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Stpetersbasilica.info sat down with art historian Elizabeth Lev in
Rome. She has written extensively about the Vatican and Rome and
been interviewd by numerous media outlets. She can be found
online at www.elizabeth-lev.com
Elizabeth
Lev's road to reversion began with Dante, passed through Caravaggio
and ended with Michelangelo. After studying Renaissance art at
University of Chicago and doing graduate work at University of
Bologna in Baroque art, in 1996 she moved to Rome, where the
intersection of the sacred and the beautiful opened her eyes to
greater and deeper meaning in art. Elizabeth presently teaches art
history at Duquesne University's Italian campus, including a survey
of Christian art in Rome, a course of her own design. She also
writes for Inside the Vatican and has been
a regular contributor to Zenit
news agency.
stpetersbasilica.info
How did you end up in Rome?
Elizabeth
Lev
I came to Italy in 1989, after I finished my undergraduate degree
at the University of Chicago, to go to school at the University
of Bologna because I was interested in the way the Italians taught
art. That means that as opposed to the University of Chicago where
I was taught a very formal vision of art, in Italy it was all about
the context and meaning of art, and most importantly the placement
of a piece of art. So at a certain point I realized that there was
only so much I could ever really understand by reading books and
looking at slides and that everything would be different when I
stood in front of the work. I came to Rome and stood in front of
Caravaggio in the Contarelli Chapel in St. Luigi dei Franchesi and
understood how the paintings worked around the altar. When I went
to St. Peter's and looked at the Pieta and realized how the work
was to be around an altar, a whole new world of meaning in art opened
up for me. And so I can't really go back to slides and books.
stpetersbasilica.info
What attracted you initially to St. Peter's Basilica?
Elizabeth
Lev
The history
of my understanding of Catholicism is through the artwork in Rome,
and it's between Caravaggio and Michelangelo. So it's the Sistine
Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, and the few places that contain Caravaggio's
work. What drove me to St. Peter's was that once I got beyond this
formal discussion of the balance, the symmetry and order of the
works of art, there seemed to be something left in the discussion.
It seemed to me over the years, St. Peter's has revealed itself
to me slowly, but always with the promise that there is more coming.
You see how the work of Bernini reveals the interaction of the Holy
Spirit throughout the church. When Bernini is working in St. Peter's
he's trying to make us understand the presence of the Holy Spirit.
When Michelangelo's in the church, he's trying to give us more of
the physical presence of God. So the way that art and history, and
this sacredness of place all work together, provides just a constant
draw to St. Peter's.
stpetersbasilica.info
Any personal experiences in St. Peter's that you'd like to share?
Elizabeth
Lev
St. Peter's is the site of my reversion I'd have to say. I grew
up Catholic but I left the church with such a door-slamming, bridge-burning
attitude that if you'd have told me that when I was 25 that one
day all I would ever want to do is go into St. Peter's and talk
about God, I would have slapped you silly probably. So I think that
the moment for me, like many, many other people, was when I went
to St. Peter's during the year 2000, except during the year 2000
I was going for work. And I just saw it as work. During the course
of that blessed year, under our magnificent Pope, St. Peter's began
to mean more to me. And I think in that year the moment that stands
out, and every time that I'm in there I look at the statue of St.
Peter, I remember two priest friends of mine who had taken me to
do a lot of tours with their benefactors and their friends, and
they never really pushed me to live out more of the religious end
of the tour. So they would pray here or stop for the Blessed Sacrament
there, and I would do the talking about the art. I remember toward
the close of Jubilee Year 2000 when I was pointing out the statue
of St. Peter, and the line of people touching the foot. I was saying
that this is what the pilgrims do when they thank Peter for the
safe journey here, and it's their way of showing that you've finally
come to St. Peter's for your indulgence, and these two big 6 foot
priests boxed me in on either side and they walked me over in a
way that I really could not move away without screaming or yelling,
and they took my hand and they put it on St. Peter's foot. Within
a few months the whole situation of my life had changed so that
I was really free to go back to the church. I've had a lot of wonderful
experiences in St. Peter's. I've seen a lot of interesting things
in St. Peter's that people don't get to see, done a lot of really
cool things in St. Peter's, but to me the most important moment
in St. Peter's was when my soul was saved.
stpetersbasilica.info
Do you have
a favorite work of art in the basilica?
Elizabeth
Lev
My favorite work of art changes every couple of years. I'm afraid
I'm something of a 'donna mobile', or fickle in my tastes in St.
Peter's. There are periods when I find that Bernini's exploration
of the Holy Spirit between the canopy and the Chair of St. Peter
is utterly fascinating. At times I enjoy discussing Bernini's monument
to Alexander VII and the idea of the good death. There are moments
when the anthropomorphic element of the dome and the apses captivate
me. Right now I'm really taken with the architecture of the dome
and how Michelangelo inserted a cushion of light between the dome
and the church by opening up all those windows, so that the dome
seems like it's floating. In this particular period I've taken to
referring to it as Michelangelo's greatest gift to the church. Because
it was a gift. He took no money for it, he donated it for the glory
of God and the salvation of his soul. Sometimes I like to go through
the papal monuments and talk about the different periods of the
papacy. The way that Pius VII on his monument the crown seems so
heavy, and the mantle seems so big, and it was a tough papacy for
him. Then you look at a Medici pope with his jaunty crown, and then
you see Alexander VII without his tiara kneeling in prayer, it recounts
different moments in the history of the papacy. The Pieta will always
mean the world to me. The Pieta is probably the work that first
opened my eyes to how much the sacred and liturgical aspect affects
a work art. That was the work that I really understood that I had
to throw out 60 percent of what I had been taught in college, and
that I had to do it all over again. You're looking at things through
a very different lenses.
stpetersbasilica.info
Anything that
you'd like to see changed at St Peter's?
Elizabeth
Lev
I think St. Peter's is a church designed to grow. It's a church
that has been expecting vast numbers of pilgrims. I think that we
have hit a tremendous number of pilgrims at this point, and then
in our new post September 11 world there are elements of the basilica
that are very different from the one I knew a few years ago. I used
to go to daily Mass at St. Peter's, but now that it's such a pain
to get in to St. Peter's I can't bring myself to go to daily Mass
there anymore. I think St. Peter's is going to have to deal a bit
with the growing pains of being so big with so many people. This
idea of having so many people in the church; is it a museum, is
it a church, what is its function, how does it treat visitors. I
think St. Peter's is doing an admirable job, but I still think we
have some time to go before there is a real ease with the flow of
people and the purpose of that flow, because over 50 percent of
these people are tourists. Another thing that I would not mind having
changed are those statues that they put outside in the niches. For
those I'm sure they have a perfectly good warehouse that could be
lined up.
stpetersbasilica.info
Can you tell
me some of the other things that you're involved with?
Elizabeth
Lev
I live a very Roman life, and all good Romans have four or five
different jobs that keep the easily distracted people in the Eternal
City busy. Right now I'm working with a couple of Catholic colleagues
from the tour company that I worked with for many years, to put
together an organization to do sacred tours of the city. Of course
we'll cover St. Peter's and the Vatican, but we'd like to show pilgrims
that from 500 to 1870 Rome was a papal city, and that the pope was
part of Rome. The Christian presence of Rome shaped this town, you
can see that everywhere, especially with the movement of Christian
churches into the city. And realize that the whole history of Christianity---
the struggle with the pagan empire, the triumph over paganism, and
its development into the Catholic center of the world, it's all
there in the basilicas, fountains and piazzas. After 1870 and the
separation of the papal states and the Italian state, part of the
city has became more and more a series of tourist monuments. So
it's like a larger version of what going on at St. Peter's, because
people think of St. Peter's as a museum and not as a church. And
so we'd like to remind them that Rome carries the imprint of 2,000
years of the followers of Christ. The city of Rome is a series of
sites where St. Peter's chains were kept, where he was imprisoned,
where he left Rome and encountered Christ and where he first found
the place to stay when he came to Rome. It's
the site of the first church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the
west, and the beginning of our Marian devotion. It's all in here,
but we don't look at it that way any more. We don't even look at
the way the fountains of Rome, that were being built by all the
popes, are part of that sense of cleansing and have that memory
of baptism. So clearly I'm getting very sidetracked into what is
my new pet project of presenting the Christian element of Rome through
its clear Christian window.
I'm writing
a book, which is a biography of one of the few women I've ever heard
of who was as busy as I am, Caterina Riario Sforza who lived in
the 1460's to early 1500's, and was not just witness to the events
here but also protagonist in some of the most dramatic moments in
Italy. Somewhere in there I try to do decent job of raising my children
and transmitting my love of our city to them.
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