Yesterday’s Sunday Times ran this diary item claiming that the Pope is planning to present the Queen with a pew in/from San Paolo fuori le mura. But the article is a bit vague about the details.
Is this the original pew? And if so, is it that she is being granted the use of it in the (unlikely) event of her attending a service there, or is this a present for her to take away? Or will it be a new pew, replacing a lost original?
I am aware that there was a well-established tradition of the major monarchies, such as France and Spain, being associated with particular bits of the basilicas in Rome, so the fact that there was an English royal pew in San Paolo isn’t a great surprise. I am also aware that San Paolo was very badly damaged by fire in the nineteenth century. Did the royal pew survive that?
The basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls was badly damaged by fire in 1823. So it seems a bit doubtful that the pew is the original one. I’m not sure how often the original pew would have been used by the English monarch pre-Reformation, but not often would be my guess.
I’d suggest that it’s a replica from the re-built basilica. If the new pew was “assigned” to the British monarch at the time of rebuilding it can only have been a traditional, diplomatic gesture. Nobody in Rome could seriously have expected a nineteenth century Anglican monarch to come to Rome to attend mass at the basilica. I imagine it would be considered very unlikely even now. So I’d guess that the pew will be taken back to the UK and perhaps installed in one of the Queen’s chapels.
The sgnificance of the pew is not the piece of furniture, but the pre-emptive right to take a certain place in the Basilica when attending services there. In this sense, the ‘pew’ granted to the English crown cannot be brought back to England.
I rather suspect - indeed, would very strongly suspect - that the pew would originally have been both the right to sit in a particular place within the basilica and the (possibly quite substantial) piece of furniture located at that spot. It is also not entirely unknown for such pieces of furniture to get moved around. Which is one reason why the article is so ambiguous.
I’m inclined to think that what is being planned is that the Queen’s theoretical right to sit there is going to be reinstated. That would be no more than a symbolic gesture, but, as symbolic gestures go, would be a big one, both for the Pope to offer and, more importantly, for the Queen to accept. The significance would be that it would rather imply that they did not think it completely inconceivable that she or one of her successors might actually want to attend a service there.
If, on the other hand, it’s the actual piece of furniture after all, that’s still quite a gesture - the Pope presumably doesn’t give away furnishings from the major basilicas on a regular basis. But, as a gift, that would have the opposite significance, tending to imply that the Pope accepted that the Queen and her successors will never need to use it in situ.
It’s unlike the Vatican to make this sort of gesture without carefully thinking through the intended symbolism, so it’s a bit frustating that the Sunday Times missed all the nuances.
Is there any link between this church in Rome and Henry, Cardinal of York - Prince Charlie’s younger brother, who died in Rome? just wondering if that might be contributing to the choice to give her a pew there.
