Italy ix--A thousand years of devotion

It ranks--this one does--with the best shots I took in Italy, not because it's technically perfect  (it isn't) but because there's something transcendent in the image. I have no idea if the young couple making their way up toward the altar in Rome's Basilica di Santa Maria is devout. They may not even be Roman Catholic. By the numbers, if they're European, it's probable they aren't even believers. I'm not making any claims. But they look as if they are, don't they?

As they approach that altar and that giant Titian behind it--The Assumption of Mary, one of the Titian's earliest--they seem to be walking on air. In truth, it's a trick of light. The sun travels slowly through those old cathedrals, spotlights first this piece of art, then that. At this particular moment, it's pouring its radiance on the marble floor, a floor that doesn't appear to be there at all. That sweet and loving couple seems almost aloft, as if the space itself were holy. To some, of course, it is.

Another young man, this one alone, is gawking, as most everyone is in this incredible cathedral; and two young women seated in the chairs set out for those who wish to meditate and pray, look to be chatting. But their being seated where they are almost certainly suggests devotion. Maybe I'm dreaming. Maybe they're checking the times the subway leaves. Maybe they're reading Rick Steves.

I'm being cute. In truth, I really do love this shot, even though my Protestant heart doesn't share the adoration given to Mary, nor the determined faith that she, like Jesus her son, was simply removed from this vale of tears, bodily and boldly, by all the powers of heaven. The Assumption celebrates a determined doctrine of traditional Catholics, especially here in this particular Roman cathedral, a church specifically devoted to her.

And I like this shot too, although it lacks the firepower. It's the same cathedral, somewhere on the other side of the nave, and I took it because what here is marble, maybe the toughest of stones, Italian marble, and it's been here forever almost. The edges are worn and misshapen by the traffic of hundreds of thousands of penitents--and tourists today. But during the cathedral's first millennia, the feet on these stones belonged to the devout, here at the Basilica for adoration, to worship. For a thousand years people have stepped down right here at some inconspicuous space in this great cathedral, their hearts and souls open and, like most all of us, needy.

My guess is that the Floyd river out back of our place was here a millennia ago when people were using these steps. The Floyd is high right now, higher than it is normally at this time of year, but something of what it is likely ran somewhere approximate to where it flows along right now. Beneath the river bed, my neighbor claims there are stones, lots of them, some of them big as boxcar, erratics left here even long, long ago in the indomitable sweep of a glacier.

The thing is, real, live people were using these steps on this floor when the only human beings in our backyard were long lost ancestors of Dakotas and Yanktons and Omahas. The oldest white man's building anywhere near here isn't more than 150 years old, and a century is like yesterday in a cathedral like this.

So pardon my mysticism. That young couple walking up to the altar with their arms around each other seem walking on holy ground, because they are, borne aloft just a little on ancient marble made sacrament by a thousand years of devotion in this gorgeous ancient place.