Images of Paul embracing Peter: Barb. lat. 4406, fols. 54r and 126r
Clavis number: ECMA 120
Other descriptors: none
Location: the Basilica of Paul Outside the Walls was built by the emperor Constantine on the Ostian Road, the traditional site of Paul’s decapitation. The building was dismantled later in the fourth century and replaced with a grander building that began construction under Theodosius I, and several other renovations were made over the next several centuries. During this time the basilica was decorated with frescoes, including 42 panels documenting the life of Paul on the north wall. These were restored by Pietro Cavallini between 1277 and 1279. The basilica was destroyed by a fire in 1823 and replaced with the current church in 1854. Today the frescoes survive in water-colour copies preserved in Barb. lat. 4406 made in 1634 and Vat. lat. 9843 in 1790.
Category: frescoes
Related literature: Passion of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (Ps.-Marcellus)
Featured characters and locations: Paul (apostle), Peter (apostle).
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: paint on plaster
Size: unspecified
Images: the majority of the Life of Paul frescoes draw inspiration from the canonical book of Acts, but two folios of the Vatican manuscript feature scenes of the meeting of Peter and Paul. If the scenes are original to the cycle, these would be the earliest examples of the meeting in art. An earlier commentator (Joseph Garber) erroneously identified fols. 114–119 as scenes from the Acts of Paul and Thecla.
Date: theories range from ca. 400 to 700; restored 1277–1290; destroyed 1823
Provenance: Rome
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The meeting of Paul and Peter in Rome is recounted in the Passion and Acts of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (and its Greek translation Acts of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul):
After Paul had said these things and other similar things, the Jews hastened to Peter and said to him, “Paul came from the Hebrews and asks you to come to him, because those who brought him are saying that they are not able to release him, so that he may see whomever he wishes, before they take him to Caesar.” Hearing these things Peter rejoiced greatly, got up immediately, and went to him. Seeing each other, they wept for joy, and after embracing each other for a long time, they soaked each other with their tears. (Pass. Holy Pet. Paul 3; trans. David L. Eastman, The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul [WGRW 39; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015], 221–316)
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brandenburg, Hugo. “La Basilica Teodosiana di S. Paolo Fuori le Mura articolazione, decorazione, funzione.” Pages 13–27 in San Paolo in Vaticano: La figura e la parola dell’Apostolo delle Genti nelle raccolte pontificie. Edited by Umberto Utro. Todi: Tau Editrice, 2009.
Camerlenghi, Nicola. St. Paul’s Outside the Walls: A Roman Basilica from Antiquity to the Modern Era. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Cartlidge, David R., and J. Keith Elliott. Art and the Christian Apocrypha. London and New York: Routledge, 2001 (pp. 136–37).
Eastman, David L. Paul the Martyr: The Cult of the Apostle Paul the Martyr in the Latin West. WGRWS 4. Atlanta: SBL, 2011 (pp. 15–69).
Eleen, Luba. “The Frescoes from the Life of St. Paul in San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome: Early Christian or Medieval?” RACAR: Revue d’art canadienne/Canadian Art Review 12 (2): 251–59.
Garber, Joseph. Wirkungen der frühchristlichen Gemäldezyklen der alten Peters- und Pauls-Basiliken in Rom. Berlin and Vienna: J. Bard, 1918.
Kessler, Herbert L. “The Meeting of Peter and Paul in Rome: An Emblematic Narrative of Spiritual Brotherhood.” Pages 265–75 in Studies in Art and Archeology in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Edited by William Tronzo and Irving Lavin. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1987 (inter alia and figs. 1 and 6).
__________. The Illustrated Bibles from Tours. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977 (pp. 15–25; 115–20).
Nicolai, Niccola Maria. Della basilica di S. Paolo. Rome: Nella stamperia De Romanis, 1815.
Waetzoldt, Stephan. Die Kopien des 17. Jahrhunderts nach Mosaiken und Wandmaterein in Rom. Vienna and Munich: Schroll, 1964 (pp. 22, 61, fig. 408; pp. 55–61, figs. 318-452).
Weitzmann, Kurt, ed. Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1979 (pp. 488–90).
White, John. “Cavallini and the Lost Frescoes in S. Paolo.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 19 (1959): 84–95.
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls.” Wikipedia.
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: bibliography on Barb. lat. 4406
Camerlenghi, Nicola. Companion web site to her book St. Paul’s Outside the Walls: A Roman Basilica from Antiquity to the Modern Era.
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 18 August 2022.