21 November 2017

The Basilica of San Domenico
holds the saint’s shrine and
800 years of Dominican history

The Basilica of San Domenico, seen from the cloisters, is one of the major churches in Bologna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

Bologna has a rich collection of churches and basilicas, and one of the major churches in the city is the Basilica of San Domenico, which dates back to the arrival of Saint Dominic 800 years ago in the year 1218.

The basilica is visited regularly by pilgrims and tourists who come to visit this church because Saint Dominic is buried inside the church in the exquisite shrine of the Arca di San Domenico. As I walked around the church last week, there was a constant stream of schoolchildren being brought around by teachers and Dominican friars, and a stream of pilgrims constantly flowed in to see the shrine of Saint Dominic.

The shrine is the work of Nicola Pisano and his workshop and of Arnolfo di Cambio, and there are later additions by Niccolò dell’Arca and the young Michelangelo.

When Saint Dominic, Dominic Guzman, first arrived in Bologna in January 1218, he was impressed by the vitality of the city and recognised the importance of the university city.

The first house for Dominicans was established at the Mascarella church by Reginald of Orleans. But this house soon became too small for the growing number of friars, and in 1219 the brothers of Dominic’s Order of Preachers moved to the small church of San Nicolò of the Vineyards at the outskirts of Bologna.

Saint Dominic also moved to this church and the first two General Chapters of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans were held here in 1220 and 1221. Saint Dominic died in that church on 6 August 1221, and was buried behind the altar of San Nicolò.

Between 1219 and 1243, the Dominicans bought all the plots of land surrounding the church. After the death of Saint Dominic, the church of San Nicolò was expanded and a new monastic complex was built between 1228 and 1240.

The church was then extended and grew into the Basilica of Saint Dominic, which would become the prototype of many other Dominican churches throughout the world.

The basilica was divided in two parts divided by a ramp: the front part, or ‘internal church,’ was the church of the brothers, and the church for the faithful, or the ‘external church.’ The church was consecrated by Pope Innocent IV in 1251.

The shrine of Saint Dominic in Saint Dominic’s chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The remains of Saint Dominic were moved in 1233 from a place behind the altar to a simple marble sarcophagus. But most of the pilgrims could not see the new shrine, which was hidden by many people standing in front of it.

The need for a new shrine was identified, and in 1267 the remains of Saint Dominic were moved from the simple sarcophagus into a new shrine, decorated with episodes from the life of the saint by Nicola Pisano.

Saint Dominic’s chapel is the main chapel of the church. It has a square plan and a semi-circular apse, where the remains of the saint rest in the splendid Arca di San Domenico under the cupola which contains three sculptures by Michelangelo: Angel, Saint Proclus and Saint Petronius.

The chapel was built by the Bolognese architect Floriano Ambrosini, replacing the old gothic chapel from 1413, to match the splendour of the other existing chapels. It was decorated between 1614 and 1616 by important painters of the Bolognese school.

The relics of Saint Dominic in the richly-decorated shrine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

In the course of the next centuries, the church was enlarged, modified and rebuilt. New side chapels were built, a bell tower was added, the dividing wall between the two churches was demolished, and the choir was moved behind the altar. Then, in 1728-1732, the interior of the church was completely rebuilt in the Baroque style by the architect Carlo Francesco Dotti (1678–1759) under the patronage of Pope Benedict XIII, who was a Dominican.

The square in front of the church, now paved with pebbles, was also the original cemetery. In the middle of the square, a bronze statue of Saint Dominic (1627) stands on the top of a brickwork column.

Close-by are two unique Byzantine-Venetian-style tombs of the celebrated jurists of Rolandino de’ Passeggeri and Egidio Foscarari.

Inside the Basilica of Saint Dominic (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The tombs of the jurists:
unique mediaeval legacy
on the streets of Bologna

The ‘Tombe dei Glossatori’ are a unique 13th century set of monuments on the streets of Bologna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

My guidebooks and my reading in advance of travelling to bologna did not prepare me for seeing the Tombe dei Glossatori (The Tombs of the Glossatori) in Piazza San Domenico and Piazza Malpighi. I came upon them accidentally last week while I was visiting the Basilica of San Domenico, to see the shrine of Saint Dominic, and the Synagogue on Via Mario Finzi.

The tombs are named after jurists or lawyers who became known for adding glosses or notes to academic and legal documents.

Although they seem to have been passed over by the writers of many English-language guidebooks on Bologna, these tombs, dating from the end of the 13th century, commemorate some of Bologna’s most famous scholars and as a group they form one of Bologna’s most unique and memorable monuments.

The University of Bologna was founded in 1088 by the legal scholars or glossators Irnerius and Pepo, making it the oldest university in the world. These tombs are tributes to some of the first and most important professors in the Middle Ages when the University of Bologna was renowned particularly for teaching law.

They added glosses and comments on Roman texts, providing marginal explanatory additions that made the content of the passages clearer. These leading academics became cornerstones of political and cultural life in Bologna.

The five tombs or mausoleums still standing today are in two squares in Bologna, Piazza Malpighi, beside Piazza San Francesco, and Piazza San Domenico. They are raised above the ground on slender marble columns, are covered in majolica tiles, with canopies of marble arches above and each is capped with a pyramidical roof.

Over the centuries, many similar mausoleums have been lost, and the ones that stand today have been rebuilt, damaged, restored and reconstructed. Today, are isolated from long-lost cemeteries that once surrounded them, and as a collection they form archaeological and cultural features that are unique to Bologna.

The five tombs form a unique collection of archaeological and cultural features in Bologna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The earliest remaining tomb is that of Odofredo Denari at San Francesco, and was built around 1265. Odofredus is famous for the personal remarks with which he sprinkled his teaching, often introduced by Or signori, ‘Listen, gentlemen.’ His most famous saying is: ‘Everybody wants to know, but nobody wants to know the price of knowledge.’

His tomb was restored in 1497 and again in 1574 by his descendants, Lorenzo Odofredi and Girolamo del fu Lorenzo Odofredi.

When the Chapel of Malvezzi Lombardi was built in San Francesco in 1713, Odofredo’s remains were said to be still in the tomb. Fragments from other parts of the tomb were used in the restoration of the pyramid at the top in the 19th century.

The columns are of white marble from a Greek quarry, and the capitals of pyramid trunks adorned with palm leaves, similar to those in San Vitale in Ravenna, and with Byzantine influences. The interior was plastered and painted or lined with glazed bricks.

In this same grouping at San Francesco are the tombs of Rolandino de ’Romanzi, who died in 1284, and of Accursio, father and son.

The tomb of Rolandino de ’Romanzi was destroyed by the French Government in 1804, which claimed it served as a ‘hiding place for assassins,’ an ironic excuse for levelling the tomb of the author of De maleficiorum order, one of the first treatises on criminology. It was eventually restored in 1888.

The third tomb, chronologically, is that of Accursius, which dates from 1293. This was built not for Accursius, or Accursio di Bagnolo the father, who died in 1263, but for his son Franciscus or Francesco d’Accorso, who taught at one stage in Oxford and died in Bologna in 1293. Dante places the son Francesco in Hell among sodomites (Inferno XV, 110).

The father was first buried in the cemetery at San Domenico cemetery, but his body was later moved for political reasons. The materials used include Greek marble and the capitals display rich foliage with Romanesque-Byzantine style. When the tomb was being restored, it was discovered that it was originally divided into two cells, one upper and one lower. The inscription reads: Sepulchrum Accursii, glossatoris legum, et Francisci, ejus filii.

The monument was erected despite intense accusations of immorality against the Accursii. The Palace of Accursio (Palazzo d’Accursio) still stands today on the Piazza Maggiore, a testimony to the family’s lasting influence despite exile and approbation. Since 1200 it has been the seat of the City Council.

The tomb of Rolandino de ’Passeggeri, beside the Basilica of San Domenico (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The two tombs at the Basilica of San Domenico commemorate Rolandino de ’Passeggeri and Egidio Foscherari. The tomb of Rolandino de ’Passeggeri is the second oldest of the five monuments, dating from 1285, while the tomb of Egidio Foscherari was probably completed by 1291.

The beautiful and elegant tomb of Rolandino de ’Passaggeri was also used to bury the proconsul of the Collegium of Notaries from 1581 to 1658. Despite damage caused by a bomb in 1943 during World War II and the numerous preservation and restoration efforts, the tomb still looks essentially like the original mausoleum.

Modern buildings now tower above the tomb of Egidio Foscherari (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Egidio Foscherari was a professor of canon law professor, and his tomb shows Byzantine and Venetian influences. The interior of the pyramid was once painted to illustrate ‘heaven sown with nimbate stars,’ an interesting influence from the Christian traditions Ravenna, rather than the depictions of Roman law used to illustrate the other tombs.

Egidio Foscherari’s tomb has survived for centuries, despite being virtually incorporated into later buildings erected at this street corner.

The Palazzo d’Accursio on Piazza Maggiore in Bologna … another testimony to a family’s will to survive (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)