Frammenti vecchi e nuovi: arredi liturgici altomedievali in Costa d’Amalfi

Abstract

Some early medieval sculptures found in the territory of the Amalfi Coast, especially in the city of Amalfi itself and in nearby Atrani are here analyzed. I want to focus on elements of architectural and liturgical furnishings, unfortunately erratic and decontextualized, found during the restoration of the church of San Salvatore de Birecto in Atrani. These are some unpublished fragments of slabs filled with circular decoration and others on which the head and body of a peacock can be identified, probably datable to the mid-9th century. Another small nucleus of Amalfi pieces must also be added to this group of sculptural fragments. These sculputures are today lost, but there is fortunately a photographic documentation preserved in the archive of the Norwegian Institute in Rome. They are heterogeneous materials of different chronology, which show both decorative solutions widespread in central Italy between the end of the 8th and the 9th century, and stylistic features characteristic of the production of Cimitile and its territory at the beginning of 10th century.