La Vita di Antonij il Romano: (ri-)creazione della memoria, (ri-)costruzione di un’identità

Abstract

The article aims to show how the sixteenth-century Life of Antony the Roman engages in the process of re-codification of memory; it does so, following the loss of independence in 1478, to express Novgorod’s claim to an identity then eclipsed by that of Moscow. The Life borrows arguments from the Epistle of the monk Filofej, reiterated in the later Tale of the White Klobuk. Both the Epistle and Tale rely on the translatio imperii, the first from Rome to Constantinople and Moscow, the latter from Rome, to Constantinople and Novgorod; in the Life the same argument affirms Novgorod’s role as the unique depository of the Orthodox faith since the 12th century.