Valle Adurni has a picture of the Altar of the Chair in St Peter's, it has been veiled. It originally appeared on the excellent Rorate Caeli.I remember seeing the unpleasant bronze table in 1975 on my first visit to Rome and thinking it should be replaced, that has not happened yet but this is vast improvement.
Restoring to its previous form would be good, restoring the Bernini original would be even better.
9 comments:
With respect, Father, it has been better than veiled: it has been removed! What you can see is a new altar: if you follow my Rinascimento link, where the stuff originally came from, you can see the other thing hidden away behind a cupboard or something.
It is a crime that the altar was dismantled in the first place. A stain in the record of the Wojtyla pontificate, as the Rorate blog rightly points out.
Ottaviani, JPII had nothing to do with it, except he didn't have it moved to the Papal bbq site.
PinV, I was lazy and didn't follow the link many thanks.
Not having visited St Peter's it is not clear from the blog what is the original, what was the first alteration and what has now been done. And I don't read Italian. But the middle one looks horrible so I suppose it was the 1970s alteration. But where is the Bernini? And when is the altar at SMM going to be shifted back to its original position?
What a vast improvement!
Fr. Blake - so how would Cardinal Noe get the permission to take Bernini's altar apart, if he did not receive it from the Pope at the time?? Surely the Pontiff gives his "yes" or "no" to such things, especially when they are conducted in the mother church or all churches?
Ottaviani, I am sure that it was there in the time of Paul VI.
The altar it replaced was not by Bernini, that had been destroyed sometime before. I think it was to allow for the Papal Throne to be set further back, it could have been as late as 1930s.
NLM did something on it, look it up, its on the net.
Fr. Ray,
Wouldn't it be good if that splendid new altar was on caster wheels so you could release the brake and ease it up against the wall?
One of the photos of the bronze altar published at Rinascimento shows an inscription on the front edge of the mensa. The date appears to be 1980 if I am not mistaken.
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