Imagens funerárias cristãs: mídias de identidade religiosa e memória cultural na Roma Tardia (séc. III-IV)

Abstract

The development of christianism was a process marked by cultural encounters and assimilations that gradually promoted an identity formation of the religion, having these conditions manifested through imagery productions articulated to the space experience. Based on the assumptions of cultural historiography, as well as the contribution of visual studies, this dissertation is an analysis of a set of christian images, produced between the 3rd and 4th centuries in Roman catacombs as identification media religious and cultural memory. Firstly, the development of christianism is contextualized and its Jewish and Gentile origins are discussed. Then the spatial experience of the christians on the burial grounds where the images were produced is discussed, emphasizing the cultural crossings active in these relationships. Finally, christian images are looked at focusing on their themes, meanings, participate in the biblical and theological debates and spatial articulation. In this movement, these images are appreciated in three relationship categories: articulated to space and time; linked to the christian principles and inserted in a historical contiguity.