CIMRM 345 - "The Good Shepherd" from San Clemente, Rome - actually St. Peter


See also: CIMRM 338 Mithraeum; 339-340 Altar and inscription; 341 Cippus and inscription; 342 Fragments of torchbearers; 343 Sol; 344 Rock-birth; 345 "The good shepherd"; 346 Sacrificial bones; 347-348 Inscriptions.

Nolan writes (p.111): "On a marble bracket at the foot of the stairs is a mutilated statue of S. Peter as the Good Shepherd, which was found in the old Oratory or Dominicum of S. Clement during the excavations. Such a statue seems to be not only rare but unique either in Rome or out of it, for though bas-reliefs representing S. Peter in the quality of Pastor Bonus or Good Shepherd have been found in the catacombs and on sarcophagi, so far as we are aware, no other statue has ever been discovered. The crispy hair and beard and furrowed cheeks, so well known to archaeologists as characteristic of S.Peter, leave no doubt as to whom it represents. A facsimile of this statue, as it was when whole, stands on another bracket. Between both are two plaster casts of the marble pillars referred to when treating of the upper church, with the name of Cardinal Mercurius carved on the capital of one of them."

CIMRM entry

(It would appear that Vermaseren has mentioned Nolan by mistake for someone else in the bibliography for S. Clemente, CIMRM 338)


comments powered by Disqus

Home