Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

898 30. the visual arts
restored), but the imagery is unique and the interpretation therefore
elusive. The omission of a separate Nativity scene and the emphasis on the
enthroned Christ’s audience of the Magi point to a theological controversy
about the nature of Christ at the time of the Incarnation. 27
The nave mosaics and the apse mosaics both exhibit, therefore, a high
degree of theological input, and, as visual art, their message is insistently
didactic and instructive. It is this aspect which defines their moment in the
history of art, so different from some of the more ‘frivolous’ mid-fourthcentury
mosaics of Santa Costanza in Rome, which include among the biblical
scenes all sorts of traditional ‘pagan’ decorative imagery, including
scenes of the wine harvest. The cycles in Santa Maria Maggiore match well
the prescriptions of Paulinus of Nola in Italy and St Nilus of Ancyra in the
east, who appealed for the choice of serious subjects in church decoration
and for intense concentration in front of them on the part of viewer and
educators. 28 ‘It would be the mark of a firm and manly mind to represent
a single cross in the sanctuary, for it is by virtue of the one salutary cross
that mankind is being saved and hope is being preached everywhere to
those without hope; and to fill the holy church on both sides with pictures
from the Old and New Testaments so that the illiterate who are unable to
read the Holy Scriptures may, by gazing at the pictures, become mindful of
the manly deeds of those who have genuinely served the true God and may
be aroused to emulate those glorious and celebrated feats.’
This text of Nilus (if genuine) offers a direct and simple witness of
changes in thinking and expression at all levels of the church in the period
of the sophisticated papal-sponsored decoration of Santa Maria Maggiore,
but it is also a helpful text with a prescriptive message on the nature of
proper church decoration. Another church in the Byzantine east extends
this evidence of self-conscious didactic and ecclesiastical planning; this is
the mosaic decoration of the church now known as the Rotunda in
Thessalonica. 29 The exact date of the conversion of the early-fourthcentury
building (perhaps intended as the mausoleum of Galerius) is still
disputed, most opting for a time either in the middle of the fifth century
or around 500. 30 The significance of this decoration is its confirmation of
the spreading influence of the established church over the choice of
imagery. The mosaic decoration of the cupola was in three registers: the
apex held a medallion of a large figure of Christ, the second register was
of angels and perhaps other heavenly figures, and the best-preserved and
lowest register was a set of exquisite architectural façades inhabited by
27 Hellemo (1989); not discussed in Mathews (1993).
28 Mango (1972) 32–3 quotes Nilus’ Letter to Prefect Olympiodorus (PG lxxix.577–80).
29 Kleinbauer (1972) set out the problems involved in the study of the monument. Recent restoration
and investigation do not seem to have resolved the dating.
30 Spieser (1984) is the fullest archaeological survey.
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