Vatican tourist icon unmasked as “cynical spin”

The huge black marble epitaph, written in 799 by the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin of York, sits in the portico of Saint Peter’s basilica in the Vatican, where it is visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.

It was commissioned by Charlemagne, France’s medieval “founding father”, to express his grief at the death of Pope Hadrian I. For centuries, Popes treated it as a paradigm of the sort of loyalty the Church expected of secular rulers. Historians have also revered it as a key example of the “Carolingian renaissance” of Roman artistic style that flourished in the late 8th and early 9th centuries.

But now two scholars are suggesting the epitaph was less an act of piety and more a Dark Age-style PR stunt. By tracing the stone back to its original source, Dr Judith Bunbury, of Cambridge University and Dr Joanna Story, of the University of Leicester, have found new evidence to suggest Charlemagne’s real motive was to stress his own power and influence in European politics.

Black stone was not just unusual in the late 8th century – it was positively rare, which made it a precious commodity. Roman Emperors had it imported from distant lands to show how far their influence extended, and the same symbols of sovereignty were expected of rulers in Charlemagne’s time.

By looking at the distinctive features of the stone, such as its size, colour and microscopic fossil remains embedded within it, Dr Bunbury was able to narrow down its possible geological origins. In the meantime, a team of nuclear physicists carried out their own analysis with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, which produced a “fingerprint” of the rock’s chemical make-up.

These results allowed the researchers to narrow down the stone’s possible sources to just one – an area of black limestone along the banks of the Meuse in Belgium, between Namur and Liege. Further analysis led to one specific site – an 8th century quarry in the lands of the Ardenne monastery, owned by Charlemagne himself.

Dr Bunbury said: “The fact that this came from Charlemagne’s own lands emphasises the PR job this represented. It rather suggests that he was the Alastair Campbell of his time.

“On the surface this looked like a pious gesture, in which Charlemagne was employing some of the finest tools and craftsmen of the era to produce the ultimate tribute to Pope Hadrian. But once you consider how impressive this black marble would have looked as it was transported south, through his own kingdom and into Rome, the political message becomes clear. That message was: ‘The Pope is dead; Charlemagne is the new Christian power in Europe.’”

Charlemagne’s decision to commission Alcuin to write the memorial was certainly timely from a political point of view. When Hadrian died on December 26, 795, the Frankish King was already the most powerful Christian ruler in Europe and five years later he would be crowned Holy Roman Emperor in St Peter’s itself.

But it was the pious content of the epitaph that people remembered. From the 9th century it was an object of pilgrimage, and centuries later Popes like Gregory XIII saw it as an important symbol of faith and imperial loyalty to the Papacy. Historians have viewed it as a key exhibit of the “Carolingian Renaissance” of Romanesque poetic and artistic styles.

“In truth it was a deliberate and careful political statement that complemented the echoes of Roman Empire embedded in Alcuin’s poetic style,” Dr Story said.

“It’s much more than just a poem. The knowledge that this treasured, valued, scarce resource came from Charlemagne’s lands means that we can only imagine the impact it would have had when it arrived in Rome.

“It was a conscious expression of Imperial control in the Roman style. When Charlemagne was crowned in sight of the same inscription one year later and on the fifth anniversary of Hadrian’s death, very few people would have failed to recognise his imperial ambitions.”

An exhibition about Hadrian’s epitaph, and the investigation to uncover its origins, is now on display in the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge.