The cult of the Virgin, Icons and Relics in Early Christian and Medieval Rome. A Semiotic Approach and a Sixth Century Proposal

Abstract

The article traces the development of the cult of the Virgin, relics, and icons in early medieval Rome and proposes a sixth-century dating for the emergence of these cult types as channels of communication with the invisible. In so doing, these cult types are looked at as constituents of a sign system according to Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of signs.