Over the three centuries of its operation, Santa Maria Antiqua was embellished with elaborate murals and icons in fresco through the patronage of several Popes and one known Byzantine official, in addition to private sponsors of votive images throughout the church whose identities are not known (Belting 1994, 116).

These frescoes demonstrate early medieval Rome’s connections to the wider Byzantine Christian world of the Eastern Mediterranean, and include local arrangements portraying Greek (eastern) and Latin (western) saints together. The diverse styles and subjects of these images reveal a fluid period in the evolution of Byzantine iconography—before a standardized set of representational types had yet been formulated—as well as Roman responses to contemporary theological developments unfolding in Constantinople.

An introductory primer to some of the images that reflect these trends is outlined below. Discussion of the iconography of Santa Maria Antiqua’s frescoes is continued under patronage and local identities.

A matter of style: the Solomonia fresco

Fresco of Solomonia and her sons. Photograph by Dr. Steven Zucker for Smarthistory. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Following the (re)integration of Italian possessions into the Byzantine Empire, Greek-speakers from the Eastern Mediterranean settled throughout the peninsula, including within the walls of Rome. As evidenced by the frescoes of Santa Maria Antiqua, professional artists were among these émigrés arriving from points east. One way of discerning the eastern origins of Santa Maria Antiqua’s painters is by analyzing the style and technique employed in their works. Located on the southwest pier of the nave before the sanctuary, for instance, is a mural completed in the middle-seventh century depicting the Jewish woman (named Solomonia by tradition) and her sons, fated to be martyred by the Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, as described in the book of 2 Maccabees in the Christian Old Testament.

In its shapely rendering of space and form with visible brush strokes (for example in the folds of the subjects’ robes) and its naturalistic portrayal of the effects of light and shadow, this image bears similarities to mural paintings of classical antiquity, and is “unique in Rome in this period” (Avery 1925, 137-8). These stylistic observations suggest that the artist who completed this work hailed from one of the eastern cities with enduring traditions of artistic production, most likely the imperial capital, Constantinople, which by the seventh century had become the prevailing “center of the continuation of the classical tradition” in the Eastern Mediterranean (Weitzmann 1966, 9). The work’s “strong painterly quality, inspired by a Hellenistic tradition, and its high quality, were not equalled about the middle seventh century by any other center” (ibid.).

Eastern influences: the Theodotus Crucifixion

Left, Crucifixion and Ressurection from the Rabbula Gospels, Wikimedia commons image licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; center, Crucifixion from the Theodotus Chapel; right, panel painting icon of the Crucifixion from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, photograph by Christian Kaiser, Technical University of Munich, made available by Google Arts & Culture.

In contrast to the Maccabean mural, the Crucifixion fresco of the Theodotus chapel—completed one century later, between 741 and 752—exhibits a more flat and linear style, suggesting that its creator originated from a different sector of the empire (ibid.). In addition to stylistic observations, however, the unique features of an image’s iconography can be analyzed to discern regional influences. In the central niche of the chapel sponsored by the Byzantine official Theodotus, the crucified Christ, haloed and suspended upon the wood of the cross, wears a long, sleeveless tunic called a colobium. Christ’s mother Mary (left) and the beloved Apostle John (right) look upon the crucified in solemn awe.

A representation of the crucified Christ wearing a long colobium first appears in the Rabbula Gospels (above-left), completed in the year 586 at the Monastery of Saint John of Zagba in Syria and the oldest extant illuminated gospel book to include a depiction of the Crucifixion (the gospels are housed today at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence). The same representation of Christ clad in colobium later appears in a painted wood-panel icon of the Crucifixion at the ancient Monastery of Saint Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that also includes Mary and John (above-right).

These representational similarities point to an influence derived from the Eastern Mediterranean—most likely Syria and Palestine—for the iconography of the crucified Lord in the Theodotus Chapel (ibid.). Hans Belting has suggested that the chapel’s sponsor may have directly come into contact with such a depiction before commissioning local workers to complete the Roman image: “Such an icon, I believe, was known to the donor Theodotus, who wanted the Roman painter to repeat a prototype from the Holy Land” (Belting 1994, 120-1). Belting has further suggested that the Christ in the chapel image may represent the donor’s personal position on the theological matter of whether Christ’s human or divine nature suffered and perished on the cross: whereas in the the Sinai icon, Christ’s eyes are closed in death, in the Roman image “his eyes are wide open, thus polemically emphasizing not human death but the life of divinity” (ibid).

Byzantine iconography in transition

The Apostles John (left), Andrew (center) and Paul (right) on the east wall of the sanctuary. Photograph by Dr. Steven Zucker for Smarthistory. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Elswhere, a transition in the representation of key figures in Christian iconography can be observed. Included among the frescoes of Pope John VII (r. 705-707), who extensively modified the decorative program of Santa Maria Antiqua’s sanctuary, are circular portraits of the Apostles that line the chamber’s walls. The image above shows the Apostles Paul, Andrew and John. The familiar portrait of Paul, bearded and balding, is of an established type that goes back to the fourth century. The portraits of Andrew and John, however, reveal change and continuity in the representation of these two Apostles.

Andrew appears in the sanctuary portrait as he does in standard Orthodox Christian iconography today: as an old man with long white hair and beard. “Most probably a Byzantine invention,” this depiction of Andrew is attested in sixth-century mosaics at the archbishop’s chapel in Ravenna and at Saint Catherine’s at Mount Sinai. However, this way of portraying Andrew “superceded an earlier, entirely different portrait tradition in which Andrew figured as younger, with short hair and beard” (Nordhagen 1968, 18-19). The Apostle John, on the other hand—who would also later come to be depicted as a bearded old man in Byzantine iconography, as remains standard in modern Orthodox icons—is shown as a young, clean-shaven man in the sanctuary portrait, which “corresponds to [an earlier] type which dominates in Ravennate art of the fifth and sixth centuries” (ibid.). The mingling of different traditions in the apostles’ portraits reveals the fluidity of Byzantine iconography in the period preceding iconoclasm.

Fresco of Deësis on southeast pier of the nave with anonymous donor (left). Photograph by Dr. Steven Zucker for Smarthistory. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Santa Maria Antiqua also features the earliest surviving depictions of two standard Byzantine iconographic arrangements, one of which is the Deësis (shown above), in which the enthroned Christ is flanked by Mary and John the Baptist, who are turned toward the all-powerful Lord in supplication.

The other depiction, located in the vestibule leading from the vaulted ramp to the left aisle of the church, is the Anastasis or Resurrection, in which the triumphant, risen Christ, having destroyed death, descends to Hades to liberate the souls of Adam, Eve and other figures the Old Testament (Kalas 2018, 196). In western art, this scene is called the “Harrowing of Hell.”

Compositional Analysis

Beyond stylistic and iconographic evidence, recent support for the eastern influence in Santa Maria Antiqua’s decoration—in technique and potentially in the geographical origins of the artists themselves— derives from a study published in 2017 that analyzed the mortars and plasters used to prepare the church’s surfaces for fresco painting. The study conducted by Amato et. al. concluded that “the plasters from the seventh century onward are characterized by a high percentage of lime and by the presence of plant fibers…This particular composition, which is rather unusual for Rome, confirms the Byzantine tradition or even the Eastern provenance of several workshops involved in the decoration of the church” (2017, 1062-3).

Works cited

Amato, S.R., D. Bersani, P. P. Lottici, P. Pogliani and C. Pelosi. “A Multi-Analytical Approach to the Study of the Mural Paintings in the Presbytery of Santa Maria Antiqua al Foro Romano in Rome.” Archaeometry, Vol. 59, no. 6 (2017), pp. 1050-1064.

Avery, Myrtilla. “The Alexandrian Style at Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome.” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 7, No. 4 (June 1925), pp. 131-149.

Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Kalas, Gregor. “Acquiring the Antique in Byzantine Rome: The Economics of Architectural Reuse at Santa Maria Antiqua” in eds. Diana Y. Ng and Molly Sweetnam-Burland, Reuse and Renovation in Roman Material Culture: Functions, Aesthetics, Interpretations.Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 186-207.

Nordhagen, Per Jonas. “The frescoes of John VII (A.D. 705-707) in S. Maria Antiqua in Rome.” Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia, vol. 3. Rome: L’Erma, di Bretschneider, 1968.

Weitzmann, Kurt. “Various Aspects of Byzantine Influence on the Latin Countries from the Sixth to the Twelfth Century.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 20 (1966), pp 1-24. Available online via Dumbarton Oaks.

The full bibliography for this site can be read here.