Casi di epigrafi funerarie 'non esposte': alcune considerazioni

Is an inscription always a 'displayed writing'? The answer should be 'yes', if we consider the theoretical reflections of many epigraphers and the title itself of the conference. We can formulate a different answer to this 'ontological' question for the discipline of epigraphy, analyzing some cases of 'strange inscriptions' pertaining to Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, found in Apulia and in other places. They are surely not 'displayed writings', because consciously disposed inside the tombs, where no one could have viewed and/or read them. The results of the research are essentially two. First: this particular 'epigraphic habit' is not an original product of the Latin West (traditionally this praxis has been considered as typical of Lombards and Carolingians in Northern Italy in VIII-IX cent.); rather, it has its first examples in Byzantine areas, as Balkans, Greece, Sicily, Apulia, from where this praxis should spread also among the Lombards and in Northern Italy. The second result of the enquiry is the answer to the initial question. The main goal of an inscription is surely the publicitas, but not always. The aim of these 'not displayed writings' is to win against the flow of time to guarantee in aeternum the safety of both the tomb and the deceased, and also to reach the Final Resurrection, according to a Christian "individual" vision of the sepulchre, by now very very different from the "social" notion of the tombs in the Roman era.