The Legacies of Pope Pius XII

Posted on August 18, 2022 by babbityjean

Born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (1876 – 1958), Pope Pius XII became head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from March 1939 until his death.  He presided over the church during World War II and the Holocaust, and his leadership remains controversial.   While the Vatican was officially neutral during World War II, there are those who believe that he didn’t speak out strongly enough against the Nazis, and there are those who praise his behind-the-scenes work to aid the Jews and other victims of the Nazis.  The Allied Powers considered his condemnation of genocide as completely inadequate, while the Nazis viewed him as an Allied sympathizer who had violated his policy of Vatican neutrality.

Pope Pius XII saw his primary obligation during World War II as ensuring the continuation of the Church’s divine mission.  He lobbied world leaders to prevent the outbreak of war.  In his first papal encyclical issued in October 1939, he established some of the themes of his pontificate: he denounced antisemitism, war, totalitarianism, the attack on Poland and the Nazi persecution of the church.  During and after the war, he was lauded by many organizations, including many Jewish ones, for the work he had accomplished in protecting the Jews.

In the last 25 years, there have been countless books analyzing Pope Pius XII’s role during this period.  A notable account came from British author John Cornwell in his 1999 book, Hitler’s Pope, in which he claimed that the pope was weak and vacillating toward Nazism and that he subordinated his opposition to Hitler in favor of his goal of increasing the power of the Papacy.  He accused the pope of antisemitism and asserts that the pope did little to challenge the progressing Holocaust out of fear of provoking the Nazis into invading Vatican City.  Many reviews criticized the book for “errors of fact” “selective use of sources” and “ignorance of context.”  Cornwell later said that it was impossible to judge the motives for the pope’s silence during the war, “while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by Germany.”

In 2019 on the 80th anniversary of the election of Pope Pius XII, Pope Francis announced that Vatican archival material pertaining to the Pius XII’s pontificate would become available in 2020.  Many scholars applied for access to the archives, including Brown University Professor David Kertzer, who had already written The Popes Against the Jews in 2001and The Pope and Mussolini in 2014.  In his latest book published in 2022, The Pope at War,” Kertzer claims that Pius XII’s overriding dread of communism, his belief that the Axis powers would win the war, and his desire to protect the church’s interests all motivated him to avoid offending Hitler and Mussolini.  He further reveals from new archival material that a German prince and fervent Nazi acted as a secret back channel between Pius XII and Hitler, and that the pope’s top Vatican adviser on Jewish issues urged him not to protest a Fascist order to arrest, and send to concentration camps, most of Italy’s Jews.

Defenders of Pius XII (whose case for sainthood is still being evaluated) have long argued that he often spoke out to condemn the false race theory and that he worked behind the scenes to save hundreds of thousands of Jews.  In fact, the real heroes might have been the priests and the nuns who refused to hand over the desperate people they were hiding.  Many Jewish organizations found that the pope’s weak protests against Nazism actually protected the Jews from more intensified persecution.

It is difficult to wade through the arguments on both sides that surfaced during and since the war.  Some people accuse the Jews of supporting the legacy of Pius XII to try to win support for the state of Israel.  Some accuse the Catholics of criticizing the pope in an attempt to bring reform to the Vatican.  But most scholars do agree that a more nuanced portrait of the papacy is emerging.  With millions of pages in the Vatican archives, it will take years to process the findings.  In the meantime, Pope Francis must wrestle with how forcefully to condemn a dictator like Vladimir Putin of Russia and the ultimate cost of staying silent about mass killings.

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Laocoönte e i suoi figli

Posted on August 11, 2022 by babbityjean

Una delle opere più ammirate della statuaria ellenistica è Il Gruppo del Laocoönte, un’antica scultura in marmo rinvenuta nei pressi di Roma nel 1506 ed esposta al pubblico ai Musei Vaticani. Le figure sono quasi a grandezza naturale, infatti l’opera, alta più di due metri, rappresenta il sacerdote troiano Laocoönte e i suoi figli Antifante e Timbreo mentre vengono attaccati dai serpenti marini. Con i suoi corpi in lotta e tesi, e le espressioni facciali contorte, la statua esemplifica l’agonia umana e la tragedia sublime.

Plinio il Vecchio, uno dei principali scrittori romani, elogiò molto l’opera, che attribuì a tre scultori greci di Rodi – Agesandro, Atenodoro e Polidoro – senza precisare una data o un mecenate. Oggi non è noto se Il gruppo di Laocoönte sia un’opera originale o una copia di una precedente scultura in bronzo. Sono state suggerite varie date, ma la maggior parte degli studiosi pensa che sia stata creata tra il 27 a.C. e il 68 d.C.

La storia di Laocoönte la ritroviamo nei poemi greci sulle guerre di Troia, ma gli eventi intorno all’attacco dei serpenti variano notevolmente. La storia non è affatto menzionata da Homer; era stata oggetto di una tragedia di Sofocle, andata perduta. Il racconto più famoso è riportato da Virgilio nell’Eneide.

Nell’Eneide, Laocoönte era il sacerdote di Poseidone, ucciso con entrambi i suoi figli dopo aver tentato di smascherare lo stratagemma del cavallo di Troia. Per Sofocle era il sacerdote di Apollo che avrebbe dovuto essere celibe, ma si era sposato. I serpenti uccisero i figli ma risparmiarono Laocoönte, lasciandolo soffrire. In altre versioni, fu ucciso per aver fatto sesso con la moglie nel tempio di Poseidone, e i serpenti furono inviati da Poseidone. Nelle prime versioni, i serpenti erano inviati o da Poseidone e da Atena, o da Apollo; i Troiani interpretarono le morti come una prova che il cavallo era un oggetto sacro. Le interpretazioni sono diverse: o Laocoönte è stato punito per aver sbagliato, o per aver ragione. 

È interessante notare che i due serpenti raffigurati nella scultura mordono e stringono i tre uomini; probabilmente sono destinati ad essere velenosi, come racconta Virgilio. Producono effetti diversi sulle tre figure: il giovane avvolto dalle spire è impaurito, il padre azzannato dal serpente è tormentato, e il figlio preso dal morso velenoso sta morendo. In un racconto greco, il figlio maggiore a destra riesce a scappare e la composizione sembra consentire tale possibilità.

Il Gruppo del Laocoönte ebbe una profonda influenza su Michelangelo e su innumerevoli altri artisti che lo seguirono. Michelangelo rimase colpito dall’enorme scala dell’opera e dalla sua sensuale estetica. L’influenza dell’opera su Michelangelo la possiamo notare sulle sculture, lo Schiavo Ribelle e lo Schiavo Morente, create per la tomba di papa Giulio II e su alcune raffigurazioni presenti nella Cappella Sistina. Raffaello usò il volto di Laocoönte per la sua rappresentazione di Omero nell’affresco del Parnaso nelle Stanze del Vaticano, esprimendo cecità piuttosto che dolore. Anche Tiziano e Rubens trassero ispirazione dalla scultura.

Durante il periodo barocco a Firenze, nel 1700, si ebbe un intenso interesse per le piccole copie in bronzo di celebri antichità. Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652 – 1725), artista noto per la piccola statuaria in bronzo, realizzò una copia in bronzo di Laocoönte e dei suoi figli, di cui almeno uno è esposto al Getty Museum di Los Angeles.

Tra le incognite sull’origine di questa statua c’è il suo patrono. Gli storici dell’arte ritengono che sia stato probabilmente commissionato per la casa di un ricco romano, forse di famiglia imperiale. Per i romani l’argomento aveva un significato particolare: la punizione divina inflitta a Laocoönte e ai suoi figli preannunciava ad Enea la futura caduta di Troia. e lo fece fuggire dalla città. Così Enea, secondo il mito, fuggì dalla città e si mise alla ricerca di una terra, insieme al padre Anchise.  Approdato in Italia, fondò Roma. E fu progenitore anche di Romolo e Remo.  La morte di Laocoönte può essere vista come il primo anello di una catena di eventi che portarono alla fondazione di Roma.

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Laocoön and his Sons

Posted on August 11, 2022 by babbityjean

One of the most admired works of Hellenistic statuary is The Laocoön Group, an ancient marble sculpture unearthed near Rome in 1506 and on public display at the Vatican Museums.  The figures are nearly life-size, and the group stands 6’7” in height, showing the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.  With its struggling and straining bodies and contorted facial expressions, the statue exemplifies human agony and sublime tragedy.

Pliny the Elder, a foremost Roman author on art among other accomplishments, praised the work highly, which he attributed to three Greek sculptors from Rhodes– Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus– but he does not give a date or a patron.  It is not known today whether The Laocoön Group is an original work or is a copy of an earlier bronze sculpture.  Various dates have been suggested, but most scholars think it was created between 27 BC and 68 AD.

The story of Laocoön comes from Greek poems on the Trojan Wars, but the events around the attack by the serpents vary considerably.  The story is not mentioned by Homer at all; it had been the subject of a tragedy by Sophocles, which is now lost.  The most famous account is in Virgil’s Aeneid.

In Virgil, Laocoön was Poseidon’s priest who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse.  In Sophocles, he was Apollo’s priest who should have been celibate but had married.  The serpents killed the sons but spared Laocoön so that he would continue to suffer.  In other versions, he was killed for having had sex with his wife in the temple of Poseidon, and the snakes were sent by Poseidon.  In the former versions, the snakes were sent either by Poseidon and Athena, or by Apollo; the Trojans interpreted the deaths as proof that the horse was a sacred object.  The interpretations are different:  Either Laocoön was punished for doing wrong, or for being right.

It is interesting to note that the two snakes depicted in the sculpture are both biting and constricting; they are probably intended to be venomous, as told by Virgil.  They produce different effects on the three figures: the youth embraced in the coils is fearful, the father struck by the fangs is in torment, and the son who received the poison is dying.  In one Greek account of the story, the older son on the right is able to escape, and the composition seems to allow for that possibility.

The Laocoön Group had a profound influence on Michelangelo and countless other artists who followed.  Michelangelo was impressed by the massive scale of the work and by its sensuous aesthetic.  Its influence can be seen in his sculptures, the Rebellious Slave and the Dying Slave, which were created for the tomb of Pope Julius II, and on figures in the Sistine Chapel ceiling.  Raphael used the face of Laocoön for his depiction of Homer in his Parnassus fresco in the Vatican’s Raphael Rooms, expressing blindness rather than pain.  Titian and Rubens also drew inspiration from the sculpture.

During the Baroque period in Florence in the 1700s, there was an intense interest in small bronze copies of famous antiquities.  Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652 – 1725), an artist renowned for small bronze statuary, created a bronze replica of Laocoön and his Sons, at least one of which is on display at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Among the unknowns about the origin of this statue is its patron.  Art historians think it was probably commissioned for the home of a wealthy Roman, possibly of the Imperial family.  For the Romans, the subject held a special meaning: the divine punishment meted out to Laocoön and his sons forewarned Aeneas of the fall of Troy and, according to the myth, caused him to flee the city.  Since Aeneas was believed to have come to Italy and to have been the ancestor of Romulus and Remus, the death of Laocoön could be seen as the first link in the chain of events that led to the founding of Rome.

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