Category: Monograph

Ferrari’s Reappraisal of Paganism

Carlo Ferrari argues for the re-emergence of Celtic – and, in fact, Eurasian – religiosity in Gaul in the upheaval of late antiquity: Santi e sciamani. Una lettura storico-religiosa della Gallia tardoromana, Sesto San Giovanni: Mimesis, 2022. See the publisher’s catalogue.

The book is an adaptation of Ferrari’s PhD thesis ‘Observatio paganorum: pratiche e comportamenti religiosi nella Gallia tardoantica (IV-VI secolo d.C.)’, Florence, 2019, which is available in open access here.

The Deserts of the West

Laurent Ripart has written a comprehensive study of the earliest monasteries of South-Eastern Gaul including the islands along the coasts of Tuscany, Liguria (Gallinaria) and Provence (Lérins), in Arles, the Rhône valley, and the Jura (Agaune): Les déserts de l’Occident. Genèse des lieux monastiques dans le sud-est de la Gaule (fin IVe – milieu VIe siècle).

Read further in the publisher’s catalogue.

Tabea Meurer on Negotiating the Past

Tabea Meurer has published her Münster PhD thesis Vergangenes verhandeln: Spätantike Statusdiskurse senatorischer Eliten in Gallien und Italien / Negotiating the Past: Late Ancient Discourse on Status among the Senatorial Elites of Gaul and Italy.
See publisher’s catalogue. Table of contents on Academia.

“This study in cultural history addresses the value of past relations in Gallo-Roman and Italian discourses on social status in late antiquity. The volume examines how senatorial figures referred back to ancestors and ancient times to better position themselves in relation to their peers. At a broader level, it describes the negotiative processes surrounding the establishment of rank.”