Università degli Studi di Messina

Codice progetto: MSCA_0000015

CUP: J43C22001030001 

Finanziamento UniMe: € 277.430,88

Responsabile Scientifico UniMe: Dott. Mondello Cristian – Dipartimento di Civiltà Antiche e Moderne

Data inizio progetto 20/12/2022  - Data fine progetto 19/12/2025 (36 mesi)

• Abstract di VOTA

This innovative project will provide the first comprehensive analysis of the ‘Vota Publica’ tokens from late antique Rome and the roles they played in social, religious, political and economic history of the Roman Empire from the Tetrarchy (AD 293-305) up to the fifth century AD. Tokens of classical antiquity are a mostly neglected category of material culture: they are small monetiform objects, but not coins, which were used within the communities of the ancient Mediterranean with a variety of functions. Against the backdrop of the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the ‘Vota Publica’ tokens bearing imperial portraiture and Egyptian religious imagery provide an unparalleled primary source for understanding the evolution and resilience of Isiac and Egyptian cults during the fourth and fifth centuries, as well as their relations with the Roman imperial power during an era that saw the gradual repression of polytheistic cults by the Christian Empire. A morphological, typological, and iconographic analysis of these coin-like objects will be performed in order to identify production, chronology and circulation patterns of these issues as well as their place within the broader token phenomenon from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Through a multidisciplinary and multi-scalar approach combining literary sources, numismatic evidence and visual culture, the project will also shed light on the origins, use and arenas in which these ‘pagan’ late Roman artefacts developed and were distributed, with the aim to disclose unseen components of the relations between pagan communities and Christian government in late Roman society. The envisaged outcomes will provide a relevant case study for analysis of this understudied class of material culture and contribute to current debates on religious coexistence, dialogue and ‘conflict’ in late antiquity, generating insights that will inform the display, scholarly use and understanding of these objects within museums and other spaces.

• Finalità

The VOTA project seeks to provide an innovative and comprehensive investigation of the “Vota Publica” tokens, a distinctive series of bronze and brass coin-like objects produced in Rome between the late third and fifth centuries AD. Depicting either Roman emperors or Egyptian deities such as Isis and Serapis, these artefacts offer unique insights into the dialogue between imperial power, religion, and society in Late Antiquity.

Through an interdisciplinary approach that brings together numismatics, archaeology, history, and the study of religions, the project re-examines the role of these tokens as instruments of communication and expressions of religious identity in a period marked by the progressive Christianization of the Roman Empire. VOTA aims to shed new light on an overlooked category of material culture and to offer fresh perspectives on coexistence and interaction between pagan and Christian communities in late Roman society.

• Risultati attesi

The VOTA project will deliver the first comprehensive study of the “Vota Publica” tokens, based on a corpus of over 1,100 specimens preserved in museums and private collections worldwide. The project’s outcomes will include a peer-reviewed scientific contributions, the creation of an open-access digital catalogue dedicated to these artefacts, and a set of dissemination and outreach activities.

By redefining the place of tokens within the material culture of the Roman world, the project will enhance our understanding of the religious, political, and social transformations of the late Empire. It will also provide new interpretative tools for scholars, museum professionals, and heritage practitioners, while fostering a broader reflection on religious tolerance and cultural coexistence, both in antiquity and today.

• Risultati raggiunti

Publications: 

- Peer-reviewed article: C. Mondello, ‘Disjecta membra. Engravings with numerals on Roman bronze coins and tesserae from the fourth century AD’, “The Numismatic Chronicle” 184 (2024), pp. 71-96. Openly accessible at: https://zenodo.org/records/17168850

- Peer-reviewed paper: C. Mondello, ‘A gold «Vota Publica» token from the collection of Charles III de Croÿ (1560–1612)’ in J. Bodzek et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the XVI International Numismatic Congress, 11–16.09.2022, Warsaw, Vol. IV (Brepols: Warsaw 2025), pp. 377-386. ISBN: 978-2-503-61624-7. Openly accessible at: https://zenodo.org/records/17167334

- Peer-reviewed article: C. Mondello, Voti pubblici per “Juppiter” Diocleziano e Massimiano Erculeo Augusti, “Rivista Italiana di Numismatica” (forthcoming).

- Peer-reviewed article: C. Mondello ‘Carthage et l’émission VOTA PVBLICA de la Deuxième Tétrarchie. Une nouvelle attribution d’atelier’, “Revue Numismatique” (forthcoming).

Digital outputs: 

- Online catalogue of the ‘Vota Publica’ tokens (more than 1,100 catalogue entries), openly accessible on the “Tokens Nomisma Database by the University of Warwick. 

“Type” database: https://coins.warwick.ac.uk/token-types/.

“Specimen” database: https://coins.warwick.ac.uk/token-specimens/.

Conferences and public lectures:

- 15th Roman Archaeology Conference/32nd Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (RAC/TRAC), University College London (UCL), London (UK), from 11-14 April 2024.

- Public lecture at the DiCAM, University of Messina (Italy), 19 June 2024.

- Joint Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the Society for Classical Studies (SCS), Philadelphia (USA), January 2-5, 2025.

- Public lecture at the Associazione Culturale Anassilaos / Biblioteca Pietro de Nava, Reggio Calabria (Italy), October 2025. 

Other dissemination and outreach activities: 

- VOTA project web-area: https://dicam.unime.it/it/ricerca/vota-publica-tokens-late-antique-rome-isiac-and-egyptian-cults-within-christianizing-roman

- Launch of tweets on the project’s results and topics via the PI’s Twitter (= X) account: @CristianMondel1

- A blog untitled ‘A silver token of Julian in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, published on the Warwick University website on 27th April 2023: 

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/research/dept_projects/tcam/blog/lateantique/#April2023

- A blog untitled ‘A “Vota Publica” token of the usurper Nepotian?’, published on the Warwick University website on 9th February 2024: 

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/research/dept_projects/tcam/blog/lateantique/#Feb2024

• Obiettivi principali dell’operazione

The VOTA project aims to advance the study of Late Antique material culture through the systematic analysis of the Vota Publica tokens. Through an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar analysis of these objects, the project aims to pursue the following objectives (O):

• Determining the defining characteristics of the ‘Vota Publica’ tokens;

• Identifying production, chronology, and circulation patterns of these tokens as well as their authority;

• Exploring the place of the ‘Vota Publica’ tokens within the broader token phenomenon from the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods, and to what extent the analysis of these artefacts can allows us to gain a fuller picture about production and purpose of coin-like objects and alternative currency from antiquity;

• Analyzing the role these tokens played in the broader social, religious, and political transformation that went through the Roman Empire from the Tetrarchy (AD 293-305) up to the fifth century AD; 

• Considering the extent to which this case study can contribute to scholarship on religious coexistence in the ancient world as well as to current debates on religious freedom and tolerance among communities.

Area-web: https://dicam.unime.it/it/ricerca/vota-publica-tokens-late-antique-rome-isiac-and-egyptian-cults-within-christianizing-roman

Codice progetto: SOE_0000090

CUP: J43C22001040001 

Finanziamento UniMe: € 150.000,00

Responsabile Scientifico UniMe: Dott.ssa Rubulotta Gabriella – Dipartimento di Civiltà Antiche e Moderne

Data inizio progetto 20/12/2022  - Data fine progetto 19/05/2025 (24 mesi + proroga)

During the early Roman Empire, the phenomenon of Atticism tried to bring Greek literary language back to its classical Attic roots. However, which classical authors were taken as examples of this language is still under debate. Xenophon is one of the Attic 4th century writers whose standing in the Atticist canon has been judged to be controversial. AtLeX will study Xenophon’s reception within Atticism and offer the first systematic analysis of his presence in the most important Atticist lexicographers (Phrynichus, Pollux, the Antiatticist, Ælius Dionysius, the s.c. Philetairos). While reassessing the place of Xenophon among the authors representative of the paideia of the Imperial age, this inquiry will: - map the presence of Xenophon in Atticist lexica; - provide a better understanding on Xenophon’s role in the debate on Atticism, by analysing a corpus of lexical entries where he is called into question; - give a full assessment of the two facets of the reception of Xenophon’s language, by bringing together views of lexicographers and rhetoricians of the Imperial age (Pseudo-Aristides and Hermogenes). This research aims at contributing to Xenophon’s reception studies (a field which is receiving renewed attention); it will also provide a better understanding of the process of re-construction of Attic language and its contrasting tendencies. This research will benefit from an innovative approach that will interlace the fields of ancient lexicography and rhetoric. The project is consequential with respect to the doctoral thesis intitled La réception de Xénophon dans l’œuvre d’Ælius Aristide. Rhétorique et imitation à l’époque impériale carried out by G. Rubulotta at the University of Strasbourg, under the guidance of Prof. Laurent Pernot.

Communication and dissemination activities”  

• Participation to the Celtic Conference in Classics (Coimbra, 11th-13th July 2023) with the paper “On Xenophon’s authority in Pollux’s Onomasticon” within the panel “Interfacing with linguistic norms, 323 BCE – 1453 CE”
• Participation to the Third PURA workshop: “Ἀττικοί and Ἕλληνες: Atticism and koine between linguistic practice and grammatical theory” ( Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 17th January 2024) with the paper “Pollux and Xenophon, between Atticism and the koiné”.
• Organization of the workshop “Paideia greco-romana tra retorica e lessicografia: forme, personaggi, momenti dell’educazione antica di età imperiale”  16-17 DICEMBRE 2024, Aula Magna del DICAM, Messina. See program and abstracts.   
• Publication of the paper “Pollux and Xenophon”, Lexis, n. 2, Dec. 2024. https://doi.org/10.30687/lexis/2724-1564/2024/02/008. https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni4/riviste/lexis-journal/2024/2/pollux-and-xenophon/
• Forthcoming publication of "βλάξ (Phryn. Ecl. 238, Phryn. PS 53.19, Poll. 1.158, 1.197, 3.122, Paus.Gr. β 10, Antiatt. β 4, Thom. Mag. 54.12)"  in Olga Tribulato (ed.), Digital Encyclopedia of Atticism. With the assistance of E. N. Merisio.

Sito Progetto: https://dicam.unime.it/it/ricerca/suspicious-words-atticist-lexicographers-and-xenophon

Codice progetto: SOE_0000142

CUP: J43C22001070001 

Finanziamento UniMe: € 150.000,00

Responsabile Scientifico UniMe: Dott. Giananti Andrea – Dipartimento di Scienze cognitive, psicologiche, pedagogiche e degli studi culturali

Data inizio progetto 20/12/2022  - Data fine progetto 19/12/2024 (24 mesi)
Rinuncia dal 01/07/2023

RATCAP has four main objectives:
a) Rational capacities in perception and action: The objective is to give a general characterisation of rational capacities that could be equally fruitful in the philosophy of perception and in the philosophy of action.
b) Perception and judgment: Perception clearly influences our judgements about reality, but how should we construe this relation, exactly? I will argue that characterising perception in terms of recognitional capacities helps us to make progress: in particular, I argue that there is a distinctive relation of causality between perception and judgement, that sets it apart from other kinds of causality, such as that by virtue of which, when a billiard ball hits another billiard ball, the latter is set in motion. What is distinctive of the relation of causality at work in rational in perceptual judgement, I argue, is that it constitutively involves  selfconsciousness and understanding.
c) Perception and self-consciousness: I will argue that perceptual capacities, like other rational capacities, are self-consciously exercised. In particular, I will argue that when we perceptually recognise something to be some way, we are aware both that we are perceiving and of how we are recognising an object to be of a certain kind.
d) Perceptual knowledge and understanding in children: Recent findings suggest that children have a practical understanding of perception as a source of knowledge, in the sense that they behave in a way that is consistent with understanding how perception can deliver knowledge. For example, when they see an object, they trust their own verdict about its colour more than the suggestion of an informant who has only felt the object; whereas if it is the informant who has a superior access to the object, children are likely to go along
with her suggestion The objective is to explore and develop the hypothesis, supported by these findings, that there is a close connection between children’s capacity to acquire perceptual knowledge and their practical, self-conscious understanding of perception as a source of knowledge.