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"The Gates Of Vienna"
by Dan Denning
"The painting above is Polish King Jan Sobieski outside the gates of Vienna on September 12th, 1683. Sobieski and his three thousand winged hussars broke the lines of the Ottoman Turks in a victory which European historians consider the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire (Vienna was as far as the Turks ever got into Europe). The battle began the day before, on September 11th, and there’s some speculation that Al Qaeda picked 9/11 for its attack on the World Trade Center because of this historical setback for the Ottomans (one it hoped to avenge and reverse by attacking iconic symbols of American power).
What the picture above doesn’t show you is how many people pushed and jostled me while I was trying to take it. Hardly anyone stopped to look because hardly anyone knows what it commemorates. I only knew it was there because my faculty advisor in college was Professor Francis Zapatka, a Jesuit-trained literature Professor with Polish roots who told the story more than once.
It’s hard to miss though. The painting is actually the largest painting on canvas in the entire Vatican Museum. I’d seen it once before, in college, when I spent a semester studying in Rome. I came back in the spring of 2018 for a vacation, where I had more time (and money) to enjoy everything Rome has to offer lovers of history, art, and architecture.
Even for the Eternal City, a lot has changed since the mid 1990s in Rome. Like all the beautiful places in the world, the Vatican Museum is crowded these days. Most people rush by the Sobieski painting on their way to the Raphael Rooms with no idea that an important turn in the historical tide of history is depicted right in front of them, larger than life. But I stopped to take a picture to remind myself that there are some periods in history - even particular days - where everything changes.
PS The Latin inscription at the top of the Sobieski painting is ‘Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam.’ It’s from Psalm 115:1, ‘Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give the glory.’ This was later adopted as the motto of the Knights Templar."
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