DOI article:
Rushforth, Gordon McNeil: The church of S. Maria Antiqua
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70291#0111
S. Maria Antiqua.
93
(i) On the rounded end of the sarcophagus, a ship with two sailors.
To the left a sea deity seated, holding a trident.
(ii) A nude figure (Jonah) lying under a tree. At his feet is a sea
monster. Above the tree are two sheep and a goat.
(iii) A female figure with raised hands (an ' orante ') standing between
two trees.
(iv) A male figure clothed in the pallium, seated reading in a roll which
he holds with both hands. Perhaps intended to represent the original
occupant of the sarcophagus, studying the Divine Law. The faces of this
and of the preceding figure have (as is often the case) been left unfinished
in order that they might be converted into portraits.
(v) A shepherd (beardless) holding a lamb over his shoulders. Two
sheep at his feet.
(vi) The Baptism of Christ. A figure, wearing only the pallium
baptises a small, nude, beardless figure standing in water. A dove flies
down towards him from a tree on the left.
(vii) Two fishermen (nude) with a net. On the rounded end of the
sarcophagus.
It is worth while to notice how the burial under ground of these
ornamental sarcophagi, even when representing Christian subjects,1 reflects
the artistic conditions of the time and place. Monumental tombs were
indeed not unknown in Byzantine churches, but the general contrast is
between the Eastern or Greek ideal of decorating a church with a complete
and consistent series of pictures and decorations which cannot be broken
into by extraneous pieces of ornament, and the Western mediaeval
practice, picturesque but irregular, of filling a church with chapels and
pictures and monuments, none of which belong to a uniform scheme. It
is not till a later age in Rome, when the Greek world had vanished and a
new art was springing up, that we find an ancient sarcophagus introduced
into a church to serve as a tomb, but with its sculptured front now utilised
as part of the decoration of an elaborate sepulchral monument.2
1 It was not that the subjects were misunderstood, for the story of Jonah was well known to
Byzantine art, and its treatment was derived from the same type as the representations on the
sarcophagi. E.g. in the Menologium of Basil II. (ed. Albani. Urbino, 1727) i. 61 (Sept. 22nd). Cf.
Didron, ed. Stokes, ii. 286.
2 The two earliest cases are the Fieschi monument (1256) in S. Lorenzo Fuori, arid the Savelli
monument (1266) in the Araceli.
93
(i) On the rounded end of the sarcophagus, a ship with two sailors.
To the left a sea deity seated, holding a trident.
(ii) A nude figure (Jonah) lying under a tree. At his feet is a sea
monster. Above the tree are two sheep and a goat.
(iii) A female figure with raised hands (an ' orante ') standing between
two trees.
(iv) A male figure clothed in the pallium, seated reading in a roll which
he holds with both hands. Perhaps intended to represent the original
occupant of the sarcophagus, studying the Divine Law. The faces of this
and of the preceding figure have (as is often the case) been left unfinished
in order that they might be converted into portraits.
(v) A shepherd (beardless) holding a lamb over his shoulders. Two
sheep at his feet.
(vi) The Baptism of Christ. A figure, wearing only the pallium
baptises a small, nude, beardless figure standing in water. A dove flies
down towards him from a tree on the left.
(vii) Two fishermen (nude) with a net. On the rounded end of the
sarcophagus.
It is worth while to notice how the burial under ground of these
ornamental sarcophagi, even when representing Christian subjects,1 reflects
the artistic conditions of the time and place. Monumental tombs were
indeed not unknown in Byzantine churches, but the general contrast is
between the Eastern or Greek ideal of decorating a church with a complete
and consistent series of pictures and decorations which cannot be broken
into by extraneous pieces of ornament, and the Western mediaeval
practice, picturesque but irregular, of filling a church with chapels and
pictures and monuments, none of which belong to a uniform scheme. It
is not till a later age in Rome, when the Greek world had vanished and a
new art was springing up, that we find an ancient sarcophagus introduced
into a church to serve as a tomb, but with its sculptured front now utilised
as part of the decoration of an elaborate sepulchral monument.2
1 It was not that the subjects were misunderstood, for the story of Jonah was well known to
Byzantine art, and its treatment was derived from the same type as the representations on the
sarcophagi. E.g. in the Menologium of Basil II. (ed. Albani. Urbino, 1727) i. 61 (Sept. 22nd). Cf.
Didron, ed. Stokes, ii. 286.
2 The two earliest cases are the Fieschi monument (1256) in S. Lorenzo Fuori, arid the Savelli
monument (1266) in the Araceli.