The Birth of Christian Art: The Basilica of Saints Cosmas & Damian

The verdigris door in the photo above belongs to a temple in the Roman Forum, traditionally said to have been dedicated to Romulus, the infant son of the Emperor Maxentius. About a century after the mosaics at Santa Pudenziana (about which I spoke in my last post), and half a century after the last emperor in Rome had been deposed, the temple was incorporated into the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian by Pope Felix IV (526-30).

Over a millennium after the church was built, major modifications were undertaken. These saw the narrowing of the apse to make way for new side chapels which rather brutally cut into the mosaics, but the central part of the original apse mosaic survives largely intact.

The inscription at the base of the mosaic tells us that, “Felix has offered this gift worthy of the lord bishop so that he may live in the highest vault of the airy heavens.” I rather like the gumption with which he makes this deal with the Almighty.

Apse, Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian

Dominating the apse is the bearded figure of Christ. A forbidding figure, his right hand, replete with stigmata, is raised to indicate the phoenix in a palm tree. The bird which rose from the ashes becomes in Christian art a symbol of the resurrection.

On either side, and more solidly rooted on earth, are Saints Peter (always shown with white hair) on the left and Paul on the right (always shown with a domed head and a brown beard). Peter presents Cosmas, while Paul presents Damian. On the far right St Theodore lurks nervously, while on the left Pope Felix IV, his face heavily restored, holds a model of the church he dedicated.

Detail showing Pope Felix IV, and Saints Damian and Paul

Below twelve sheep represent the apostles. They form a procession leading towards the agnus dei, the lamb of God, which stands on a rock from which flow the four rivers of paradise.

Detail, apse Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian

This programme – Christ, saints on either side, the donor, and the sheep below – would become the standard for apse mosaics for the next eight hundred years. For example Santa Maria in Trastevere, mid twelfth century.

Apse, Santa Maria in Trastevere, c.1154

We can compare with the mosaics at Santa Pudenziana (images can be found in my previous post here). There Christ is involved in discussion, here he is completely removed from the scene. Far larger than the other figures, and neither old nor young, he floats on the fiery flame-coloured clouds in an entirely different realm from the other figures. Indeed they are not looking towards him but out at us; it is as if the Christ figure appears both to them and to us as a communal vision.

Detail, showing the figure of Christ indicating the phoenix.

While the image of Christ at Santa Pudenziana was distilled from the Roman model of the orator, here we see a figure which has entirely broken the pragmatic shackles of Roman realism. This Christ fully embraces the transcendental nature of Christianity, so different from the Roman religion. I spoke of “Roman Christian-ness” at Santa Pudenziana, this, perhaps for the first time, is a fully Christian art.

If the spirit of naturalism of Roman Imperial art has been transformed into something else, the hierarchy of the Roman world is still very much present. Christ is robed in a gold toga edged with purple, the inverse of the toga picta (purple embroidered with gold) reserved for victorious generals, consuls, and emperors. The analogy of Imperial power is used to indicate rule over the realm of heaven, of triumph over death. The togas of Peter and Paul mark them out as Romans of substance, but unlike the dynamic realism of the gestures of the apostles at Santa Pudenziana, their poses are identical in their indication of the figure (vision) of Christ. Similarly Cosmas and Damian, dressed as Byzantine princes and bearing the crowns of their martyrdoms, exactly mirror one another. A residual naturalism can be seen in the positions of their feet and the shadows they cast, especially Damian on the left.

The abstract and formal nature of the mosaic marks the first flowering of a truly Byzantine art in Rome. Too often we are tempted to think of the loss of perspective after the fall of the Roman Empire as just that, a “loss”. For so long the plodding banality of much art history wanted us to place value judgements on Late Imperial and Medieval art based on realism, an entirely subjective and arbitrary parameter. Are Michelangelo’s figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel realistic, is Picasso’s Guernica realistic? The question of success in art is more complicated, the achievement of representation depends on what is to be represented. The art of Byzantium, driven by the focus on the divine, the intangible, the future heavenly world, retreated from the classical search for realism (how do you represent heaven?) into a symbolism which could be meditated on by the faithful. The very nature of Christianity meant that art did not need to do all the work, but became a tool through which internal visions could be achieved.

The wildly eminent Byzantine art historian (and sometime Professor at my alma mater) David Talbot-Rice uses a wonderful analogy. He speaks of a quotation from the Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Thakur who said of Indian music:

“Our master singers never take the least trouble to make their voices attractive. Those of the audience whose senses have to be satisfied are held to be beneath any self-respecting artist. Those of the audience who are appreciative are content to perfect the song in their own mind by the force of their own feeling.”

Just as the music he speaks of as the symbol which sparks another concert within the soul, so the art of Byzantium offers the same formal symbolism, a mantra to provoke meditation on the divine. It’s neither better nor worse, just different.

This would make a super part of a tour of Early Christian art, or perhaps a 4 hour extended version of my “Heart of Ancient Rome” itinerary

Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian,
via dei Fori Imperiali, 1

Open every day 9am-1pm, 3pm-7pm

Roman Christian-ness or Christian Roman-ness? The Apse Mosaics of Santa Pudenziana

I have recently been in a mosaic phase, as mentioned in my last post. My mosaic phases are cyclical – all that glittering gold in the gloaming is so wonderfully atmospheric – but this one began last month when watching a BBC documentary about the Dark Ages (specifically this one). It reminded me I had only been to Ravenna once, aged sixteen on a school trip. I remember being impressed but little else. To be honest I probably wasn’t concentrating as much as I should have been. So I earmarked a couple of free days and hopped on a train to explore 5th and 6th century mosaics.

Orthodox Baptistery, Ravenna. Mosaics mid-5th century

The Orthodox Baptistery (also known as the Neonian Baptistery) set me thinking about apostles shown, somewhat ironically given the treatment the Empire meted out to the early Christians, in the opulent togas of Roman senators.

Senatorial apostles, detail, Orthodox Baptistery, Ravenna

It also has some glorious Roman architectural elements, for example here framing the hetiomasia, the empty throne which awaits Christ on the day of Judgement.

Hetiomasia, detail, Orthodox Baptistery, Ravenna

When I came back to Rome, my appetite whetted and ready for more, I returned to some mosaics here in Rome of roughly the same period with a new perspective. The oldest of these is at the church of Santa Pudenziana, now the church of Rome’s Filippino community (Pudenziana was declared patron of the Philippines by the Conquistador Miguel López de Legaspi). She is a poorly documented figure, indeed her very existence is questionable. Believed to have been the sister of Santa Prassede (whose church is on the other side of Santa Maria Maggiore, and about which I wrote this), the sisters were the daughters of a Roman senator called Pudens. He is said to have harboured St Peter at his house on this spot. Nearly a century after Peter is said to have stayed here (c. 60 AD), the house was replaced by a bath complex, which was itself subsequently partially incorporated into the basilica.

Tucked away behind Santa Maria Maggiore, it contains the earliest major Christian mosaic decoration in Rome. Despite major and multiple remodellings in the intervening sixteen centuries, the church’s ancient foundation is attested to by the fight of steps which leads one significantly below the nineteenth century street level.

Once inside, the apse mosaic beckons. It dates to the church’s construction under Pope Innocent I (402-417) and offers a glimpse into the very origins of Christian art. If earlier Christian decorations had been largely restricted to funerary chapels in the catacombs and sarcophagi, commissioned by relatively humble patrons, the decree of Theodosius of 380 saw Christianity declared the only religion of state. This marked a major shift in every aspect of Roman culture, including art: patronage was now in the hands of the very wealthy, and the expensive art of mosaic was at the disposal of a Church which now had an institutional role.

Apse mosaic, Santa Pudenziana

Christ is enthroned in the centre of the scene. He wears a toga of gold and purple, both colours associated with Imperial power, and is shown bearded. This marks a dramatic departure from earlier depictions (such as the Good Shepherd at the catacombs of Sts Peter and Marcellinus) where Christ is a fair, clean shaven, and youthful figure. Here institutional recognition of the Church sees him imbued with a new gravitas.

Christ, detail, apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana

The scene appears to be set in the atrium of a grand Roman house. With his left hand Christ holds a book, on which is inscribed “DOMINUS CONSERVATOR ECCLESIAE PUDENTIANAE” (Lord protect the church of Pudenziana), while his right hand is raised in a gesture of benediction. Six apostles are seated on either side. Robed in the togas of Roman noblemen and senators, they emphasise the dynamic nature of the scene by turning to one another and gesturing vehemently.

Sts Peter (to the left) and St. Paul (to the right) are closest to Christ. Behind them St Prassede is in the act of placing a crown upon the head of Peter, and St Pudenziana does the same behind St Paul.

Santa Pudenziana crowning St Peter, detail, apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana

The faces of the women follow faithfully in the expressive tradition of Hellenistic art, the flush of their cheeks, the parting of their hair and the generous folds of their robes tangible in their realism. In the background the roofs of a Roman cityscape stretch into the distance, just the kind of view which would have been seen on the walls of the villas of the Roman haut-bourgeoisie, for example this fresco from Boscoreale, near Pompeii.

Cityscape from the Boscoreale frescoes, 1st century. Metropolitan Museum, New York

This lower part of the scene could show an orator instead of a god. The discussion might be one of earthly legislation instead of the divine. The language and hierarchy of Roman art has been transplanted in the service of the new religion of the State. However, look up and the mystical nature of the subject matter is clear. Above Christ a jewelled cross floats amid fiery clouds, itself a bombastic symbol of triumph, another thoroughly Roman concept. On either side, heavily damaged by later remodelling, are the winged symbols of the evangelists; this is no earthly Imperial cityscape, we are told, this is the new Jerusalem.

Santa Pudenziana could be incorporated into a walk focussing on early Christian art on the Esquiline

Santa Pudenziana,
via Urbana 160

Open 9am-12noon, 4.30-7pm

Seeing new things; it’s all in the detail – the apse mosaics by Pietro Cavallini at Santa Maria in Trastevere

I usually like to take advantage of this quieter time of year by exploring Rome. And there’s no shortage of things to look at. As they say around these parts, “Roma, nun basta ‘na vita”: a lifetime isn’t enough. Familiar places can be looked at from different angles, and with a longer respiro, to yield new depths. New and less familiar sites can excite and astonish from behind an innocuous façade one has passed by a thousand times, enriching the infinite “whys” and “hows” which make my own understanding of Rome an never ending project.

It was in this spirit that I joined a group of similarly-minded guides who had taken the initiative to arrange a series of winter guided tours led by Professor Alessandro Tomei, a medievalist. A medieval focus very much appeals to me, it is the period of Rome’s history most often overlooked; a thousand years too often and too easily dismissed. Whether we speak of the “Middle” or the “Dark” Ages we use a pejorative term. A millennium is defined either by its position in relation to other “greater” moments – it is in the “Middle” of the Empire and the Renaissance, a trough between two great peaks of civilisation – or by the unfair accusation of a “Dark” absence of knowledge.

This week’s trip was to Trastevere, firstly to Santa Cecilia where we focussed particularly on these frescoes by the fabulous Pietro Cavallini.

We then continued the Cavallini theme at Santa Maria in Trastevere where, thanks to Professor Tomei’s erudition, I saw something quite new in mosaics I have admired since university.

In the scene of the Annunciation in the apse the Virgin is seated in a sort of throne-building. For over decade I have shown visitors the church, and used this structure to illustrate Cavallini’s precocious use of perspective. A few years before Giotto is credited with the “rediscovery” of perspective in the frescoes of the Scrovegni Chapel, Cavallini was employing it in mosaic, an altogether more unwieldy medium.
But I had never noticed what Professor Tomei pointed out yesterday, and which can be seen in the detail below: just as the Virgin is sitting at a three-quarter angle, so the tiny cross-vaults in the niches on either side of her are also at a three-quarter angle.

A sophisticated structural detail manipulated from nuanced coloured tiles seven centuries ago and all but imperceptible in the gloaming of the church took my breath away, and surely serves as a clear reminder that those “Middle” Ages were anything but “Dark”.

Santa Maria in Trastevere is visited on my “Jewish Ghetto and Trastevere”itinerary

Santa Maria in Trastevere,
piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere
Open every day 8am – 8pm