"The cathedral of Notre-Dame must be rebuilt as it was: an act of love must be performed towards the past, that past which we have partly lost in the fire and without which there is no future". Silvia Ronchey, prominent intellectual and full professor of Byzantine Civilization at the University of RomaTre, knows the Parisian cathedral well, partly destroyed by flames on April 15th. His latest book, released last year by Rizzoli, is entitled “The submerged cathedral. In search of the lost sacred”. “The sacredness of a cathedral – explains Ronchey in the interview granted to FIRSTonline – is not only religious but concerns our individual interiority and our collective identity. Notre-Dame through its infinite web of symbols bears witness to the complexity of the past: a universal past, which belongs to everyone, without distinction of nationality or faith. That is why her burning moved the whole world ”.
Professor, why is the Parisian cathedral so universal?
"Because it is a symbol, in turn composed of a multiplicity of ancestral symbols, which touch us in the unconscious, which belong to a multitude of confessions and cultures and which also for this reason make this cathedral, like and more than others, dense of often undeciphered meanings, but active within us. Few know, for example, that the style of Gothic cathedrals derives from the architecture of the Seljuk Turks, seen and imported by the Crusaders, and therefore that if it is true that they are a symbol of Christianity, it is also true that they have something to do with Islam , that indeed Seljuk Islam is perhaps historically the starting point. Studies have then highlighted in the cathedrals the presence of figurations and iconographic motifs from the Indo-Iranian Orient, for example Buddhists. Notre-Dame symbolizes the human ability to build through reason but through symbols. That night we realized that humanity as a builder of cathedrals was in danger of turning into a humanity of destruction. Notre-Dame ultimately symbolizes the complexity of the past of which all humanity is woven, and its fire has deeply moved and touched even those who are not religious".
For what reason?
“Because the sense of the past brings us back to a sacredness that is not religious in the confessional sense: to that 'lost sacred' which humanity is collectively searching for today, to quote the title of my book. Furthermore, the historical and political value of Notre Dame should not be underestimated. His is a story that spans centuries of French and European history, has to do with the Revolution of 1789, but even earlier with the French monarchy of divine right, which already in the thirteenth century, claiming the role of the Roman Empire, sanctioned the liberation of the monarch from the temporal power of the Church: in 1204, when Constantinople was conquered and sacked by the Crusaders, the most precious relics kept in the Palatine Chapel of the Virgin of Faro were transferred to the Sainte-Chappelle, commissioned by the King of France, as a real clone of the Byzantine one. Those relics were emblems of a sacred power that moved from basilus of Byzantium to the King of France. It is just one example of the density of the past enclosed in Notre-Dame”.
A past that we risk losing but which we need so much.
"Exactly. We have experienced, fortunately partially because the cathedral is still there, what it can mean to be deprived of the past: not in a confessional or nationalistic sense, but as a collective identity. Without the past, there is no possibility of building the future. We need to defend it and know it, if only to avoid repeating its mistakes: without taking a step back, there is no step forward. Too often we deny our past to live crushed in the present. The Notre-Dame fire was a symbolic epiphany of a reality that alarms us: part of our history has already been amputated, we are amputating it by not preserving knowledge of it. We need to start from school: the hours of history have been absurdly reduced and the subject has disappeared from the final exam. The great challenge of culture and politics today is to get to know the past again: that's why I have asigned and I support with conviction the appeal for the defense of history and its teaching in schools and universities, launched by Repubblica on the occasion of 25 April”.
If we live too crushed in the present, isn't it also the fault of the Internet?
“Technology in itself is neutral, and indeed it can have and has a very great importance in the diffusion of culture. Consider, for example, the digitization of libraries around the world: today anyone on the planet can access human knowledge. But it is also true that the use of the web for commercial purposes, which is largely the predominant one, robs us of an increasing amount of time that we give away to the new powers of technological capitalism, who exploit our data to make huge profits. The uncontrolled and wild loyalty mechanism thus triggered means, even more seriously, that false news circulates on many platforms, which not everyone has the tools to distinguish from real news. Which, again, harms historical truth and falsifies political discussion."
In a recent article, you drew a parallel between the story of Notre-Dame and the successful television series Game of Thrones. Can you explain better why?
“Because the success of that series confirms that the public, despite everything, has a great need for the past. A fictional past, but behind which there is a rigorous reconstruction work, which uses absolutely correct details and symbols even if then mixed in a deliberately hybrid narration. As a historian I can say that Game of Thrones is really well done, the authors have studied a lot, and if they have done so it is because they have found that the public was asking for this".
Notre-Dame is still there, but now it needs to be rebuilt. President Macron has been announcing a lightning operation for 5 years, but the French cultural world is launching an appeal not to rush things. And there is also controversy about how to do it: Would you prefer fidelity to the past or modernist experiments like the one already experimented with the Pyramid in the nearby Louvre?
“Precisely because of the discussion we are making, I think a demonstration of love for the past is necessary. I am in favor of a reconstruction faithful to what the cathedral was: we have to stop time at the time of the fire and make everything go back to the way it was before. Some point out that the Notre-Dame destroyed by the fire had itself been the result of various reconstructions, and this is true. In fact, if anything, the debate should be whether to rebuild it as it was immediately before April 15 or even as it was originally. But the spirit of the work cannot be betrayed: arbitrary insertions would distort the symbol, its value as a testimony. To be honest, I don't like the Pyramid of the Louvre at all".
Should the model instead be – with due proportions – that of the reconstruction of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, restructured exactly as it was after the 1996 fire?
"Yes. The truth is that behind these debates there are often political, economic and propaganda interests, as demonstrated by the French president's own haste in announcing jobs in record time. Instead I agree with the transalpine colleagues who signed the appeal: it will take at least 10-20 years and it would be time, given that there are so many experts all over the world, that they are called to express their opinion on reconstruction. Art historians care more about Notre-Dame and politics less. And let's not forget that people also count: the people who cried in front of the stake that Monday night want to see what was before again, a cathedral that symbolizes the history of all of us”.
