Partially preserved mosaic in the north side-apse of the basilica of Eufrasius at Poreč, showing Cosmas/Kosmas and Damianus (brothers, physician martyrs of Syria, S00385) crowned by Christ. Datable to the mid-6th c.
E08567
Mosaics in the apse at the end of the north aisle of the church:
The original mosaic decoration of this apse was largely destroyed when a window was inserted in the mid-fifteenth century (as also happened in the apse at the end of the south aisle, E08568). However, the haloed heads and much of the upper bodies of two saints survive, each being crowned from heaven by a youthful Christ. Both have youthful unbearded faces, and both are probably wearing the paenula (the civilian cape, with a hole for the head at its centre). What stood between the two saints is unknown.
Both saints had mosaic labels to identify them, but both labels are badly damaged.
That of the saint on the left now reads: S(AN)C(TV)S head C[.....
That of the saint on the right now reads: ...]A head NVS
From these surviving letters, and from Terry and Maguire identifying what is almost certainly part of a doctor's bag hanging from the right-hand figure's arm (Terry and Maguire 2007, 119-121 and fig. 171), we can be confident that the saints represented are Cosmas and Damianus. In support of this identification, the faces and hair of the two saints are very similar - Cosmas and Damianus were brothers.
Source
The 'basilica of Eufrasius' is the southern, and larger, church of the palaeochristian double-cathedral of Poreč. Detailed survey and excavation reveals that Eufrasius partially reused the walls of an earlier church on the same site, but his intervention was extensive and transformational: new columns, capitals and bases in imported Proconnesian marble; mosaic floors; stucco-work; sumptuous opus sectile panels in the main apse; and the mosaics that are the subject of this and several other database entries.The precise dates of Eufrasius' episcopate are unknown, and nothing is known about him before he became bishop of Poreč - the only reference to him in textual sources is to a bishop Eufrasius, who must surely be our bishop, condemned as a defender of the Three Chapters in a letter of Pope Pelagius I of 559. Stylistic analysis of the mosaics, stucco-work and opus sectile, and comparison with very similar datable work in Ravenna (just across the north Adriatic), supports a mid-sixth-century date for Eufrasius' episcopate and his church (Terry and Maguire 2007, 59-69).
Discussion
Cosmas and Damianus had extensive cult in sixth-century Italy. In Rome, Pope Felix IV dedicated a church to them in 526/536, with a spectacular apse mosaic (E08150), and in Ravenna they were commemorated in the roundels of saints set up in the Cappella Arcivescovile (in 494/520; E05950) and in mosaics flanking the apse of S. Michele in Africisco (consecrated in 545; E06049). So it is not surprising to find them also honoured at Poreč.Bibliography
For Eufrasius:Pietri, C. and Pietri, L., Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, 2 Prosopographie de l'Italie chrétienne (313-604), 2 vols. (Ècole française de Rome 1999), vol. 1, 671-2, 'Eufrasius'.
For the mosaics, their state of preservation, and their identification:
Terry, A. and H. Maguire, Dynamic Splendor. The Wall Mosaics in the Cathedral of Eufrasius at Poreč, 2 vols, (Pennsylvania State University Press) 2007.
Images
)
Mosaic in the north side-apse of the basilica of Eufrasius at Poreč, with Cosmas and Damianus. Photo: Maria Lidova.
Bryan Ward-Perkins
25/11/2024
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00385 | Kosmas and Damianos, brothers, physician martyrs of Syria | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Bryan Ward-Perkins, Cult of Saints, E08567 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E08567