Archbishop Archive

September 9, 2013

    The visit to the Archbishop Archive was a very interesting opportunity to look at artifacts from thousands of years goes. They’re where many regulations as well as important facts about the various documents and books that are kept inside this Archive.

I learned many things about the history of the contents:

• ·      1363 - the first written file about church and renovations
• ·      1095- 1545 was the years spanning a inventory

I learned about the various types thing that are to be written about as well as the types of documents that are kept:

• ·      activities
•        building
• ·      construction
• ·      inventory of the souls
• ·      every child under church and baptisms
• ·      marriages
• ·      deaths
• ·      things to be judges by the church
• ·      denouncement of people
• ·      bishop visits- every child born under church and baptisms.

The the artifacts themselves where unique:

• ·      materials to make books was not cheap because it was not paper
• ·      some made from sheep

Important points to be made about sources of historical archives:

·      important to compare

• ·      can be controversial due to discrepancies
• ·      handwriting can be hard to read

-Claire Shumaker 

A Visit to the Archeological Museum

            Walking through the three floors of the long archeological building there was a good variety of artifacts from all different periods of time. The collections included pieces from the Etruscans, Roman, Greek and Egyptian.   At the beginning of the museum the hallway was sectioned off into different excavation sites from places around Italy. This was interesting to see because they showed pictures of the location in which the artifacts where taken from. Up the stairs many their where many pieces of pottery from these various societies. The attention to detail that people put into their cups, vases, pots and such is impressive. It as if pottery is their canvas.  Artists where skilled in depicting scenes of people such as a man and a women or a battle. The amount of elaborate details as well as the materials used contribute to the pottery and the overall value of it.

            Most of the artifacts I saw where more art then practical tools. Besides pottery I saw many little miniature statues of animals and people. Things like this I thought to be toys or more just little memorabilia. There where also two rooms filled with what looked like miniature tombs. These small rectangular containers where made of stone and had a person on the top, always sitting in the same pose. Laying on his or her side with there hand draped on top of their body.  The thing is that there is barely any space inside the tombs.

-Claire Shumaker 

The Shroud of Jesus Christ

At the start of the video, it was explained that current carbon dating did not date the shroud to be old enough to be the one in which the body of Jesus Christ once laid.  Regardless of the evidence pointing towards its authenticity, I found the science of carbon dating to be far more convincing.  Further, I know that Jesus was only one of many to have been crucified and so I assumed that because of the carbon dating, it simply belonged to someone else who had been crucified much later.
Near the close of the video, they offered a reasonable explanation as to why the carbon dating did not correspond to the other evidence and I found it to be reasonable enough to prove its authenticity.  I validated my change in opinion by considering that during the rise of Christianity, neither Mary Magdalene or any of Jesus' followers would have allowed the shroud that once covered his body to by merely throw away.  I was surprised however, after it was explained that the dating of the cloth could have been altered by the many people who have handled it over the centuries, that they have not tried to date another section of the cloth.  The solution seems simple enough to settle the debate between the contrasting evidence and yet it has apparently not been done yet.

The Shroud of Turin

Very simply, Jesus of Nazareth is the biggest celebrity in history.  For centuries individuals have been in awe of his life and his story and will go to great lengths to prove or disprove his immortal qualities with paintings, stories, and books.  Being that there are so many accounts of his life that include some variation it is hard to understand the truth.  The differences begin in the recent years following His death and continue into present day.  Also, there is the possibility that details are included or excluded intentionally to persuade the reader in favor of the author.  This is why it is so hard to watch a film like The Shroud.  In the forty-five minutes of screen time that includes information that supports and opposes the cloth being the shroud used to burry Jesus Christ I was left with many questions and conflicted as to which side I believed.

Being that this course is taking an ethnocentric perspective towards Christianity and its history I was thinking about the point brought up about the shroud being a forgery.  The argument was that it was not possible for artists two-thousand years ago to forge such a complex piece.  Is that just modern artists and scientist believing that earlier cultures were too ‘primitive’ to be capable of such work?  The pollen dust was a very convincing argument for the geographic regions that the shroud had been.  Is it possible that once people believed that this cloth was left for the ‘us’ by Jesus of Nazareth not that it was discovered at the burial location that it began its journey?  The blood stains that were identified (chemically by the scientists who performed the ‘theoretical autopsy’) were left in the motion of a body in a crucified position, but if the cloth didn’t come into contact with the body until after in was taken down from the cross shouldn’t the bloodstains be pooled as such? 

This film was very interesting and gave a lot of well researched information about the shroud, but after it was finished I was left with more questions than answers.  I love the story and the idea that such an important piece of history was able to be preserved but there is still the idea in the back of my head that this was a very successful forgery created by a clever artist about a man with the most recognizable face in history - even though his face hasn’t actually been seen in over two thousand years.

The Shroud of Turin

For the second half of our class on September 16, we were able to watch a documentary on the the famous piece of cloth, The Shroud of Turin, that supposedly held Jesus' body when he was laid in his tomb. The documentary was very interesting giving a total history of the shroud. It goes on to discuss the many places it has been moved and how it had been damaged over the years. For most of the documentary, the crew is trying to figure out if the shroud can be dated back to the correct time period. In one of the segments we see how the stitching of the shroud was similar to a type used only during that time and part of the world. We also see hoe carbon 12 dating places the origin of the fabric to sometime during the middle ages. We then see how in modern times, we are as unsure as ever as to whether the Shroud of Turin is an authentic piece of Christian history.

It was intriguing to me personally to see the impact the Shroud of Turin had on the people that came into contact with it. The image portrayed on on the fabric became the iconic image of Jesus that many of us think of today. It is also a powerful image for any Christian to see the a face that could belong to founder of their religion, one of the most important people in history, and the Son of God.

Archives and Church of St. Michael

Our field trip to the Archives was interesting to say the least. We were lucky enough to see books that date back almost a thousand years ago. We were able to see the people that were baptized in which churches and where and how people died. All of these pieces of historical information was written on parchment which is still legible to this very day. There was an interesting point made that shows in terms of record keeping, we may not be as advanced as we think. These books written on parchment have lasted hundreds of years but our records can be lost forever if the power was to go out and servers shut down. Our history would be lost forever but their's would survive.

We also were able to visit the Church of St. Michael. I was very intrigued by the story of how the building used to be a market and how a fire destroyed almost everything except for an image of Mary. The building was then converted into a church. The artwork in the church was interesting as well. The mosaics on the ceiling indicated where the genders would sit. On the left side walking in were images of women of christian value and on the right side were images of men of christian value.

Archives and Piazza Duomo

Archives and Piazza Duomo

The field trip today was extremely interesting and very different than I had expected. I had absolutely no idea that we would be able to physically enter the archives and actually view the documents within the archives, documents which date back hundreds of years ago. I was fascinated by the notes that explained the visits to various churches all over Italy; in addition to all of the specific details. One detail in particular that I found particularly fascinating was that someone had recorded; by hand, every single birth, death, marriage, baptism, etc. Today, we do something similar; however, with in recent introduction of modern technology, keeping this record has gotten much easier, rather than using parchment, etc. It is interesting to look at how the documentation has changed over time but also stayed the same because it is something we still do today, nine hundred years later.

Since I have been in Florence this semester, I have traveled through Piazza del Duomo various times; however, I had not actually taken the time to stop & appreciate the beauty of the buildings; specifically, the carvings on the bell tower in addition to the carvings front of the cathedral, I had no idea each carving had a story to tell, dating back to the beginning of time. The details on the Golden Doors were magnificent. Even though the doors were a replica, and not the original done, each intricate detail was executed perfectly without fault.

To conclude our visit to Piazza del Duomo, we went to the Church of St. Michael. The beauty of the cathedral was extremely intriguing. The part that I found most interesting was that before becoming a church, it was a marketplace. Another aspect that I found fascinating while in the church was the separation between the men and women. This separation was extremely fascinating due to the fact that on the right or the male side was much more elaborate when compared to the female side, to the left. This trip was extremely enjoyable the change in perspective on the archives as they pertain to my view on Christianity.