Church of St. Peter in Vincoli
We started the day with a visit to this non-tourist spot which holds Michaelangelo's statue of Moses. It is the only site we have been at that was relative tourist-free.
Although Michaelangelo portrayed rays of light emanating from Moses' head, too often these emanations have been interpreted as "the horns of the Jews." It is a magnificent statue that inspired us in our first study session on the Church's relationship with the Jews of Italy.
Group Study Session
The Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel
Along with throngs of tourists, virtually elbow to elbow, we toured the various Vatican Museums for the remainder of the morning. They are overwhelming!!!!! Every corner of every room, every wall, every ceiling is filled with statues, tapestries, frescoes, paintings, and more! After 30 minutes your mind becomes numb and it is difficult to differentiate one thing from another.
Perhaps part of the "mind numbing" is caused by my lack of affinity to the stories in the tapestries and the history of the statuary and paintings. It is not my story I am seeing, but rather that of a Church that has at times supported and at times suppressed the Jews. When we came to objects related to that part of the history I definitely perked up. After viewing the museums, we were (literally) herded into the Sistine Chapel. Here we stood packed in like cattle, told to be silent by recorded voices, and given about 10 minutes to appreciate the incredible painted ceiling by Michaelangelo. It was not a pleasant experience, nor one I would care to repeat.
Meeting with Zion Efrony, Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican
After lunch we had a meeting scheduled with the Israeli Ambassador the the Vatican, Mr. Zion Efrony. After a typical Israeli security clearance (thorough, thorough, thorough), including questioning of Haim for many minutes by the head of security, we were allowed into the building that houses two ambassadors, one to the Vatican and one to the Italian government. No backpacks or cameras were allowed anywhere near us - everything was confiscated and taken to a separate room. We were ushered to the conference room (which appears to be a "safe room" with a door at least 4 inches thick) and after Mr. Efrony's assistant answered a handful of questions, the Ambassador came in. He was soft-spoken and gentle in his demeanor, but very charming, humorous, and forthright in his answers to our many questions about Israel's early and current relationship with Israel. In particular, he spoke openly about Israel's stance on the Vatican's recognition of the "State of Palestine" and what that means for Israel. Unfortunately, in order to make our next appointmen at the Papal Library, we had to leave after about 45 minutes. Ambassador Efrony was generous in his time and honest in his replies. I felt particularly connected to this event since my (newly discovered) cousin Neville Lamdan had assisted Haim in planning this visit. Neville,a former Ambassador from Israel to the Vatican, is one of founders of the Institute for Jewish Genealogy in Israel. He found me through the work I was doing on Ancestry.com to trace my mother's mother's family, the Cantors.
Return to Vatican and the Papal Library
Our last stop on the already overfilled day was a special presentation in the Papal Library that Haim, our tour leader, arranged after months of negotiation with Dr. Adelbert Roth, Director of Printed Materials at the Papal Library. The main issue of the negotiations was that our group was larger than the maximum size of 20 that the library will accommodate in a special viewing. The Papal Library is a private library of the Vatican, separate from the Vatican Archives. It has little to no funding and desparately needs additional space to house the collection of ancient to modern manuscripts, musical scores, chants, books, documents, etc. Some of the collection is catalogued, but a large portion has not ever been, so the library really does not know what they own. Scholars (of any religion or country) may apply to do research in the library, but it is not open to the public. The fact that our group was given an extensive tour and lectures about the library is a testament to the genius and persistance of our leader, Haim Aronovitz.
In addition to seeing many aspects of the library, Dr. Roth asked his colleague Dr. Proverbio to select items for a special exhibit just for our group. I felt like I had reached heaven. I have always loved books - the feel, the smell, the history, the stories that each text may tell through who has read it. I'm on the Board of the Friends and Foundation of the Rochester Public Library and try to visit libraries whenever we travel. But this was beyond anything I had imagined!! We saw:
- an illuminated Pentateuch (1st 5 books of the Bible) from northern Italy between 1477 and 1495 that once belonged to the library of Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689).
- "Commentaries on Isaiah and the Minor Prophets" by Abraham Ibn Ezra from northern Italy in the early 15th Century
- a Qur'an in Hebrew Characters with an interlinear Latin translation from Spain around 1400
-a magnificent illuminated page illustrating a shechita (ritual animal slaughter) scene from the
The Four Pillars, a halakhic code composed by Jacob b. Aher from the 13th century
- "Midrash Bereshit," the oldest expositional Midrash (commentary) on Genesis from Italy in the late 11th century
and the real highlight for me . . .
- "Torah Kohanim," an early Midrash (commentary) on Leviticus with superlinear Babylonian vocalization from Iraq in the late 9th Century.
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