View Page: S Maria in Trastevere

	S Maria in Trastevere
	written by ars7 / 10.06.2004

Section Four

4 of 7

Patron

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Kinney

Female and finger-to-lips figures

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Kinney

Male and finger-to-lips figures

Columns

Innocent II was by no means original when he chose to appropriate part of one monument and incorporate into his own. Spoliation had been occurring for centuries. The Theodosian Code of 438 CE put public monuments under the emperor’s protection; the emperor had the power to stop anyone else from damaging monuments, but he could also authorize the removal of spolia for special cases. In the 8th century, after the fall of the empire, a document called the Donation of Constantine was forged, which retroactively gave this same power to the pope. Most popes had a difficult time enforcing their control in that age of barbarian invasions, and in fact the Catholic Church did more looting than any invading force. Innocent realized, as many did, that using spolia was a cheap and easy way to advertise one’s position as Pope, and at this time there was not even a Roman Senate to object.

It is difficult for modern viewers to know what significance medieval churchgoers would have assigned to the three figures in the capitals. Considered in the context of the mosaic, the male/female pair could have referred to numerous religious examples of sponsa—Maria and Christ, Maria and Joseph, Solomon and wife, Adam and Eve, etc. Each of these interpretations would have reinforced the mosaic’s message of divine purity of the depicted partnership. On the other hand, the faces could have been intended to contrast with this message. Many viewers would have recognized the capitals as having come from the Baths of Caracalla, and might have thought that the male figure was the much-despised emperor Caracalla. Very little was known about him by this time because he was put under erasure, but sources say that he slept with his stepmother Julia. People familiar with these sources would then have seen the female figure as Julia, and this unholy union would contrast severely with the divine pair in the mosaic.

There are also several possible interpretations of the third figure. Generally, holding a finger to one’s lips meant the same things in the Middle Ages that it does now: silence or secrecy. It could be the silence of personal prayer or the secrecy associated with imperial power. Or, more abstractly, it could be the misleading ideas and self-deception (as the Catholics saw it) of the false worship conducted by the ancient pagan cultures. Medieval observers would have mixed and matched all these interpretations as they saw fit, but always with the conclusion that worship of Christ and Maria was right and holy.

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