The structure has the charm of the ancient and the lived, and within its walls, you can read the passage of time that changes the city from century to century. Those who visit its interior will not be disappointed... #tuttitaly
Built based on an ancient pagan temple, the church of Santo Stefano was imagined as a faithful copy of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. Over time, we saw a series of extensions that led to seven churches.
Of the seven original churches, four remain today. Only one bore the name of Santo Stefano in a period that goes perhaps from the fifth to the eighth century, then changed to dedicating itself to the Holy Sepulcher, and of the proto-martyr is nothing left.
However, the whole complex is called "Santo Stefano, all seven churches."
The bishop of Bologna, Petronius, often visited Jerusalem and returned enriched with information and first-rate relics. He, therefore, decided to rebuild a Jerusalem in Bologna to dedicate to his local faithful, also because, at the time, Christians wanted to see the Promised Land with their own eyes.
A curious fact is that the initiation into the cult of Isis included a ritual very similar to that of baptism. Both cults have the same concept of resurrection as a reward for faith and sacrifice. Thus, during the bishopric of Petronius (431-450), the ancient temple of Isis was transformed into a Christian Baptistery. The source is then rededicated with the water of the Jordan; the circular open-air colonnade that surrounds it was closed with a wall and surmounted with a dome. The columns, the original ones of the Isis shrine, are in black cipollino (seven in all), while those in bricks were added later.
The church of San Vitale was built next to the Baptistery, the second of the seven churches.
In 737, the Lombards built a church to the right of the Baptistery, which they dedicated to San Giovanni Battista.
In 1000-1100, the Benedictine monks built the bell tower, the abbey, a large monastery, and another church of the Cenacle (to the left of the bell tower). The original baptistery, also in this period, was transformed into the church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Towards the end of 1300, a Roman tomb was found buried under the floor of the current church of Saints Vitale and Agricola, on which the name "Simone," the original name of San Pietro, is engraved. Among the pilgrims arriving from the north, the rumor spreads that the tomb of the first vicar of Christ on earth is not in Rome but in Bologna. Without too many questions, the coffin is immediately placed on the altar, and the church is dedicated to St. Peter.
In February of the following year, however, the cardinals in charge of the Jubilee celebrations realized that the arrivals of pilgrims were lower than expected, and the duration of the stay of those who arrive is reduced. The fact is perceived as an economic disaster. The news also reaches the Vatican but is not taken into consideration. At this point, within a few days, by order of Boniface VIII, the church's roof and high walls fall, and the tomb disappears. It is then explained to the faithful that the actual remains of St. Peter have never moved from Rome.
Only seventy years later, Sixtus IV allowed the church to be reopened for worship as long as it was dedicated to Saints Vitale and Agricola (two Bolognese martyrs killed in the persecution of Domitian in 304).
In the current church, the coffins of the saints are on the sides of the apse: that of San Vitale is on the left, and a peacock is sculpted on it, a symbol of immortality; that of Agricola is on the right side, and bears the signs of the deer and the lion. The central altar is a pagan area with the lid turned over.
Despite everything, today, we can admire the oldest and perhaps most faithful reconstruction of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. Thanks to the testimonies of the crusader knights, the tomb was rebuilt in the same shapes and proportions as those that the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus had erected in Jerusalem in 1050, which in turn replicated the design of the original as closely as possible.
Outside the tomb, the courtyard of Pilate was rebuilt to remember the place where Jesus was shown to the people by Pontius Pilate after the scourging. It is a square courtyard bordered to the east by the facade of the Calvary church, to the west by the rear side of the crypt, and on the other side by Lombard Romanesque arcades.
In the center of the courtyard, a marble basin from the Lombard period, called the "basin of Pilate," commemorates the one in which Pontius Pilate washed his hands after the third refusal of the Jews to free Jesus. During the reign of Liutprand, however, the basin was used to collect the offerings of Holy Thursday.
Under one of the arcades, inside a single lancet window, next to the Consolation Chapel, we see "the rooster of St. Peter," a 14th-century statuette depicting the rooster that crowed after St. Peter denied being a follower of Jesus.
In the crypt of San Giovanni Battista, we find a column that was brought by Bishop Petronius on his return from the Holy Land and documented the height of Jesus Christ (about 1.70 m).
In the same church, paper-mâché piety lends itself to remembering Lent of the eighteenth century, when the beguines went around the taverns seizing the decks of playing cards, which they then took to macerate to reproduce them in sacred images in remission of the sins committed by husbands and children.
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