La sacralizzazione dello spazio nell’agiografia micaelica: l’Apparitio garganica e la Revelatio normanna

This paper aims to re-read Saint Michael’s hagiography in light of the debate about the concept of sacred space/sacred place and the renewed conception of sanctuary’s identity. I focus on two texts: Apparitio Sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano and Revelatio Sancti Michaelis in Monte Tumba. I examine the link between the sacred space and the natural context in which it is embedded, focusing on the entity and function of individual natural agents (cave, mountain, water, rock, forest). The comparison between the two narratives enhances the “dialectic between the exceptionality of Saint Michael’s sanctuary in the Gargano and its ‘reproducibility’”: are so highlighted the peculiarity of Mont-Saint Michel’s sanctuary in relation to the functionality of the sacred space and the identity value that it assumes. The metamorphic process of Saint Michael’s hagiography, over time, seems to gradually move away from the Garganic model to embody new needs: the reference to motifs/elements of the Garganic tradition fades, untili it becomes, at times, the re-proposition of external contour motifs/elements.