Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, marble, 359 C.E.

Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, marble, 359 C.E. (Treasury of Saint Peter's Basilica)

Please note that due to photography restrictions, the images used in the video above show the plaster cast on display in the Vatican Museum. Nevertheless, the audio conversation
was recorded in the treasury in Saint Peter's Basilica, in front of the original sarcophagus.

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

http://www.smarthistory.org/sarcophagus-of-junius-bassus.html

We're in St Peter's Basilica and we're looking at a famous early Christian sarcophagus.

It's the tomb of Junius Bassus.

Now it's a little complicated because what people generally see is the copy that the Vatican has

in their museum but we're in the Treasury and this is the actual sarcophagus.

And so Junius Baccus was a Roman prefect in around the mid-fourth century.

Right, we know that he had his position in 359.

So we're looking at a very early moment, soon after Constantine has made it

legitimate to be a Christian in the Roman Empire

and Constantine is in the process of making Christianity or leading towards Christianity becoming the

official religion of the Roman Empire which will happen in the end of the 300s.

So this is an early example then of a kind of openness and really magnificenct rendering of

the iconography of the Christian tradition.

Right, and what's really interesting is that it doesn't look the way we expect it to, in a way because

Christ is here in the center represented with probably Peter and Paul, the two figures on either side of them--

It looks likely to be Peter and Paul, yes.

But he looks very youthful, like a young philosopher teacher.

He's even holding a scroll in his hand--

And he's seated and frontal, though not entirely frontal. So I guess what I'm saying is that things

that we normally associate with representations of Christ where he looks like an emperor, he's older

and he's got a beard. Here he is represented very youthful,

although he's seated and frontal, he does have a kind of naturalism and movement to his body,

his left leg comes forward a little bit, his head is slightly turned.

And he's got his foot above an image of a river god

Which is interesting because it shows Christianity surmounting the old

Polytheistic traditions of ancient Romans--

Using the iconography of the ancient Roman, pagan, art in a new Christian context.

I really am interested by the point you made earlier about Christ not fulfilling the physical attributes

that we come to expect. And this is so early that in a sense, those traditions hadn't yet developed--

Exactly.

--they hadn't yet really been constructed and accepted so this is a very flexible moment.

Right, this iconography is being developed. And here he looks like pagan figure in a way.

That's certainly true because of the classical garb that he wears. And it's interesting stylistically

because this sculpture is really showing a pretty highpitched naturalism

in terms of the rendering of the bodies, the contrapposto that we see the figures standing in,

and even some of the emotional attributes of the figures.

There is a kind of naturalism although we see the beginnings of a kind of early Christian style.

There are some hints of what's to come. The heads are a little bit too large for the bodies.

The bodies are starting to be a little bit on the stubby side.

So it's a very interesting transitional moment.

We see some other scenes from the bible and we're seeing early expressions of it

here but these are ways of representing these scenes that will become very familiar to us.

We have Adam and Eve on the lower register--

and also other Old Testament scenes that would've prefigured the events in Christ's life.

So that idea of saying that events in the Old Testament such as the sacrifice of Isaac prefigured

Christ's own sacrifice for the salvation of mankind so that way of saying that Christ's life

is a fulfillment of the prophecy and the events of the Old Testament.

What we're witnessing here is the invention of a new iconography, the invention of a new visual language

for the tellling of these critical stories.

What I'm also noticing is just how deeply carved it is. It is essentially a relief sculpture

but the figures are in very, very high relief. Some of them seem to be separate from

the marble ground. And I love these columns with capitals and bringing together of the

classical and the beginnings of the Christian.