St. Lawrence

5th century
Fresco
Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls

In this early portrait St. Lawrence has not yet acquired his gridiron attribute, nor the palm of martyrdom. The portrait does include the gospel book and dalmatic which will be consistently featured in later images. The saint's tonsure places the fresco to no earlier than the late 5th century, when the rite of tonsuring was extended from monks to secular clergy.

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Photographed at the basilica by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.