Epitaph of a virgo with the image of a dove

Photogallery

Epitaph of a virgo with the image of a dove
Epitaph of a virgo with the image of a dove
Section XVI. Christian inscriptions, II

The praiseworthy (bene merenti) Ianuaria, deposed in the peace of the tomb (in pace … deposita) was accompanied by prayers (botis, incorrect form of votis, resulting from the pronunciation). She died as a virgo, “virgin”, a word which may assume various meanings. The lack of further specifications such as Dei, “of God”, or sacra, would exclude the hypothesis that she was a woman who had chosen to lead a consecrated life, leading to the assumption that she was either a girl who died before marriage or innupta, “unmarried”. On the left of the slab there is a depiction of a dove, a very common image in early Christian epitaphs, which had the function of wishing good fortune (wishes for a blessed life), or as a symbol of the soul of the deceased liberated from the body, or as a messenger of salvation when, as in this case, it holds an olive branch in its beak or between its claws (an image evoking the Old Testament story of Noah’s Ark).