Battesimo e battisteri nella Tarda Antichità . Ritualità architettura, spazio sociale.

Baptism and baptisteries during the first centuries of Christian era have been largely treated in scientific literature, mainly from two different and autonomous perspectives: on the one hand, history of liturgy and theology, on the other hand, history of art and archaeology. Our aim is to combine these two approaches, by adding a third one, that of social history. This perspective deals with practical behaviours and mental attitudes that are generated within the society by the very existence of the baptismal ritual. The chronological frame which is considered goes from the 4th to the 7th c., a period in which the normative and institutional structure of the Church(es) is still developing. The sampling of the geographical areas under analysis considers mainly the Eastern Mediterranean, but also some of the Western regions, in order to be as much wider and representative as possible. The analysis includes the five patriarchal sieges (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem) and several provinces: western Syria, Cyprus, Caria, Pamphylia, Lycia, Crete, Dodecanese (main islands), Palestine, northern Egypt, Macedonia, Thrace, Liguria, Flaminia and Sicily in Italy, Africa Proconsularis. The archaeological and topographical data, derived from the record of 436 baptisteries, have been related to the evolution of liturgy as well as to historical and social contexts in the various areas. Baptism, together with the thoughts and practices that are connected to it, and derived from it, has turn out to be fundamental in the transformation of social structures that takes place in Late Antiquity. It contributed, amongst other factors, to the process of slow change of the social schemes: Christianity gradually became a source of uniformity for collective identity, by bringing together different social strata on the base of the same ideals. This process of social “democratisation”, not without contradictions, began with the general spread of baptism.