The Arca of San Domenico in Bologna

August 8 is the feast day of the Spaniard Saint Dominic Guzman (1170-1221), founder or the Order of Preachers. Dominic after years of preaching, having discerned his calling, traveled to Rome in 1215 to seek approval from Innocent III for a new order of priests and brothers devoted to preaching.Innocent was wary, but then he had a dream in which Dominic and Francis appeared to him holding up the Lateran Basilica. The pope consented. Honorius III formally confirmed the Ordo Praedicatorum in 1216.In 1218 Dominic went to Bologna, home to Italy’s most influential university.There he held the first two general chapters of the new order. He died at San Nicole delle Vigne in 1221, aged only 51.He was buried first behind the altar, then his remains were removed to a tomb in the right aisle. This proved to be inadequate for the throngs of the faithful. The Dominicans built a bigger church, and renamed it for Dominic. In 1264 the Renaissance pioneer Nicolo Pisano (1225-1284) designed a new tomb, the Arca (Ark).

With him were his students Arnolfo di Cambio (1240-1310), who also became a master of the early Renaissance,and Lapo di Ricevuto.

Nicolo and his assistants were responsible for the sarcophagus, Niccolo d’Arca (who took his name from the work)(1434-1494) made the canopy in the fifteenth century, one of his assistants the very young Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). In 1494 the young genius sculpted the San Procolo and the San Petronio, and one of the kneeling angels holding the candles.

.Nicoclo’s sarcophagus with its hundreds of figures relates Innocent’s dream, Peter and Paul directing Dominic to preach, and the miracles attributed to Dominic, including the Raising of Napoleone Orsini (who died from a fall from his horse), the Burning of the Books of the Albigensians, the Multiplication of Bread and Wine, and the Healing of Blessed Reginaldo.