Heaven is a Place on Earth

His name was John and he was a very old man. The friends of his youth were all dead – this one by the sword, that one stoned to death, another flayed alive or crucified head-down. From time to time, he’d review their names and if he counted up to eleven, he knew he’d remembered them all. He thought he’d never see their faces again. Or at least not as long as he was alive; but then, there they were. He stood there, decrepit and aching; they sat on high, in a circle above the clouds, at the foot of the great blue dome of the heavens, naked and luxuriant, in the vigorous prime of their lives. In their midst, swimming in celestial splendor, was the Man they’d all followed, He, too, dead but only for a short while. Until recently, the people of Parma could only strain their eyes upward into the cupola painted by Correggio in the church dedicated to St. John the Evangelist. But now, five hundred years after it was painted, the apostles have come down from the vault and lined up in orderly fashion. Visitors can appreciate the details and delicacy with which they were painted. The talented intermediary for this latter-day “parousia” is the photographer Lucio Rossi.