“Seventh Century Rome”: Sant’Agnese fuori le mura
After an assessment of religious art at the time of Gregory the Great, we stayed in Rome to discover the church art of the seventh century.
We began with the church of Sant’Agnese fuori le mura, built and decorated by Pope Honorius (625-38). As with San Lorenzo fuori le mura, the best images come from Maria Andaloro, La Pittura medievale a Roma, 312-1431: Atlante, volume 1. I should also note that Walter Oakeshott’s Mosaics of Rome has decent usable images for every Roman monument with mosaics, although not so many in color. Flickr (note link on the right side of this page) has interior shots of Sant’Agnese as well as good details of the hand of God and the face of Agnes (search “Agnese fuori le mura”). And an official website, only in Italian, has a good set of medium-sized images.
Bill Storage also has some slightly larger than medium-sized images.
And, as is standard, Honorius’s papal biography devotes several lines to his work there, and two inscriptions frame the apse (translations of which I may post at some point in the future), so close reading well accompanies close looking.
Also, Sant’Agnese stands above catacombs and formed part of the same complex as a Constantinian basilica and the Mauseoleum of Constantina, providing the perfect opportunity for a flashback to early Christian Rome and to Constantinian Rome.
