Today I wanted to visit two of my favorite churches that feature mosaics: Santa Maria Maggiore’s for their comprehensiveness and Santa Prassede’s for their naivety and age. We are having a heatwave here and the temperature is more like July. Perfect conditions for a political rally. I happened upon this Worker’s Communist Party (PCL) who were furious about something, obviously. The polizia were out in force but as the rally took to the streets, it became a huge nightmare for drivers who, as you may know, are quite angry behind the wheel on the best of days. Let’s just say horns were honked with vigor.
Italian politics are very interesting and complicated. Italy has a multi-party system, with 5 major parties (The Five Star Movement, Lega, Democratic Party, Forza Italia, and Brothers of Italy). Then they have 38 minor parties (of which the PCL is one). Mario Draghi (aka Super Mario) is the current Prime Minister and he is actually an Independent. He’s really an economist who was brought back in 2021 because it was felt that Giuseppe Conti was not handling the COVID crisis with the correct amount of sprezzatura.
Santa Maria Maggiore is dedicated to the big M and rightly
so. How splendid. How breath-taking. Big and billowy, gilded
and graceful. It’s actually a basilica
and very classically Roman in style.
There are many chapels in the aisles on either side of the main nave and
I was fortunate enough to be there when the 11am mass was beginning. So I went to mass, surely gaining a few extra
credit points. In the crypt of the nativity,
encased in crystal, is wood from the Holy Crib.
VV!
Santa Prassede has a special place in my heart because it was here where I finally understood the intoxicating beauty and spiritual effect of mosaic. Saint Praxedes was an second century martyr who was executed (along with her sister Pudentiana) by the Romans because they were discovered to be hiding and caring for persecuted Christians, and actually even providing Christian burial for the dead.
This little church is 9TH CENTURY, guys. And it is a gem.
No pews were licked in the making of this post :)
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