The History of Everything

I got to Geneva early afternoon last Sunday, and since I didn't have any work I had to do right away, I decided to go for a walk and try to stay awake until at least evening. Even though I have come here many times for work, I never have done much sightseeing; with nothing in particular in mind, I walked along the river for a bit and took some pictures, and then crossed the river and headed into the old city. I don't really know my way around, so I just wandered. On a narrow street festooned with flags, I heard the sound of a voice in the distance, which resonated in a haunting way in that long narrow space. (At first I thought it might be some kind of medieval call to worship, but then I heard a phrase of a familiar tune; it was a man with a guitar singing "Moonshadow," his guitar case open on the sidewalk in front of him.)



I wandered up and down stairs and through narrow streets. Walking around the corner of Saint Peter's Cathedral, there was a poster about an archaeological exhibit, and a sign with an arrow pointing to an inconspicuous set of stairs going down, the kind of stairs that go to places where you aren't supposed to go and end with a door that's locked with a sign that says "Authorized Persons Only" (or its equivalent in French). But at the bottom of the stairs was a door that was not locked, and through the door was a small lobby where one could buy a ticket to see the exhibit, "The Secrets of Ancient Geneva." I bought my ticket, walked through the turnstile, and got to see something something, well, amazing.

The cathedral itself - the one visitors can walk through, that hosts worship services on Sunday mornings as well as the occasional concert - was built about 800 years ago, between 1150 and 1230, according the brochure I picked up there. In 1976 an archaeological excavation of the site under the cathedral was begun that went on for 30 years. This was no small effort; almost 400 "micropiles" were added to help support the building, the floor of the cathedral was removed, and the excavations extended under adjacent streets and buildings.

Underneath the cathedral were the remains of the buildings that preceded it on the site - large structures made of stone, baptistries with water brought through wooden pipes from some distance away, small rooms where monks lived with an early kind of central heating system. A beautiful mosaic floor that is thought to have been in a bishop's reception area. The exhibit lets visitors wander through walkways that take you back to before the beginnng of the Christian era, through the structures that preceded the cathedral over the centuries on this site. The exhibit is beautifully done; you wander through the walkways on your own, not knowing what is around the next turn, sharing the amazement of discovery of all of this. It feels like you are exploring, not going through a museum.

Geneva was also one of the intellectual centers of the Reformation. In 1535, the Roman Catholic mass was suspended at the cathedral, and the following year, Geneva became a Protestant republic. So the statues and the art that had been in the cathedral all were removed; only the stained glass windows were left. In the nearby International Museum of the Reformation, there are the Bibles that were published in the languages that people spoke, that took away the clergy's monopoly on access to the scripture. In the room where these 16th century Bibles are on display there is a model of a printing press. Why is that there, I wondered momentarily -- but of course it was the printing press (one of the great examples of a disruptive technology) that made mass production of books possible.

But back to the cathedral. The oldest area under the cathedral that was excavated is a grave that dates from around 100 B.C. It is thought to have been the tomb of an Allobrogian chieftain; the first known structure on the site was built over his grave, and there is evidence that there rituals on the site around his grave for a century or two after his burial. Later in the 4th century a complex of buildings was constructed that were the seat of religious and political power of the city of Geneva. Over the centuries that followed, there was a succession of large, impressive structures on the site.



In the centuries since the (current) cathedral was built, towers were added and other changes were made, creating a building that reflected the customs and tastes and preferences of many different eras. The 20th century's contribution to this continued evolution doesn't show in this photograph; it's underground, in academic publications, and visible to visitors who walk down those stairs and explore its walkways.



The printing press was a critical innovation; it changed how people thought, and how they related to the church and to government and to other institutions. It allowed the influence of new ideas to spread widely, and knowledge to accumulate and to be shared beyond a select group of scholars. Freedom of thought and expression is our most powerful tool against tyranny. So, walking through the dim aisles of this 12th century building, I was optimistic. The printing press allowed information to be shared at the rate that people could carry books from place to place; now all it takes is a cell phone to expose the work of despots halfway around the world, and an internet connection to give a young person in a developing country access to an education. This will change the world, and I think it will be for the better.