the martyrdom of the high priest Zechariah—all associated with the destroyed Jewish Temple. The Holy Sepulchre became, in Eusebius’s words, “the New Jerusalem, facing the far-famed Jerusalem of old time.”²³ Set opposite the ruins of the old Temple, Constantine’s new church was from its inception symbolically transformed into the new Temple. Thus, even the sacred geography of Jerusalem itself was flexible.

The church’s rich associations faced some competition when the Dome of Rock was built on the Temple platform at the end of the seventh century, following the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem.²⁴ Located on or near the site of the original Israelite Temple, the Dome of the Rock attains much of its symbolic meaning from a combination of its historical associations with the Jewish Temple and its formal relationship with the Holy Sepulchre and other Christian buildings. Its octagonal plan follows that of an early Christian martyrium (martyr’s shrine), and its dome has precisely the same diameter as the Anastasis Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre. As a consequence, several levels of meanings bind the two sites. It is no wonder the Crusaders were a bit confused 034when they conquered Jerusalem in 1099 as to what exactly the Dome of the Rock represented—for them it was simultaneously the Jewish Temple, a Muslim commemorative building and a Christian church.²⁵

The idea of the relationship between copy and prototype can also inform our view of the present building of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as the damaged historic stones of the building are being systematically replaced with newly fabricated copies. This contrasts with the Middle Ages, when there was a reverence (or at least a sense of obligation) toward the older components—a reverence that ultimately outweighed aesthetic and even structural concerns during the various rebuildings. Throughout its medieval history, new constructions provided a framework for the display and veneration of the historic site. And in each successive reconstruction, the old stones were reused—not as a matter of economy, but because the ancient masonry had assumed religious significance. By its very antiquity, the building itself had come to be regarded as a relic. In fact, the combination of the old and the new, and the occasionally jarring contrast between them, was perhaps the most remarkable and most evocative aspect of the medieval phases of the Holy Sepulchre. The new architecture could, in effect, frame the old and add to its lustre.

Sadly, with the heavy-handed reconstructions of the last decades, many of the old stones have disappeared, replaced by pristine replicas. Much of this was necessary, of course, with the cracking and deterioration of the masonry from the fires of the 19th century. Still, as copies have replaced their prototypes in situ, the relationship between the older and newer components in the building has been altered; the new no longer frames the old in quite the same way. Instead we are left with an archaeological puzzle, as we attempt to determine what is originally from the 2nd, 4th, 11th or 12th century, and what from each period was replaced in the restorations of the 19th and 20th centuries.

For the purist, for whom old stones still mean something—either archaeologically or religiously—one can still find souvenirs of the Holy Sepulchre elsewhere in Jerusalem. That is to say, if you go to Jerusalem, don’t look for all the stones of the Holy Sepulchre at the Holy Sepulchre. For just as the relics of the Holy Sepulchre were disseminated around Europe by pilgrims during the Middle Ages, so too the damaged stones of the building have been dispersed throughout Jerusalem by modern restoration architects. A few capitals may be seen at the entrance of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. Others are in the courtyard of the Museum of the Flagellation, including the monogrammed Byzantine capitals from the 11th-century Rotunda. Still others, including the original column shafts and capitals from the early Christian Anastasis Rotunda, now decorate the garden in the Church of All Nations.

During the Middle Ages, images and objects traveled as the bearers of meaning—ideas that had been made palpable and concrete in physical form. Whether as descriptions or as a miniature image on a flask carried home by a pilgrim or even as a piece of real estate said to have been transported by angels (like the Holy House of Loreto in Italy, which had been brought from Nazareth), a sort of topographical transfer occurred. The myriad spiritual associations of one location could be made mystically present in a new setting. The symbolic replication of sacred objects and sites led to the creation of new centers of veneration for pilgrims. The topography of Jerusalem was transported in a variety of ways—even within Jerusalem itself—so that the faithful could be spiritually transported to the New Jerusalem.

Should you want to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, don’t go to Jerusalem.1 The Jerusalem church will just confuse you. The modern pilgrim, expecting to see the sites of Jesus’ Crucifixion, Entombment and Resurrection, usually comes away from the church in Jerusalem more perplexed than reassured. Questions of authenticity mix with general bewilderment as crowds of the faithful stumble through the rabbit warren of historic rebuildings, scaffoldings and subdivisions, cluttered with relics, oversized candlesticks and overwhelmingly mediocre art. It is no wonder that in the 19th century, General Charles R. Gordon proposed an alternative site for the […]