page_title: Santa Costanza
section_title: Mosaics in the apses
hierarchical_section_title: Santa Costanza / Architecture / Decoration / Mosaics in the apses
caption_attribution_description: Català: descripcióMausoleu de Santa Costanza. Roma. Mosaic "Traditio Legis".
context_page_description: Santa Costanza is a 4th-century church in Rome, Italy, on the Via Nomentana, which runs north-east out of the city. It is a round building with well preserved original layout and mosaics. It has been built adjacent to a horseshoe-shaped church, now in ruins, which has been identified as the initial 4th-century cemeterial basilica of Saint Agnes. Santa Costanza and the old Saint Agnes were both constructed over the earlier catacombs in which Saint Agnes is believed to be buried.
  According to the traditional view, Santa Costanza was built around the reign of Constantine I as a mausoleum for his daughter Constantina, later also known as Constantia or Costanza, who died in AD 354. However, more recent excavations have called this date into question. Ultimately, Constantina's sarcophagus was housed here, but it may have been moved from an earlier location.
  The mausoleum is of circular form with an ambulatory surrounding a central dome. The fabric of Santa Costanza survives in essentially its original form.
context_section_description: In the ambulatory wall there are two shallow apses, each with a mosaic showing Christ as the Pantocrator, the earliest surviving examples of this depiction; they probably date to the 5th or 7th century, though there has been much discussion of this. Like many mosaics of the period, both have suffered from restoration and both show elements of Roman imperial imagery, representing early examples of the conflation of this with Christian art. A mosaic with two women wearing white, reported as being behind the sarcophagus in the Renaissance, has now gone and was never drawn.
  One of the apses shows a traditio legis: Christ is shown with Saints Peter and Paul giving Peter the scroll representing law, with the inscription, "DOMINUS PACEM DAT," or "The Lord is giving Peace." A few sheep represent his role as shepherd governing and leading his flock. Christ is clothed in golden robes, suggesting his power and supremacy. He is shown rising above paradise, which further shows his dominance over both heaven and earth.
  In the second apse, Christ appears somewhat more simply but still as supremely powerful. His robes are not quite as rich as in the other apse, but still suggest power. He wears a simple tunic but it is purple and gold. This suggests not only holy power, but human power given that purple is the color of royalty and the gold stripes suggestion a connection to the Roman emperors. Peter also approaches Christ in supplication, like one would approach the Emperor. This is one of the first examples in Christian art of Christ being portrayed in the same way as the emperor or royalty. It is a concept that would later be prevalent in Christian art and architecture. In this apse Christ is not just portrayed as royalty but as the ruler of the world, of all existence. He sits atop a blue sphere, a clear symbol for the world or universe. From this perch he hands keys to Peter. This is a clear sign of Christ, and the power of heaven, giving authority and holy power to man. It is also important to note that Peter was Rome's first bishop so this meant Roman authority was sanctioned by God. This concept and picture of Christ as the almighty ruler and creator of the world would be the norm in the artwork of later churches, but it first appears here at Santa Costanza.
caption: Mosaic with the Traditio Legis
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 9.0 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2013:12:06 18:30:51", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "188", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "362", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8448", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1536", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1024"}