MOSAIC ARTIST, Italian
(active 520s in Rome)

Apse decoration

526-30
Mosaic
Basilica di Santi Cosma e Damiano, Rome

The basilica of Sts Cosmas and Damian is a church in the Roman Forum, parts of which incorporate original Roman buildings. The temple was Christianised and dedicated to Sts Cosmas and Damian in 527, when Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, and his daughter Amalasuntha donated the library of the Forum of Peace (Bibliotheca Pacis) and a portion of the Temple of Romulus to Pope Felix IV. The pope united the two buildings to create a basilica devoted to the Greek brothers and saints, Cosmas and Damian, in contrast with the ancient pagan cult of the two brothers Castor and Pollux, who had been worshipped in the nearby Temple of Castor and Pollux.

The apse was decorated with a Roman-Byzantine mosaic, representing a parousia, the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.