Christ Between Peter and Paul, 4th century

Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter on the Via Labicana

This cemetery is at the third milestone on Via Labicana, near to an imperial villa belonging to Constantine.

"Christ with the book of the Gospels is seated between Peter and Paul. Below, the Lamb is standing in the centre on a hill, from which flow out the four symbolic rivers of Scripture. To the sides are the most venerated Martyrs, with their names: Gorgonius, Peter, Marcellinus, Tiburtius, all acclaiming the Lamb." (Christian Catacombs of Rome - Website)

"The historical and religious associations of this catacomb [the Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter] are summed up and illustrated in a beautiful picture representing the Savior with S. Paul on his right and S. Peter on his left: and, on a line below, the four martyrs who were buried in the cemetery, Gorgonius, Peter, Marcellinus, and Tiburtius, pointing with their right hands to the Divine Lamb on the mountain. The heads of the two apostles are particularly fine, and the shape of their beards most characteristic. This well-known fresco, preserved in cubiculum no. 25 of Bosio's plan, was discovered in 1851 by de Rossi, in a curious manner. (...)". (quote from the PD-old book: Pagan and Christian Rome, by Rodolfo Lanciani, 1892 - p.357)

http://www.aug.edu/augusta/iconography/newStuffForXnCours/catacumbasCristianas/xPeterPaul.html archive copy at the Wayback Machine

This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer. You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States.  Note that a few countries have copyright terms longer than 70 years: Mexico has 100 years, Jamaica has 95 years, Colombia has 80 years, and Guatemala and Samoa have 75 years. This image may not be in the public domain in these countries, which moreover do not implement the rule of the shorter term. Honduras has a general copyright term of 75 years, but it does implement the rule of the shorter term. Copyright may extend on works created by French who died for France in World War II (more information), Russians who served in the Eastern Front of World War II (known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia) and posthumously rehabilitated victims of Soviet repressions (more information). This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/PDMCreative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0falsefalse The official position taken by the Wikimedia Foundation is that "faithful reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works of art are public domain". This photographic reproduction is therefore also considered to be in the public domain in the United States. In other jurisdictions, re-use of this content may be restricted; see Reuse of PD-Art photographs for details. {{PD-Art}} template without license parameter: please specify why the underlying work is public domain in both the source country and the United States (Usage: {{PD-Art|1=|deathyear=''year of author's death''|country=''source country''}}, where parameter 1= can be PD-old-auto, PD-old-auto-expired, PD-old-auto-1996, PD-old-100 or similar. See Commons:Multi-license copyright tags for more information.)