PHOENIX. - A symbolic bird originating from India, according to the *Physiologus* (J. Strzygowski, *Der Bilderkreis des griechischen Physiologus*, Leipzig 1899, p. 4), from Arabia, according to St. Clement, who recounts its legend (I Cor. 25; PG 1, 261) and Tertullian (De resurr. carnis, 13: PL 2, 857-58), while for Eusebius it would be an “avis Aegyptia” (Vita Constantini, IV, 72: PG 20, 1228). For Christians it was a symbol of the Resurrection and as such it is also depicted with a radiate nimbus.
Thus in inscriptions, such as, for example, one from the year 385 (G. B. De Rossi, *Inscriptiones Christianae*, I, Rome 1876-1871, p. 155, no. 354); on a slab from the Catacomb of Callistus (id., *Roma sotterranea*, II, 1876, p. 313), and in an inscription from the Catacomb 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, no. 35). In funerary painting it has only one example in the representation of the *Dominus legem dat* painted in the ad decennium cemetery of the Latina (Wilpert, *Mosaiken*, pl. 132). It is sometimes found on sarcophagi or isolated, as on that of St. Maximus in S. Cecilia in Trastevere (id., *Sarcofagi*, II, p. 271, fig. 158) and above a palm behind the figure of St. Paul, the great proclaimer of the dogma of the Resurrection. Thus
it appears on the sarcophagus of Verona and on that placed beneath the altar of the Madonna della Colonna in St. Peter’s in the Vatican, reused to contain the remains of Popes Leo I and IV (id., loc. cit., I, p. 177, pl. 130, 2; p. 183, pl. 154, 4). In museums the phoenix appears several times, either isolated as in the dome of the baptistery of Naples (id., *Mosaiken*, pl. 20) or high above the palm, placed behind the image of St. Paul, as in the apses of SS. Cosmas and Damian (526-30), of St. Cecilia and of St. Praxedes (817-24); the phoenix is even found as decoration in the clavi of the archangels Michael and Gabriel in S. Apollinare 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 pavement mosaic of the church of St. Genesius in Thiers (Puy-de-Dôme) of Merovingian date (L. Bréhier, *Les mosaïques mérovingiennes de Thiers*, in *Faculté des lettres de Clermont Ferrand. Mélanges littéraires publiés à l’occasion du centenaire de sa création*, Paris 1910, pp. 69-85). In the destroyed fresco of the oratory of St. Felicitas in the Baths of Titus, dated to the 6th century, the phoenix with a nimbus was painted at the summit of a palm (G. B. De Rossi, *Scopola d’una cripta storica nel cimitero di Massimo ad sanctum Felicitatem sulla Via Salaria nova*, in *Bull. d’arch. christ.*, 4th ser., 3 [1884-85], p. 157 seq.). Indicated by name, it is carved on the architrave of the central door of the ancient basilica of St. Paul, now in the cloister.