Bernardo Canal

The Church of San Lorenzo in Miranda is one of Rome’s most remarkable buildings, in that it preserves almost entirely the conversion of an ancient temple. Its core dates back to the Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina on the Roman Forum, which was dedicated to the deified imperial couple from 141 AD onwards. Since the 7th or 8th century, the building has served as a Christian church and owes its exceptionally good condition precisely to this continuous use. The conversion of a central sanctuary of the Roman state religion into a Christian place of worship is to be understood less as a pragmatic act than as a deliberate symbolic gesture: in the heart of ancient Rome, the Christian faith takes the place of pagan cults and marks its claim to religious and cultural interpretative authority. In Bernardo Canal’s painting, the monumental building ultimately appears as a natural part of everyday urban life. The ancient architecture serves as a stage for casual scenes: passers-by, figures at play and beggars enliven the space. Thus, the historical significance of the site is combined with the depiction of a contemporary urban life characterised by continuity. This approach is characteristic of Canal’s oeuvre, which is strongly influenced by stage architecture and conceives of the city less as a precisely defined space than as an effective backdrop. The painting thus belongs to that group of works in which veduta-like topography is combined with a Baroque-influenced, narrative conception. At the same time, it impressively documents the artistic phase in which the Venetian veduta was led to its later flowering – a development in which Bernardo Canal played a decisive role and which found its most famous expression in the works of his son Canaletto. With a photographic expert report by Bożena Anna Kowalczyk (copy available).