African Teacher

The beautiful church of S. Zeno Maggiore in Verona celebrates the city’s patron saint. Zeno came from North Africa, and the sculpture in the church shows him to be dark skinned with distinctive facial features. As the biography of Augustine makes clear, Italy and Africa were of course closely connected during the Roman Empire, so it makes fine sense that an African would lead the church in northern Italy. Still, given the current hostility towards African refugees, the story and sculpture’s presence does seem marvelous.

Struck with the grandeur of the church and the enigma of Zeno himself, I started reading up on the bishop once I returned from Italy. Studying is my way of extending the loveliness of travelling in Italy. The sensual wonder of great architecture reverberates in the tomes that describe its inhabitants and namesake.

Zeno preached in Verona during the period we would now recognize as the transition where the Roman Empire became Christian. Emperor Constantine’s conversion set a slow process in motion whereby the old temples were phased out. Reports from 332 and 346 indicate that temples were being demolished and taken over, however Constantine continued to appoint priests. Constantine passed a law banning offerings and closing temples on pain of death, however the law was rarely enforced. His successors Gratien and Theodosius were more energetic in confiscating temples and redirecting religious taxes for the military. For the state the appeal of taking over old houses of worship must have been similar to the motives felt by Protestant princes during the Reformation—suddenly a wealthy, well-landed institution falls into the hands of the government.
Zeno’s collecting sermons cover the decade around 360, a time when pagans still worshipped openly and proudly.

From his sermons you get a sense of the domestic life in the early Church in Verona.

The treatment of women in Christianity distinguished it from pagan practices. One of Zeno’s sermons deals with the question of adultery. Under Roman law only women were subject to judgment for breaking their marriage vows. Christianity introduces the possibility that women could publically object to their husbands having other sexual partners. Constantine had introduced a law forbidding married men from holding concubines in 326. Zeno preached that Christian laws were needed to punish adulterous men. He assures his audience that in his Christian community women would have the same standing as men.

Another issue for the Christian church at the time was the marriage between Christians and pagans. Church fathers acknowledged that in previous times Christians had married outside their religion, but they warned that those who did so were throwing the bones of Christ to the unbelievers, opening the temple of Gods to the devil. Zeno also preached in this vein, drawing tears to his eyes at the thought that in his community Christians were married to pagans. If a Christian wife refuses to accept her pagan husband’s beliefs, the house will be filled strife, God’s name cursed. If she does not respect his gods, will he understand her reserve as just a matter of faith?

Zeno warned that there were many pagan rituals in early Christianity. Church goers would still go out at night to pour libations over graves in order to satisfy the dead. Christians claiming to celebrate martyrs festivals would find a secluded place to hold a drinking bacchanal.

The sermons reflect the competition between sects and religions in the Roman Empire. He preaches against Jews as no longer being the chosen people, as blind. Andreas Bigelmeier writes frankly about the anti-semitism of the early church. The most serious conflict however was with the followers of the priest Arius of Alexandria, who taught that Jesus Christ was not equal in divinity with God the Father, but that he was the First Creation, a supernatural being between the eternally divine and the mortal. Arianism split the early church; it was far and away the most serious challenge to its teaching. As Christianity grew, the large masses that converted did not have the same intense devotion and rigorous understanding of doctrine as the first generations of believers. Zeno responded to the charge that he was too mild in reproaching heretics.

He preached against the excessive wealth of Christians in contrast to their neighbors who starved and froze during the winter. Like many, he used the familiar example of the wealthy Christian woman who spent much of the day in front of her mirror, applying makeup and arranging her hair. His sermons against luxury must not have been successful, for he returns to the topic often. He celebrated the Christian ideal of serving the unfortunate, ransoming the imprisoned, aiding the poor and the abandoned. The doors of Christian house stood open to the wanderer. The Verona church gathered every day to Zeno’s sermons. Easter was the most important holiday, the culmination of the year, for included by baptismal celebrations.

Best source on Zeno, so far: Andreas Bigelmeier, Zeno von Verona (Münster: Aichendorfflichen Verlag, 1904)
picture found at http://santiebeati.it/immagini/?dispsize=Original&mode=view&album=49300&pic=49300E.JPG

Forgotten Tyrannts

The most impressive church in Verona was originally built outside the city walls—S. Zeno, an imposing Romanesque structure. It is but a short walk from the city center, even on a hot day without a map it takes less than an hour. The high sweeping doors are covered in bronze reliefs depicting scenes from the life of Christ, many of which date back to the thirteenth century.

Inside is an imposing space. The nave is cool and wide, filled with enigmatic historic knights performing the sacred and the profane. The guide book will give a name to some of the knights and you have to take their word on the attribution, for it is not always clear who is doing exactly what in some of the scenes, but you come away with a clear sense that the church is a repository for important political events. It is easy to see that the abbey had long been a favored resting place for German emperors passing down from the Alps into the turmoil of Italian city state rivalry.

Today, in the piazza outside the S.Zeno there is a small market that sells socks and fruits. If you walk across the sun-filled place to a row of trees on the far side, you can find a café where old men have all found their shady seat to drink wine in the afternoon. If they may have left one table free, it is basking in the sun. The struggle between light and shade is all that occupies the piazza now, but if you sip your drink and stare across the plaza, you can easily believe that in 1238 the medieval emperor Frederick II celebrated the marriage of his natural daughter, Selvaggia, to Ezzelino da Romano in this place.

Ezzelino was a rising political power whom the emperor needed to court in his attempt to assert control over Italy. At the time of the wedding Ezzelino was not yet the hated tyrant , infamous for his cruel treatment of enemies, despised by an army of exiles, excommunicated by the Pope, and denounced in the vilest terms available to medieval Christianity. Dante imagines him in a river of boiling blood receiving his just punishment along with other tyrants. Ezzelino was notorious for burying his enemies in castle dungeons, sometimes bricking over the cells as the inmates pleaded for bread and water. His vicious nature grew with his power. If a castle’s defenders resisted his siege, he would have their eyes put out once he captured the place. Jacob Burkhardt opens is masterful book, Civilization of the Italian Renaissance, with the stark contrast between Ezzelino, the vicious usurper, and the worldly emperor Frederick.

As you sit before S. Zeno, you can think how the marriage between Ezzelino and Selvaggia unfolded across six days of feasting on the piazza. We don’t know much about Selvaggia other than that she was the described as the emperor’s beloved natural (i.e. illegitimate) daughter. Some years later, after Ezzelino was strong enough not to need the emperor’s approval, he married another. In footnotes, historians debate what became of Selvaggia . Ezzelino, we know for certain, was eventually caught exposed without many troops in a running battle outside Milan. Wounded in his foot, he died in prison. Verona, like many other cities in the region, declared a holiday upon receiving the news of Ezzelino’s death, at the time it was announced that the city’s freedom should be forever celebrated on that day. One wonders if it is still so remembered.

Photo taken from Wikepdia commons

Where to stay in Verona

A Germanist in Italy

The Hotel Aurora is located in the heart of the old city, directly on Piazza Erbe, as central to the loveliness Verona offers as humanly possible. Fairly priced with a friendly and helpful staff, this small hotel provides a delicious breakfast buffet, has a shady balcony for evenings overlooking the Piazza. Most impressively, the rooms have air conditioning, crucial in the summertime for over-heated tourists.

http://www.hotelaurora.biz/indexGB.htm