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The image of a man entwined or bitten by a snake and grasped by an eagle, widely spread in Campania and southern Latium, especially in pulpits, with the function of lectern, appears to be an extremely intricate iconographic and semantic puzzle.Its identification with Aion, assuming the role of an intermediary between heaven and earth, suggested by Volbach and further analyzed by Nicco Fasola, has not satisfied scholars, that have proposed different interpretations of the complex image: a demon over which the word of the Gospels triumphs (Glass 1991), St. John the Evangelist (D’Achille 1997), a human being twisted by the spires of Evil (de Francovich 1952), which is still the most widely accepted hypothesis.The use of such a strongly negative image, as the sinner tormented by Evil, as the support for the book from which the deacon drew words of salvation for the soul, and the consequent pessimistic view of the Church, has caused some perplexity. It has been suggested that the human being inserted between the eagle and the snake could have been intended as an intermediary, as the synthesis between the two antithetical forces of Good (eagle) and Evil (snake), of which man is composed; the image can be interpreted as a metaphor of the general diarchy between the two extremes that rule the world, with the triumph of the first reached by listening to the Word of the Lord.Evil entwines and captures man in its spires, making him yield to temptation and abandon the way towards Good, but the Eagle, symbol of divinity and of the Evangelist and metaphor of the word of God expressed by the preacher, will tear him away, with its claws, if man will listen to the Lord’s voice, making him in a certain way resurrect to a new life.This interpretation of the Man bitten by the Snake and clawed by the Eagle agrees with that of the ambo and candelabrum for the Easter candle seen as Monumenta Resurrectionis. These two elements of the Church furnishings are seen as a constant metaphor of the Resurrection of Christ, in practice a physical icon of the Resurrection and of rebirth to a new life.The success of the iconography of the Man with the Snake can certainly be explained with the force of its contents along with the immediateness of its intelligibility. On the other hand the reason for its spreading, with the function of lectern or within the decoration of the pulpit, in a rather restricted area between Campania and Lower Latium, must be investigated in the context of local religious traditions, and especially in relation to the liturgical and biblical texts that were read from the pulpit in certain days of the year. A particular reading comes to mind: the Old Testament passage regarding the bronze snake, that, if read during Easter celebrations like today, could explain the success of the image and confirm the semantic interpretation of this iconography. It is possible to contradict the hypothesis of the influence of the classical Aion even for the origin of the image: Aion did not have a stable appearance, he was often portrayed with a lion’s head and sometimes without the snake, with which, when present, he seems to have had a good relationship. The formal archetype of this image seem to have been the images of men fighting snakes or fierce beasts imported from the far East. Upon arrival in the West these changed and appeared under different features, as bearers of a universal concept, the fight between the rational and the beastly, between Good and Evil. Other images, of strongly didactic character, widely used in Romanesque sculpture, can have influenced the constitution of the group of the Man bitten by the Snake and clawed by the Eagle: women and men entwined, tortured or tempted by rectiles, who transformed the cosmic clash between Good and Evil into the eternal fight between the Christian and Sin.

Iconography --- History of civilization --- symbolism [artistic concept] --- eagles [birds] --- Serpentes [suborder] --- goed en kwaad

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Church architecture --- Church doors --- Christian art and symbolism --- Architecture chrétienne --- Portes d'église --- Art et symbolisme chrétiens --- Santa Sabina (Basilica : Rome, Italy) --- Rome (Italy) --- Rome (Italie) --- Buildings, structures, etc. --- Constructions

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Christian art and symbolism --- Church architecture --- Convents --- Art et symbolisme chrétiens --- Architecture chrétienne --- Couvents --- Santa Sabina (Basilica : Rome, Italy) --- Rome (Italy) --- Rome (Italie) --- Buildings, structures, etc. --- Constructions

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Cities and towns, Medieval --- Streets --- Architecture, Medieval --- Decoration and ornament, Architectural

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Dedicato alla produzione pittorica romana dell'altomedioevo, questo libro è il primo scorcio di una ricerca in corso nell'ambito del progetto Rome aux siècles 'obscurs'. Les lumières de la communication visuelle, Ve-XIe siècles (Fondo Nazionale Svizzero della ricerca, 2020-2023). Sette casi di studio illustrano le strategie metodologiche sviluppate da un gruppo di ricerca multidisciplinare per affrontare testimonianze tra loro diverse per contesto, funzione e tipo di committenza (i mosaici di Sant'Agnese fuori le mura e di Santo Stefano Rotondo, il mosaico e le pitture della cosiddetta aula a sei vani sotto San Martino ai Monti, le pitture del Patriarchio lateranense, di Santa Maria in Cosmedin, di San Giorgio al Velabro e della galleria orientale di San Lorenzo fuori le mura). Le molte novità qui riunite sono prova della vitalità di Roma tra i secoli V e XI, quando si affermò un sistema di comunicazione visiva che plasmerà nel tempo il paesaggio figurativo cittadino.

Mural painting and decoration, Italian --- Mural painting and decoration, Medieval --- Mosaics, Italian --- Mosaics, Medieval --- Christian art and symbolism