Monuments of the early church . personalappearance may have been preserved. Itis evident, however, that the frequencywith which these two Apostles are repre-sented together, constituted a practical necessity for distinguish-ing them, which did not exist in the case of other the sarcophagi alone they are represented some twenty-fourtimes, with or withoutthe rest of the Twelve,on either side of the en-throned Christ. In thesame way they are fre-quently depicted in themosaics. On the gold-glasses, only these twoApostles were generallyrepresented. It was nec-essary in all these cases
Monuments of the early church . personalappearance may have been preserved. Itis evident, however, that the frequencywith which these two Apostles are repre-sented together, constituted a practical necessity for distinguish-ing them, which did not exist in the case of other the sarcophagi alone they are represented some twenty-fourtimes, with or withoutthe rest of the Twelve,on either side of the en-throned Christ. In thesame way they are fre-quently depicted in themosaics. On the gold-glasses, only these twoApostles were generallyrepresented. It was nec-essary in all these casesto distinguish them bytheir facial types. Theywere distinguished till acomparatively late dateby no conventional at-tributes: S. Peter didnot carry the cross, northe key, till the fifth century; S. Paul was not given thesword till the tenth. There was, however, a general, thoughnot invariable, convention of representing Paul on the rightand Peter on the left of Christ. In all of the representations the two Apostles are plainly. Fig. 91. — Bronze medal, SS. Paul and Peter. Thirdcentury. 252 PICTOBIAL ART distiuguislied by very different physical types, which becamethoroughly fixed in early Christian art, and have been substan-tially retained through all subsequent developments. Thesecharacterizations of the Apostles were so uniformly followed,and may be traced back to so early a date, as to suggest thepossibility that they originated in veritable portraits. An ad-mirable bronze medal (Fig. 91), now in the Christian Museumof the Vatican, represents the heads of the two Apostles withextraordinary vigor, and with the evident intention of eitherrepeating or creating a portrait type. It was found early inthe eighteenth century by Boldetti in the catacomb of Domi-tilla. De Rossi ascribes it to the second century, and at allevents it is hardly to be put later than the third. Anotherbronze medal (Fig. 90) in the Vatican illustrates the cruderrepresentations of the fourth century; this
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectchristi, bookyear1901
