Il cantiere episcopale di età tardoantica: attività edilizia ed evangelizzazione nel Mediterraneo orientale

During Late Antiquity, members of the secular clergy provided a noteworthy contribution in the Christianization of urban and rural landscape and performed an increasingly important social role precisely for their role of builders. In this paper, literary sources, as well as epigraphic documents, are analyzed in order to highlight the role played by religious men in the patronage of architectural enterprises. They reveal managerial skills in order to oversee the construction process. In many cases, members of the lower clergy and laical collaborators support the episcopal authority in auxiliary tasks and the population plays a remarkable role in the effective realization of the building enterprises, too. In such a way, the ecclesiastical architectural yard can be considered as a multi-layered resource for the ancient society, both as a mean of Christianization and as redistribution of economic resources.