“Pope John VII”: Santa Maria Antiqua

Fragmentation characterizes the artistic legacy of John VII, and his frescoes at Santa Maria Antiqua have not escaped this fate.  Further complicating matters, other than the interactive palimpsest wall on the website of the Soprintendenza, the internet does not favor this monument.  A 1925 article by Myrtilla Avery in Art Bulletin is available through JSTOR, and like all articles in JSTOR, contains gigantic digital images, but all in black and white.  (I often turn to JSTOR as my last resort, but, as you will see, it sometimes offers the best images available.)

The Life of John VII describes in general terms his interventions at Santa Maria Antiqua, but far more interesting possibilities exist for the contextualization of this program.  First, the inscription on the apsidal links together several Old Testament passages that, according to medieval interpretation, foretell the (Adoration of the) Crucifixion depicted above, in a perfect exemplification of typology.  I found a translation of the inscription in Éamonn Ó Carragáin’s Ritual and the Rood, but I suspect you can find it elsewhere.

The lives of John VII and Sergius and the 82nd Canon of the Council of Trullo permit the embedding of the frescoes in a precise political context. 

Canons of the Council of Trullo

I will not rehearse the argument here, but, suffice it so say, that it requires some time to explain the theological controversy surrouding the wills of Christ and how John VII’s response to it in the program may confirm the Liber pontificalis’s assertion of his “human weakness”.