«Magis intellegi quam legi». Segni e simboli grafici cristiani nel Mediterraneo tardoantico e altomedievale

The article aims to illustrate some recent works concerning the use of graphic signs and symbols in the visual and written cultures of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. It intends to highlight the methodological and historiographic contributions as well as the new sources brought to the attention of scholars by Ildar Garipzanov and Antonella Ghignoli. Garipzanov has identified a new theoretical framework, graphicacy, with which Christian graphic signs and symbols can be interpreted. Ghignoli has managed to develop a new methodology capable of framing, classifying and observing in the long term a phenomenon so far totally neglected in the studies: the use of graphic religious and identity symbols in pragmatic writings of post-Roman kingdoms between the fifth and eighth centuries.