Roman soldiers armed with sword, club and billhook torture captive 13-year-old early Christian martyr, Saint Pastor: detail of Romanesque capital sculpted in north portal of Basilique Saint-Just-de-Valcabrère or Basilica of St Just, consecrated in 1200 AD in the Pyrenean village of Valcabrère in Occitanie, France.
Valcabrère, Occitanie, France: Roman soldiers armed with a sword, a club and a billhook torture Pastor, a 13-year-old schoolboy roped to a column, in this detail of a Romanesque stone capital sculpted in the late-1100s in the north portal of the Basilique Saint-Just-de-Valcabrère (Basilica of St Just). The capital, retaining areas of ancient colouring, is supported by a pillar statue of Pastor, represented as an adult priest. Pastor and his seven-year-old brother, Just or Justus, were arrested, tortured and martyred in the Roman city of Complutum in Spain for denouncing the Roman religion, after they confessed to its governor, Dacianus, that they were Christians who would not sacrifice to idols. They were beheaded in August 304 AD, during the cruel persecution of Christians across the Roman Empire by Emperor Diocletian. Hundreds of years later, human remains believed to be those of the two boys were discovered in Complutum, now the Spanish city of Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid. The relics were interred under the high altar of Alcalá’s cathedral and they became the city’s patron saints. They are the joint patron saints of the basilica at Valcabrère, which was consecrated in the year 1200. Saint Just is represented by a similar pillar statue on the opposite side of the north portal at Valcabrère, surmounted by a sculpted capital showing the boys being decapitated in a field outside Complutum. The basilica stands apart from the village of Valcabrère in the central French Pyrenees. It was built on the burial ground of the ancient Roman settlement of Lugdunum Convenarum, re-using many Gallo-Roman architectural fragments.
Size: 4256px × 2832px
Location: Valcabrère, Occitanie, France.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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