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| The Colosseum |
Two of my
visits to Rome have been organized tours, but it’s still possible to find
something special, something unplanned.
Opting out of a
visit to some catacombs, I decided to explore a nearby church. The 17th century Chiesa
di Santa Maria delle Piante (Church of St
Mary in Palmis) is a small church with
few windows and little to attract the eye of the casual tourist. A slab of
marble on the floor, protected by a grill, looks mildly interesting. There’s
also a bust of a very serious looking chap.
The church has another name. It’s also known as Chiesa
del Domine Quo Vadis (literally, the Church of ‘Lord, Where Are You
Going?’) and is one of the most important churches within the Catholic faith.
The church itself is located on the site where St Peter is said to have had a
vision of the risen Christ, while fleeing persecution in Rome. He asks Christ,
‘Lord, where are you going?’
The footprints were
a copy of a slab that’s now in the nearby Basilica di San Sebastiano and
are said to have been miraculously left by Jesus. It’s those feet that give the
church its name – palmis being the soles of Jesus’ feet.
And what of
that bust? The plaque beneath the sculpture mentioned ‘Premio Nobel’ and
‘Autore’. A little research revealed that it commemorated Polish writer
Henryk Sienkiewicz – author of Quo Vadis – and that he was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature (1905) for his ‘outstanding merits as an epic writer’.
