Egeria’s Itinerarium and the Development of Sacred Spaces and Edifices in Jerusalem

A Christian pilgrim, Egeria, travelled to Jerusalem and other biblical sites in the 380s and wrote detailed notes about the places she visited and about the liturgical life in Jerusalem. In this article, I will scrutinize Egeria’s view on the holy edi!ces and sacred spaces in Jerusalem, giving special attention to why some places were holy for her; and how Christians related to the holy places of “others,” that is, of pagans and Jews. For Egeria, several factors together made a space holy and worth visiting: biblical events that had occurred there, liturgical celebrations in her own day, and the physical seeing of the place as well as meeting of the holy people living at the site. "e new sacred topography expressed both continuity and discontinuity with the Old Testament times, but the Roman pagan dominance in Jerusalem was moved to the past.

Politics, Ideology and Landscape: Early Christian Tigranakert in Artsakh

Tigranakert in Artsakh was founded at the end of 90s BC by the Armenian King Tigranes II the Great (95–55 BC) and in the Early Christian period continued to play a role of an important military-administrative and religious center. As аresult of excavations the Early Christian square of the Central district with two churches, remains of a monumental stela witha cross, as well as an Early Christian underground reliquary and a graveyard were unearthed. The sepulchre-reliquary was opened under the floor of the small church of early Christian Square. It has only the eastern entrance. As had been shown by further excavations Saint Grigoris’s sepulchre-reliquary in Amaras also had an eastern entrance. Saint Stephanos’s reliquary in Vachar also has only an eastern entrance. All these three structures are dated from 5th–6th centuries. In early Christian East the only tomb that had an only eastern entrance is Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Analysis of the data on Vachagan the Pious (end of 5th–early 6th centuries), king of Albania (which included since the middle of 5th century the eastern provinces of Greater Armenia – Artsakh and Utik), allows us to conclude that at the end of the 5th century the king initiated theecclesiastical reform, trying to link the origin of the Albanian church to Jerusalem. One ofthe manifestations of this reform was the creation of the legend of the Apostle Yeghisha arriving to Albania from Jerusalem. Comparative analysis of archaeological, architectural and written data leads to the conclusion that all three tombs with the single east entrance are the result of the reformist activity of Vachagan, and the idea of single eastern entrance, most likely, was taken from the tomb of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. A new approach to the localizations of Early Christian sanctuaries in and near Tigranakert allows to compare this sacred area with early Christian sacred topography of Jerusalem.

Between Tradition and Innovation : the sepulchral monument of Adam Easton at S. Cecilia in Trastevere

This chapter discusses the original setting, appearance and authorship of the sepulchral monument of Cardinal Adam Easton, which survives in considerably reduced form in the church of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. A re-examination of both visual and written sources, including a muchdebated drawing of the tomb in an already partially altered form, leads to new hypotheses about the original location, appearance and significance of the monument within the sacred topography of the church. Renewed visual and technical analysis will shed new light on the commission and its artists. Parallels are also drawn with the tomb of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon in S. Maria in Trastevere in order to think about ‘portraiture’ in late-Trecento Rome. The reconstructed original tomb, alongside the extant effigy, bier and laudatory inscription, are then used to offer further insights into the life of Easton, his supporters and his desire for perpetual remembrance.