Personifications

PERSONIFICATIONS. - Early Christian art generally continued to make use of personifications created by classical art.

For example, the personifications of the four seasons, such as those discovered in the 16th century on the ceiling of a Roman house on the Caelian Hill (Wilpert, Pitture, p. 35, fig. 2), and in a columbarium of the Isola Sacra necropolis (G. Calza, Il sepolcreto dell'Isola Sacra,

Rome 1939), occasionally recur in Christian funerary monuments, thus in the cubicle known as the "Greek Chapel" in Priscilla, where the bust of Summer remains (J. Wilpert, Fractio panis, Paris 1896, pl. 5); later in the "inter duas lauros" cemetery (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 100; J. P. Kirsch, Un gruppo di cripte dipinte inedite del cimitero dei SS. Pietro e Marcellino, in Riv. arch. crist., 7 [1930], pp. 231-34, figs. 18-21); in the so-called Marcus and Marcellianus (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 245, 1). Spring alone appears in a cubicle of Pamphilus (E. Josi, Il cimitero di Panfilo, in Riv. di arch. christ., 1 [1924], p. 141, fig. 52); in Praetextatus we find: Spring in the guise of maidens weaving garlands of flowers (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 32, 1); Summer with harvesting putti (id., ibid., pl. 32, 2); Autumn with grape-gathering putti (id., ibid., pl. 33); Winter with putti gathering olives (id., ibid., pl. 34); putti personifying the seasons are also found in Domitilla in the cubicle known as the bakers' (R. Garrucci, Storia dell'arte cristiana, Prato 1876-81, pl. 21, 2) and in Pontian (J. Wilpert, Die Katakombengemälde und ihre alte Kopien, Freiburg i. Br. 1891, p. 69, pl. 28).

In cemetery painting, though purely for decorative purposes, one also finds the personification of Ocean in the cemetery of Callixtus (Wilpert, Pitture, pp. 30-31 and pl. 134, 1); while the river Tigris is represented (bearded, nude, reclining) near Tobias catching the fish in a fresco in the cemetery believed to be that of Thraso (id., ibid., p. 31 and pl. 212). The sun in the form of a human head from which rays emanate toward Jonah is found in a painting in the cemetery of Domitilla (id., ibid., pl. 56). Personifications of the sea and of the lands, as on the sarcophagus of Annos Catos, formerly in Callixtus and now in the Lateran Christian Museum (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pp. 183-328, pl. 193, 1), or of the sea in the crossing of the Red Sea (id., ibid., p. 183, pl. 211, 2); of the caelus (id., ibid., p. 176), of the storm or wind (id., ibid., pp. 15, 162, 184, 202); of the river Jordan, on a Vatican sarcophagus, on one in the Louvre, and in Lateran 119 (id., ibid., pp. 182, 268 and fig. 106), which is later to be found in the mosaics of the two baptisteries of Ravenna and again in the «Hortus deliciarum» (Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 779, fig. 349). Later still, in the 9th-century Greek Psalter of the National Library in Paris, we find personifications of Melody listening, of the Mountain of Bethlehem, of the nymph Echo, of Night, of Dawn, of Strength, of Power, of Humility, of Repentance, of the Mountain, of the Desert, of Night, of the Abyss, etc. (L. Bréhier, L'art byzantin, Paris 1924, pls. 22-25).

In the 11th century, other personifications are found in the Vatican Greek Psalter 381; among these is David between Wisdom and Prophecy (P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Miniature del Cod. Vat. Reg. gr. 1 e del Salterio del Cod. Vat. gr. 381, Milan 1905, pl. 7).

The Lord with His power generally appears simply represented by the divine hand protruding from the clouds, staying the arm of Abraham as he is ready to sacrifice Isaac, or delivering the Law to Moses, or crowning the Martyrs of Christ, or as a bust on high among the clouds, as in the mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore (e.g., in the sacrifice of Melchizedek, or when speaking to Moses [Wilpert, Mosaiken, pls. 8 and 19, 1]).

The personification of the «Sol Salutis» in the well-known guise of Helios on a biga or quadriga is found in Domitilla, «inter duas lauros» (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 160, 1) and, in mosaic, in the vault of a Christian mausoleum in the Vatican (B. M. Apollon-Ghetti, A. Ferrua, E. Josi, E. Kirschbaum, Esplorazioni sotto la Confessione di S. Pietro in Vaticano, I, Vatican City 1951, p. 123, pl. D). On Christian sarcophagi, the familiar personifications of the radiate Sun and the crescent Moon occasionally continue, as in the Sarcophagus of Manosque (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, p. 328, pl. 192, 6). The personification of the Roman Church was in the apse mosaic of the Vatican Basilica, restored by Innocent III (Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 362, fig. 114); in the Montecassino Exultet (Cod. Barb. lat. 592, 11th cent.) it is represented praying with the inscription Mater Ecclesia (Enc. Catt., III, cols. 1517-18). Of an absolutely Christian character are the two female figures personifying Charity and Peace (Agape and Irene), in frescoes in the "inter duas lauros" cemetery (Wilpert, Pitture, pp. 31, 433 ff.; pls. 133, 2; 157; 184). Personifications of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Trier were reproduced in the codex containing the Chronograph of 354, known through Peiresc's drawings publ. by J. Strzygowski (Die Kalenderbilder des Chronographen vom J. 354, Berlin 1888, pls. 4-7); a capsella found in Croatia depicts Rome in the center, having Constantinople and Carthage to its right and Nicomedia and Siscia to its left (CIL, III, 3969); the personification of Rome is also found in a fresco in a building discovered near the Lateran in 1655 (Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 127 ff. and pl. 1); she is a queen, as Prudentius had called her (Contra Symmachum, I, 464: PL 60, 157).

Enrico Josi