SARCOPHAGI. - Within the sphere of the artistic documentation of the first centuries of Christianity, Early Christian sarcophagi constitute, together with the catacomb paintings, the richest and most extremely precious part both for the history of the art of the late Empire and for the illustration of Christian thought.
The rite of inhumation, permitted only among Christians, found for the majority of their bodies the indispensable and relatively inexpensive custody in the loculi, arcosolia and forms offered by the underground, in rock-cut tombs or, failing these, in chests or urns of terracotta, of lead, or in tombs composed with tiles or slabs of marble. The wealthier among them, however, never renounced the more costly medium of the sarcophagus, so widespread in the Greek-Roman world, and from the moment when Christians could give full development to their cemeteries sub divo, the workshops of the marble-workers could count on an ever more numerous clientele. With the exception of the particular characteristics of a few provincial centers of secondary importance, the surviving monuments reveal Rome as the principal center of production, which makes its influences felt on southern Italy and Africa, on northern Italy, southern Gaul and northern Spain; late, on the other hand, is the art of Constantinople, which would influence centers such as Thessalonica and Ravenna. Although certain indications are already not lacking which demonstrate how in the various regions local elements combine, according to the periods, with the influences coming from the metropolises, much still remains to be done to arrive at a clear and complete differentiation, made difficult by the unresolved question of the intense traffic of marbles, and perhaps also of already finished sarcophagi, throughout the Empire.
And it was precisely marble that served as the preferred material, since the use of porphyry remained limited to imperial tombs, while local stones, moreover limestones, were employed rather late, in the sub divo cemeteries, for sarcophagi barely adorned with figures. The marbles most often employed were white Greek marble, that of Asia Minor and that of Luni, but discoveries such as that of Visconti in the ancient Marmorata of the Tiber (1868-70) show the full variety of provenances. As happens even today, so one must imagine the existence of marble-workers' workshops on the main roads in the vicinity of the great cemeteries (Appian Way, Salaria, Vatican), workshops of varying category which in all likelihood adapted their production to demand and therefore progressively Christianized themselves.
If at the beginning most sarcophagi were monolithic, later the growing scarcity of marbles led not only to the composition of marble chests with slabs held together by iron clamps, but also to the joining of blocks of marble of different dimensions and even of different material. The fact of the joints must never be lost sight of in stylistic or iconographic studies, because it sometimes forced the choice of determined scenes, the modification of their traditional composition, the different distribution of the individual scenes. Indeed one may ask whether certain scenes were not maintained in the more evolved repertoire precisely thanks to the joints.
As some rare surviving examples still demonstrate, many were polychrome, even, in some cases, before their sculpture was entirely finished. By means of outlines in carmine red and cinnabar, yellow or violet, an attempt was made to bring out the general design better; by means of surface colorings certain parts of the composition were enlivened in such a way as to contrast with other marble parts left in their natural state; still other parts were detailed or shaded with a fine hatching in yellow or brownish red. Gold, often applied on a purple-colored ground, was used preferably for the hair of the conventional figures, in the ornaments (bands, bracelets, etc.) and on metallic objects. But coloration never followed uniform norms and was subject to evolutions in the course of time.
By their general form, sarcophagi are distinguished into two types: those in the form of a tub and those in the form of a chest. Roman art prefers the sarcophagus decorated only on the principal face, or, at most, also on the ends, though with more modest reliefs, all comprised between simple horizontal fillets; as a lid, a horizontal slab sometimes provided with acroteria and attics, in which the tabella for the inscription is inscribed amid various figurations. Greek art, on the other hand, is accustomed to employ ornamental complexes to which the rich base and cornice give a more pronounced architectural appearance, while the reliefs cover the four sides and the lid assumes the semicylindrical form or that of a roof with two slopes. From one group to the other it happens that certain interferences are found. A special architectural type is given by the columnar sarcophagus, which spreads in the 4th century, and by the sarcophagus with city gates. In the first and its derivatives (sarcophagi with trees or with pilasters) the columns, often richly decorated, are surmounted by architraves, arches or pediments which may alternate among themselves; in the second, battlemented towers are juxtaposed.
Likewise the distribution of the figures and scenes was regulated by a certain constructive technique based on some fundamental schemes easily traceable through a great variety of solutions and contaminations. Applicable, though with differing degrees of ease, to the two forms of tub and chest and both to strigillated sarcophagi and to figured ones, such schemes always obey the law of symmetry and divide the front of the sarcophagus into principal and other secondary fields. Thus only the central field may be accentuated, or the two extreme fields may be brought into prominence, or these two types may be combined together, to form three important panels, so that, together with the strigillated or figured filling fields, the front of the sarcophagus may be divided into three, four or five fields or sections. It should be noted, however, that the central field is not infrequently occupied by the clipeus reserved for the portraits of the deceased. With the doubling of the schemes, sarcophagi with two superimposed registers are then obtained, or mixed combinations where simple and doubled fields alternate. The so-called figured sarcophagi also obey these norms of constructive technique. It is true that as biblical scenes multiply, increasingly eliminating the fields decorated with strigils, the composition assumes the characteristics of a true frieze of figures pressed one against the other with notable verticalism and fear of wasted space. But it is not difficult to glimpse how the choice of determined scenes is regulated by the place they will have to occupy at the sides of the central clipeus or instead at the extremes of the frieze. Conversely, the introduction of the column, as a dividing element, will forcibly lead to a certain equivalence of the various niches, though the central one always remains the most important, and to a fragmentation that risks dividing one and the same scene into several parts and thus pushes toward the use of scenes that are little developed, if not indeed of isolated figures. The same speculations and repercussions of a structural order are seen in the scenes and figures that adorn the attic of the lids, where the central panel is preferably framed by scenes of broad horizontal development: races of dolphins, vases between reclining genii of the seasons, hunting scenes, banquets, the Adoration of the Magi, the Three Youths in the furnace.
The stylistic evolutions of the sculpture of sarcophagi followed the great curves of sculpture in general, passing like it from the pictorial form rich in classical reminiscences to realistic impressionism; from the positive form to the negative one; from idealism to expressionism; and then encountering the eclecticism of a classical revival, to pass on to a conventional and stereotyped calligraphy that would lead it in a straight line to an art strongly marked by decorative taste. These evolutions, whose succession is by now largely defined, effectively help to clarify also the chronology of sarcophagi. Although there is still hesitation about the absolute chronology of the first Christian sarcophagi (end of the 2nd century, no. 220 or c. 250), a comparison between the most evolved artistic forms is enough to establish the successive groups: Severan, Gallienic, Tetrarchic, Constantinian and post-Constantinian, Theodosian, etc., though one must always take into account, for more particular studies, the inevitable exchanges between one current and another, and between one region and another. The use or non-use of the drill has continued to serve as the principal means of investigation, employed in certain periods as a more pictorial than sculptural means of obtaining effects of chiaroscuro; but a series of stylistic criteria is also found in the way of setting up the figures, in grouping them, in the gestures and attitudes, in the analysis of the sculptor's conception of a given anatomical form and of the way of evoking it in marble, in the manner of draping the garments, in the spatial elements and in the proportions of the figures and of the sarcophagus itself.
Other chronological means are provided by comparisons with already dated monuments, by the analysis of the hairstyles and beards, by the study of the evolution of iconographic themes.
The iconographic repertoire of sarcophagi is more extensive than that of the catacomb paintings and, for certain scenes, which now and then form true cycles, reveals figurative traditions exclusively their own. This does not prevent the rest of the evolution of its themes from being parallel to that of the other genres of art. Never renouncing its fundamental aims—
mente symbolic, that is, intended to use images to communicate more recondite and spiritual concepts or feelings, it has several times changed the general direction that governed the choice of the kind of figurations. At first the purely symbolic theme of an idyllic character predominates, entirely made to evoke a paradisiacal atmosphere; later it is the historical fact that becomes a symbol, to be evoked as a paradigm of eternal salvation; then, through new tendencies of an allegorical and representational character, the historical person becomes the principal motif, transferred into otherworldly zones where the climate of apotheosis reigns; finally, the symbol becomes fixed, by way of further abstraction, into conventional signs in the service of a decorative art. More particularly, the earliest sarcophagi readily resort to one of the motifs already known, at least formally, from profane art: the Good Shepherd (possibly Orpheus), the Orant, the scene of the true Doctrine, and the clipeus with the portrait of the deceased. These themes, according to the compositions chosen, may serve as the principal if not indeed the exclusive motif; but they may also combine with one another and together form mixed ensembles, into which new figures also enter, such as the Fisherman, the Devouring Lion, the Genius of Death. In the second half of the 3rd century the pastoral framework expands and biblical scenes begin to penetrate the existing ensembles: Jonah, Noah in the Ark, Daniel among the Lions, the Sin of the First Parents, the Baptism, the Resurrection of Lazarus, whose choice, together with that of the symbolic motifs, reveals that, from the very beginning, Christian art knew the two paths of harmony and of contrast. A brief period, straddling the 3rd and 4th centuries, is documented by a few examples (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pls. 65,5; 220; 287, 1; 38,3), and inaugurates, with broadly developed symmetrical scenes, the series of sarcophagi adorned exclusively with biblical scenes, which in the Constantinian period would have their richest flowering.
Not that the strigillated sarcophagus disappears in this period; on the contrary, it would persist until the end of the century, even preserving its old motifs. But the great majority of sarcophagi now arrange the scenes of the Old and New Testaments often in two superimposed registers and sometimes according to a carefully studied ideological program, around new central motifs such as the Deceased Woman (not always orant) or the Deceased between Two Apostles, the so-called " Denial " of St. Peter, the Multiplication of the Loaves, the Entry into Jerusalem, the clipeus with portraits, while at the ends of the frieze there are frequently the Miracle of the Spring, the Resurrection of Lazarus, the Sacrifice of Abraham. Although in some cases it is the relations between the two Testaments that regulate the distribution of the scenes, these are usually employed rather promiscuously. The scenes of the New Testament, among which the Cycle of St. Peter, the Healings of the Man Born Blind and of the Paralytic, the Miracles of Cana and of the Multiplication of the Loaves stand out, are more frequent than those of the Old Testament, where the Sacrifice of Abraham, Daniel among the Lions, the Sin of the First Parents recur more often. Among the recently discovered scenes, not yet entered into the handbooks, one must include the Expulsion from Paradise, the Cycle of Lot and of Joseph the Hebrew, the Prophet Balaam Stopped by the Angel.
Around 340 new paths open with the introduction of the scenes of the Passion (of Christ first, of the apostles Peter and Paul afterward) set in contrast with typological scenes and with themes of apotheosis, such as the allegorical ensemble of the triumph over death or Christ enthroned borne by the allegory of Heaven. Simultaneously the first examples of the Traditio legis appear. Thus is born the idea of the glorious Christ and of the triumphant continuation of his mission within the Church.
While the use of two new types of sarcophagus spreads, the one called of Bethesda and the one with the Crossing of the Red Sea, pre-Theodosian and Theodosian art, except in the cases where it continues to use biblical scenes, will increasingly use the figures of the Apostles to form a court around Christ, whether they are gathered with him in council, or acclaim him, or bring him the crowns of life. Christ himself, now also with beard and long hair, is seated on a throne as Master or stands in the Traditio legis, on the mountain with the 4 rivers, or holds the triumphal Cross as a scepter. The palms of Paradise, the basilica coelestis, the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem form the setting, into which the simple faithful too are now introduced.
The allegorical frieze of the 12 lambs arranged around the divine Lamb on the mountain with the 4 rivers; the two deer that frame the " signum Christi "; the chrismon or the monogrammatic Cross between doves, etc., already show in what sense the further development of the iconographic themes will proceed, documented above all in the 5th-6th centuries by the Ravennate sarcophagi. At Ravenna in fact, even if it still seems difficult to reach agreement on the chronology of the local sarcophagi, it is clear that the ornamental motif increasingly prevails. The figured sarcophagi are not only fewer in number fewer, but the figured scenes themselves appear subject to the same decorative tendency, whether because of their symmetrical arrangement, or because of the repeated frontality of the isolated figure, or because of the broad plain background against which the figures stand out. Apart from a few biblical scenes (such as the rhythmic Adoration of the Magi of the sarcophagus of Isaac), the themes chosen are the representative ones, such as the Traditio legis, the Traditio clavium, the Christ acclaimed, etc. But for the most part, the human figure is replaced by the symbol: the Lamb on the mountain between two sheep; the stags at the mystic fountain; the palms of Paradise; the Cross, the chrismon, the crown with monogram and the letters A and to flanked by peacocks, etc. Indeed, at a certain point in the development, the symbol, by then less well understood, tends to become pure ornament, as is evident from the uniform repetition of crosses, vases, vine tendrils, birds, especially toward the end of the evolution, where the form also becomes barbaric.
This development is further confirmed by the sarcophagi of southwestern Gaul, where the ornamental motif strongly predominates, graphic and stylized, in low relief and capricious in composing the vegetal volutes that cover broad surfaces, the vases from which they spring, the birds that peck at them. Human figures are very rare. The center of the decorative arabesque is more often the Cross, the chrismon within a crown protected by curtains, while a few stylized stars are scattered in the secondary empty spaces. For the medieval and modern part v. AREA; TOMBA. - See plates CXXIV-CXXV.
Bibliography13 works
Luciano De Bruyne