Lichen-encrusted face of seven-year-old schoolboy Just or Justus, martyred with elder brother Pastor by the Romans in Spain for denouncing their religion. Detail of medieval pillar statue in Basilique Saint-Just at Valcabrère, Occitanie, France. Sculpted capitals above both statues of the boys show their arrest, torture and execution.
Valcabrère, Occitanie, France: the lichen-encrusted face of early Christian child martyr Saint Just, on his pillar statue in the north portal of the Basilique Saint-Just-de-Valcabrère (Basilica of St Just), consecrated in 1200 AD. The artwork represents seven-year-old Just or Justus as an adult dressed as a priest. St Just and his 13-year-old brother, St Pastor, are joint patron saints of the basilica. Both are said to have died in 304 AD, during the widespread persecution of Christians by Roman Emperor Diocletian. The pair chose to give their lives for Jesus Christ, running from their school in Roman Complutum, now the Spanish city of Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, to confess their Christianity to its governor, Dacianus. When he failed to win them over with gifts, he decided to torture and execute them for denouncing the Roman religion. Relics believed to be those of Justus and Pastor, found in the 8th century, were interred under the high altar of Alcalá’s cathedral and they are now the city’s patron saints. Saint Pastor is represented by a similar statue on the opposite side of the north portal at Valcabrère. Both statues are surmounted by sculpted capitals visualising their arrest, torture and execution. The basilica, a superb example of Romanesque architecture, stands apart from the village of Valcabrère in the Garonne Valley, below and about 1 km east of the village of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges. It was built on the burial ground of the ancient Roman settlement of Lugdunum Convenarum, re-using many Gallo-Roman architectural fragments.
Size: 2832px × 4256px
Location: Valcabrère, Occitanie, France.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: -year-, 1100s, 12th, 6, 304, ad, alcalá, architecture, art, august, basilica, basilique, beheaded, boy, brothers, capital, catholic, century, child, christian, christianity, city, column, complutum, condemned, confession, , de, death, denounced, detail, die, diocletian, early, emperor, face, faces, france, french, garonne, haute-garonne, henares, heritage, justus, kerr, late, martyrdom, martyred, martyrs, medieval, occitania, occitanie, pastor, persecution, peter, pillar, pyrenean, pyrenees, religion, roman, romanesque, romans, saint, saint--de-valcabrè, saints, schoolboy, sculpted, sculpture, sentenced, site, southwest, st, statue, terence, tortured, unesco, valcabrè, valley, world
