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St. Cecilia, patroness of musicians, in her legend it states that she was beheaded and at the same time praised God, singing to Him, as she lay dying a martyr’s death. The church built in the 3rd century in honor of Santa Cecilia was constructed over the house of the saint, it holds her remains and one of the most exquisite examples of Baroque sculpture “The Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia” by Stefano Maderno, a sculpture so fine it seems to breathe. In the middle of the chapel there is a round metal grid on the floor that connects with the remains of the early Empire Roman house underneath; a layer of Roman past.
My first impulse was to sing something into the grid in commemoration of the Saint, echoing into another time, instead I decided to recite Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Io Sono Una Forza del Passato” (I am a force of the past), a poem where Pasolini speaks with great nostalgia of the ruins of the past, searching for “the brothers”, referencing artists, poets, thinkers, the kindred spirits he so desperately longed for in his time. Kneeling on the floor, my face so close to the metal grid I could feel damp cold air coming from the rooms underground, I recited Pasolini’s words, uniting past and present through sound, a voice echoing in the ruins, filling the space with the words of a man that lived, loved and died in Rome and like St. Cecilia was also a martyr of his time.
The performance was carried out without previous announcement or permission. The guardian of the church at one point asked me to leave, stating that I was in a church not a stage, I kindly reminded her that Saint Cecilia had died disobeying and singing to the Lord as well.