The Barque of St. Peter symbolises the Roman Catholic Church as a barque. Saint Peter, the first Pope, was a fisherman who became one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church believes that the Pope, as his successor, is steering the Barque. [1] This may explain the etymology of the central part of churches, the nave, which stems from the Latin word for ship, navis. [2]
The image of the Barque of St. Peter is tied to Noah's Ark in the First Epistle of Peter 3:20-21 and Jesus calming the storm at the sea of Galilee in Mark 4:35-41.
150-240 AD: Tertullian, "the founder of Western theology", referred to the Church as a ship in De Baptismo (On Baptism):
"...the apostles then served the turn of baptism when in their little ship, were sprinkled and covered with the waves: that Peter himself also was immersed enough when he walked on the sea."[8] It is, however, as I think, one thing to be sprinkled or intercepted by the violence of the sea; another thing to be baptized in obedience to the discipline of religion. But that little ship did present a figure of the Church, in that she is disquieted "in the sea", that is, in the world,[9] "by the waves", that is, by persecutions and temptations; the Lord, through patience, sleeping as it were, until, roused in their last extremities by the prayers of the saints, He checks the world,[10] and restores tranquility to His own." [3]
c. 195 AD Clement of Alexandria approved the use of a ship as a symbol for signet rings in the third book of The Paedagogus :
"...let our seals be either a dove, or a fish, or a ship scudding before the wind, or a musical lyre, which Polycrates used, or a ship's anchor, which Seleucus got engraved as a device; and if there be one fishing, he will remember the apostle, and the children drawn out of the water." [4]
375 to 380 AD In the book II of the Apostolic Constitutions:
"When you call an assembly of the Church as one that is the commander of a great ship, appoint the assemblies to be made with all possible skill, charging the deacons as mariners to prepare places for the brethren as for passengers, with all due care and decency. And first, let the building be long, with its head to the east, with its vestries on both sides at the east end, and so it will be like a ship. In the middle let the bishop's throne be placed, and on each side of him let the presbytery sit down; and let the deacons stand near at hand, in close and small girt garments, for they are like the mariners and managers of the ship" [5]
1298 AD The Bark of St. Peter (mosaic), commonly known as the Navicella, by Giotto is commissioned for the Old Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.
1241 AD Pope Gregory IX or Pope Innocent IV in response to the destruction of the Genoese fleet in the Battle of Giglio: [6]
This distich would inspire the motto of Paris and be featured on Paris' coat of arms.
1596 AD In the Volume XII of the Annales Ecclesiastici historian Cardinal Baronius writes on the condition of the Irish Church in 566 AD: [7]
"...having made shipwreck in consequence of not following the Barque of St. Peter"
The Eastern Orthodox Church utilises the similar Ark of Salvation in its iconography as a representation of the Church. [ citation needed ]
In Islam, the Hadith known as the Hadith of the Ark a ship is similarly used to symbolise the only way to salvation. In it the prophet Muhammad compares his Ahl al-Bayt, his household, to Noah's ark as the only way to salvation. The Hadith is as follows:
Behold! The similitude of my Ahlul Bayt, is like that of the Ark of Noah: The one who embarks it, will have saved himself, and the one who turns away from it, is doomed.
1627 AD Julius Schiller in his book Coelum Stellatum Christianum attempted to Christianise the constellations. Schiller depicted Ursa Major as the Barque of St. Peter.
Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria, was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A convert to Christianity, he was an educated man who was familiar with classical Greek philosophy and literature. As his three major works demonstrate, Clement was influenced by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater extent than any other Christian thinker of his time, and in particular, by Plato and the Stoics. His secret works, which exist only in fragments, suggest that he was familiar with pre-Christian Jewish esotericism and Gnosticism as well. In one of his works he argued that Greek philosophy had its origin among non-Greeks, claiming that both Plato and Pythagoras were taught by Egyptian scholars.
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Clement of Rome, also known as Pope Clement I, was the bishop of Rome in the late first century AD. He is listed by Irenaeus and Tertullian as the bishop of Rome, holding office from 88 AD to his death in 99 AD. He is considered to be the first Apostolic Father of the Church, one of the three chief ones together with Polycarp and Ignatius of Antioch.
Noah's Ark is the ship in the Genesis flood narrative through which God spares Noah, his family, and examples of all the world's animals from a global deluge. The story in Genesis is based on earlier flood myths originating in Mesopotamia, and is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the Ark appears as Safinat Nūḥ and al-fulk. The myth of the global flood that destroys all life begins to appear in the Old Babylonian Empire period. The version closest to the biblical story of Noah, as well as its most likely source, is that of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
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A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, bearing a square-rigged sail above.
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The Minor Basilica of St. Mary in Domnica alla Navicella, or simply Santa Maria in Domnica or Santa Maria alla Navicella, is a Roman Catholic basilica in Rome, Italy, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and active in local charity according to its long tradition. It is one of the best examples of the so-called "Carolingian renaissance" in Rome. It has been the titular church of Cardinal Marcello Semeraro since 28 November 2020.
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Giotto di Bondone, known mononymously as Giotto and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic and Proto-Renaissance period. Giotto's contemporary, the banker and chronicler Giovanni Villani, wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature" and of his publicly recognized "talent and excellence". Giorgio Vasari described Giotto as making a decisive break from the prevalent Byzantine style and as initiating "the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years".
The spirits in prison is a recurrent minor subject in the writings of Christianity.
The Navicella or Bark of St. Peter, of Old Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, was a large and famous mosaic by Giotto di Bondone that occupied a large part of the wall above the entrance arcade, facing the main facade of the basilica across the courtyard. It depicted the version from the Gospel of Matthew of Christ walking on the water, the only one of the three gospel accounts where Saint Peter is summoned to join him. It was almost entirely destroyed during the construction of the new Saint Peter's Basilica in the 17th century, but fragments were preserved from the sides of the composition, and what is effectively a new work, incorporating some original fragments, was restored to a position at the centre of the portico of the new building in 1675.