That Christ rose again on the third day after his death is one of the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith. The Resurrection was a return to earth where he remained for forty days until the Ascension. Since there were no witnesses at the moment of his return it is in his subsequent appearances to the disciples that the Christian finds confirmation that the event occurred, and it is for this reason that they are important themes in religious art. For centuries the Church avoided the portrayal of a subject for which there was no scriptural guidance and, with few exceptions, it is unknown until Giotto. in cycles of the Passion it was the Holy Women at the Sepulchre, or the 'Noli me tangere', perhaps together with other appearances, that served as a substitute. It needs to be emphasized that the Resurrection was a coming back to earth since there is one treatment of the theme, devotional rather than narrative in character, found in Italy in the 14th and 15th cents. and, more rarely, in northern Europe later, showing the figure of Christ floating in the air, perhaps framed in a mandorla, which gives it more the appearance of an Ascension. The scene sometimes includes not only the usual figures of the soldiers guarding the tomb but the subsequent arrival of the holy women, and the angel seated on the tomb who addressed them. But the predominant type, originating in the later Middle Ages and followed by the Renaissance, shows the Savior firmly on the ground, holding the banner of the Resurrection with its red cross, either standing upright in the open sarcophagus or in the act of stepping out of it. The Council of Trent, which demanded a return to scriptural accuracy, disapproved both of the open tomb and of the floating figure; from the second half of the 16th cent. therefore it is more usual to see Christ standing before a closed tomb. Matthew, alone among the gospels, mentions the guard of soldiers that Pilate had put on the tomb. The passage seems to have been introduced by the evangelist to refute the charge made by Jews in his day that the disciples secretly removed the body. The soldiers are generally recumbent around the tomb, either in attitudes of sleep, or awake and shading their eyes from the dazzling aura that surrounds the figure of Christ. In Italian painting, when the subject is treated devotionally, the soldiers may occasionally be replaced by saints or the four evangelists.