Rapsodia eburnea

La cassettina di Civita di Bagnoregio: arte islamica e cristiana del Mediterraneo medievale

Abstract

With its ‘Islamic’ ornamentation and unmistakably Christian crosses, the ivory casket from Civita di Bagnoregio challenges traditional art-historical categories. The search for possible models and comparisons leads, on the one hand, to a group of ivory boxes usually thought to be of Egyptian or Sicilian provenance, but recently attributed to the Iberian Peninsula; on the other, it brings to light stylistic and iconographic models related to Coptic or Fatimid Egypt as well as to Southern Italy. The complex relationship between the Civita casket and the allegedly Iberian boxes becomes crucial for the identification of their production centres, also raising questions about the transfer of models and know-how across the Mediterranean. The detailed analysis of a single object thus becomes an opportunity to explore the recurrent difficulties of attributing a range of precious portable artefacts, emphasising both the variety and the profound entanglements of Mediterranean visual culture between the late tenth and thirteenth centuries. Finally, the investigation of the function of these enigmatic artefacts unveils a variety of intriguing options; in the case of the Civita casket, these range from its use in the pharmaceutical field to its conception as a reliquary for fragments of the True Cross.