The iconographic programme of the Zeno Chapel at Santa Prassede, Rome

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dc.contributor.authorMackie, Gillian Vallanceen_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-14T22:33:36Z
dc.date.available2024-08-14T22:33:36Z
dc.date.copyright1984en_US
dc.date.issued1984
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of History in Arten_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractThe chapel of S. Zeno at S. Prassede, Rome, built by Pope Paschal I, 817-824, as a martyrs' shrine and a funeral chapel for his mother Theodora, is decorated with antique marbles and finished on its vault and upper walls with mosaics. Many individual components of the mosaic programne, both figural and abstract, can best be related to antecedents in the Early Christian art of Rome; for others, parallels must be sought in Ravenna. Intermediary manuscripts and pattern drawings are proposed. Other elements in the mosaic decoration are related to the antique marbles assembled by Paschal in S. Prassede and the Zeno chapel. Such patterns, based ultimately on other Italian mosaics or sculptures, together formed the repertory of a group of mosaicists working in glass in the Roman tradition, and probably using recycled tesserae. Drawings by Cassiano dal Pozzo show the seventeenth-century appearance of the Zeno chapel, before alterations had destroyed the lower zone of mosaics and eliminated the burials. The drawings are used as the basis for a reconstruct ion of the original layout of the chapel and its decoration. The decorative progranme is found to be an expression of the theme of salvation as it related to the dead woman. The components can be read together as a visualisation of the prayers for the deceased offered at the funeral service; the intercessions of the most powerful advocates for humanity, Mary and John the Baptist, being reinforced by the prayers of those saints who had strong personal ties with this church and this pope. The aim was to recreate the intercessions in perpetuity so that Theodora's soul would reach Paradise. A decorative programme such as that of the Zeno chapel with a hierarchical arrangement of holy i mages in a vaulted symbolic space, is seen to stern from the second council of Nicaea of 787, which gave rise to the typical post-iconoclastic, Middle-Byzantine scheme of church decoration. It is therefore proposed that the Zeno chapel's programme is an illustration of the ideas about religious imagery formulated at this council, brought to Rome from the East at the start of the second wave of iconoclasm which coincided with the start of Paschal's pontificate. The pope turned to Roman mosaicists with their traditional repertory of images to carry out a commission that illustrated the most advanced thinking of t he early ninth century. I would therefore propose a reassessment of Paschal I , who has been seen as an antiquarian pope dedicated to t he re-creation of t he past. He should rather be seen as in touch with the latest trends, and limited only by the materials available and the repertory of traditional images that was at hand. These limitations, however, were overcome, and Paschal's vision of a newly glorious Rome has survived in his mosaics until today.
dc.format.extent195 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/18810
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.titleThe iconographic programme of the Zeno Chapel at Santa Prassede, Romeen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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