- [Dr. Zucker] We just walked through
the Catacombs of Priscilla in Rome.
And we're now standing in a park
just over the catacombs.
- [Dr. Harris] There are many catacombs in Rome.
And these were places where the earliest
Christians were buried.
There are also Jewish catacombs here in Rome.
- [Dr. Zucker] Which were even older.
- [Dr. Harris] The Catacombs of Priscilla occupy
about 10 kilometers or more than five miles of burials.
- [Dr. Zucker] This is a labyrinth of narrow passageways
directly below the park that we're in.
So if we were to dig down,
we would hit the natural tufa, the stone of Rome,
which is a soft material, which is why
it was ideal for this kind of excavation.
And what's amazing is that the passageways
are stacked on top of each other.
And the catacomb is in certain places
three stories deep.
- [Dr. Harris] So here we are in the north of Rome.
And the reason that the catacomb is located here
is that this was the villa
of a wealthy Roman woman named Priscilla.
And it seems she donated the land
as a place where at first her family would be buried
and then eventually the Christian community.
- [Dr. Zucker] By the 5th century
a lot of people were buried here,
some 40,000 tombs have been located.
So imagine walking through a very dark passageway,
a low ceiling, a rough earth and floor.
And on either side of the narrow hall,
horizontal niches that are just
long enough to accommodate a body.
Some are quite short and held the children.
And some are longer and would have held adults.
And many of them are stacked one atop the other.
Wealthier people would have excavated
a space large enough to place a sarcophagus in.
But most of the tombs are for the poor.
And these are simply bodies that were swaddled in a shroud
and placed into these shelf-like slots
which were then covered over with a slab of marble
or, for the poor, just simply tiles of terracotta.
All of that would then be covered over
with a layer of plaster, which were often painted.
- [Dr. Harris] The larger rooms have the name cubiculum.
Horizontal shelves for burial are referred to as loculi.
And now when we visit,
the tombs are all empty and uncovered.
- [Dr. Zucker] And we think this is
because there was grave robbing
and people were hunting for relics,
which makes sense because some of the people
that were buried here were martyrs.
- [Dr. Harris] Right, they were killed for being Christians.
- [Dr. Zucker] And their remains then
had a spiritual importance and power.
- [Dr. Harris] Now, there is a kind of myth or legend
around catacombs that they're a secret place
where Christians practiced their Christianity
during times of persecution.
But the catacombs are burial places.
They were well known to the Christians in the community.
And it's also important to remember
that there were episodes of persecution
against Christians but also times
when Christianity was somewhat tolerated.
It's not until 313 when Constantine
issues the Edict of Milan
that Christianity becomes tolerated
within the Roman Empire.
- [Dr. Zucker] The catacombs themselves
seem to go on endlessly, passages branching off
with tombs as far as the eye can see.
But what's especially important
is that these are the locations
where we find the earliest Christian art.
- [Dr. Harris] And art historians have wondered
why is it that Christianity exists for almost two centuries
and we don't have Christian art.
Is it because it didn't survive?
- [Dr. Zucker] Is it because there wasn't
a Christian vocabulary that had been developed yet?
- [Dr. Harris] Is it because of prohibition
against the making of images
because of the Second Commandment?
It is also true that image making,
images of individuals and of gods,
was very common in the Roman Empire
and Christians may have had a desire
to separate themselves from Paganism.
And perhaps not making images was one way of doing that.
- [Dr. Zucker] What we do know is that the first images
that we found date from the 3rd century from the 200s.
And some of the earliest art is, in fact, here
at the Catacombs of Priscilla.
- [Dr. Harris] In fact, what we think
is the earliest known representation
of the Madonna and Child,
we see an image of a woman nursing
and another that points to the mother and child.
- [Dr. Zucker] And seems to be holding a book.
- [Dr. Harris] If so, that's a remarkably early image
of a subject that would become so common
for more than a millennium in western art history.
- [Dr. Zucker] And so what we think we see here
are numerous scenes that are among the earliest inventions
of Christian iconography, of Christian symbolism.
We find them both painted,
and we find them carved.
Within the catacombs we see lots of inscriptions
that speak to the people that were buried.
And there were also inscribed Christian symbols.
We find the anchor which speaks to safe harbor.
That is a reference to salvation.
There are representations of a fish,
which is a reference to Christ.
- [Dr. Harris] But we also begin to see
very specific subject matter that relates
to Christian themes of salvation,
subjects from both the Old and New Testament.
- [Dr. Zucker] And this especially true
in one small cubiculum that we call the Greek Chapel.
Now, this was not a chapel,
and it had nothing to do with the Greeks.
It has this name simply because we found
some Greek letters there.
In fact, throughout the catacombs
there's both Greek and Latin.
- [Dr. Harris] It was decorated with what arch historians
call Roman first style wall painting,
that is plaster built up and then painted
to imitate marble panels.
So there's an attempt to make this a very rich space.
- [Dr. Zucker] This must have been
one of the oldest parts of the catacombs
because it is adjacent to the basement of the original house
that had been owned by Priscilla.
It is lavish, but it is also small.
- [Dr. Harris] It would have held several sarcophagi
for members of this family.
And there were meals that we taken in these spaces
as part of a memorial to the dead.
- [Dr. Zucker] There are so many scenes here.
There are scenes from the Old Testament.
There are scenes from the New Testament.
- [Dr. Harris] They refer to divine intervention,
to figures who suffered on account of their faith,
including the story from the Book of Daniel
of three youths in the fiery furnace.
The story from the Old Testament
is that these three youths were asked
to worship a Pagan golden idol and they refused
and were sentenced to be burned alive but were saved.
You can see why this was a subject
that really appealed to early Christians
who at various times were persecuted for their faith.
- [Dr. Zucker] There are also New Testament scenes.
There's the Adoration of the Magi.
There's the Resurrection of Lazarus.
- [Dr. Harris] These are scenes that refer
to the miracles that Christ performed during his life.
And very often in early Christian imagery
we have an emphasis on the teaching of Christ,
on the miracles that he performed.
And it's really only later
that we get the subjects that we are more familiar with
of the crucifixion or the resurrection.
- [Dr. Zucker] A good example of the way
that the portrayal of a scene has changed
is the Sacrifice of Isaac.
This is an Old Testament scene.
And in this case we only have a partial view.
The bottom portion has been destroyed.
But what remains shows Abraham in the center
and Isaac off to the right carrying wood.
This is different from what is normally depicted
in later Christian art, where we generally see
Isaac about to be killed by Abraham.
Abraham's wrists stayed by an angel.
- [Dr. Harris] And you could ask why
would the first Christians be painting
this Old Testament subject of Abraham and Isaac?
The first Christians looked back
to the story of Abraham and Isaac as a type of Christ,
that is, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son
foretold, foreshadowed God's willingness
to sacrifice his only son, Christ,
for the salvation of mankind.
- [Dr. Zucker] But one of the most interesting scenes
is a scene that is called the Breaking of the Bread.
And this might at first glance
look a bit like a Last Supper.
We see a still life, a long table,
and seven men seated behind it.
So we don't have the 12 apostles and Christ.
Simultaneously, there are seven baskets,
three on one side and four on the other, filled with bread.
There are fish on the table.
And so there seems to be a reference here
not only to the Eucharist but also to the story
of the multiplication of loaves and fishes.
- [Dr. Harris] Both are reference to a miracle
that Christ performed during his life,
which is typical in early Christian iconography,
but also perhaps a reference to the liturgy,
that is, to the practice of the Eucharist,
of the bread and wine being taken
as the body and blood of Christ.
- [Dr. Zucker] What we're seeing here
is the invention of Christian iconography.
These are scenes that have not yet been set,
that have not yet been clarified.
But looking at that particular image
is really quite marvelous,
to see the foreshortening of the dishes
on the table seen in space.
And it reminds us that these are people
that would have had access
to various sophisticated Roman painting.
- [Dr. Harris] The other cubiculum
that we wanted to talk about
is known as the Cubiculum of the Veil.
And this is because there is a depiction
of a woman in a veil in this chapel.
It's actually the same woman being depicted three times,
in reference to the woman who is deceased,
who was buried in this space.
On the left we see her being married
with a seeded bishop officiating.
On the right we see her seated in a chair nursing.
- [Dr. Zucker] And we think that the chair
is actually the chair that was used for childbirth as well.
- [Dr. Harris] So we have a reference to her marriage,
to her motherhood, and then we see her again in the center,
this time larger in a pose that arch historians call arrant.
- [Dr. Zucker] This is a pose of prayer
meant to represent the woman in the afterlife,
the woman resurrected.
This is all enclosed within a lunette
at the back of the cubiculum.
She is representing the hope of the family
that she would enjoy a blessed afterlife.
- [Dr. Harris] Her eyes look upward toward heaven.
This is clearly an image that refers to her salvation
and her place in heaven.
- [Dr. Zucker] The painting is not
in particularly good condition.
But we can make out some of the careful
articulation of the features of the face.
And there's shadow placed under her chin
to create a sense of illusionism.
- [Dr. Harris] And so even though her hands are too large
for the proportions of her body,
her face is represented naturalistically.
- [Dr. Zucker] It's important to remember
that we are now looking at this painting
under electric lights.
But it would certainly have been painted
in the dim light of oil lanterns.
- [Dr. Harris] And in fact, there are spaces,
there are small holes throughout the catacombs
where oil lamps would have been placed.
- [Dr. Zucker] But the largest painting in this room
is in this shallow dome of the ceiling.
And here in the center we see Christ
represented as the Good Shepherd.
He's surrounded by three goats, one over his shoulders.
And he's in a stance that is reminiscent of contrapposto.
Clearly, the artist was somebody
who had been familiar with Roman sculpture
and perhaps Roman painting.
Christ is represented young.
He has no beard.
And beside him are two trees with doves at the top.
So the notion here is that Christ
will care for his followers
the way that a good shepherd cares for his flock.
- [Dr. Harris] And although Christ stands naturalistically,
he is represented in the center frontal
with goats on either side and bushes
with the doves on either side.
So we have an image that's very symmetrical.
And I think in that way speaks
to something transcendent, something heavenly.
- [Dr. Zucker] And we have more symbols
that surround the central roundel.
- [Dr. Harris] We see peacocks,
which are a symbol of eternal life.
- [Dr. Zucker] And other birds that we think are quail,
symbols of the earth, that walk on the earth.
- [Dr. Harris] So Christ as in between
the earthly and the heavenly.
- [Dr. Zucker] And then in the four pendentives,
there are images of doves with olive branches.
So what we're seeing here is the very first tentative steps
in what will become into the great tradition
of Christian art.