A gateway of heavenly light

The Duomo and Crypt chapel of San Magno of Anagni; a world in union with God

The Romanesque frescoes of the Cripta San Magno fulfil the intention of traditional Christian iconography; not - as we often mistakenly are told - to be a “window to heaven” but to create a space where there is no distance between worlds, where the Kingdom of Heaven is in union and we walk among saints. It is like the old Celtic idea of “thin places” where the other realm is meshed with this one, heaven and earth meet and miracles can happen.

I knew, more or less, what I was going to find in the Cripta San Magno, in the basement of the ancient cathedral church of Anagni. I’d seen pictures of course. But I wasn’t prepared for the sense of otherworldliness that descended on and enveloped me in that incredible room. I don’t expect it gets used for liturgies very often anymore, but it seems like one of those places where a thousand years of prayer has seeped into the walls and radiates back out. One spoke, if at all, in hushed tones.

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