Lazio, Italy
Rome
What is there today
The catacombs of Priscilla open onto the via Salaria and are visited in small groups because the corridors are narrow. In one of their chambers is what is held to be the oldest depiction of the Virgin and Child, from the third century, and in another a Good Shepherd painted when being a Christian still cost dearly.
Why this image comes from here
The first Christian image is not a Christ in majesty: it is a shepherd with a lamb on his shoulders, a figure so ordinary in Roman art that it raised no suspicion. Christian iconography begins by hiding, and from that comes its habit of saying things through signs rather than portraits.
Pieces from this place
- The Good Shepherd
- It is the oldest surviving Christian image, painted in the catacombs of Priscilla when Christ could not yet be shown openly. A shepherd with a lamb on his shoulders raised no suspicion.
- The Virgin in Prayer
- The posture descends from the orantes of the Roman catacombs, the figures with open arms found in the earliest Christian burials. Here the arms have closed over the chest and the prayer has turned inward.