Majesty and Beauty - Hardcover

by Paul Op Murray (Author)

The Basilica of San Clemente is a short walk from the Colosseum in Rome, and over the centuries, it has drawn countless pilgrims and visitors. But in the middle of the nineteenth century, it captured the astonished attention of the whole world when a forgotten fourth-century basilica was unearthed beneath it--and, under that, even lower down, a pagan temple dedicated to the god Mithras.

In Majesty and Beauty, Paul Murray, OP, uncovers for us, layer by layer, the story of this basilica, one of Rome's most beautiful and important churches. It is a story constructed in stone and art, from Mithraic temple to early Christian basilica to the present living place of worship--a place universally celebrated for its magnificent twelfth-century mosaic.

Throughout these pages, the author invites his readers to set out with him on a journey of discovery into the lost and found worlds of San Clemente's pagan and Christian past. Majesty and Beauty is a work of artistic and spiritual adventure, distinguished throughout by a fine grasp of the latest scholarship and by truly stunning images of the works of art in the basilica, presented in full and splendid color.

Author Biography

Father Paul Murray, OP, an Irish Dominican friar, lives in Rome, where for over thirty years he taught courses on the literature of the Western mystical tradition at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum). He has published many books, including Saint Catherine of Siena: Mystic of Fire, Preacher of Freedom; A Journey with Jonah: The Spirituality of Bewilderment; Scars: Essays, Poems, and Meditations on Affliction; Aquinas at Prayer: The Bible, Mysticism, and Poetry; and God's Spies: Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Other Poets of Vision.