Part 7

On the Via Salaria Nuova, about two miles from Rome, the Irish College has its vineyard, formerly called the Vigna de Cuppis. In this vigna the excavation of the famous cemetery of Priscilla had its beginning, and from this it extended its intricate galleries in all directions, passing beneath the road, and far under the fields on the other side. The picture we are about to examine is found over a loculus or grave in this cemetery of Priscilla. In it is depicted a woman, seated and holding in her arms an infant, who has his face turned towards the spectator. She has on her head a scanty veil, and wears a tunic with short sleeves, and over the tunic a _pallium_. The position of these figures and the whole composition are such as to convince any one who has had experience of this kind of paintings, that they are intended for the Virgin and Child. Indeed, all doubt of this has been removed by the painter himself. Near the top of the painting he has represented the star which is ever present when our Lady is described as presenting her Son to the Magi, or as seated by the manger. To the spectator's left, a man youthful in appearance, with a sparse beard, standing erect and robed only in the _pallium_, raises his right hand and points towards the Virgin and the star. In his left he holds a book. At the first sight of this figure it naturally occurs to the mind that it can be none other than Joseph, the chaste spouse of the Blessed Virgin, who is represented at her side on various sarcophagi in Italy and France, in diptychs, and in the mosaics of St. Mary Major's. Generally speaking, he is described as of a youthful appearance, and rarely with a beard. But it is unusual to paint him with the pallium, and with a book in his hand. De Rossi is of opinion that the figure in question is that of a prophet, it being quite usual to unite the figure from the Old Testament with the reality in the New. Besides, in a monument of the ninth century two prophets attired like our figure stand one each side of our Blessed Lady. He believes it to be Isaias, who so often foretold the star and the light that was to shed its rays on the darkness of the pagan world (_Isaias_, ix. 2; lx. 2, 3, 19; _cf._ _Luc._, i. 78, 79). On one of the painted glasses explained by F. Garnieri, Isaias is represented as a young man. We have here, therefore, in the heart of the catacombs an undoubted representation of our Blessed Lady.

We now proceed to determine the age of this painting--a matter of the greatest importance to our present purpose. What canons of judgment ought to be followed in such an investigation? First, we should attend to the style of the painting, and the degree of artistic perfection it exhibits in conception and execution; secondly, we should confront the results of this first examination with such information as we may be able to collect from a close study of the history, topography, and inscriptions of each subterranean apartment, such a study being admirably calculated to assist us in fixing the date of the painting. To do all this in any given case, is not the work of a few pages, but of a bulky volume. As far as our painting is concerned, all the tests above mentioned serve to prove its extraordinary antiquity. "Any one can see", says our author (_page_ 15), "that the scene depicted in the cemetery of Priscilla is treated in a manner altogether classical, and is a work of the best period of art. The very costume employed therein suggests a very remote antiquity; that is to say the _pallium_, without any under garment, the right arm bared in the figure of the prophet, and still more the short-sleeved tunic on the Virgin. The beauty of the composition, the grace and dignity of the features, the freedom and skill of the drawing, stamp this fresco as belonging to a period of art so flourishing, that, when first I saw it, I thought I had before me one of the oldest specimens of Christian painting in the Catacombs. I spoke of it to my master, the late celebrated P. Marchi, who proceeded to examine it in company with the illustrious Professor Cav. Minardi, now member of the Commission, of Sacred Archaeology, and both pronounced it to be a wonderful specimen of the very earliest Christian art. The learned and the experts in the study of Greco-Roman monuments who have seen this fresco, have declared it to be not later than the time of the first Antonines, and perhaps even prior to that epoch. It remains therefore to collect such proofs as may fix as closely as possible the age of this remarkable monument, which all admit to belong to the first years of Christianity. To this end I will first compare it with other paintings of more or less certain date, and then confront the results of the comparison with the history, topography, and inscriptions of the crypt". He then compares our fresco first with paintings in the cemetery of Callixtus, which it is admitted belong to the days of Popes Pontianus, Anteros, and Fabian, and finds that it is far superior to them in style and execution, and consequently belonging to an older and more classical school. He next compares them with the ornaments of the square crypt, discovered last year in the cemetery of Pretextatus, and belonging to about the year 162. These ornaments, better than the last mentioned, are still inferior to our fresco. Finally, in the cemetery of Domitilla, there is a _cubiculum_ adorned with the finest stucco, on which a pencil more skilled in pagan than in Christian painting has drawn landscapes and figures that remind you of the houses at Pompeii and Herculaneum, rather than of the paintings of the catacombs. Compared even with these, our fresco loses nothing, but, if anything, surpasses them in composition and design. "Hence", concludes our author, "the painting in the cemetery of Priscilla, compared with those paintings, the date of which is more or less determined, is found to be as beautiful and valuable as the very oldest of them, or even more so; and allowing that some portion of its merit belongs to the artist and not to the period, we must still conclude that it is cotemporary with the very origin of Christian painting, or at least very little distant from it. In a word, the painting belongs to the period of the Flavii and of the preaching of the Apostles, or to that immediately following, namely, the period of Trajan (A.D. 98), of Hadrian (A.D. 117), and at the latest of the first Antonines" (A.D. 138). The truth of this result is confirmed on the application of the other tests mentioned above: by the style of the other ornaments of the place, which being in relief are never found in a crypt of the third century; by the history of the cemetery, which is clearly proved to have been the place of burial of the Christian family of Pudens, the first of whom were cotemporary with the Apostles; by the topography, for the spot where the painting exists was the very centre of the excavation; by the style of the inscriptions around it, which are of the most ancient form, and almost apostolical. All these arguments, taken together, are invincible, and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this beautiful painting of our Blessed Lady was traced almost beneath the eyes of the Apostles themselves.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] _Lives of the early Italian Painters._ By Mrs. Jameson, p. 2.

[33] Ibid., pag. 4.