Nimbus

NIMBUS. - A disc which from as early as the 4th century B.C. is found placed around the head of images of divinities or of deified beings.

In classical art this attribute was given to the divinities of Olympus, especially to those symbolizing light, such as Apollo-Helios-Sun; Artemis-Selene-Moon; to Eos-Aurora; to Phosphoros-Lucifer. On the vault of a pagan mausoleum, transformed into a Christian one, in the Vatican necropolis, the radiant and nimbed Sun is represented on the chariot in full career (B. M. Apollonj-Ghetti, A. Ferrua, E. Josi, E. Kirschbaum, Esplorazioni sotto la confessione di S. Pietro in Vaticano, Vatican City 1951, pp. 40-41, pls. B and C). There too a Phosphoros-Lucifer, with the n. surmounted by a star (ibid., p. 62, pl. E). The radiant n. was also given to the Phoenix (slab in the cemetery of Callistus [E. Josi, s. v. FENICE, in Enc. Catt., V, col. 1151] and a very recent fresco discovered in the so-called Greek chapel of Priscilla); the seasons also have the n. (cemetery inter duas lauros: Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 100), as do the emperors (Hadrianic medallion in the Arch of Constantine [H. P. L'Orange and A. von Gerkan, Der Spätantike Bildschmuck des Konstantinsbogens, Berlin 1939, pl. 5]); on coins: medallion of Constantius II, of Valens and Valentinian (F. Gnecchi, Medaglioni romani, I, Milan 1912, pl. 11,1), silver missorium disc of Valentinian I (?) and of Theodosius I of 388 (R. Delbruck, Spätantike Kaiserporträts, Berlin 1933, pl. 79), on ivories: diptych of Probus in Aosta of the year 406 (ibid., pl. 106). In cemetery art the n. is given at first only to Jesus Christ, e.g., before Pilate in the mosaic in an arcosolium at Priscilla (G. B. De Rossi, Nuove scoperte nel cim. di Priscilla, in Bull. arch. crist., 4th series, 5 [1887], p. 12 ff.); in the scenes where he is judge, as at Bassilla (Wilpert, Mosaiken, pl. 247); in St. Lawrence (ibid., pl. 206), between the wise and foolish virgins (ibid., pl. 241) and between two saints (ibid., pl. 205), as also in Callistus (ibid., pl. 245), or between the Apostles, as at Bassilla (ibid., pl. 225) and in Domitilla, where Sts. Peter and Paul also have the n. (ibid., pl. 155, 2). The angel who protects the three youths in the furnace has the n. in a fresco of the cemetery of Domitilla (Wilpert, Pitture, p. 332 and pl. 231, 1). In the cemetery of Vigna Cassia in Syracuse, Jesus Christ above the n. has the monogram ☒ (ibid., pp. 365-66, fig. 34); in the cemetery inter duas lauros he has the n. with the apocalyptic letters, like the divine lamb, which also has the monogrammatic cross ☒ (ibid., pls. 252-253); he has the crossed n. in the paintings of Pontian, of Generosa and of Callistus (ibid., pls. 257-58, 260); in the mosaics of St. Apollinaris the New in Ravenna; on a marble slab (4th century) in the cemetery of Thraso, where he delivers the law to St. Peter (R. Garrucci, Storia dell'arte cristiana, Prato 1873-81, pl. 484, 14). The saints have the simple n.

in the cemeteries of Ponziano, Callisto and Generosa (Wilpert, Pitture, pls. 225-60, 262); the angel in Ponziano (ibid., pl. 259). St. Januarius has the nimbus and the monogram (v. GENNARO, in Enc. Catt., VI, pl. II). Also in non-cemeterial art, for example in mosaics, Christ appears nimbed in St. John in Fonte in Naples (Wilpert, Mosaiken, pl. 30), in St. Aquilinus in Milan (ibid., pl. 44), in St. Pudenziana in Rome (ibid., pls. 42-44) and in the mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna (ibid., pl. 48). In the triumphal arch of St. Mary Major he has the nimbus with a cross above it in the scenes of the adoration of the Magi (ibid., pls. 57-58) and of the meeting with King Aphrodisius (ibid., pls. 65-68); the angels always have the nimbus, and so does Herod in the scenes in which he speaks with the Magi and in that of the massacre of the innocents (ibid., pls. 61-62 and 69); whereas neither the Madonna nor the apostles Peter and Paul have it. In miniatures it is found in the Chronographer of 354, in the Vienna Genesis, in the Joshua Roll, in personifications of cities and rivers. In the Life of St. Gregory the Great, John the Deacon (9th century) indicates that the square or rectangular nimbus is insigne viventis (PL 75, 231); it surrounds living persons in frescoes, mosaics and miniatures. According to Wilpert the square nimbus would originate from the fact that the Romans sometimes portrayed heads from life, executing them on canvas, and then applied them, enclosed in a wooden frame, to the rest of the figure (Le nimbe carré, in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 26 [1906], p. 2 ff.); according to W. de Grüneisen, on the other hand, the square nimbus would have been spread from Egypt to the West (Intorno all'uso egiziano di raffigurare i defunti, in Arch. della Soc. rom. di Storia patria, 29 [1906], pp. 229-39). Ph. Lauer proposed to recognize in the double use of the round nimbus for saints and the rectangular one for living persons a consequence of the iconoclastic struggles (Observations sur l'origine et l'usage du nimbe rectangulaire, in Mém. de la Soc. nat. des Antiq. de France, 67 [1908], pp. 55-71). G. De Jerphanion preferred the idea of R. Garrucci (Storia dell'arte crist., IV, Prato 1877, p. 98), taken up and developed by G. Wilpert (Appunti sulle pitture della chiesa di S. Maria Antiqua,

Pitture, pl. 134, 1); therefore G. de Jerphanion concluded that it cannot be admitted that the Roman use derives from the Egyptian. John VII (v.; 705-707) has the square nimbus in the tabernacle in honor of the Madonna which he had made in the Vatican Basilica; Pope Zachary (752) in St. Maria Antiqua, in the chapel of Sts. Quiricus and Julitta, Gregory IV (827-44) in St. Mark's in the apse mosaic and Leo IV (847-55) in St. Clement's.

The nimbus or aureole, in its most elementary form, had extraordinary diffusion in all countries and was happily enriched with delicate ornamental motifs, executed with niello in Gothic art, in whose flowering it also extended to sculpture, which previously had remained deprived of it owing to difficulties of execution. A decisive change took place during the Renaissance, with the sporadic suppression of the nimbus in painting or else with its consideration as a real attribute, localized in space and perspectivally orientable, not without drawing virtuosities. With Michelangelo and the great masters of the sixteenth century the archaic tradition of the nimbus is violently broken, arousing protests of a religious and iconographic order. Nevertheless the tradition continued in minor and popular art, and was replaced in the Baroque age by more or less violent fulgurations of light. To the nimbus is linked the "mandorla", which includes in an ellipsoidal curve the whole person who is intended to be honored.

Enrico Josi

Current prescriptions concerning the nimbus or aureole - Urban VIII in 1625 (decree of the Holy Inquisition de cultu publico Servis Dei non exhibendo, of 13 March: CIC Fontes, IV, Rome 1926, pp. 3-5) and again in 1635 (constitution Caelestis Hierusalem, 5 July: Bullarium Romanum, ed. Taurinensis, XIV, Turin 1868, pp. 463-40) forbade the public or private display of images of deceased persons who died in repute of sanctity and martyrdom "cum laureolis aut radiis, seu splendoribus". This prohibition is still in force. The circular nimbus is now used only for canonized saints, whereas for the blessed a nimbus is used, formed in the manner of rays that diffuse from behind the head of the blessed. This special nimbus is mentioned for the first time in the brief of beatification of St. Francis de Sales of Alexander VII (Spiritus sanctus, 28 Dec. 1661: D. Cappelli, Contextus actorum omnium in Byz. Zeitschr., 14 [1905], pp. 578-79), that the rectangular nimbus was destined to give the illusion of a true portrait, as, for example, the head of the primicerius Theodore with the square nimbus in St. Maria Antiqua was painted on canvas separately and then applied to the fresco (v. DIACONIA; G. Wilpert, Beiträge zur christl. Archfol., in Röm. Quart., 21 [1907], p. 102, fig. 2). But the oldest example is given by a fresco of the cemetery of Callisto, in which a canvas with the effigy of the owner of the cubiculum was applied to a bust (ibid., p. 103, fig. 3; id., in beatificazione et canonizzazione s. Francisci Salesi ep. Gebenensis, Rome 1665, p. 18). There one reads the expression: "Immagines quoque radiis, seu splendoribus exumentur", which is still repeated in the briefs of beatification (cf., for example, the Brief of Pius XII, 2 June 1951, for the beatification of Pius X: AAS, 43 [1951], p. 467).

A. Pietro Frutaz