Le porte del cielo. L’apoteosi privata della defunta del sarcofago con imago clipeata zodiacale del Museo Nazionale “G.A. Sanna” di Sassari

Ciro Parodo

Co-prime

;Marco GIuman

2020-01-01

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Abstract

In the National Museum “G.A. Sanna” of Sassari, in Sardinia, there is the fragmentary front of a sarcophagus dated to 320-330 AD and decorated with the image of the deceased enclosed within the Zodiac circle, symbol of Eternity. It is an atypical iconographic pattern in Roman funerary sculpture, which characterizes only two sarcophagi, one at the Campo Santo Monumentale in Pisa, and one at Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Georgetown-Washington D.C. Through the comparison with the archaeological record that shows a similar image, the contribution aims to analyze this figurative motif derived from the iconography of the imperial apotheosis, on the basis of the neo-Platonic interpretation of the Zodiac like the door of immortal souls to heaven.