2024-09-01 19:11:24
OfALDO FUCKING
«Il Dio Nuovo» will be released on September 3 by Rizzoli: between history and fiction, the journalist recreates the events of two important men of Christianity, Peter and Paul
On the threshold of the Jubilee there is a forgotten element that those who come to Rome on a religious or secular pilgrimage should be in mind before crossing the Holy Gate: Christianity and the Roman Empire were born at the same time, and they were in the same century, and the city of Rome was the cradle of both. Evidence of this is the mosaic in the apse of the basilica of Santa Pudenziana, in via Urbana, immediately outside what was once the famous Suburra area. It dates back to the fifth century and is the oldest Christian mosaic in Rome (except for Santa Costanza which, however, did not decorate a church but a mausoleum). There, we see Jesus presiding over the Upper House of Parliament, the apostles, represented as Roman legislators with smoke, as if today we present Saint Peter and Saint Paul in stages and connections in Palazzo Madama. The anonymous artist painted the mosaic immediately after an event that is for ancient Rome what 9/11 is for New York: the sack of Alaric in 410. However, the apostles in the toga seem to suggest to us, it seems close between the world . and heaven, and empire and Christianity: they were born at the same time and challenged each other for centuries and then, thanks to Constantine, combined and, at times, confused each other.
The book is meant as an investigation into the traces of the two saints and their surroundings in the “labyrinth” space-time of the capital, between the streets with old paving, the ruins of the temples and the great buildings, the catacombs and the underground world, the guardians of the basilicas have been forgotten but once the most venerated. The author is a tourist researcher, he reaches the places that preserve the memory of the apostles and he tries to draw their human history by filling in the places in the sources with his imagination. Sortino writes: “A traveler goes to a place that has been sanctified by an event.” Walk forward in space and backward in time. His reward lies in receiving a meeting that causes a change in him: he wants to relive in his own world that event that changed history. ” And so the adventurer Sortino followed in the footsteps of Simon Pietro, a Galilean fisherman, illegal immigrant and refugee, through the streets of Suburra, today Rione Monti. Peter arrived in Rome after a miraculous escape from prison in Jerusalem, a city that had been a hotbed for Roman foreign policy. Right Imagine Peter shown with his wife and daughter – yes, the first Pope was married – have those accommodation of a Roman politician converted to the Gospel: Elder Pudens. Maybe “homeowner”. And it is right above the house of Pudens, whose remains can be visited in the basement, that today stands the church of Santa Pudenziana, named after his daughter. The heavenly council house, imagined by a Roman scientist in the fifth century, is described in the same place where the first Christian senator lived in history four centuries earlier, also mentioned in Paul’s Letter to the Roman. One of the original Christian groups in Rome gathered in this political building. In these private places the apostles broke their bread and told the story of Jesus – while the evangelists Mark and Luke observed – A small private and intra-class conference, made up, in addition to the host family, of common women and men, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and masters, merchants and workers. Sortino’s tour continues among the remains of Europe’s oldest synagogue, at Ostia antica, where it is thought that the Roman Jews argued about the coming of the Messiah; in Lake Vico, where the emperor Caligula organized nightly rituals on two separate boats; in the early Christian basilicas of Rome, such as that of San Lorenzo Outside the Walls, bombed by the Americans during the Second World War, which contains the remains of the Roman martyr, the deacon Lorenzo, and also of the first Prime Minister of the Italian Republic: Alcide de Gasperi.
The final arrival point of the journey is here at the foot of the Vatican hill, where Saint Peter died crucified upside down in Nero’s circus, in front of the same obelisk that today is in the center of the colonnade. Here too, the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church seem to be putting the rod in each other’s hands. Across the Tiber, the city’s two iconic buildings face each other: Castel Sant’Angelo and St. Peter’s Basilica. Both were conceived to contain a tomb and to commemorate the memory and culture of those buried there: Castel Sant’Angelo is a fortress whose foundation is the gigantic mausoleum of Hadrian. Basilica of St. Peter’s was originally a sanctuary, built two centuries earlier by another emperor, Constantine, to contain the first burial of the apostles of Jesus Christ, until then simple and anonymous. But when Hadrian’s mausoleum has changed its intended use in the centuries, so that nothing is known about the remains of the King, and the religious relations have been destroyed, those of the holy fishermen are still there, in the Basilica which in the 16th century replaced the original original. one, under Michelangelo’s roof and under Bernini’s canopy to act as a symbolic foundation for the Universal Church in particular. as Jesus predicted in the Gospel of Matthew: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it”.
Book by Alessandro SortinoNew God” comes out on September 3rd (Rizzoli, page 276, 18.50 euros). Sortino is a journalist, presenter and television writer. As a journalist known as one of the Hyenas of Italy 1, he has also made investigations and reports for Direct collection (Rai Tre) e Know the square (La7). According to the author who wrote, among others, Malpelo (La7), Nemo (Rai Due), You don’t know who I am (RaiPlay) e A special day (La7). He is also the creative director of Tv2000, for which he signed the documents The Stones Speakon the history of the first Christians in Rome.
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