BASILICA di SANTA SABINA
If you are like me and you love the strangeness, almost childlike character of medieval artwork then the 5th Century Basilica of Sant Sabina in the Avantine area of Rome is for you.
Completed in 432AD this is a strange one that took some looking up. I couldn’t figure out what was going on in the first image. Apparently it’s Saint Nicholas (future Santa Claus) throwing a bag of gold coins to three girls laying naked in their bed. The alternating stories explain that the family was poor and the three girls were going to be sold into prostitution if the father couldn’t come up with a dowry. In this painting Saint Nicolas throws a bag of gold in while everyone is sleeping. Not a creature was stirring. Not even a mouse.
In an alternate version Saint Nicholas waits for each girl to come of age then slips a bag of gold coins in one by one. By the third daughter coming of age the father stays up to see who the benefactor might be and Saint Nicholas wise to this instead drops the coin purse down a chimney. Sound familiar?
And you thought the doll hospital was creepy!
