The early Christians, between imagines, historiae and pictura

Abstract

Since the casual discovery in 1578 of some painted cubicula on the via Salaria in Rome, the decoration of the catacombs, as well as the reliefs of the sarcophagi, have been considered to be the figurative representation of the Christian faith, at the same title as the later paintings and mosaics in the churches, therefore depending on the Church authority. According to this interpretation, an hostile attitude of the latter toward the religious figurative representations would be responsible for the late appearance of a “Christian” art. Only recently the iconographic relationship of the Christian imagery with the contemporary pagan artistic production has been taken into account. This paper reconsiders the problem from the point of view of the written sources, of the attitude of the Christians toward the visual culture of the Roman world and of the function of the different archaeological evidences. If placed in their context, the written sources, far from being unanimous, prove to be concerned only with i...