O Roma nobilis

The medieval paean poem O Roma nobilis is composed of three monorhymed stanzas of six verses in the form of an Asclepiadian ode.

The first stanza praises Christian Rome, the second invokes the aid of Saint Peter, and the third, that of Saint Paul. The text is complete in only one manuscript kept at the Vatican library (Vat. lat. 3227) from the early 12th century; a second manuscript comes from the abbey of Monte Cassino (Monte Cassino 318) and is date from the 11th century but it carries only the first strophe.^[2]

O Roma nobilis is a non-liturgical poem most frequently described, but without basis, as a medieval pilgrims' song.^[3] It is often associated to the other pilgrim hymn in honor of Saint Peter and Paul, O roma felix quae duorum principum.^[4]

Stemming back to the glory of the Roma aurea e aeterna of the Roman Empire, the language of exaltation of the Rome finds an echo in the 9th-century poetry of Liutprand of Cremona in Versus de Mediolani civitate.^[5] The Beneventan script found in the earliest manuscripts of O Roma nobilis suggests an origin it was composed in or near the abbey of Monte Cassino, probably from the late ninth or early tenth century.

O Roma nobilis was discovered anew in the early 19th century. Its literary fame rests mainly upon the studies of Barthold Georg Niebuhr from 1829 and Ludwig Traube in 1891.^[6]

In 1941, the millennial hymn was translated into English by Irish author and journalist Aodh de Blácam.^[7]

It was declared the official hymn of the holy year of 1950.

In a show of ecclesial triumphalism, Igino Cecchetti published an essay entitled Roma nobilis in 1953^[8] which received praise from the Jesuit review La Civiltà Cattolica in 1955.^[9]

At the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII referred to this hymn when referring to the Apostle Peter as the title of honor for Rome, worthily celebrated in the words of this poem.^[10]