Il medium epigrafico negli spazi devozionali e cultuali dei cristiani di Roma (III-VII secolo)

ABSTRACT. The focus of the paper is the growing role of the sacrum in the inscriptions by Christians in Rome, starting from their very first examples in the third century till to their relevant action into the transformation processes in using the epigraphic medium in Late Antiquity - until the seventh century. Some examples and cases of study show a phenomenon of an increasing ‘permeability’ between sacrum and the other spheres of using the epigraphic medium. The ‘pervasiveness’ of the sacred sphere, first related only to the funerary epigraphs, gradually spread to the equipment of the cultic buildings, where the inscriptions by Christians - essentially by their leaders, as the bishops of Rome are - transform these spaces in the new actual ‘public spaces’ of the late antique and medieval Roma christiana.