The old Eudoxian
Basilica, rebuilt by Sixtus III in 439-40 over older
buildings gets its name from the empress Licinia Eudoxia
whose mother had the chains of St. Peter brought from
Jerusalem to unite them to those which had chained the
apostle during his imprisonment in Roma.
Tradition has it that, on contact, the two reliquaries
miraculously welded together, as portrayed in the large
painting in the centre of the ceiling of the nave
(1705-6). The bronze funeral urn with the venerated
reliquaries is on display in the crypt, rebuilt together
with the presbyterial area during the second half of the
19th century.
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The Funeral Monument to Julius 11
had a complex genesis, documented by a good five contracts,
that began with the commission by the pontiff in March,
1505, for a payment of 10,000 ducats. Shortly after arriving
in Florence, Michelangelo undertook the project with passion,
originally destined for the Vatican Basilica and studied for
a very effective arrangementThe design, approved in the
following April, describes it as a colossal isolated pyramid
structure, embellished on three floors with more than thirty
bronze statues and bas-reliefs.The monument is characterised
by a pedestal with two niches with feminine figures inside,
alluding to the virtue of the deceased and directly inspired
by prototypes of classic sculpture.The Moses was sculptured
around 1515 and then re-used in the centre of the present
monument where, originally, there was a door leading into
the internal chapel. The modifications made to the
coronation were even more complex, it was initially
conceived as an independent building with the sarcophagus
and the statue of the pontiff supported by allegorical
figures, further simplified as an architectonic structure
placed on a wall with the Virgin and Child above.
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After the temporary escape to
Florence caused by the disinterest of the client, what the
artist called "the tragedy of the tomb" it accompanied him
in the more tormented phases of his experience as man and
artist In 1532, he finally arrived at a solution and the
entire monument was rearranged, in February 1545, in the
right transept of the Franciscan church of S. Peter in
Vincoli of which the pontiff, belonging to the order, was
owner. The pose of the pontiff is important, he is portrayed
in the act of rising from the sarcophagus as if awakening
from the torpor of physical death. |
