The Capsella di Samagher
This Reliquary (height 18.5 cm, length 20.5 cm, width 16.01 cm) was discovered in Samagher (Pula, Croatia) in 1906 under the altar of the Church of St. Hermagoras, and was assigned to the National Archaeological Museum of Venice following the agreements post-war Italy-Yugoslavia in 1960. It is in carved ivory with corner reinforcements and silver accessories. Probably of Roman craftsmanship, it is of exceptional value for the history of early Christian art, the history of the Church and the history of the Roman Empire, because of the refined decoration in relief on the lid and on all four sides.
In particular, the iconographic motifs on the lid and on the front side were inspired by the mosaics, no longer preserved, in the apse of the Constantinian Basilica of St. Peter, known only from Renaissance drawings: it is possible to recognize on the lid a fragmentary Traditio Legis, Christ handing the law to Peter, while the front side represents a richly decorated empty Throne, symbol of divine judgment. The representation of the back is particularly important: it depicts the presbytery of the ancient Basilica of St. Peter with the so-called Memoria Petri, the monument erected by Constantine upon Peter's tomb, as it was until the end of the 6th century, at the time of Gregory the Great.
More problematic are the interpretations of the other sides. According to the various hypotheses, the right side represents the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or his alleged replica in the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem; on the left side it is possible to see the confession of the Roman church of St. Lawrence Outside the Walls or part of the central nave of the Church of Holy Cross in Jerusalem. Various hypotheses have been put forward regarding the characters depicted, for example Constantine and Helen visiting the Basilica of St. Peter in 326 on the back, Galla Placidia with the small Valentinian on the left, Licinia Eudoxia perhaps with her husband Valentinian and their daughter Eudocia in 439-440 on the right. According to another hypothesis, Galla Placidia is the main protagonist of the story, perhaps on a pilgrimage to fulfill a vow for the enthronement of his son as emperor Valentinian.
The capsella is datable to the middle of the 5th century A.D. owing to the typological and stylistic features of male and female figures and the iconographic motif of the empty Throne which appears for the first time on the mosaic at the top of the arch of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore datable to after 431 A.D. (Council of Ephesus). The National Archaeological Museum of Venice has created a three-dimensional portrayal of such a precious artefact. It is an important aid for research: it offers both a precise relief in various dimensions of scale and a visualization from different angles and with different directions of light. The high definition images make it possible to highlight the details that are hard to detect with the naked eye, whilst maintaining a perspective of the whole.
