Byzantine sculptures

Pluteo of the Middle Byzantine Age, Bestiary - National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari - from Catalogo BBCC RAS

Between the tenth and the first decades of the eleventh century, when Byzantine Sardinia evolved into Giudical Sardinia, there was a series of marble sculptures, coming from various locations in Cagliari, among which the plate with griffin and pegasus, found in the sea near the island of San Macario (Pula) and kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari, is of special interest.
(see image at the top of the page)
The technique and the ornamental motifs of these sculptures reveal strong relationships with the Campania coast, home of Byzantine duchies, while the inscriptions in Greco-Byzantine language show that, in the formative phase, the institution, culture and the art of judging feel the need to legitimate their historical reality through the reference to Byzantium as a source of supreme authority.
For the medieval Byzantine epigraphic and sculptural marbles of the Giudicato of Cagliari, the equation that the part would match everything has been established, but it must be noted that the mere presence of early medieval sculptural fragments, when not supported by additional contextual data, is not enough to prove the nature of an indisputable “document” of the existence of contemporary architecture, or in any case pre-existing that was equipped, between the middle of the tenth and the first decades of the eleventh century, with liturgical furniture or architectural decorations in marble.
In most cases, in fact, it is not possible to demonstrate its condition as a local material, much less its relationship with an older phase of the same building. In some cases, it may be proposed that it belongs to another building, coexisting with the materials but not necessarily located on the same site, even if not far from the place of reuse, since it must be assumed that no more than a day by car, for a convenience in transporting materials.

Update

27/5/2026 - 14:42