Chapel of the Benedictine Nuns of Priscilla, Roma
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Cronology
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Description
On the back wall of the private chapel of the convent of the Benedictine Nuns (built right above the catacombs of Priscilla in Rome) there is a large mosaic with a banquet scene from the catacombs.
This is a reinterpretation as wall mosaic of the banquet scene copying the famous one in the Cappella Greca in the catacombs below. The intention is to recreate this catacomb space in a modern chapel.
The mosaic occupies the entire back wall of the rectangular chapel, and is proposed in monumental dimensions. The catacomb scene is faithfully repeated. Seven people are sharing their meal at a sigmoid table, while in front of them (and not on their sides, as appears in the original fresco) there are seven baskets of bread. The central plate with the fish is placed right at the door of the tabernacle.
On the other hand, the lower part contains the dedicatory epigraph that tells the history of this mosaic. The mosaic was a gift for thanksgiving by Lorenzo Camerino, a Venetian mosaicist and Jewish convert, who had found refuge in the catacombs of Priscilla with his entire family in 1943-1944. It was finished on Christmas 1954.
Present State
Sources
Archive of the Benedictine Nuns of Priscilla, Roma.
References
Chiara Cecalupo, The study and dissemination of an iconography: banquet scenes from the catacombs of Rome to the facsimile catacombs of the nineteenth century, in Journal of Art Historiography, 26, 2022.
Axel Alt, ´Il mosaico parietale della cappella delle suore Benedettine di Priscilla sulla Via Salaria (Roma)´, AISCOM XXIV. Rome: Quasar, 2019, 313-318.