Aquileia Basilica [North Hall, forth span] – The Pleroma

Mosaic located in the so-called “Pleroma” sector of the North hall. This image of the ”Fight between the rooster and the turtle” is a variation in Gnostic key of the allegory represented in a later mosaic inserted in the original floor of the South hall at the 4th century end.

The Pleroma is the spiritual perfection in contrast to physical deficiency. The term pleroma (πληρωμα) generally refers to the totality of the powers of God, to the fullness of being of the divine life; it was used by the Gnostics to designate the cosmic sphere mediating between the absolute reality of the ideal and divine principle and the absolute unreality of the matter. The struggle between the rooster announcing the new day, allegory of Christ, light of the world, and the tortoise (inhabitant of darkness) summarizes the contrast between the reality and pleasantry of the divine sphere and the darkness of the matter. Read in a Gnostic key, the rooster is comparable to the light (therefore Father, but also Son, representing the Church emanating from Him), the tortoise represents darkness (nature-matter, man-material). The amphora on the column that divides the two contenders is the aroma or essence, that is, the spirit (pneuma), which is reached through the path of asceticism followed by the Gnostics.

 

Source: Graziella Protto, “PISTIS SOPHIA e I Mosaici dell'Aula Nord della basilica di Aquileia"

 

315 – 320 AD

Aquileia, Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta

 

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