Discursive Constructions: Space and Time in Northern Italy in the Late Fourth Century

Abstract

Late Antique scholars have become increasingly interested in questions of regionality, time and landscape, as well as the intersection between oral and visual media. A fruitful angle from which to examine these topics proves to be the cult of saints in northern Italy in the late fourth century, due to the conception of saint as exemplar and to its manifestation in physical and discursive spaces. My dissertation compares three figures who provide different viewpoints on these issues, namely: Zeno of Verona, Ambrose of Milan, and the poet Prudentius. It examines lesser-known evidence, such as Prudentius’ Tituli Historiarum, and provides the first English translations of four sermons of Zeno as well as Ambrose’s Disticha. We begin with Zeno, whose tenure coincides with the earliest sermons in Latin, as well as the earliest martyr veneration and church-building in Verona. His Tractatus illuminate a tightrope upon which this bishop balanced pious intervention against the stubborn autonomy of his congregants. Ambrose, meanwhile, enjoyed far greater resources than his Veronese predecessor, and compares contemporary substitutes to historical exemplars whom he integrated into nascent ecclesiastical institutions. In Prudentius we see the rise of the elite Christian poet, whose concerns differed from episcopal programs of authoritative expansion. He periodizes history through the lens of triumph and decline, explaining contemporary practice through exemplars. In these figures, we see a generational and professional divide in their use of space and history as ideological canvases upon which to layer ideals of Christian ethics.