From Constantinople to Rome: the bronze door of St Paul Outside the Walls and the fragment in the Museum of the Palazzo Venezia

CYCLE: Reintegrations
SPEAKER: Alessandro Tomei
DATE: Thursday 13 February, 6 pm

Miraculously escaping the fire that devastated the basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls on the Via Ostiense in 1823, the bronze door that still closes the Holy Door from the inside is part of the conspicuous group of bronze doors made in Constantinople and destined to decorate some of the most significant monuments in central-southern Italy. Executed in 1070 by Theodoros and Staurachios, commissioned by Pantaleone di Amalfi and Ildebrando di Soana, the future Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085), the door consists of 54 panels depicting Stories from the Life of Christ, Prophets, Apostles with scenes of their martyrs. A fragment of the Pentecost scene is part of the collections of the Venice Palace Museum.

At the end of the meeting, the exhibition of the fragment of the Byzantine door from the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls will be inaugurated in the Sala Altoviti of Palazzo Venezia.

Alessandro Tomei is Professor of Medieval Art History at the ‘G. D'Annunzio’ University of Chieti-Pescara. He has taught Medieval Art History and History of the Miniature at the School of Specialisation in Medieval and Modern Art History at the ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome and Medieval and Modern Art History at the University of L'Aquila. Since 2020, he has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence.

Free admission subject to availability.

Reservations at the link.