April 29, 2012

• Santa Maria Della Vittoria

  I tried not to drag the family to too many museums and churches. And if we did go to one, I tried to make it a short stop. One place I did want to go was to the church that housed The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. I am not sure if it was reading in the guide books or Rick Steves’ DVD or just my own wondering made me want to go.  So, we found the church and went in.

  

   

  It was a standard church, not very big, with lots of gold, paintings on the ceiling, and such.

     

   

  There was another sculpture there I liked. It’s not often you see sculptors combine marble and Christmas lights. 

  

  Still, I liked it. 

  We spent a lot of time doing this in every church we went to.

  

   

  Now, for what I came to see. First, a bit about St. Teresa of Avila. (There is a well-written and quirky biography of her at http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=208.) She’s the patron saint of headache sufferers and Spanish Catholic writers. (Grammarian wonders if there should be a comma there. Writers who are Spanish and Catholic? Or writers who are “Spanish Catholic”? The website I found was comma-less.)   She was born in Spain in 1515. Like the rest of us, she struggled with worldly temptation and longed to be closer to God. After a long while (like 20 plus years!), she began to have “delights” from God. Her friends and fellow workers thought this was from the devil. But as she said,  ”If these effects [peace, inspiration, and encouragement] are not present I would greatly doubt that the raptures come from God; on the contrary I would fear lest they be caused by rabies.” She had one vision of an angel repeatedly driving a golden spear into her heart. She said of it, “I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire wth a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it…”

  And that is what Bernini sculpted.

             

  There was a lot of criticism of this work because her expression seems rather sexual.  But then again, Saint Teresa herself had a heap of criticism over her visions and “delights,” so it only seems fitting that a sculpture in her honor should as well. I think Bernini expected this, as to the right of the statue, he sculpted these guys. 

  

  Marble men do not approve of Saint Teresa’s ecstasy. 

  The construction of this was interesting. Bernini put yellow glass in the skylight to make the light seem more golden. The statue is of a single piece of marble, and the gold rays are stucco that was gilded.

   

   

   

   

  • 7:20 am
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