Alle radici di una tradizione. Il sarcofago di Zibido san Giacomo e la sua chiesa

[Autom. eng. transl.] A sarcophagus of late-classical style; a tradition of 'inventio' persisted until today; of the bone remains considered 'relics', collected in a lost box; finally the recovery of this box. These in summary the points reconsidered in the book that proceeds from a first essay (M. Antico Gallina) of reconstruction of the topographical events of the southern Milanese in the light of both the study of the archaeological material, and medieval documents. The fate of the sarcophagus and its migrations, as well as its testimonial 'value' for the local community and its various 'inspectiones' are followed by repositioning them in the political and cultural context in which they occurred. The attempt to recover the basic motivations that led to the construction of a relic for the use and consumption of a religious order that settled in Zibido San Giacomo, but in contrast with others in the neighboring territory, has found a solid foundation in the contents of the visits pastoral and archival documents. The comparisons made and the reflection on the archaeological documentation corroborated also by the laboratory analyzes to which the box and its contents have been subjected (two skeletons from the 4th and 5th centuries) have allowed us to delineate a cross-section of some centuries of settlement history in the Middle Ages, from the early imperial age to the late antique. The laboratory analyzes to which the osteological content has been subjected (two skeletons of the 4th and 5th centuries) and material from the box found have made available a series of essential information, in support of the articulated story that already documentary sources and archaeological-topographical landscapes they had suggested. Likewise, the study of the sixteenth-century monetary hoard contained therein, to be considered a happy "closed context" has given a consistent contribution to the problems of rituals of the recognition of excellent burials, extending until recent centuries, and to the criteria of the rituality of the deposit of coins in the sarcophagi, as well as the economic framework of the territory.