Il cubicolo della Madonna con due Magi nelle catacombe romane dei SS. Marcellino e Pietro dopo il restauro. Declinazioni iconografiche della scena di Epifania. Mitteilungen zur Christlichen Archäologie|Mitteilungen zur Christlichen Archäologie 25|

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The Cubiculum of the Madonna with two Magi in the Roman Catacombs of the SS. Marcellino and Pietro after restoration. Iconographic declinations of the Epiphany scene The author has directed the restoration of cubicle 69, called of the Madonna with two Magi in the Roman catacombs of the SS. Marcellinus and Peter. In the intervention, which took place between 2014 and 2015, laser beam has been used for cleaning in a technological successful way, which now has a wide range of case studies in the conservation of catacomb paintings. The restoration was the occasion for a deepening of the iconographic peculiarity of the cubicle, from which is given the name. The study showed how, in the cemetery ad duas lauros, the scenes of Epiphany, even apart from doubtful cases, always present two Magi on the sides – or beside – of the Virgin and Child, instead of the canons three. It is good to reiterate that the number of the Magi is not mentioned in the Gospel text, but only appears in the subsequent apocryphal production, in relation to the three gifts brought by the dignitaries. The numerical variation, attested also in one case in the catacombs of Domitilla and in some products of the so-called minor arts in the version of four Magi, seems in the whole of the Labicana to be a precise local choice, not so much due to mere compositional reasons or to uncertain experimentation iconographic, but perhaps to a careful reading on the one hand to the Gospel text, on the other anticipating the concept of royalty that the epiphanic situation, especially in the symmetrical scheme in work in cubicle 69, allowed to express.