May 20, 2013 - Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown

Page 12 The Catholic Register, May 20, 2013
Native American Figures
Discovered In Vatican Fresco
(Continued From Page 16.)
“The Borgia pope was interested
in the New World,”
Paolucci said. The process of
decorating the apartments finished
in 1494 and it is unlikely
the pope “was in the dark about
what Columbus saw when he arrived
to the ends of the earth.”
Fresco restoration seems to
be a lot like unwrapping a grabbag
gift: You never know what
you’ll find by peeling away layers
of centuries-old grime, water
damage or botched painting repairs.
Experts working on the
Vatican’s catacombs of St. Thecla
uncovered what’s believed to
be the oldest known depiction of
St. Paul and announced the find
just a week before the apostle’s
feast day on the tail end of the
Pauline year in 2009.
Blasting off limestone encrusting
the painted ceiling with
a laser revealed a fourth-century
portrait that was so detailed and
stunning “it took the restorers’
breath away,” the Vatican newspaper
had reported.
The image of a bald man
with a stern expression, a high
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forehead, large eyes, distinctive
nose and a dark tapered beard
matched images of St. Paul from
later centuries, experts said.
Continued cleanings in the
burial chamber in 2010 exposed
what experts claimed were the
oldest existing paintings of Sts.
Peter, Paul, Andrew and John.
If just scrubbing and
scraping can lead to surprises,
imagine what happens when
advanced technology lets you
snoop in places that had been inaccessible
for centuries.
Archeologists had always
been curious to find out what
was inside an enormous marble
sarcophagus -- the presumed
tomb of St. Paul, in Rome’s
Basilica of St. Paul Outside the
Walls.
Because part of the sarcophagus
is wedged beneath
building material and opening
it would have meant demolishing
the papal altar above it, it
had never been opened in the
20 or 19 centuries it was there,
Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza
di Montezemolo, the basilica’s
former archpriest, said in 2009.
Vatican engineers tried using
an X-ray, but the 10-inchthick
marble was impenetrable.
Finally a very small perforation
was drilled into the marble
to insert a small probe and
withdraw fragments of what was
inside. Experts said they found
traces of purple linen, a blue fabric
with linen threads, grains of
red incense and bone fragments
that date from the time of the
apostle’s death.
Pope Benedict XVI announced
the historic findings
to the world on the eve of the
saint’s feast day saying “This
seems to confirm the unanimous
and uncontested tradition that
they are the mortal remains of
the Apostle Paul.”
But you don’t have to restore
artwork or dig underground
to find hidden gems.
Simple Vatican offices and
storerooms are a packrat’s paradise
with one man’s scrap being
another man’s treasure.
CNS Photo/Courtesy Of Vatican Museums
THE RESURRECTION: Renaissance master Pintoricchio’s fresco
of “The Resurrection” in the Vatican’s Borgia Apartments is seen
in this photo provided by the Vatican Museums. The director of the
museums, Antonio Paolucci, said he believes restorers have uncovered
in the fresco the first painted depictions of Native Americans.
The images of “nude men, ornate with feathers” appear in the background
underneath the risen Christ figure.
Archivists of the Fabbrica
di San Pietro, the Vatican office
responsible for the basilica’s
construction, repairs and
maintenance, have mountains
of manuscripts, antique receipts
and crinkled memos to sort, curate
and preserve.
In 2007, they discovered
a rare sketch by Michelangelo
Buonarroti on the back of a torn
piece of paper scribbled with
workmen’s notes.
Some believe this 1563
drawing of the dome of St. Peter’s
Basilica may be the last
surviving example of the Renaissance
master’s work before
his death in 1564.
His working sketches of
the basilica are rare because he
regularly ordered the drawings
to be destroyed or burned them
himself to prevent their sale on
the market.
Made with dark red chalk
lines, the sketch shows a partial
plan of the columns of the cupola
drum and was probably used
to give foremen at the quarries
an idea how the stone would be
used in the structure.
But, as sometimes happened,
the buffalo-pulled wagon
carrying the stone was blockaded
by angry landowners,
who were upset the heavy loads
would damage their property.
The basilica employee traveling
with the consignment tore
the design into a smaller sheet
and wrote on the back about his
predicament to his superiors in
Rome.
Someone in the basilica’s
business office dealing with
paying out damage fees used the
same sheet, but scribbled a draft
of their official order of payment
-- on top of the design.
The note-cum-sketch was
thus filed away in a sea of documents
in the accounts office
archive to be discovered more
than four centuries later.