Phoenix

PHOENIX. - A symbolic bird originating from India, according to the Physiologus (J. Strzygowski, Der Bilderkreis des griechischen Physiologus, Leipzig 1890, p. 4), from Arabia, according to St. Clement, who reports the legend (I Cor. 25; PG 1, 261) and Tertullian (De resurr. carnis, 13; PL 2, 857-58), whereas for Eusebius it would be "avis Aegyptia" (Vita Constantini, IV, 72; PG 20, 1228). For Christians it was a symbol of the resurrection and as such it is also found reproduced with a radiant nimbus.

Thus in epigraphs, as, for example, in one of the year 385 (G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae, I, Rome 1857-1861, p. 155, n. 354); on a slab from the cemetery of Callistus (id., Roma sotterranea, II, ibid. 1867, p. 313), in an epigraph from the cemetery of Praetextatus (R. Kanzler, Relazione ufficiale degli scavi eseguiti dalla Commissione di archeologia sacra nelle catacombe romane (1907-1909), in N. bull. arch. crist., 15 [1909], p. 129, n. 35). In cemetery painting there is only one example, in the representation of the Dominus legem dat painted in the cemetery ad decimum of the Via Latina (Wilpert, Mosaiken, pl. 132). It is sometimes found on sarcophagi or in isolation, as in that of St. Maximus in S. Cecilia in Trastevere (id., Sarcofagi, II, p. 271, fig. 168) and above a palm behind the figure of St. Paul, the great herald of the dogma of the Resurrection. Thus it appears in the sarcophagus of Verona and in the one placed beneath the altar of the Madonna della Colonna in St. Peter's in the Vatican, reused to hold the remains of the popes Leo I and IV (id., loc. cit., I, p. 177, pl. 150, 2; p. 183, pl. 154, 4). In mosaics the phoenix appears several times, either isolated as in the dome of the baptistery of Naples (id., Mosaiken, pl. 20) or high up above the palm placed behind the image of St. Paul, as in the apses of Sts. Cosmas and Damian (526-30), of St. Cecilia and of St. Praxedes (817-24); the phoenix is found even as a decoration on the chlamydes of the archangels Michael and Gabriel in St. Apollinaris in Classe at Ravenna (6th century) and in the lower part of the sumptuous Byzantine stole of St. Agnes in the apse of her basilica on the Via Nomentana (625-38). It also appears in the floor mosaic of the church of St. Genesius in Thiers (Puy-de-Dôme) from the Merovingian period (L. Brehier, Les mosaïques mérovingiennes de Thiers, in Faculté des lettres de Clermont Ferrand, Mélanges littéraires publics à l'occasion du centenaire de sa création, Paris 1910, pp. 69-85). In the destroyed fresco of the oratory of St. Felicity in the baths of Tyre, dated to the 6th century, the phoenix with a nimbus was painted at the top of a palm (G. B. De Rossi, Scoperta d'una cripta storica nel cimitero di Massimo ad sanctum Felicitatem sulla Via Salaria nova, in Bull. d'arch. christ., 4th series, 3 [1884-85], p. 157 app.). Indicated by name, it is found engraved on the architrave of the central door of the ancient basilica of St. Paul, currently in the cloister.