Read more
How did early Christian Rome deal with the fact that Christ was never there?
Sacred Stimulus is about the effect Jerusalem had on the formulation of Christian art in Rome during the fourth and fifth centuries. It deals with the visual Christianization of Rome from an almost neglected perspective: not in comparison to pagan art in Rome, not as reflecting the struggle with Constantinople, but rather as visual expressions of the idea of Jerusalem and its holy sites and traditions.
List of contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: From Jerusalemite Spoils to Roman Relics
- Chapter 2: The Impact of Jerusalemite Traditions on Early Christian Roman Art
- Chapter 3: Rome's Loca Sancta
- Chapter 4: Jerusalem in Rome
- Afterword
- Figures
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Galit Noga-Banai is of the History of Art department at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of The Trophies of the Martyrs: An Art Historical Study of Early Christian Silver Reliquaries (OUP 2008).
Summary
Sacred Stimulus offers a thorough exploration of Jerusalem's role in the formation and formulation of Christian art in Rome during the fourth and fifth centuries. The visual vocabulary discussed by Galit Noga-Banai gives an alternative access point to the mnemonic efforts conceived while Rome converted to Christianity: not in comparison to pagan art in Rome, not as reflecting the struggle with the emergence of New Rome in the East (Constantinople), but rather as visual expressions of the confrontation with earthly Jerusalem and its holy places. After all, Jerusalem is where the formative events of Christianity occurred and were memorialized. Sacred Stimulus argues that, already in the second half of the fourth century, Rome constructed its own set of holy sites and foundational myths, while expropriating for its own use some of Jerusalem's sacred relics, legends, and sites.
Relying upon well-known and central works of art, including mosaic decoration, sarcophagi, wall paintings, portable art, and architecture, Noga-Banai exposes the omnipresence of Jerusalem and its position in the genesis of Christian art in Rome. Noga-Banai's consideration of earthly Jerusalem as a conception that Rome used, or had to take into account, in constructing its own new Christian ideological and cultural topography of the past, sheds light on connections and analogies that have not necessarily been preserved in the written evidence, and offers solutions to long-standing questions regarding specific motifs and scenes.
Additional text
When words fail images step up. Sacred Stimulus turns a finely-tuned ear to the faint echoes of a once strident conversation. In the visual polemics that Galit Noga-Banai detects in such works as the Samagher Casket, the Bethesda sarcophagi, and the apse mosaic of S. Pudenziana, she recognizes the designs of Roman patrons and artists intent on relocating Jerusalem to the banks of the Tiber. What surfaces is an adventurous romp through the loca sancta of two preeminent late antique cities and a new way of seeing familiar things.
