Skálholt (2020)

Skálholt Festival / Biskupstungur Tilfærsla / Displacement Rome at Skálholt July 18 – August 30, 2020

“Visitors arriving at the Skálholt Festival are likely to do a double-take. The festival is held on the summer feast of St Þorlákur and people might think that great white blocks of marble have fallen from heaven to honor the sole Icelander to have been admitted into the canon of saints, the blessed Bishop Þorlákur.
Like the Papal Basilica in the Vatican, Skálholt cathedral is dedicated to the Apostle Peter, who died a martyr’s death in Rome in the year AD 64. The Romans hauled blocks of stone and marble from all parts of their empire to use in buildings, temples and palaces, and later churches. It is said that stone from the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, destroyed by a Roman army in the year 70, was used in the construction of the Colosseum amphitheater in Rome. Bishop Gissur Ísleifsson, who donated the land on which the episcopal see of Skálholt was founded, was inspired with wonder at the buildings he saw on his pilgrimage to the Eternal City on the River Tiber – the Church of St Peter raised on the orders of the Emperor Constantine and the Egyptian obelisk that stood on the square in front of it, the Pantheon, the Forum and the Basilica of St John at the Lateran Palace, and more besides.
In 2012 Rósa Gísladóttir held an exhibition in Rome of large white sculptures that refer back to ancient Greek and Roman forms. The exhibition was set up in a half- ruined building, Trajan’s Market, that has been converted into a gallery, situated by the steps that lead from the Piazza Venezia to the Angelicum, the Pontifical University of the Dominican Order.
This exhibition has now transferred to Skálholt – and this is very fitting, since the diocese of Skálholt created a direct link with Rome through the bishop of that city (the pope), who was in effect the successor to the Christian emperor of Rome after the fall of the Western Empire in the 5th century.“ Pétur Pétursson Professor Emeritus in Theology.

Tilfærsla / Displacement – Rome at Skálholt – exhibition of works by Rósa Gísladóttir