This paper considers medieval and Late Antique representations of books depicted as they actually, physically, were as welt as certain aspects of how they functioned in representations - as symbols of concealing and revealing and as liminal points of passage. On the one hand, there is considerable evidence that the details of shape, binding, fastening, and decoration depicted in book representations correspond to the makeup and appearance of actual books of their time; books in depictions were clearly intended to be understood as referencing actual books. On the other hand, however, it is also clear from the ways in which books are represented, and from the contexts in which they appear, that they served as focal signs - as providing access to the salvific words that lead to Paradise and everlasting life.

Thanks to new material analysis and ongoing archaeological investigation, the church of S. Ambrogio alla Rienna, in the countryside of Salerno, is revealing essential information about the cultural coexistence of Lombards and Franks. The church's excellent mid-ninth-century mural paintings serve to highlight political and theological disputes, as well as ethnic identities and the economic and social dynamics of the early medieval period. In the eighth and ninth centuries, the area had been part of the principality (former duchy) of Benevento and Salerno. The church was at the center of a network of landholdings belonging to the powerful monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno. What remains of the original painted program suggests wealthy patronage closely connected, on the one hand, to the culture of the Lombard courts and main monasteries, and, on the other hand, to Carolingian politics in northern Lombardy.

During 2012-2013 new researches on the church of Santa Maria foris portas were conducted. These include: (a) a stratigraphic analysis of the walls, with particular attention to the plaster and the frescoes of the eastern apse; (b) a revision of the excavation data of the 80s; (c) the excavation of a tomb in front of the atrium of the church; (d) new systematic 14C dating of wood and mortar entrusted to three different laboratories; (e) a study of the historical and artistic cycle of frescoes in the apse east; (f) a study of the graffiti engraved on the frescoes.The results suggest two distinct phases of construction and decoration of the church. At the latest, that the 14C determinations place in the mid-tenth century, relates the famous cycle of frescoes of the eastern apse.

This article re-examines the topography of the late eighth-century monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno following a recent far-reaching reinterpretation of the ninth-century phases of the monastery. In particular, it proposes a hypothetical location for the monks' dormitory and a palace beside the river Volturno. As a result, it suggests the outlines of the first claustral plan for the monastery.

Amulets and amuletic imagery are characteristic features of the Late Roman world and yet few examples can be localised, physically contextualised or dated. Excavation of the late antique phases of a large peristyle house in the coastal city of Butrint in southern Albania, ancient Epirus Vetus, has produced a remarkable assemblage of apotropaic devices and protective forms which goes some way to correcting this deficiency. These, together with the imagery on a remarkable mosaic pavement in the sanctuary of a small 6th c. A.D. chapel in the nearby ancient city of Antigoneia, show the range of subjects deployed, in a period of increasing social insecurity and urban decline, to assure safety, health and success in life and a safe passage to the next world after death.

In questo volume sono editi gli atti del I seminario organizzatonel 2006 dal Centro interuniversitario per la storia e l’archeologia dell’alto medioevo (SAAME). Al centro del seminario è stato un tema di grande importanza per storia italiana: la conquista franca del regno longobardo e le sue conseguenze in tutti i campi, dai mutamenti politici - indagati soprattutto dal punto di vista della loro rappresentazione - ai mutamenti nell’insediamento rurale e urbano (dalle campagne toscane a capitali come Roma e Ravenna), a quelli nelle attività artistiche (la costruzione di edifici di prestigio) e culturali (epigrafia, documenti, codici, produzione normativa), nella circolazione monetaria (le zecche, i mancosi) e nei flussi commerciali (con in primo piano l’Adriatico). Inoltre si è tentato di inserire la ‘transizione’ italiana, ossia il passaggio della penisola sotto la dominazione carolingia, nell’ambito di un quadro europeo, prendendo in considerazione, con alcuni affondi tematici, la Turingia, la Baviera, l’Austrasia e infine la Spagna, dove è avvenuta un’altra fondamentale transizione, quella tra Visigoti e Musulmani.