See also Titulus (Roman Catholic) for Roman churches called tituli, or titulus (disambiguation)

Titulus (disambiguation)

Titulus, the Latin for "title" , may or may not be italicized as a foreign word, and may refer to:* titulus, or Titular church, one of a group of Early Christian churches around the edges of Rome....

 for more meanings.

Titulus (Latin "inscription" or "label", the plural tituli is also used in English) is a term used for the labels or captions naming figures or subjects in art, which were commonly added in classical and medieval art

Medieval art

The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa...

, and remain conventional in Eastern Orthodox icon

Icon

An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

s. In particular the term describes the conventional inscriptions on stone that listed the honours of an individual http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Nobiles.html or that identified boundaries in the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. A Titulus pictus

Titulus pictus

A titulus pictus is a commercial inscription made on the surface of certain artefacts . The inscription specifies information such as origin, destination, type of product, etc. Tituli picti are frequent on Roman containers used for trade....

 is a merchant's mark

Merchant's mark

Merchants' marks are as old as the sealings of the third millennium BCE found in Sumer that originated in the Indus Valley. Impressions of cloth, strings and other packing material on the reverse of tags with seal impressions indicate...

 or other commercial inscription.

The sense of "title", as in "book title", in modern English derives from this artistic sense, just as the legal sense

Title (property)

Title is a legal term for a bundle of rights in a piece of property in which a party may own either a legal interest or an equitable interest. The rights in the bundle may be separated and held by different parties. It may also refer to a formal document that serves as evidence of ownership...

 derives from plainer inscriptions of record.

Use in Western art

The increasing reluctance of the art of the West to use tituli was perhaps because so few people could read them in the Early Medieval period, and later because they reduced the illusionism of the image. Instead a system of attribute

Attribute

Attribute may refer to:* In research, a characteristic of an object - see attribute * In philosophy, property , an abstraction of a characteristic of an entity or substance...

s, objects identifying popular saints, was developed, but many such figures in Western art are now unidentifiable. This reluctance affected the choice of scenes shown in art; only those miracles of Jesus

Miracles of Jesus

The miracles of Jesus are the supernatural deeds of Jesus, as recorded in Gospels, in the course of his ministry. According to the Gospel of John, only some of these were recorded. states that "Jesus did many other things as well...

 that were easily identifiable visually tended to be shown in cycles of the Life of Christ

Life of Christ

The Life of Christ as a narrative cycle in Christian art comprises a number of different subjects, which were often grouped in series or cycles of works in a variety of media, narrating the life of Jesus on earth, as distinguished from the many other subjects in art showing the eternal life of...

. Thus the Raising of Lazarus

Raising of Lazarus

The Raising of Lazarus or the Resurrection of Lazarus is one of the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels in which Jesus brings Lazarus of Bethany back to life four days after his burial....

and Wedding at Cana are by far the most commonly shown miracles, and the healing miracles, visually easy to confuse, are neglected. The problems can clearly be seen in the small scenes of the Saint Augustine Gospels (late 6th century), where about 200 years after the manuscript was written tituli were added, which according to some art historians mis-identify some scenes. banderoles were a solution that became popular in the later Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, and in Northern Europe in the 15th century were sometimes used very extensively for speech, rather as in modern comics, as well as tituli. These were abandoned as old-fashioned in the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

, but increased respect for classical traditions led to continued use of Ancient Roman-style tituli where they were considered necessary, including on portraits.

Examples of tituli

• In the context of the Crucifixion
  Crucifixion
  Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
  
  , the titulus IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDAEORVM (and its translations) is believed to have been affixed to Jesus' cross. INRI is the abbreviation for the above mentioned Latin translation. See INRI and Titulus Crucis
  Titulus Crucis
  Titulus Crucis is a piece of wood, claimed to be a relic of the True Cross, kept in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. Christian tradition claims that the relic is half of the cross's titulus and a portion of the True Cross...
  
  .
• At the recovery of the coffin of King Arthur
  King Arthur
  King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
  
   at Glastonbury Abbey
  Glastonbury Abbey
  Glastonbury Abbey was a monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. The ruins are now a grade I listed building, and a Scheduled Ancient Monument and are open as a visitor attraction....
  
  , at an opportune moment after a devastating fire in the twelfth century, a lead cross of Arthur was alleged to have borne the explicit titulus HIC JACET SEPULTUS INCLITUS REX ARTHURUS IN INSULA AVALONIA. The well-publicized discovery described by Giraldus Cambrensis
  Giraldus Cambrensis
  Gerald of Wales , also known as Gerallt Gymro in Welsh or Giraldus Cambrensis in Latin, archdeacon of Brecon, was a medieval clergyman and chronicler of his times...
  
  , redoubled the pilgrimages to the Abbey.