It is beyond question that the various sources – textual and material transmitted by texts – used in this paper are well known to scholars. On the solid ground offered by previous studies in the archaeology and art history of Saint Peter’s confessio, we intend to deepen the analysis of the ideological implications of Gregory III’s pergula. By combining the discrete expertise and research methodologies of an art historian and a historian working on religious–political texts and identities, we intend to offer a cultural–historical evaluation of Gregory III’s work on the confessio in light of the wider question of early medieval papal politics and artistic patronage. Considering the cues offered by Sible de Blaauw and Charles McClendon with regards to its relevance to Byzantine iconomachy, we will place it against the backdrop of the complex political landscape of Italy in the 720s–740s. This was dominated by major actors: the papacy in Rome, the Byzantine emperor represented by the exarch of Ravenna, and the Longobard king in Pavia. In fact, the image controversy was but one of the political issues at stake. We will proceed by analysing written documents (section “Ink”), material evidence as it was described in the written sources and papal artistic patronage (“Marble and silver”), and end with considerations on the use of written and material statements in the politics of the time (“Rome vs. Ravenna and Constantinople in ca. 731”, and “Once more on marble and ink”).
F. Dell’Acqua, C. Gantner, “The pergula of Pope Gregory III (731–741) in the Basilica of Saint Peter’s. Rome and Ravenna at the Onset of the Image Controversy”, Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 48 (2025).
Francesca Dell'Acqua
;
2025
Abstract
It is beyond question that the various sources – textual and material transmitted by texts – used in this paper are well known to scholars. On the solid ground offered by previous studies in the archaeology and art history of Saint Peter’s confessio, we intend to deepen the analysis of the ideological implications of Gregory III’s pergula. By combining the discrete expertise and research methodologies of an art historian and a historian working on religious–political texts and identities, we intend to offer a cultural–historical evaluation of Gregory III’s work on the confessio in light of the wider question of early medieval papal politics and artistic patronage. Considering the cues offered by Sible de Blaauw and Charles McClendon with regards to its relevance to Byzantine iconomachy, we will place it against the backdrop of the complex political landscape of Italy in the 720s–740s. This was dominated by major actors: the papacy in Rome, the Byzantine emperor represented by the exarch of Ravenna, and the Longobard king in Pavia. In fact, the image controversy was but one of the political issues at stake. We will proceed by analysing written documents (section “Ink”), material evidence as it was described in the written sources and papal artistic patronage (“Marble and silver”), and end with considerations on the use of written and material statements in the politics of the time (“Rome vs. Ravenna and Constantinople in ca. 731”, and “Once more on marble and ink”).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
