The mosaic pavement

The extraordinary polychrome mosaic floor of the Butrint Baptistery is the most complete and complex mosaic pavement of all surviving baptisteries of the period. It can be dated to the second quarter of the 6th century AD, and may have been the work of craftsmen based at Nicopolis.

The overall design of the floor consists of seven bands circling the baptismal font at the centre – making in all eight, the Christian number of salvation and eternity. Salvation is one of the principal themes of the mosaic, expressed as the water of baptism and the water of life; that is, the salvation brought to the faithful. Water and salvation is further associated with the sacramental blood of Christ and the wine of the Eucharist: the rebirth out of water into a new life and the prospect of salvation.

The theme of awakening to a new life is announced by two cockerels situated immediately inside the threshold – symbols of the proclaiming of the new day, of rebirth and resurrection. Between these and the font are two emblematic panels: one, a large vase with vines, peacocks and other birds; the other, two stags drinking at a fountain beneath an arch flanked by trees: Both readily understood by contemporaries as the related themes of salvation through the water of baptism and through the blood of Christ’s sacrifice and death. In the first panel, the vine can refer to Christ and his followers, and by extension to the church, and the peacocks establish a paradisiacal setting suggestive of rebirth. The deer or stags in the second panel figure as symbols of the faithful aspiring to Christ, and to neophytes at the font of baptism.

Over the rest of the floor, terrestrial quadrupeds, birds (for the most part water birds), a few fish, and plants with gay red flowers, set in two circling medallion chains, represent God’s new creation. There are surprisingly few fish in the mosaic considering their association with Christ and baptism. In one medallion two fish brings to mind the image of Christ and the apostles as fishers of men, suggesting they symbolise the initiates rescued from sin through baptism. The only narrative element in the medallions occurs in three panels in the outer ring where a black hound is chasing an ass into a net. Read symbolically they may represent the faithful chased by Christ into the net of the church, or as Christ pursued by the devil into death and resurrection.

The decoration in the room to the north differs from that in the baptistery, and though roughly contemporary they were the work of two distinct ateliers. A running ivy scroll runs round the walls of the room. Within this are two large areas, one consisting of squares and medallions with various motifs – birds, branches bearing fruit, and peacocks flanking vases; the other, medallions, interlocking octagons with stylised black trees, and an inscription apparently recording the name of a bishop. This was presumably the bishop who commissioned the pavement and perhaps the construction of the room.

The effect of the mosaic floor in the 6th century must have been similar to how it strikes a modern visitor to Butrint: as a composition of great complexity and as one of the most impressive interior spaces in the region.

 

• The Baptistery and Early Christian Butrint
• The iconography of the mosaic pavement
• The pavement and ritual space
• QTVR of the baptistery
• The mosaic pavement in detail

Eight, the number of eternity
Eight is the final age of Christian history, and on the eighth great day after the Final Judgement the everlasting life will dawn for Christian faithfuls. Hence the number symbolises salvation and eternity. Since baptism is seen as the gateway to salvation, baptisteries have long been linked to the number eight. In the Baptistery two rings of eight columns frame the baptismal font, which itself is the culminating eighth element of the seven decorative bands that encircle it. Interlocking octagons decorate the floor in the adjoining room, and the roof of the Baptistery may have been octagonal in shape. In the 4th century AD St Ambrose wrote of the octagonal baptistery in Milan: ‘It was fitting that the baptismal hall should stand to the number eight, by which true salvation returned to mankind’.