DEXTERARUM IUNCTIO. - For the Romans the solemn act of the celebration of marriage culminated in the clasping of the right hands of the spouses, who thus symbolically expressed their will to be husband and wife and to lead a life in common. This gesture, designated by the expression d. i. or coniunctio manuum, is found represented in Early Christian art several times on sarcophagi, more rarely on the bases of gold glasses and on other small objects: it is absent from paintings and mosaics, setting aside the biblical scene in one of the mosaic panels of the Roman basilica of S. Maria Maggiore representing the marriage of Moses and Zipporah.
This scene was taken over completely by Christian artists from classical art, so much so that in the earliest Christian representations, as, for example, can be seen on two sarcophagi of the late Tetrarchic period, one from the church of S. Salvatore a Vescovo and one found not far from Porta Salaria (now in the museum of the Camposanto Teutonico), both adorned with the figure of the Good Shepherd at the corners, there appears between the two spouses the image of Iuno Pronuba, the goddess to whom the protection of marriage was entrusted. The same figuration is found in a small fragment of a sarcophagus from the beginning of the 4th century, walled into the facade of villa Doria-Pamphilj, in Rome, which is particularly precious because the figure represented beside some scenes drawn from the New Testament identifies himself as a consul by means of the sceptre in his left hand, a representation therefore, in this respect, unique in Early Christian funerary sculpture.
In the act of the d. i. the spouses always appear full-length and standing; the only exception is that of the sarcophagus of Catervius and Severina in the cathedral of Tolentino, where the spouses, between whose heads the divine hand holds out a crown, are depicted half-length and within a clipeus. Here, as in many other cases, the bridegroom holds in his left hand a rolled volumen. Since these are nuptial scenes, it is more than probable that this volumen represents the tabulae nuptiales and the libellus on which the marriage contract was drawn up and on which mention was made of the amount of the dowry brought by the bride and which was generally destined ad onera matrimonii sustinendo.
According to what Wilpert holds, a notarius is perhaps represented in a scene of d. i. carved on the side of a large sarcophagus in the cathedral of Mantua: there one sees in fact a figure dressed in a tunic and paenula who holds in his hands a diptych and a stylus.
The scene of the d. i. appears at the end of the 4th century on two bases of gold glasses, one formerly part of the Christian collection of the Kircherian museum and another now in the Sacred museum of the Vatican library; in the middle of the 5th century it is encountered on the reverse of a gold coin issued by the mint of Constantinople (now in the museum of Glasgow), representing the marriage of the emperor Marcian and Pulcheria.
Bibliography6 works
Giuseppe Bovini