Writing Ravenna

by Pizarro, Joaquin Martinez

• ISBN13: 9780472106066
• ISBN10: 0472106066
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-08-01
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

The subject ofWriting Ravennais theLiber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis, composed by Agnellus Andreas, a priest of Ravenna, between 830 and 845 C.E. TheLiber Pontificalishas often been studied as a source for ecclesiastical and art history, but hardly ever as a literary creation, in spite of its originality and importance. Writing Ravennais an attempt to deal with this work's literary significance and specifically with what it tells us about the creation and circulation of narrative in the Early Middle Ages. The book's first chapter analyzes the ways in which the local and international interests of the Ravenna clergy are reflected in the design, genre, and narrative rhetoric of theLiber. The second chapter characterizes the specific textuality, given that theLiberwas composed for oral delivery. The final chapter offers translations of the four most interesting narrative sequences in theLiber, followed by full analyses of sources, narrative technique, and ideological aims. Writing Ravennawill be of interest to a broad spectrum of scholars, including art historians, scholars of late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, religious historians, and literary critics. Joaquin Martinez Pizarro is Associate Professor of English, State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is also the author ofA Rhetoric of the Scene: Dramatic Narrative in the Early Middle Ages.

Author Biography

Joaquin Martinez Pizarro is Associate Professor of English, State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Introduction	p. 1
Politics	p. 9
Oral and Written	p. 67
Four Stories	p. 101
Attila at the Gates of Ravenna	p. 101
Rosimund Revised	p. 119
The Secret Massacre	p. 141
The Martyred Scribe	p. 158
Conclusion: The Narrator and His Audience	p. 189
Bibliography	p. 193
Index	p. 207
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