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ARTICLES

1. ELENA CASTELNUOVO

 The Cross in red: poetic performance and visual spectacle in Venantius Fortunatus’s hymns to the Cross – p. 1-26.

Abstract: This article examines Venantius Fortunatus’s hymns to the Holy Cross, with particular focus on the Vexilla regis (carm. 2, 6), composed for the solemn adventus of the relic to Poitiers in 569 AD. It argues that these hymns functioned as integral elements of a liturgical spectacle. Through the lenses of interperformativity, the article demonstrates how Fortunatus reconfigures the Roman ceremony of the triumph into a Christian adventus, with the Cross emerging as a royal and victorious standard, expressed above all through the symbolism of the color red. This chromatic symbolism also informs the carmen figuratum (carm. 2, 4), in which intervisuality becomes central: the poem itself assumes the shape of a red cross, inscribing Christ’s Passion into both word and image. By embedding theological meaning into visual form and ritual context, Fortunatus’s hymns render the Cross vividly present, at once poetic artefact, liturgical act, and symbol of eschatological triumph.

1. VALÉRIE FAUVINET-RANSON

 Le corps du souverain dans l’Italie ostrogothique. Voir et être vu – p. 27-85.

Abstract: The question of the sovereign’s body has been the subject of numerous studies concerning the Middle Ages and has prompted research into the Roman Empire, particularly in its initial period. It is within this context that this article is situated, focusing on the Ostrogothic sovereigns, who were both barbarian leaders and successors to the emperors whom they sought, in many respects, to emulate. Which aspects of the royal body are emphasised, and to what end? What does this body reveal about the nature of their power or the form of their authority? Having examined how the body is made visible and distinguished from that of others through its insignia and beauty, we have explored the symbolic dimension, particularly evident in Procopius’s Gothic War, and then the relational dimension, which is entirely conveyed through the gaze and visibility, notably in Cassiodorus’s Variae.