Stele of Pupius Mentor, 54-68 AD.

Walled inside the Cathedral of Ferrara

Civic Lapidary, inv. RA785

The elegant monument is part of a group of marbles that, reused in the Cathedral, were moved in 1738 to be placed in the University Museum, then located at Paradiso Palace. The stele, which can be dated to the first half of the first century AD, is “pseudo-edicula” shaped, with two side pilasters decorated with plant and floral motifs rising from the base plinth and supporting the slopes of the triangular pediment. On the plinth the funerary inscription provides the name of the deceased, P(ublius) Pupius, along with other information about his life. The man, carved inside the niche, is depicted full-length, with his face and gaze turned toward the viewer. He wears a toga of the type a merged, a model adopted since the Augustan age, and clearly recognizable is the sinus, part of the fabric that, resting diagonally on the right side, left his arm uncovered. This depiction reflects the prominent social position the deceased had held in life: he had in fact been a physician and a member of the college of Seviri, a typically honorary minor magistracy responsible for the care of the imperial cult.

Epigraph transcription and translation:

P(ublius) Pupius P(ubli) l(ibertus) Mentor / Medicus IIIIII vir

Publius Pupius Mentor, freedman of Publius, physician, seviro