ASINO

DONKEY. - Among the many animals that Paleo-Christian art admitted into its repertoire, the donkey must also be noted. In a fresco from the cemetery of Pretestato (Wilpert, Pitture, Rome 1903, pl. 51), in which the Good Shepherd appears to defend the flock against a donkey and a pig, the donkey was interpreted as a wild animal (onager) and seen as a figure of the devil or of heretics (Physiologus, 14). It does not, however, seem that Christian art drew upon the manifold allegories of the donkey in classical or patristic times. From the 4th century onward, it appears in the Nativity scene on the basis of apocryphal sources, and is used as a historical element in the angel’s appearance to Balaam, in Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, and, by the 6th century, in the Flight into Egypt. In the Palatine graffito, the donkey is probably a blasphemous representation of the Crucified.