# Apse decoration [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MOSAIC ARTIST, Italian]() - Date: 0501-0550 - Technique: Mosaic ## Commentary The basilica of Sts Cosmas and Damian is a church in the Roman Forum, parts of which incorporate original Roman buildings. The temple was Christianised and dedicated to Sts Cosmas and Damian in 527, when Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, and his daughter Amalasuntha donated the library of the Forum of Peace \(Bibliotheca Pacis\) and a portion of the Temple of Romulus to Pope Felix IV. The pope united the two buildings to create a basilica devoted to the Greek brothers and saints, Cosmas and Damian, in contrast with the ancient pagan cult of the two brothers Castor and Pollux, who had been worshipped in the nearby Temple of Castor and Pollux. The apse was decorated with a Roman-Byzantine mosaic, representing a parousia, the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time. ## Related artworks - [Apse calotte mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse calotte mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse calotte mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse calotte mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse decoration \(detail\)]() - [Apse decoration]() - [Apse decoration]() - [Apse mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse mosaic \(detail\)]() - [Apse mosaic \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()