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Patrick's Travelogue
My appreciation for art, for the most part, is limited to my preference for the 'Wish You Were Here' album cover as opposed to the one for 'Dark Side of The Moon'. Most people can accept art as something that is peripherally important to the growth of civilization. But beyond that is usually the silent understanding that, in the modern world, art is something that you do if you aren't good at anything worthwhile, or don't mind living on the dole. Insofar as the art world's immediate impact; you can be told by friends, family, teachers and historians that a certain item or structure is impressive. You can read it in this article. But really, until you see it for yourself, you have no idea.
There is a room in the Vatican Museum dedicated to the Roman Emperor Constantine. Only one of many men to have presided over the Roman Empire, Constantine bears the distinction of being the only one of them with his own room in the Vatican's vast network of palaces.
The frescos that cover every inch of wall space in the room give a pictographic representation of Constantine's contributions to the church. Only by standing in the middle of the room, usually surrounded with tourists, flashing cameras and murmuring voices, can a viewer really absorb the images around him: 360º of carnage. On the first wall, Constantine is seen kneeling, gifting the whole of Italy to the Pope and the Catholic Church. And in the rest, he and his army can be seen solidifying the pact; riding into battle; impaling Saracens on the tips of their lances.
Constantine was the Emperor that brought Christianity to Rome. He was born a pagan, though I suspect he could really have given a s*** about religion. But he saw the upstart Christians, recognized a winning horse, and put his money on the table. It was a decision that would ensure the survival of his empire for hundreds of years to come and solidify his place in history.
I stood in that room for a long time, taking in the highly detailed and delightfully gruesome battle scenes. That was my kind of art. Constantine rode into battle wearing gold armor, escorted by a pair or archangels with flaming swords. The pagans pretty much just dropped dead in his path. Chaotic, colorful, visceral; I loved it. It would have been easy to get lost in all of that and never bother to take in the final chapter of the story. The ceiling panel is something that is often overlooked; likely due to its simplicity, which is simply drowned out by the visual cacophony that surrounds it.
The ceiling panel is of a simple crucifix sitting atop a marble column in the middle of an expansive gray room. At the foot of the column is the shattered sculpture of pagan deity. That was the first time of many that Christianity would see her enemies crushed and broken at her feet.
1,700 years after Constantine's death, the repercussions of the victory that he scored on behalf of Christianity are staggering in scale. The Constantine Room itself is nestled in the heart of the Holy See, the Catholic Church's sovereign nation-state. Beyond that is the 2,800 year old city of Rome and its roughly 2,000,000 Catholics. To totally understand the Church's strength, we would need to take our view several hundred miles higher, until we could see the whole of the planet and its 1 billion Catholics.
I stood in that tiny little room, craned my head back, stared upward and just gawked -- like a child staring at the stars and, for the first time, appreciating the grandiosity of what he was seeing.
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