Highlights from the cultural world of Rome
The Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology (PIAC) has published its study programme for the 2024/25 academic year. It includes the study conditions, scholarship opportunities and a chronicle of the past year. The PIAC will be celebrating its 100th anniversary next year. A number of activities are planned or have already been realised, such as the very illustrative booklet Cento Anni del Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana.
You would think that there would be something new under the blazing sun of Rome worth getting up for. This is not the case. What hasn't been written about the tennis court and swimming pool of the sporty John Paul II! Only notoriously unathletic pontiffs are spared such attacks of envy.
The old titles are returning. In 2018, Prof Claus Martin Girardet wrote a very illuminating essay in the Römische Quartalschrift on the title Pontifex Maximus of the Roman emperors. As the title of the essay suggests, the Christian emperor Gratian (d. 383) was the last emperor to bear the ancient Roman title Pontifex Maximus.
Since the Middle Ages, the great city procession with the icon of the Redeemer led from Lateran to Santa Maria Maggiore on the night of 14 to 15 August - on the hottest day of the year, in the hope that a cool breeze would blow on Rome's highest hill, the Esquiline (and this was certainly the case at the time, given the lack of high-rise buildings).
In memory of Hugo Brandenburg, the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana and the German Archaeological Institute are organising a study day on the early churches of Rome from 27 to 28 October 2025. Registrations for lectures are requested by December 2024.
Nikolas Möller
The remains of ancient buildings dating from the 8th century BC to the 2nd century AD came to light in 2014 during renovation work in a residential complex on the Aventine. The Roman domus, which was inhabited from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD and remodelled several times, impresses above all with its detailed mosaics and wall paintings. Then as now, it was not the poorest of Romans who lived here.
The Vatican Secret Archives, now called the Vatican Apostolic Archives, had been headed since 1997 by the Barnabite Sergio Pagano (* 1948), who was consecrated bishop in 2007. The new prefect is the Augustinian priest Rocco Ronzani (* 1978) from the ‘Augustinianum’, a patristic scholar who was previously responsible for the archives of the Italian Augustinian Province. Pagano remains in the Vatican and also becomes Assessor of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences.
The meeting of the student circles will take place in Rome again, this time focussing on the topic ‘On the Holy Year 2025: Holiness as the goal of theology and life’. The speakers will be Cardinal Kurt Koch, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, Stefan Heid, Stefan Würges, Helmut Hoping, Josef Spindelböck and Christoph Ohly. The event is open to all interested parties and will be broadcast by Radio Horeb and EWTN.
Anyone looking at Trajan's Column today will probably be delighted by the unobstructed view of the memorial to the emperor. At the time of its erection (112/113 AD), things were different, as the column was
column was surrounded by the wings of a library and the Basilica Ulpia. This created an inner courtyard, which is no longer preserved as such today.
Work has begun, particularly at the entrance and on the balustrade of the historic cemetery wall of Campo Santo Teutonico, and should be completed by November.
Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
