Santa Maria in Cosmedin

The archways of the tower hold the blackest dark, and the tower has stood the longest in this mismatched pile. Around the tower, a church has grown. Pilgrims enter the church through a portico whose archways flash with the light of cameras and thus cannot duplicate the blackness held by those of the tower. Beyond the portico, to the tower’s right, an entrance gives off the reflection of light on white molding, a constant glare unbefitting the tower or the portico. Beyond that, darkness seeps out of the tower’s barricaded staircase to join that formed in the safety of the traditional dark wood box that grants sunlight access to the church one person at a time. This darkness creeps up the nave to meet the light of candles, where it is dispersed, but not destroyed. It weaves its way through the side chapels and down the ambulatory flanked by stolen columns before in retreats, screaming down the hidden stairwells that twist below the holy place. The sunlight rests in full force upon the baldacchino, a perfect window of white. In the back of the church, the pilgrims see nothing but the white until they break free from the dark. The blinding brightness forces them to move slowly up the central aisle until they reach the place where shadow meets luminosity and their eyes can adjust to take in what the light has led them to. For all its illumination, the altar stands cold. It is not what they have come to see, but standing just outside its glow, they can follow the movement of the air with their now adept eyes. In a box of gold, in a chapel of shadow, a skull sits. The candles that surround it define its curves, the missing eyes and hallowed cheeks. The darkness that rests in this place is of a different kind: it is not the blackness of the tower, nor the darkness of the church’s entry. It’s a darkness so magnetic that they surround it, a singular side chapel to the left of the altar. The pilgrims who braved darkness and followed light now pray in shadow.