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Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry

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Inscription and divine presence: golden letters in the

early medieval apse mosaic
Erik Thun
Published online: 17 Oct 2011.

To cite this article: Erik Thun (2011) Inscription and divine presence: golden letters in the early medieval apse mosaic,
Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry, 27:3, 279-291, DOI: 10.1080/02666286.2011.541122

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 Inscription and divine presence: golden letters in the
early medieval apse mosaic
ERIK THUN
The ninth-century apse mosaic in the church of S. Cecilia
in Trastevere in Rome impinges on the viewers space with a
series of frontal, forward-gazing figures and draws attention to
itself by means of a lengthy inscription (figure 1). Composed of
bold capital letters in gold, which glitter against a deep-blue
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background, the hexameters of this well-preserved inscrip-
tion, which stretches in three rows all across the lower rim of
the apse conch, laud the building of the church, its patron,
Paschal I (817824), and its dedicatory saint. The inscrip-
tion occupies about one-fifth of the entire mosaic. Although
the figural composition stands out against the same deep-
blue background as the inscription, the apse mosaics inter-
mediate section a bilateral procession of symbolic lambs
moving toward the central Agnus Dei appears against a
golden background. In this way, the viewer is inclined to align
the inscription, not with the lambs, but with the forward-
gazing figures above and, in particular, with the central and
dominant image of Christ that appears underneath the hand
of God and like the monumental letters radiates
in gold.1
The golden inscription at S. Cecilia and others like it in early
medieval apse mosaics in Rome appeal as much to the eye
of the viewer as they store concrete, historical information for
the reader. Through interaction with their immediate spatial
and visual environment, golden apse inscriptions expand the
parameters within which such texts generate meaning in early
medieval apse imagery.
Recent scholarship has called attention to how scripture in
the Middle Ages became invested with divinity, a process that
finds unambiguous authorization in the Gospel of John. Here,
the opening words identify the Word (Verbum) with God (Deus),
who took on flesh at the Incarnation and brought life and light
into the world, which could not be overcome by darkness (Jn.
1:117). The ways in which this association of Verbum with Deus
affected the notion and production of script throughout the
Middle Ages were as profound as they were creative.2 As the
embodiment of divine revelation, the written word changed
from a transparent to an opaque, self-referential signifier, where
the subject signified (Deus) was also the signifier (Verbum). By
performing as an image through its own letter shapes, color,
and material, script like the Word made flesh made
the invisible present in the world. As representatives of living
writing, infused with the life-giving spirit, letters of scripture
W O R D & I M A G E , V O L. 27, N O. 3, J U L Y S E P T E M B E R
Word & Image ISSN 0266-6286 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/tf/02666286.html
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2011.541122
were there not just to be read, but also to be contemplated,
ruminated upon, and even venerated, a truth that led Jerome
to remark that all that we read in sacred books shines and
sparkles.3 No wonder then that Augustine recommended that
the opening words from the Gospel of John be inscribed in let-
ters of gold and displayed in the most prominent place in every
church.4
Writing in gold (chrysography) the precious material most
often used as a signifier of God could serve as a means to
infuse the written word with divine presence.5 Additionally, the
materials flickering light, produced by its many reflections, may
have less helped the reading process than powerfully enhanced
the sense of a divine and mysterious presence hidden beneath
the surface of each letter form, which in turn could be perceived
as Christs flesh.6 As indeed suggested by Augustines recom-
mendation and through their frequent appearance in codices
from late antiquity and onward, letters in dazzling gold
often glittering against a purple background must have
served as the most potent manifestations of the Word made
flesh.7
Despite its location, indisputably at the most prominent
place within the church, the golden inscription in the apse
mosaic of S. Cecilia concerned, as it is, with the church
of S. Cecilia does not record the authoritative words from
Johns prologue, nor does it relate to any other part of scrip-
ture. Not surprisingly, the golden letters of the inscription seem
less dependent on Christian books than on the so-called litterae
aureae from ancient Roman epigraphy. Such letters, carved in
large capitals and filled with gilt bronze, were used in prominent
building inscriptions on both secular and religious monuments
throughout the city of Rome.8 Even with such roots in the clas-
sical, secular realm, there is no reason to assume that the golden
letters of the inscription in S. Cecilia could not be charged with
new meanings, especially when considering their entirely new
setting within the space of a Christian church.9
As we have already seen, the use of gold against a deep-blue
background leads the viewer of the apse mosaic in S. Cecilia
to associate its inscription with the figure of Christ above. This
connection is heightened by the fact that Christ is shown hov-
ering in front of a bank of reddish clouds, a backdrop that
establishes him in parallel to the rising sun at dawn.10 The sun-
rise imagery, modeled after the early sixth-century apse mosaic
in SS. Cosmas and Damian (figure 2), extends to the presence
2011 279
Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 07:42 14 October 2014
Figure 1. Rome, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, apse mosaic. Photo: Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il
Polo Museale della citt di Roma.
of the phoenix perching in the palm tree on the left side of
the mosaic. Late antique poetry situates this wondrous mytho-
logical bird in the context of dawn and resurrection.11 As the
rising sol salutis on clouds, however, Christ invokes not only
the Resurrection but also the Second Coming (Mt 24:30) and
Ascension (Acts 1: 912).12 What transcends these key events
in the history of salvation is the Christological tenet that the
Word was made flesh and, like the rising sun, illuminated the
280 ERIK THUN
world. Thus, if any broader meaning should be imposed on
this nonnarrative image of Christ, it ought to be first of all
that of Christ as the Word bringing light and salvation to
humankind.13
While the visualization of the Word made flesh in the apse
mosaic of S. Cecilia invites seeing its golden inscription as the
carnal embodiment (Verbum) of the spirit (Deus), the inscrip-
tion adds a sense of mystery and divine presence to the image.
 Serving as the elevated backdrop for the celebration of Mass,
image and inscription in the apse additionally emphasized the
presence of the Word in the sacraments of the Eucharist and
vice versa.14 Situated between the altar and the figure of Christ,
the golden letters both give and take, empower and receive
authorization from their surrounding visual and liturgical con-
text. Finally, we should not forget that the experience of the
golden letters as inhabited with the divine spirit would at times
have been further enhanced by flickering candlelight that made
the glitter of the inscription in the curved apse even more
vibrant and evocative.15
As far as visual appearance, placement, and contents are con-
cerned, the S. Cecilia inscription is far from unusual for an early
medieval apse mosaic in Rome. The first surviving example
occurs in the apse of SS. Cosmas and Damian, to be followed by
other Roman apse mosaics, the majority from between the sixth
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and ninth centuries (figure 2).16 In each instance, the metrical
inscription runs along the rim of the apse, praising the build-
ing or its mosaic, titular saint(s), and patron, and repeating the
extravagant look of S. Cecilia through the use of bold capital
letters in gold set against a deep-blue background. Significantly,
the frequent presence of this particular type of inscription coin-
cides with apse imagery that substitutes the common theme
Figure 2. Rome, SS. Cosmas and Damian, apse mosaic. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, New York.
of Christ surrounded by the apostles, as exemplified by the
apse mosaic of S. Pudenziana (ca. AD 400), with a composi-
tion that consistently includes the titular saint(s) and the patron
pope (figure 3).17 When as in most cases the titular saints
are early martyrs, they hold crowns as rewards of their mar-
tyrdom, while the pope is typically equipped with a square
halo and presents a model of the church to the compositions
central protagonist, who can be either Christ or the titular
saint. Apart from the example of S. Cecilia, the surviving apse
mosaics that incorporate this closely interdependent pattern of
text and image occur in SantAgnese fuori le Mura (625638),
the San Venanzio Chapel in the Lateran Baptistery (640642),
S. Prassede (817824), S. Maria in Domnica (817824), and San
Marco (827844) (figures 48; Appendix).18 This group may
also include a partially preserved mosaic from San Lorenzo
fuori le Mura (579590) (figure 9; Appendix).19
Through text and image, these early medieval apse mosaics
underscore the key role assumed by their patron in building and
decorating the new church. To grasp the significance of these
combined textual and visual efforts, we need to read the inscrip-
tion in S. Cecilia while also taking another look at the apse
mosaics imagery. Rich in vocabulary and expressions borrowed
from ancient poetry, the inscription states:
281

Figure 3. Rome, Santa Pudenziana, apse mosaic. Photo: Istituto Centrale
per il Catalogo e Documentazione, Rome.
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Figure 4. Rome, SantAgnese fuori le Mura, apse mosaic. Photo: Soprin-
tendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico
e per il Polo Museale della citt di Roma.
Built with diverse metals, this bounteous house shimmers with
light.
Though what once it was in an earlier age had fallen into
rubble,
Paschal, the open-handed prelate, built this, the Lords hall,
better than it had been before,
forming it to [its] illustrious foundation,
a golden hall embellished with jewels,
answering to the mysteries of the temple.
Exultant with Gods love, [Paschal] brought together
the bodies [of the saints].
Here, where Santa Caecilia and her companions are,
youth shines with its fresh, ruddy flower,
the blessed limbs which formerly slept in catacombs,
[and] Rome bounds up, celebrating unceasingly, adorned until
the end of time.20
The founding circumstances referred to in the inscription find
a more elaborate version in the Liber Pontificalis, which goes
into unusual detail about the papal translation of the body of
282 ERIK THUN
S. Cecilia. Here, we are told that the popular saint had sud-
denly appeared to Paschal in a dream in which she asked him
to find her body and bury her in the newly built church. Paschal
immediately went to recover her remains in the Praetextatus
catacomb and placed them together with those of her hus-
band Valerian and other martyrs underneath the altar of
the new church.21 Like the inscription, the Liber Pontificalis also
includes a description of the precarious and damaged state of
the earlier church, but it is unclear whether what Paschal actu-
ally replaced was a real basilica or merely the ancient titulus
incorporated into a domus. The latter the illustration founda-
tion referred to by the inscription was traditionally believed
to be the noble woman Cecilias private home, in which she
had suffered her own martyrdom.22 In other words, through the
translation of their bodies, Paschal had again brought Cecilia
and Valerian back to their original home.
Whereas the appearance of Peter, Paul, and the patron pope
is standard for an early medieval apse composition revolv-
ing around Christ, the represented extra-biblical martyr saints
are not further identified through any particular attributes or
written labels, as seen, for instance, in the apse mosaics of
SantAgnese and San Marco, respectively.23 Yet there can be
little doubt that the female crowned figure on the left, who
holds her right arm around Paschal while presenting him to
Christ with her right-hand gesture, must be S. Cecilia. In this
way, the mosaic emphasizes the special relationship between the
two protagonists of the new church. The male saint to the far
right of the figural composition is often identified as Valerian the
husband, referred to in the inscription as one of Cecilias com-
panions. More difficult is the identification of the woman figure
next to Valerian because no body of a female saint other than
Cecilia is mentioned among those translated to this church. The
saint is therefore commonly believed to be S. Agatha, based on
the fact that Paschal reportedly had a monastery built near the
new church of S. Cecilia in honor of the virgins and martyrs
SS. Agatha and Cecilia.24
Regardless of the correct identification of the extra-biblical
martyr saints in the apse of S. Cecilia, it is clear that except
for the titular saint, neither their number nor their identities
are fully consistent with the bodies translated by Paschal to
the altar of the church, a fact that also characterizes the apse
mosaic in San Marco.25 It may be that the wish to create an
exact correspondence between image and relic was of less sig-
nificance than to have S. Cecilia be accompanied by another
female saint, in the same way S. Prassede is matched by a
female saint (S. Pudenziana) in the apse of S. Prassede.26 The
most remarkable aspect of the apse mosaics figural composi-
tion is perhaps the presence of Pope Paschal on the far left.
In admitting his figure to the same representational space as
the martyr saints and by creating a visual analogy between his
offering of the church and their crowns, the mosaic puts the
square-haloed pope and his patronage on a par with the saints
and their martyrdom.27 The parallel seems to suggest that just
as the martyrdom of S. Cecilia and her companions earned
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Figure 5. Rome, Lateran Baptistery, San Venanzio Chapel, apse mosaic. Photo: Andrea Jemolo.
them a place with Christ in heaven, so shall Paschals act of
donation ensure him a similarly elevated place in the afterlife.28
In addition, the ninth-century pope is pictured in the midst of
a hierarchy in which the saints stand as mediators between the
worshippers in the church and Christ in the apse. As the apse
mosaics only contemporary figure, the pope becomes the chan-
nel through which the worshippers gain access to the saints, and
through them to Christ.29 More precisely, because Paschal is
shown in the act of donating his church of S. Cecilia to Christ,
the mosaic at once promotes and validates Paschals enterprise
in S. Cecilia as providing worshippers access to the divine and
for which Paschal with help from the adjacent S. Cecilia
will be rewarded with a place in heaven.
The alignment of the donor pope with the saints in the apse
mosaic of S. Cecilia incorporates the pope and his patron-
age within a hierarchy of sacred mediation otherwise reserved
only for Christ, the Virgin, and the martyrs. What ultimately
not only motivated but also served to legitimize this mediat-
ing status of the pope between his earthly congregation and
the heavenly one represented in the apse was his action con-
cerning the body of S. Cecilia. By moving Cecilia from the
catacomb to inside the walls of Rome, the ninth-century pope
created a new and monumental setting with increased access
to her earthly remains for the benefit of local worshippers
as well as pilgrims. The new building thus marked the cul-
mination of a process in which the saint moved from being
venerated within the framework of the original burial site to
becoming the center of a wider cult within a new sanctuary
sponsored by the papacy. The power of intercession, as embod-
ied by the saints relics, was now made available in a setting
exclusively constructed and decorated to revolve around the
saints body.30
The practice of facilitating access to the holy through a
renewed focus on the body of the saint represents a phe-
nomenon that also applies to the other churches containing
apse mosaics with golden inscriptions. As for SS. Cosmas and
Damian the earliest in the group Beat Brenk has recently
argued that Pope Felix IVs apse mosaic served to introduce and
legitimize the cult of the two physician saints of SS. Cosmas
and Damian, who were popular in the East but little known
to an early sixth-century Roman public.31 In the apse mosaic,
Peter and Paul put an arm around each of the physician saints
and lead them toward Christ. A reliquary altar in marble, still
in situ and probably installed by Pope Felix, suggests the for-
mer presence of relics of perhaps the twin saints.32 Pope
Honorius Is suburban catacomb basilica of SantAgnese, where
the titular saint occupies the center of the apse mosaic, was
built into the catacomb holding the body of the Roman saint to
283
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Figure 6. Rome, Santa Prassede, apse mosaic. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, New York.

monumentalize and facilitate access to her tomb. A similar situ-

ation characterizes the church of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura.33
The San Venanzio Chapel, moreover, was built to house the
relics of its titular saint and other martyrs from Dalmatia trans-
lated to the chapel by its founder Pope John IV, who was himself
from that region.34 As is well known, Paschal Is church of
S. Prassede on the Esquiline Hill was built to accommodate
the relics of more than 2300 saints, including S. Prassede her-
self, formerly buried at scattered points in a series of catacombs
encircling the Urbs.35 In San Marco, it is unclear how many
of the saints depicted in the apse were actually present in the
crypt underneath the altar, but it appears that remains from
at least Pope Mark (336) were brought by Pope Gregory IV to
the crypt of his newly built church.36 Finally, in S. Maria in
Domnica, also commissioned by Paschal I, the improved access
to intercession did not go through martyrs and their relics but
the Virgin, majestically enthroned in the center of the apse
mosaic with Pope Paschal supplicating at her foot.37 By means Figure 7. Rome, Santa Maria in Domnica, apse mosaic. Photo: Soprin-
of its dedication to the Virgin Mary, the ninth-century deaconry tendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico
e per il Polo Museale della citt di Roma.
on the Celian Hill underscores that the sanctuaries in ques-
tion did not exclusively depend on martyrs to provide access to
intercession. circumstances that prompted the existence of this pattern in
This brief survey suffices to demonstrate that the common the first place. Whether the saints were local or from abroad,
pattern composed of imagery and golden inscription in the whether they were translated to new churches within the walls
above-mentioned apse mosaics extends to include the external or left in their original burial places, and no matter if the

284 ERIK THUN

Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 07:42 14 October 2014
Figure 8. Rome, San Marco, apse mosaic. Photo: Istituto Centrale per il
Catalogo e Documentazione, Rome.
Figure 9. Rome, San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, mosaic on apsidal arch. Photo:
Andrea Jemolo.
protagonists of the new churches were extra-biblical martyr
saints or the Virgin Mary, intercession emerges as the driv-
ing force behind the configuration of the early medieval apse
mosaics in question.38 In fact, the nexus between saints body,
apse imagery, and golden inscription clearly manifests itself in
the church of S. Cecilia. Among the three sarcophagi orig-
inally arranged underneath the altar of the church, the one
with the body of S. Cecilia was purportedly placed directly in
front of the fenestella from which it could be viewed in immedi-
ate conjunction with the mosaics golden inscription and figural
composition hovering above the altar (figure 10).39
The golden inscription in the early medieval apse mosaic,
then, should be seen as an integral and essential part of a con-
certed papal effort of rendering the divine present within the
Figure 10. Rome, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. Axonometric reconstruction
of the crypt and placement of the sarcophagi under the raised presbytery
built by Paschal I (817824). Drawing: Caroline Goodson.
space of the church. In fact, whereas the titular saint represented
in the apse mosaics and mentioned in the inscription was
physically buried often with additional martyrs within the
church, Christ was made present through the golden letters of
the inscription and the sacraments of the Eucharist. Such an
alliance of golden script, image, and ritual seems also relevant
to those apse mosaics where Christ does not appear as the main
protagonist in the apse conch. Hence, the golden letters in the
apse of S. Maria in Domnica should be seen in relation to the
golden-clad Christ child on the Virgins lap and to his appear-
ance in a mandorla of light on the apex of the arch (figure 7).40
In SantAgnese, where the titular saint takes center stage, it is
possible that Christ was originally depicted on the apex of the
apsidal arch, as seen in the earlier and closely related church of
San Lorenzo, where Christ sits on the globe as the Verbum Dei
(figures 4 and 9). In each case, the divine presence embodied
by the golden letters would accentuate the intercessory efficacy
of the saint(s) and, consequently, that of the pope in his role as
organizer and patron of the entire enterprise.
In addition to joining forces with saints relics, the Eucharist,
and the Virgin Mary by granting access to the sacred within the
church, the golden inscriptions consist of language that situates
those efforts within the incarnational context of the Word made
flesh. The inscription in the apse of S. Cecilia thus portrays the
new church as a bounteous house (domus ampla) that shimmers
from its diverse metals (micat variis metallis), a splendor that the
wording contrasts with the description of the previous structure
285
 as having fallen into rubble (olim quae fuerat confracta sub tem-
pore prisco). The emphasis on splendor is formulaic and intrinsic
to all the golden inscriptions, which occasionally substitute the
frequently used verb micare with other evocative light verbs,
such as fulgere, radiare, and rutilare (see Appendix). Commonly, it
is the aula or domus that profits from the shimmering and radiat-
ing light, whereas the frequently mentioned metallis referring
to the mosaics are made the transmitters of these powerful
effects. The desire at once to emphasize and to exaggerate the
splendor of the new church seems to explain the popular use
of metallis for mosaic.41 As a signifier for a variety of metals
precious ones included the term is as imprecise as it is evoca-
tive of the splendor of the mosaics and, by extension, the entire
church. What mattered was not to be accurate, but rather to
create some sort of rhetorical hyperbole.
The light formulae of the golden apse inscriptions derive
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from ancient ekphrasis, which aims less to describe the dispo-
sition and form of a building or a work of art than to praise
its splendor through scale, precious materials, and radiance of
light.42 In the Metamorphoses, widely known throughout the early
Middle Ages, Ovid thus lauds the Sun Gods palace in terms
closely recalling the light phrases of the apse inscriptions.43
The survival of this tradition in the Middle Ages is perhaps
best known through the lavish descriptions of Hagia Sophia by
Procopius and Paulus Silentarius.44 Arwed Arnulf has demon-
strated that this type of ekphrasis was also widely practiced by
early medieval poets, and the reappearance of the same kind of
light phrases in Abbot Sugers famous dedicatory inscriptions
at Saint-Denis reveals their popularity throughout the Middle
Ages.45
While drawing on the prestige and authority of a venera-
ble ancient tradition, there can be little doubt that the phrases
characterizing light in the early medieval apse inscriptions also
generate associations with biblical images of light and dark-
ness. For example, in S. Maria in Domnica, the reference to
the shimmering light of the mosaic is directly connected with
the new light that Phoebus an ancient god of light and surely
a reference to Christ had conquered from the darkness of
night.46 Even more explicit is the former inscription in San
Lorenzo, which begins by comparing Pope Pelagiuss building
of the new church with Gods power to create light: As the
Lord supplanted darkness with created light, so [here] brilliance
as of a thunderbolt rests on things once hidden.47 A similar
parallel to the opening of Genesis occurs in SantAgnese: He
who was able to set the boundary of night or light has here
beaten chaos back from the tombs of martyrs. These examples
explicitly make Gods creation of light to save mankind coincide
with the popes building of a new sanctuary in which either the
Virgin Mary or the martyrs Saints Lawrence or Agnes make the
divine accessible through their intercessory actions.
As in S. Cecilia, the inscriptions in S. Maria in Domnica
and San Lorenzo further sharpen the biblical contrast between
dark and light by drawing a clear distinction between the new
286 ERIK THUN
and the preceding structure. In the first example, the former
church is portrayed as shattered into rubble (confracta ruinis), a
description that comes very close to the one in S. Cecilia. In
San Lorenzo, the prior circumstances in the catacomb are por-
trayed as narrow (angustus), badly lit (latebris), and under threat
of collapse from another building (ruina minax).48 Although the
description refers to a site-specific situation, it is also true that
this type of contrast between old and new a practice that goes
back to ancient Roman building inscriptions is rather generic
as suggested by the examples from S. Cecilia and S. Maria
in Domnica.49 Therefore, even if such descriptions may con-
tain some historical truth, it seems more correct to place them
in the same category as the light phrases discussed above, that
is, as formulaic, rhetorical exaggerations whose purpose above
all was to stress the significance of the new church in the history
of salvation.
The emphasis on old age versus new splendor thus authorizes
the church of S. Cecilia as a decisive and precise turning point
in the monuments long history. Moreover, by forming part of a
golden inscription that in conjunction with an image of the
Word made flesh as a rising sun points to a transition from
darkness to light and from invisibility to visibility, the metaphor-
ical contrast manifests the new church as a historical moment
in the history of salvation. In translating the bodies of S. Cecilia
and her companions to a newly adorned church earning
him the elevated status in the apse Pope Paschal carries out
Gods work on earth in miniature. His creation of light not only
finds expression through words but also makes itself manifest
in the reflections transmitted by the apse mosaic itself. Very
tellingly, Paschal had his own monogram another emblem
of his patronage placed at the apex of the apsidal arch to
align with depictions of the hand of the invisible God, the figure
of Christ as the rising sun and the Agnus Dei along the central
axis of the apse conch.
What the golden inscription in the apse of S. Cecilia reports
through a combination of facts and rhetorical hyperbole with
regard to the foundation of a new church should therefore
not be considered as distinct from what it expresses through
the visual appearance of its letters. Indeed, as embodiments of
the Word made flesh, the golden letters in S. Cecilia autho-
rize its contents and by extension the significance of
Pope Paschals enterprise as an act of God to save humankind.
The golden inscription merges past with present and propels
Paschals patronage into the larger context of biblical salva-
tion. Reading and looking at the inscription in S. Cecilia thus
becomes a set of closely interrelated activities in which con-
tents and appearance amplify one another to a degree that
fits the inscriptions overt exposure within the fabric of the
ninth-century apse mosaic.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am grateful to Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Karl F. Morrison for
their valuable comments on this paper.
 NOTES
Abbreviations: LP Le Liber Pontificalis. Texte, introduction et commentaire, ed.
Louis Duchesne (Paris: E. De Boccard, 19551957), 3 vols; CBCR
Richard Krautheimer, Corpus basilicarum christianarum Romae (Vatican City:
Ponteficio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 19371970), 5 vols; ICUR
Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae septimo saeculo
antiquiores (Rome: Ex Officina Libraria Pontificia, 18571888), 2 vols; ILCV
Ernst Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Berlin: apud
Weidmannos, 19251985), 4 vols.
1 For the inscription in S. Cecilia, see above, page 282. On the mosaic in
general, which until the early eighteenth century extended to the apsidal
arch representing the Virgin and Child in the center, approached by virgin
martyrs and adored by the 24 elders, see Giovanni Ciampini, Vetera
monumenta, 2 vols. (Rome: Ex typographia J. J. Komarek, 16901699), vol. 2,
pp. 15362, pls. 5152; Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Musaici cristiani e saggi dei
pavimenti delle chiese di Roma anteriori al secolo XV (Rome: Guglielmo Haass,
1899), unpaginated, pl. 24; Marguerite van Berchem and Etienne Clouzot,
Mosaques chrtiennes du IVe au Xe sicle (Geneva: Les presses de lImprimerie
du Journal de Genve, 1924), pp. 24549; Walter Oakeshott, The Mosaics
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of Rome (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967), pp. 21213; Guglielmo
Matthiae, Mosaici medioevali delle chiese di Roma (Rome: Istituto poligrafico
dello Stato, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 23435; John Osborne and Amanda Claridge,
The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo. Mosaics and Wall Paintings in Roman
Churches, 2 vols. (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), vol. 1, pp. 7881.
2 Laura Kendrick, Animating the Letter: The Figurative Embodiment of Writing
from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (Columbus: Ohio State University Press,
1999); Erik Thun, Looking at letters: Living writing in S. Sabina in
Rome, Marburger Jahrbuch 34 (2007), pp. 1943; 2021, 3235; Jeffrey
Hamburger, Script as image, with extensive bibliography.
3 Totum quod legimus in divinis libris nitet quidem et fulget . . . .;
Jerome, Ad Paulinum Presbyterum (Epistula 58, 9), in Saint Jrme, Lettres, ed.
and trans. Jrme Labourt (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1953), vol. 3, p. 83;
Thun, Looking at letters, p. 33. For the concept of Living Writing as
opposed to the letter that kills (2 Cor. 3: 6ff.), see Kendrick, Animating the
Letter, p. 65. See also Peter Brown, Images as a substitute for writing, in
East and West: Modes of Communication, ed. Evangelos Chrysos and Ian Wood
(Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 1535, esp. 2829, who argues for a gradual
convergence of lectio and pictura, reaching an equal footing in the sixth
century.
4 aureis litteris conscribendum et per omnes ecclesias in locis
eminentissimis proponendum esse dicebat; Augustine, De Civitate Dei, X,
29, trans. David S. Wiesen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press;
London: W. Heinemann, 1984), pp. 39293. See also Thun, Looking at
letters, p. 33 and Hamburger, Script as image,.
5 Dominic Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), esp. pp. 6393. On gilt writing, see Kendrick,
Animating the Letter, pp. 7576; Ulrich Ernst, Leuchtschriften: Vom
Himmelsbuch zur Lichtinstallation, in Beitrge zu einer Kulturgeschichte des
Leuchtenden, ed. Christina Lechtermann and Haiko Wandhoff (Bern: Peter
Lang, 2008), pp. 7189, esp. 7176; Thun, Looking at letters, p. 33;
Hamburger, Script as image; Ulrich Ernst, Facetten mittelalterlicher
Schriftkultur. Fiktion und Illustration. Wissen und Wahrnehmung (Heidelberg:
Winter, 2008), pp. 25863.
6 Jerome, Ad Paulinum Presbyterum (Epistula 53, 5), in Saint Jrme, Lettres
3, p. 14; for the letter as Christs flesh and for scripture as his body, see
Kendrick, Animating the Letter, 65ff., with patristic references. For letter and
body, see also Urban Ksters, Der lebendige Buchstabe: Christliche
Traditionen der Krperschaft im Mittelalter, in Audiovisualitt vor und nach
Gutenberg: Zur Kulturgeschichte der medialen Umbrche, ed. Horst Wenzel,
Wilfried Seipel, and Gotthart Wunberg (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches
Museum, 2001), pp. 10717 and Hamburger, Script as image.
7 John Burnam, The Early gold and silver manuscripts, Classical
Philology 6:2 (1911), pp. 14455; Herbert L. Kessler, The Book as icon, in In
the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000, ed. Michelle P. Brown (Washington,
D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian
Institution, 2006), pp. 77103, 77ff; Ernst, Facetten, pp. 267279 and
Hamburger, Script as image.
8 Thun, Looking at letters. The building inscriptions on the Pantheon
and the Arch of Constantine, for instance, were originally filled with such
litterae aureae; see Nicolette Gray, A History of Lettering: Creative Experiment and
Letter Identity (Oxford: D.R. Godine, 1986), p. 20.
9 Armando Petrucci, La scrittura fra ideologia e rappresentazione, in
Storia dellarte italiana, 14 vols. (Turin: Einaudi, 197883 pt. 3), vol. 2,
pp. 57; Carlo Carletti, Epigrafia monumentale di apparato nelle chiese di
Roma dal IV al VII sec: dalla lettura alla contemplazione, in Atti del VI
Congresso Nazionale di Archeologia Cristiana (Florence: La Nuova Italia
Editrica, 1986), pp. 27586; Thun, Looking at letters.
10 Joseph Wilpert, Die rmischen Mosaiken und Malereien der kirchlichen Bauten
vom IV. bis XIII. Jahrhundert, 4 vol (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1916), vol.
2, p. 1272; Ccilia Davis-Weyer, Das Traditio-legis-bild und seine
Nachfolge, Mnchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 3/12 (1961), pp. 745,
2526; Yves Christe, LApocalypse de Jean. Sens et dveloppement de ses visions
synthtiques (Paris: Picard, 1996), p. 80. See also Valentino Pace, Da
Costantino a Foca: osservazioni marginali su temi centrali dallarte a Roma
fra tarda antichit e primo medioevo, in Societ e cultura in et tardoantica, ed.
Arnaldo Marcone (Florence: Le Monnier Universit, 2004), p. 224.
Charles Rufus Morey, on the contrary, described the clouds as evoking the
sunset: see Morey, Lost Mosaics and Frescoes of Rome from the Medieval Period
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1915), p. 35. See also Jean-Michel
Spieser, The Representation of Christ in apses of the early Christian
churches, Gesta 37/1 (1998), pp. 6373.
11 Davis-Weyer, Traditio-legis-bild, pp. 2426, who cites poetry by
Lactantius and Claudian. See also Roelof van den Broek, The Myth of the
Phoenix According to Classical and Early Christian Traditions (Leiden: Brill, 1972).
12 On those connections, see Franz Joseph Dlger, Sol salutis: Gebet und
Gesang im Christlichen Altertum (Mnster: Aschendorff, 1971, 3rd ed. 1972),
pp. 21244, 37077; Martin Wallraff, Christus verus sol (Mnster:
Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2001), pp. 11920, 16970, 15862.
See also Jerzy Mizioek, Sol verus. Studia nad ikonografia chrystusa w sztuce
pierwszego tysiaclecia
(Wrocaw: Zakad Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 1991),
pp. 16782, 174.
13 On rising sun and Incarnation, see Davis-Weyer, Traditio-legis-bild,
p. 26; Wallraff, Christus verus sol, pp. 17490. See also Franz Joseph Dlger,
Das Sonnengleichnis in einer Weihnachtspredigt des Bischofs Zeno von
Verona: Christus als wahre und ewige Sonne, Antike und Christentum 6
(19401950), pp. 156.
14 For the interactions between apse imagery and the liturgy of the
Eucharist, see Geir Hellemo, Adventus Domini. Eschatological Thought in 4th
Century Apses and Catecheses (Leiden: Brill, 1989); Dale Kinney, The
Apocalypse in early Christian monumental decoration, in The Apocalypse in
the Middle Ages, ed. Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 20016; Ursula Nilgen, Die Bilder
ber dem Altar: Triumph- und Apsisbogenprogramme in Rom und
Mittelitalien und ihr Bezug zur Liturgie, in Kunst und Liturgie im Mittelalter,
ed. Nicolas Bock, Sible de Blaauw, Christoph Luitpold Frommel, and
Herbert Kessler (Munich: Hirmer, 2000), pp. 7589.
15 See also Hamburger, Script as image.
16 For an analytical overview of inscriptions in apses, on apsidal and
triumphal arches in Rome and elsewhere, see Christa Belting-Ihm, Zum
Verhltnis von Bildprogrammen und Tituli in der Apsisdekoration frher
westlicher Kirchenbauten, in Testo e Immagine nellAlto Medioevo, Settimane
di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sullAlto Medioevo 41 (Spoleto:
Presso la sede del Centro, 1994), vol. 2, pp. 83984; Richard Krautheimer,
The Building inscriptions and the dates of construction of Old St. Peters:
A reconsideration, Rmisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 25 (1989),
pp. 323, 8ff., who lists a large number of the now lost inscriptions
collected by the compilers of the syllogae from the sixth century on; Ursula
Nilgen, Texte et image dans les absides des Xle-Xlle sicles en Italie, in
287
 Epigraphie et iconographise, ed. Robert Favreau (Poitiers: Universit de
Poitiers, 1996), p. 15364. See also Krautheimer, A Note on the inscription
in the apse of Old St. Peters, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987), pp. 31720;
Thun, Looking at letters, 19ff.
17 On this mosaic and other early surviving and lost apses with Christ
and the apostles, see Christa Ihm, Die Programme der christlichen Apsismalerei
vom 4. Jahrhundert bis zur Mitte des 8. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1992),
pp. 1115; for a general overview of apse mosaics in Rome and their
imagery, see also De Rossi, Musaici cristiani; Oakeshott, Mosaics of Rome;
Matthiae, Mosaici medioevali; Maria Andaloro and Serena Romano,
Limmagine nellabside, in Arte e iconografia a Roma da Costantino a Cola di
Rienzo (Milan: Jaca book, 2000), pp. 93133.
18 Belting-Ihm, Verhltnis von Bildprogrammen und Tituli,
pp. 86873. A few variations occur within the proposed scheme: in the San
Venanzio Chapel the inscription exceptionally consists of white letters on a
deep-blue background; in S. Maria in Domnica, Pope Paschal is not
holding a model of the church, but kneels in front of the Virgin. A close
adaptation of the Roman scheme is found in the apse mosaic in the
Basilica Eufrasiana in Porec, Croatia (524556). See Ann Terry and Henry
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Maguire, Dynamic Splendor: The Wall Mosaics in the Cathedral of Eufrasius at
Porec (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007), pp. 45.
The scheme may also include the now lost apse mosaic in S. Susanna,
commissioned by Pope Leo III (795815): see most recently Franz Alto
Bauer, Das Bild der Stadt Rom im Frhmittelalter (Wiesbaden: L. Reichert,
2004), pp. 10609, with further references. Exceptions are Leo IIIs now
lost apse mosaics in the triclinia of the Lateran Palace and in SS. Nereo ed
Achilleo; whereas the first two had different types of inscriptions, and
showed no titular saints, the latter seems to have had neither inscription
nor an apse imagery with human figures. See Hans Belting, Die Beiden
Palastaulen Leos III. im Lateran und die Entstehung einer ppstlichen
Programmkunst, Frhmittelalterlichen Studien 12 (1978), pp. 5584; Bauer, Bild
der Stadt Rom, pp. 11520, 19599, with further references.
19 The mosaic in the apse conch was demolished when the basilica was
enlarged and reoriented in the thirteenth century, but what seems to have
been its former inscription in golden letters has been recorded and was
inscribed in the nineteenth century above the mosaic on the apsidal arch
that represents the patron pope and titular saint; CBCR 2: 10; Matthiae,
Mosaici medioevali, pp. 14962; Ihm, Programme, pp. 13839, with further
references.
20 HAEC DOMVS AMPLA MICAT VARIIS FABRICATA
METALLIS OLIM QVAE FVERAT CONFRACTA SVB TEMPORE
PRISCO CONDIDIT IN MELIVS PASCHALIS PRAESVL OPIMVS
HANC AVLAM D[OMI]NI FORMANS FVNDAMINE CLARO
AVREA GEMMATIS RESONANT HAEC DINDIMA TEMPLI
LAETVS AMORE DEI HIC CONIVNXIT CORPORA S[AN]C[T]A
CAECILIAE ET SOCIIS RVTILAT HIC FLORE IVVENTVS QVAE
PRIDEM IN CRVPTIS PAVSABANT MEMBRA BEATA ROMA
RESVLTAT OVANS SEMPER ORNATA PER AEVV[M]; ICUR 2, 1;
151, 26; 156, 6; 444, 170; De Rossi, Musaici cristiani, unpaginated, pl. 24. I
am grateful to Karl F. Morrison for the translation of this inscription. The
sentences are interrupted by a few ornamental heart-shaped leaves, typical
of Pope Paschals inscriptions. In addition to calling attention to
borrowings from Virgil, Ovid, and Sedulius, which is normal for this type
of inscription, Favreau notes the inscriptions grammatical and metrical
errors, which make a translation only approximate: see Robert Favreau,
pigraphie mdivale (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), pp. 11819.
21 LP, 2:5558; The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes, trans. Raymond Davies
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995), pp. 1418. The bodies of the
other martyrs placed under the altar were of Tiburtius (brother of
Valerian), Maximus (a Roman soldier), and the two third-century popes
Urban and Lucius. For the translation account, which represents a
particular literary genre, see Gritje Hartman, Paschalis I. und die Heilige
Ccilia: Ein Translationsbericht im Liber Pontificalis, Quellen und Forschungen
aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 87 (2007), pp. 3670; Caroline
Goodson, The Rome of Pope Paschal I. Papal Power, Urban
288 ERIK THUN
Renovation, Church Rebuilding and Relic Translation, 817824 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 24552, which also includes a
discussion and reconstruction of the arrangement of the bodies
under the altar.
22 CBCR, 1:94111; Caroline Goodson, Material memory: Rebuilding
the Basilica of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, Early Medieval Europe 15/1
(2007), pp. 234. For an edition of S. Cecilias late fifth-century Passio, see
Hippolyte Delehaye, tudes sur le lgendier romain: Les saints de novembre et de
dcembre (Brussels: Socit des Bollandistes, 1936), pp. 7396, 194220. For a
discussion of the relationship between S. Cecilias Passio and the translation
account in the Liber Pontificalis, see Hartmann, Paschalis I. und die Heilige
Ccilia, pp. 5062; Goodson, The Rome of Pope Paschal I ,
pp. 24452.
23 SantAgnese appears with two flames and a sword beneath her feet,
referring to the saints fifth-century Passio: see Ihm, Programme, pp. 1412. In
San Marco the names of the depicted saints are inscribed on their
footstools: see Claudia Bolgia, The Mosaics of Gregory IV at S. Marco,
Rome: Papal response to Venice, Byzantium, and the Carolingians,
Speculum 81/1 (2006), pp. 133, here p. 3.
24 LP, 2:57; Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes, p. 18. For these identifications,
see the literature on the apse mosaic referred to in n. 1 above.
25 See discussion in Bolgia, Mosaics of Gregory IV, pp. 2429.
26 Rotraut Wisskirchen, Das Mosaikprogramm von S. Prassede in Rom:
Ikonographie und Ikonologie (Mnster: Aschendorff Verlagsbuchhandlung,
1990), p. 42.
27 Klaus Gereon Beuckers, Stifterbild und Stifterstatus. Bemerkungen
zu den Stifterdarstellungen Papst Paschalis I. (817824) in Rom und ihren
Vorbildern, in Form und Stil: Festschrift fr Gnther Binding zum 65. Gerburtstag,
ed. Stefanie Lieb (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2001),
pp. 5675, esp. 66; for the papal donor portrait in S. Cecilia and in general,
see also Gerhart Ladner, Die Papstbildnisse des Altertums und des Mittelalters
(Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1941), vol. 1,
pp. 6264; Carola Jggi, Donator oder Fundator? Zur Genese des
monumentalen Stifterbildes, Georg-Bloch-Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Instituts
der Universitt Zrich 9/10 (20022003), pp. 2745, 3738; Jean-Pierre Caillet,
LAffirmation de lautorit de lvque dans les sanctuaires palochrtiens
du Haut Adriatique: De linscription limage, Deltion tes Christianike
Archaiologike Hetaireia 24 (2003), pp. 2130; Emanuel S. Klinkenberg,
Compressed Meanings: The Donors Model in Medieval Art to around 1300
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), pp. 1928. On the square halo, which implies
that the yet-to-become saint is still alive, see Gerhart Ladner, The
So-called square nimbus, Medieval Studies, 3 (1941), pp. 1545; John
Osborne, The Portrait of Pope Leo IV in San Clemente, Rome: A
Re-examination of the so-called square nimbus in medieval art, Papers of
the British School at Rome 47 (1979), pp. 5866.
28 Klinkenberg, Compressed Meanings, p. 21. Through the golden
inscriptions in SS. Cosmas and Damian and S. Prassede, Popes Felix IV
and Paschal I literally express their hopes of receiving heavenly reward for
their undertakings.
29 For a discussion of the temporal and spatial implications of the
donors presence in the apse, see Ann Marie Yasin, Making use of
Paradise: Church benefactors, heavenly visions, and the late antique
commemorative imagination, in Looking Beyond. Visions, Dreams, and Insights
in Medieval Art & History, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2010), pp. 3958. See also Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces in
the Late Antique Mediterranean. Architecture, Cult and Community (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 275278.
30 On Pope Paschal, his patronage and role as mediator of the sacred,
see Erik Thun, Image and Relic: Mediating the Sacred in Early Medieval Rome
(Rome: LErma di Bretschneider, 2002), 157ff., 176ff.; Goodson, The Rome of
Pope Paschal I. On the translation of saints relics as a means to increase
ecclesiastical power, see Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and
Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981),
p. 37; Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
 31 Beat Brenk, Da Galeno a Cosma e Damiano. Considerazioni attorno
allintroduzione del culto dei SS. Cosma e Damiano a Roma, in Salute e
guarigione nella tarda Antichit, ed. Hugo Brandenburg, Stefan Heid and
Christoph Markschies (Vatican City, Pontificio Istituto di archeologia
cristiana, 2007), who mentions that the two saints are first recorded in
Rome under Pope Symmachus (498514); LP, 1:262.
32 Peter Cornelius Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter
10501300, Corpus Cosmatorum II, 1 (Stuttgart, 2002), p. 369. On the
fragmentary history of the two saints, see Brenk, Da Galeno a Cosma e
Damiano, p. 82ff.
33 CBCR, 1:3035 (SantAgnese); 2:124125 (San Lorenzo); Richard
Krautheimer, Rome. Profile of a City, 3121308 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1980),
pp. 8385.
34 LP, 1:330; Gillian Mackie, Early Christian Chapels in the West. Decoration,
Function and Patronage (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003),
pp. 21230. On the cult of relics and their translations in Rome, see also
John Osborne, The Roman Catacombs in the Middle Ages, Papers of the
British School at Rome 53 (1985), pp. 278329; Caroline Goodson, Building
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for bodies: The architecture of saint veneration in early medieval Rome, in
Roma Felix Formation and Reflections on Medieval Rome, ed. amonn
Carragin and Carol Neuman de Vegvar (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007),
pp. 5181; Goodson, The Rome of Pope Paschal I , pp. 198211, with further
references.
35 LP, 2:54; on the relics at S. Prassede, see Goodson, The Rome of Pope
Paschal I , pp. 22844. On the mosaics, see Wisskirchen, Mosaikprogramm.
36 See discussion in Bolgia, Mosaics of Gregory IV, pp. 249, who
demonstrates that also the relics of the Persian saints Abdon and Sennen
were brought from the cemetery of Ponziano on the Via Portuense to the
crypt of San Marco.
37 Goodson, The Rome of Pope Paschal I , pp. 10001, 12223; Cristina
Ranucci, Il mosaico absidale: Note sulle vicende conservative e fortuna
critica, in Caelius I. Santa Maria in Domnica, San Tommaso in Formis e il Clivus
Scauri, ed. Alia Englen (Rome, LErma di Bretschneider, 2003), pp. 22840;
Erik Thun, Decus suus splendet ceu Phoebus in orbe: Zum Verhltnis
von Text und Bild in der Apsis von Santa Maria in Domnica in Rom, in
Die Sichtbarkeit des Unsichtbaren. Zur Korrelation von Text und Bild im Wirkungskreis
der Bibel, ed. Bernd Janowski and Nino Zchomelidse (Stuttgart, Deutsche
Bihelgesellschaft, 2003), pp. 14765; Thun, Materializing the invisible in
early medieval art: The Mosaic of Santa Maria in Domnica in Rome, in
Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Giselle de Nie,
Karl F. Morrison, Marco Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 26589.
38 On the mediating power of relics and the Virgin Mary, see Brown,
Cult of the Saints, pp. 149; Robert Deshman, Servants of the Mother of
God in ancient and medieval art, Word & Image 5/1 (1989), pp. 3370;
Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 3046; Arnold
Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien. Die Geschichte ihres Kultes vom frhen
Christentum bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1997), pp. 10315; Thun,
Image and Relic, pp. 8687, 17678; Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces,
pp. 21039.
39 For a reconstruction of this arrangement, see Goodson, Material
memory, pp. 2224, figure 8; on the burial of relics underneath the altar
and its tradition, see Godefridus J.C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the
Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 17586.
40 Thun, Materializing the invisible, pp. 26668.
41 For the significance of metallis, see Eve Borsook, Rhetoric or reality:
Mosaics as expressions of a metaphysical idea, Mitteilungen des
Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 44 (2000), pp. 219, 45, with further
references, and Thun, Materializing the invisible, pp. 26768.
42 Arwed Arnulf, Architektur- und Kunstbeschreibungen von der Antike bis zum 16.
Jahrhundert (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstvevlag 2004), pp. 5171; Erik Thun,
Inscriptions on light and splendor: From Saint-Denis to Rome and back,
in Inscriptions in Liturgical Spaces, ed. Kristin B. Aavitsland and Turid Karlsen
Seim, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium pertinentia 24 (seria nova)
(forthcoming).
43 Ovid describes the palace as Bright (clara micante) with flashing gold
and pyrope that mimics flames/the double doors radiated (radiabant
lumine) the brightness of their silver, Metamorphoses IIV , ed. and trans. D.E.
Hill (Warminster, 1985), p. 49 (Book 2, 15); Arnulf, Kunstbeschreibungen,
pp. 6162, who also notes (p. 31) that Homers description of the Palace of
Alkinoos in the Odyssey is the earliest recorded ekphrasis on a building. In
addition to Ovid, other Latin authors of ekphrasis are Vergil, Horace,
Claudian, and Lucan, who were all read throughout the Middle Ages. For
the relationship between late antique poetry and the visual arts, see also
Michael Roberts, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press 1989), pp. 66122.
44 Procopius, De aedificiis, Book 1, Chapter 1; trans. H.B. Dewing and
G. Downey (London and New York: Loeb Classical Library 1940),
pp. 1133; Paul the Silentary, Description of Hagia Sophia, in Three
Political Voices from the Age of Justinian, trans. Peter Bell (Liverpool: Liverpool
University Press 2009), pp. 195212. For large extracts of their ekphrasis,
see also Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 3121453 (Englewood
Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1972), pp. 7278, 8091.
45 Suger, De administratione, pp. 174, l. 77584; 180, l. 81321, in Abt Suger
von Saint-Denis. Ausgewhlte Schriften, ed. Andreas Speer and Gnther
Binding (Darmstadt, Wissenscheq Buchgesell 2000), pp. 32526; Arnulf,
Kunstbeschreibungen, pp. 89135, 2636; Thun, Inscriptions on light and
splendor, which discusses the connections between Sugers inscriptions
and those of the early medieval apse mosaics.
46 Thun, Materializing the invisible, pp. 26768.
47 For this analogy, see also Anatole Frolow, La mosaque murale
byzantine, Byzantinoslavica 12 (1951), pp. 180209, 208; Borsook, Rhetoric
or reality, p. 4.
48 The inscription in the apse mosaic at Porec in Croatia also describes
the former church: At first this temple, with ruin shaking it, was terrible in
its [threatened] collapse, being neither solid nor secure of strength, small,
filthy, and then devoid of great mosaic decoration; the rotted roof hung
only by the power of grace; Terry and Maguire, Dynamic Splendor,
pp. 45.
49 Edmund Thomas and Christian Witschel, Constructing
reconstruction: Claim and reality of Roman rebuilding inscriptions from
the Latin West, Papers of the British School at Rome 60 (1992), pp. 13579. See
also the critical comments by Garrett G. Fagan, The Reliability of Roman
rebuilding inscriptions, Papers of the British School at Rome, 64 (1996),
pp. 8195.
Appendix with Translations
The transcriptions are from the inscriptions as they appear
in the mosaics. Editorial emendations are enclosed in square
brackets. Some are expansions of abbreviated names and words;
others are corrections of the existing text based on early
medieval transcriptions as published in the cited sources. All
inscriptions have been translated by Karl F. Morrison.
SS. Cosmas and Damian
AVLA D[E]I CLARIS RADIAT SPECIOSA METALLIS
IN QVA PLVS FIDEI LVX PRETIOSA MICAT.
MARTYRIBVS MEDICIS POPVLO SPES CERTA
SALVTIS
VENIT ET EX SACRO CREVIT HONORE LOCVS.
OPTVLIT HOC D[OMI]NO FELIX ANTISTITE
DIGNVM
MVNVS VT AETHERIA VIVAT IN ARCE POLI.
With bright metals, the splendid hall of God shines,
in which the precious light of faith flashes even more radiantly.
289
 From the martyr-physicians unshakeable hope
of being healed has come to the people,
and the place has grown by virtue of [its] sacred honor.
Felix has offered to the Lord this gift,
worthy of a bishop,
that he may live in the highest heights of heaven.
ICUR, 2,1: 71, 134, 152
De Rossi, Musaici, pl. XV
ILCV , 1: no. 1784, p. 349.
S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura
This inscription, which now appears in golden capital letters,
painted on top of the apsidal arch, is no longer preserved.
Originally, it was most probably placed along the lower rim
of the apse conch, demolished in the thirteenth century. The
following transcription follows the ILCV :
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DEMOVIT DOMINVS TENEBRAS VT LVCE CREATA,
HIS QVONDAM LATEBRIS SIC MODO FVLGOR
INEST.
ANGVSTOS ADITVS VENERABILE CORPVS
HABEBAT
HVC VBI NVNC POPVLVM LARGIOR AVLA CAPIT.
ERVTA PLANITIES PATVIT SVB MONTE RECISO
ESTQVE REMOTA GRAVI MOLE RVINA MINAX.
PRAESVLE PELAGIO MARTYR LAVRENTIVS OLIM
TEMPLA SIBI STATVIT TAM PRETIOSA DARI.
MIRA FIDES GLADIOS HOSTILES INTER ET IRAS
PONTIFICEM MERITIS HAEC CELEBRASSE SVIS.
TV MODO SANCTORVM CVI CRESCERE CONSTAT
HONORES
FAC SVB PACE COLI TECTA DICATA TIBI.
As the Lord supplanted darkness with created light,
So [here] brilliance as of a thunderbolt rests on things once
hidden. The
worshipful body formerly had pinched accesses
where [this] hall [now] holds a great throng.
The mountain was cut back and leveled to make an open floor,
and the threatening hulk of a mighty building was removed.
The martyr Lawrence long ago determined that
such precious temples would be given to him by Bishop Pelagius.
How wonderful the faithfulness amidst swords and outrages of
enemies that
the Pontiff consecrated these [structures] to his [Lawrences] his
merits. You
now, for whom the honors due saints are increasing,
make the building dedicated to you be revered in peace.
The following inscription still appears on the apsidal arch of
Pope Pelagiuss mosaic:
MARTYRIUM FLAMMIS OLIM LEVVITA SVBISTI
IVRE TVIS TEMPLIS LVX BENERANDA DEDIT [REDIT].
O deacon, once you endured martyrdom in flames of fire.
Rightly [now] a worshipful light returns to your temples.
ICUR, 2,1: 63, 106, 157
De Rossi, Musaici, pl. XVI
ILCV , 1: no. 1770, 1771, p. 346.
290 ERIK THUN
S. Agnese
AVREA CONCISIS SVRGIT PICTVRA METALLIS
ET COMPLEXA SIMVL CLAVDITVR IPSA DIES.
FONTIBVS E NIBEIS [NIVEIS] CREDAS AVRORA
SVBIRE
CORREPTAS NVBES RVRIBVS [RORIBVS] ARVA
RIGANS.
VEL QVALEM INTER SIDERA LVCEM PROFERET
IRIM
PVRPVREVSQVE PAVO IPSE COLORE NITENS.
QVI POTVIT NOCTIS VEL LVCIS REDDERE FINEM
MARTYRVM E BVSTIS HINC REPPVLIT ILLE CHAOS.
EVRSVM [SVRSVM] VERSA NVTV QVOD CVNCTIS
CERNITVR VNO
PRAESVL HONORIVS HAEC VOTA DICATA DEDIT.
VESTIBVS ET FACTIS SIGNANTVR ILLIVS O[PE]RA
AECET ET ASPECTV LVCIDA CORDA GERENS.
A golden picture arises from specks of metal
and daylight itself, shut out [from here] is [here] enclosed.
Dawn, you could believe, mounts over the conquered clouds
as though from snowy fountainheads
wetting the fields with dew.
Or [you could believe] this the sort of iris light dawn gives among
the stars
and a peacock gleaming with iridescent purple.
He who was able to set the boundary of night or light
has here beaten chaos back from the tombs of martyrs.
Any who once casts an eye overhead sees
these votive offerings the bishop Honorius has given.
By his garments and mien, his works are signified, as also
bearing light [inwardly] in his heart of hearts
he shines [outwardly] to the beholders eye.
The following inscription originally appeared on the apsidal
arch of Pope Honoriuss mosaic:
VIRGINIS AVLA MICAT VARIIS DECORATA
METALLIS
SED PLVS NAMQVE NITET MERITIS FVLGENTIOR
AMPLIS.
The Virgins hall is aglitter, adorned with a profusion of metals,
But it blazes still more brilliantly than lightning with abounding
merits.
ICUR, 2,1: 63, 89, 104, 137, 249
De Rossi, Musaici, pl. XVIII
ILCV , 1: no. 1769/A, p. 345.
Venantius Chapel
MARTYRIBVS XPI D[OMI]NI PIA VOTA IOHANNES
REDDIDIT ANTISTES SACRIFICANTE
[SANCTIFICANTE] DEO
AT [AC] SACRI FONTIS SIMILI FVLGENTE METALLO
PROVIDVS INSTANTER HOC [ANTISTES NVNC]
COPVLAVIT OPVS
QVO QVISQVIS GRADIENS ET XPM PRONVS
ADOR[AN]S
EFFVSASQ[VE] PRECES IMPETRAT ILLE [MITTAT
AD AETHRA] SVAS [SVA].
 John, consecrated bishop by God,
has paid his pious vows to the martyrs of Christ the Lord,
and, using metal that gleams like that of the holy font,
he has now, with careful eye, joined this work [to the font]
to the end that any stepping [here] and, prostrate,
adoring Christ,
may also send to heaven above the prayers they pour forth.
The proposed alternative wording is based on a
ninth-century transcription (Corporis Laureshamensis syllogae prima)
as also used in
ICUR, 2,1: 148, 425
De Rossi, Musaici, pl. XIX
ILCV , 1: no. 1786A, p. 349.
S. Prassede
Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 07:42 14 October 2014
ET DECVS ECCE SVVS SPLENDET CEV PHOEBVS IN
ORBE
QVI POST FVRVA FVGANS TETRAE VELAMINA
NOCTIS
VIRGO MARIA TIBI PASCHALIS PRAESVL
HONESTVS
CONDIDIT HANC AVLAM LAETVS PER SAECLA
MANENDAM.
This house was formerly shattered into rubble.
Now, adorned with diverse metals, it shines continually.
And look! Its glory blazes with splendor
as Phoebus runs his course
after routing pitch darkness, the veils of night.
Virgin Mary, for you the estimable Bishop Paschal
has established this hall.
Because it will endure, he has a place
among those who rejoice through the ages.

ICUR 2,1: 440

EMICAT AVLA PIAE VARIIS DECORATA METALLIS
De Rossi, Musaici, pl. XXIII
PRAXEDIS D[OMI]NO SVPER AETHRA PLACENTIS
HONORE
PONTIFICIS SVMMI STVDIO PASCHALIS ALVMNI S. Marco (parts of the inscription have
SEDIS APOSTOLICAE PASSIM QVI CORPORA disappeared)
CONDENS
PLVRIMA S[AN]C[T]ORVM SVBTER HAEC MOENIA VASTA THOLI FIRMO SISTVNT FVNDAMINE
PONIT FVLCHRA
FRETVS VT HIS LIMEN MEREATVR ADIRE QVAE SALOMONIACO FVLGENT SVB SIDERE
POLORVM. RITV
[This is the] hall of the devout Praxedis, well pleasing to the Lord, HAEC TIBI PROQVE TVO PERFECIT PRAESVL
in HONORE
honor above the skies. It GREGORIVS MARCE EXIMIO CVI NOMINE
shimmers in light, adorned with diverse metals QVARTVS
through the zeal of Paschal the supreme pontiff, TV QVOQVE POSCE DEVM VIVENDI TEMPORA
foster-son of the Apostolic See. LONGA
He buried many bodies of saints DONET ET AD CAELI POST FVNVS SIDERA
beneath these walls, placing them at various sites, DVCAT.
confident that, because of them, he may be found worthy The hugh piers of the dome rest
to approach the threshhold of the heavens. on a strong footing
ICUR 2,1: 353, 438 and shine with a liturgy worthy of Solomon.
De Rossi, Musaici, pl. XXV The Bishop Gregory, the fourth of that distinguished
name,
has brought them to completion
S. Maria in Domnica for you and your honor, Mark.
On your part, beseech God to give him long life
ISTA DOMVS PRIDEM FVERAT CONFRACTA RVINIS and to guide him, after death, to the stars of heaven.
NVNC RVTILAT IVGITER VARIIS DECORATA ICUR 2,1: 439
METALLIS De Rossi, Musaici, XXVIII

291