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Pietro e Paolo a Roma: la storia, il culto, la memoria Giubileo al Palazzo della Cancelleria until December 10th 2000 Exhibit hours: 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. (until September 24th); 9-12 (September 25 to December 10th) Closed Mondays
The exhibit in the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome focuses on the mission and veneration of the apostles Peter and Paul and the origins of Christianity in Rome. It contains a varied collection of iconographic material found near or within Rome itself which is related to the memory of Peter and Paul. Actual material evidence of the apostles's mission in Rome is unknown: the exhibit seeks to close the gab with a section of the exhibit dedicated to Rome's ancient Jewish community. The two cultural identities of this population, Jewish and Roman, are unified in such syncretistic works such as the sarcophagus of the Seasons with the menorah said to come from the Jewish catacomb on the Vigna Randanini and the inscriptions in Aramaic and Greek from the Jewish catacomb on the Monteverde decorated with symbols found in both Jewish and Greco-Roman funerary art. A co-existence of Judaism and Christianity in ancient Rome is best imagined from the inscription discovered near the via Latina , now in the epigraphic collection of the Museo Nazionale delle Marche. It is decorated with a scene of the resurrection of Lazarus, a Christogram and a menorah. The exhibit contains also a collection of important sarcophagi, gold glass and lucernae from the collections of the Vatican Museums and models of the principal basilicae in Rome dedicated to the apostles: St. Peter's, St. Pauls, and Saint Sebastian on the via Appia Antica.
Contributed by Jessica Dello Russo
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On this fragment of a marble sarcophagus, the menorah is enclosed in a roundel supported by two winged Victories. This was adopted from a Roman design in which the medallion usually contained portraits of the deceased. From the Vigna Randanini catacomb.
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