Quo Vadis

This tale from the life of St Peter is recorded in the collection of legends written down by Jacobus a Voragine in the 13th century. It tells how the apostle, having triumphed over Simon Magus, was persuaded by the Christians of Rome to leave town. Jacobus a Voragine relates how Peter encountered Christ on the Appian way and asked “Quo vadis domine” (Whither goest thou, master?), to which Christ replied “To Rome, to be crucified anew.”

This apocryphal legend is in fact the beginning of Peter’s own martyrdom. This would certainly explain the vigorous movements in Carracci’s painting, with the apostle recoiling in terror. It is not the unexpected encounter with the risen Christ that has taken the apostle aback, but his awareness of his own human frailty. Annibale’s magnificent rhetoric reminds the spectator of Christ’s call to turn back.

The viewer is on the Appian Way with Peter, or rather, is Peter meeting Christ. The foot of the cross protrudes from the panel, Christ’s hand points outwards, and the shadows he casts attest to his corporeality as he strides toward us. While Peter’s left foot remained in place, the rest of the figure was altered during painting, drawn back to the right edge of the panel in an attitude half-way between terror and obeisance, more deeply felt than his earlier pose but also making room for our implied presence. Firm contours delimit Christ’s athletic bo,dy, yet its internal modelling is subtly lifelike, rippling with the movement of muscles and the angle at which surfaces catch the light. It is obvious that this figure was based on a live model, for his hands and lower legs are more sunburnt than his torso and thighs, although the face he turns to Peter is an idealised mask of pathos under the crown of thorns. Despite the dual sources of light from the background and in the foreground, the same sun seems to warm sky, trees, fields and Roman temples, and the crimson, white, gold and blue draperies, the metal keys, the youthful and the aged flesh and the chestnut and grizzled hair of the two wayfarers at the crossroads between time and eternity.

From website: http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/carracci/annibale/2/quovadis.html

About Annibale Carracci http://www.wga.hu/bio/c/carracci/annibale/biograph.html

The Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis is located on the spot where tradition says Saint Peter had a vision of the risen Christ while fleeing persecution in Rome. According to the tradition, Peter asked Jesus:

Domine, quo vadis? – Lord, where are you going?

And Jesus answered:

Eo Romam iterum crucifigi – I go to Rome to be crucified anew.

This convinced Peter to turn around and face martyrdom in Rome.

The Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis is on the Appian way (Via Appia), about 800 m from the St. Sebastian Gate (Porta San Sebastiano), where the Via Ardeatina branches off the Appian way.

There has been a sanctuary on the spot since the 9th century, but the current church is from 1637. The current façade was added in the 17th century.

It has been supposed that the sanctuary might have been even more ancient, perhaps a Christian version of some already existing temple: the church is in fact located just in front of the sacred Campus dedicated to Rediculum, the “God of the return.”

This campus hosted a sanctuary for the cult of the god that received devotion by travelers before their departure, especially by those who were going to face long and dangerous journeys towards far places like Egypt, Greece or the East (and the travelers who returned always stopped to thank the god of the happy outcome of the journey).

The position of the sanctuary in Campus Rediculi was ideal, first of all because the ancient Appian way was the most important among the Roman “consular” roads, secondarily because from this location the traveller could give the last look to the walls of Rome.

The presence of the Apostle Peter in this area, where he is supposed to have lived, should however find a confirmation in an epigraph in the catacombs of Saint Sebastian, that recites “Domus Petri” (house of Peter) and in an epigram by Pope Damasus I (366-384), in honor of Peter and Paul, in which we can read: “You that are looking for the names of Peter and Paul, You must know that the saints have lived here”.

The two footprints on a marble slab at the center of the church (copy of a relief conserved in the nearby Basilica of San Sebastiano) would be the miraculous sign left by Jesus: it is actually a draft of an “ex voto” paid for the good outcome of a travel, what would confirm the supposition that some connection might link the two temples.

The real name of the church, very little known, indeed, is Chiesa di Santa Maria in Palmis, where palmis stands for the soles of Jesus.

There was an inscription above the front door on the façade, saying:

Stop your walking, traveler, and enter this sacred temple in which you will find the footprint of our Lord Jesus Christ when He met with St. Peter who escaped from the prison. An elemosina for the wax and the oil is recommended in order to free some spirits from Purgatory.

Pope Gregory XVI found it so inappropriate (effectively being advertising) that he ordered its removal in 1845.

In 1983 Pope John Paul II defined the chapel as “a place that has a special importance in the history of Rome and in the history of the Church.”

Legend has it that Peter fled Rome during the persecution of the Christians during Nero’s time. On the Appian Way he was confronted by a vision of Christ.
Peter asked “ Quo vadis, Domine?” ( “Where are you going, Lord?”)
To which the Lord replied “ If you desert my people, I am going to Rome to be crucified a second time” Peter returned to Rome and was later crucified.

St. Peter was running from what is was thatGod had called him to do… running from the Cross. Each of us has those moments in our lives when we hear the voice of the Lord quietly asking, “Where are you going?” One of the most important ways in which our Lord asks us this is in regard to our vocation. Where are you going? What are you doing? Do you hear my voice calling you?

As a parent, I find myself asking this of our family alomst daily. Where are we going? What am I teaching my children? Where will they go?