"Double register" sarcophagi
"Double register" sarcophagi
The sector dedicated to "double register" sarcophagi (on which the narration of biblical episodes is structured in two sequences, one above the other, interrupted at the centre by a portrait of the deceased) is dominated by two of the greatest masterpieces of early Christian sculpture: the monumental marble sarcophagi from St. Paul's Basilica, known respectively as the "Dogmatic" and the "two Brothers". Besides the numerous sarcophagus fronts and some minor fragments, this area also includes the famous Constantinian "Christological monogram", previously part of a strigilated sarcophagus; a fragment of a tomb lid with the so-called "mystical ship", an allegorical representation of the Church, with Christ and the figures of the Evangelists; various figurative engraved slabs from the Roman catacombs, architectural fragments of liturgical partitions and some large nineteenth-century reproductions of ancient cemetery paintings.