Vatican Museums

The sarcophagus was discovered in the late sixteenth century at the old St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, and later became part of several private collections. The work, reduced to one decorated panel, was restored by Cavaceppi in 1757, upon entry into the collections of the Christian Museum. The sarcophagi of the "Bethesda" type, of which there are a few other more or less fragmentary examples from different regions of the empire, take their name from the episode of the healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem (Jn 5: 1-18 ), depicted in monumental form in the center of the relief. The other scenes, which appear in the same sequence in the various exemplars in the series, are all drawn from episodes from the Gospel: the healing of the two blind men and the bleeding woman, and towards the right, the encounter with Zaccheo (incorrectly restored by Cavaceppi) and Jesus' entry into Jerusalem.