元代天主教在华物质遗存:两块扬州拉丁文墓碑图像探析

Catholic Material Relics in China in the Yuan Dynasty:A Study of the Image of Two Yangzhou Latin Tombstones

上个世纪50年代在扬州发现的两块拉丁文墓碑,是元代天主教在华活动的重要物质遗存。本文认为,两块墓碑在形制方面借鉴了同时期在华有着活跃商贸活动的伊斯兰教和景教的墓碑;在主题和图像方面,则在方济各会修士的指导下遵循了欧洲中世纪天主教的宗教题材图像传统。两块拉丁文墓碑上的图像,不仅为远在异国他乡的天主教徒提供了灵魂归宿的精神慰藉,同时也凸显了罗马天主教与景教所遵循的教义方面的差异,并成为宣扬天主教和进行传教的有力手段。本文还提出图像中融合了大量中国本土艺术元素,体现了元代中西跨文化的艺术交流与互动。

The two Latin tombstone that discovered in Yangzhou in 1950 s are important Catholic material relics in the Yuan Dynasty.This article suggests that the image of these two tombstones borrowed from the Islamic and Nestorian tombstones that had active commercial activities in China during the same period.In terms of themes and images,they followed the tradition of European medieval Catholicism religious image motifs under the guidance of Franciscan monks.The images on the two Latin tombstones not only provided spiritual consolation about the destination of the soul for the Catholics who lived in a foreign country,but also highlighted the differences between the doctrines followed by Roman Catholicism and Nestorianism,and serves as a powerful means of Christian preaching in China.Moreover,this article points out that a large number of Chinese native artistic elements are integrated into the images,which reflect the cross-cultural artistic communication between China and the West in the Yuan Dynasty.