Images: Wilpert, Die römischen Mosaiken, 4:237
Clavis number: ECMA 152
Other descriptors: none
Location: Old Lateran Palace
Category: frescoes
Related literature: Acts of John
Featured characters and locations: John (son of Zebedee).
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: water colors on stone
Size: not specified
Image: an unidentified haloed figure is lowered into a coffin while two men (one holding candles) look on.
Date: ca. 1000–1025
Provenance: the fresco is one of eight discovered in an unidentified room below the Scala Sancta within the Old Lateran Palace (room 3, pillar O, surface facing West). It may be by the same artist responsible for the cycle of Clement in the Basilica of San Clemente (see Garrison, “Contributions,” pp. 187–88).
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The earliest tradition about John’s death is found in the Acts of John, which tells how John instructed his disciples to dig a trench and then laid down in it, and “yield[ed] up the ghost” (111–115; trans. J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993]); additions to the text state that on the following day, only John’s sandals could be found and the earth was “springing up like a well.” The Latin Acts of John (Virtutes Iohannis) adds that after his death, “forthwith manna issuing from the tomb was seen of all, which manna that place produceth even unto this day” (trans. M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament [1924; repr., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953], p. 270).
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bosman, Lex, Ian P. Haynes, and Paolo Liverani, eds. The Basilica of Saint John Lateran to 1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020 (esp. p. 20).
Colini, Antonio M. Storia e topografia del Celio nell’antichità. Memorie della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 7. Vatican City, 1944 (pp. 361–64).
Garrison, Edward B. “Contributions to the History of Twelfth-Century Umbro-Roman Painting.” Pages 21–44, 79–96, 121-45, and 171–97 in vol. 2 of Studies in the History of Mediaeval Italian Painting. 2 vols. Florence: L’Impronta, 1955 (see pp. 180–97 and fig. 195).
Lauer, Philippe L. “Les fouielles du Sancta Sanctorum au Latran.” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 20 (1900): 251–87.
___________. Le palais de Latran: étude historique et archéologique. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1911 (p. 205 and pl. XIII).
Noreen, Kirsten. “Opening the Holy of Holies: Early Twentieth-Century Explorations of the Sancta Sanctorum (Rome).” Church History 80.3 (2011): 520–46.
Wilpert, Joseph. Die römischen Mosaiken und Malereien der kirchlichen Bauten vom IV. bis XIII. Jahrhundert. 4 vols. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herdersche, 1916 (vol. 4, pl. 327).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Sancta Sanctorum (Lateran, Rome).” Wikipedia.
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 30 January 2024.