Sant’Agostino da Cagliari a Pavia fra realtà e leggenda

Rossana Martorelli

2025-01-01

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Abstract

Parchment II of the so-called Carte di Arborea, later revealed to be a forgery from the mid-19th century, fancifully recounts the well-known story of the translation of St. Augustine’s bones from Cagliari to Pavia in 723, incorporating centuries-old legends and contributing to their continued spread. This article revisits the subject, reconstructing – based on historically reliable written, hagiographic, monumental, and iconographic sources – the route of the sacred relics in both the first translation (from Hyppo Regius to Carales) and the second (from Carales to Ticinum/Papia). It also analyzes the places in ancient and modern Carales connected with the history and legend, in light of the data acquired from archaeological research, which in recent decades is enriching and sometimes changing knowledge about the city’s landscape at the time when the story took place.