Vatican Museums

Starting with a declaration of the Christian faith (fides) of the deceased, in the form of the consecration of the tomb, the epitaph of Valeria Lorubia Felicissima (the names are uncertain), buried by her husband, offers an emotional eulogy of this admirable and chaste woman who lived solely for him. The fides of the deceased is also alluded to by the word neóphyta, transliteration of the Greek νεόφυτα – metaphorically “newly planted” in the vineyard of the Lord, the Christian community – indicating that the woman had died at the age of only thirty years, shortly after receiving baptism and becoming a Christian. There is also the touching reference to her three children, orphaned at a tender age and entrusted to the joint care of their father and maternal grandmother. On either side of the first line of the text, there is the symbol of the Christian faith, the Christological monogram expressed by the superimposition of the Greek letters Χ and Ρ, initials of Χριστός (Christós), “Christ”.