Catherine Taylor: Painted Veneration: The Priscilla Catacomb Annunciation and the Protoevangelium of James as second-century precedents for Late Antique Annunciation Iconography

There has been little attempt to scrutinize Mary’s association with the spindle, the foremost attribute of femininity in the late antique world.  This paper addresses this issue by examining iconographic origins of the Virgin Annunciate spinning in both art and text during late antiquity. The Catacombs of Priscilla in Rome are home to the earliest visual representations of the Virgin Mary and the Annunciation, dating to the second century.   Here the Annunciation, the largest and most prominent of three distinct images of the Virgin in the catacomb, is painted on the ceiling of cubiculum P in the oldest part of the catacomb.  This paper compares this painting with multiple catacomb images and with apocryphal and patristic sources to demonstrate the adaptation and popularity of this iconography amongst earliest Christianity.  Additionally, this paper promotes the original thesis that the earliest images of the Mary were based on an idealized matron type as opposed to the semi-divine notion of Mary as Theotokos, a title that will become central to codified Orthodoxy by the fifth century.