"Utere felix". Laminette auree da Luni

[Autom. eng. transl.] The thirty golden bracts, which certainly belong to the same group, were found in the suburb of Luni at the beginning of the 20th century, probably in a tomb. The laminettes, of different shapes and sizes, are worked to impression, using molds, and finished with a chisel; they present a series of small holes along the margins that were supposed to secure them to a fabric or leather support, perhaps a precious female ceremonial dress. The iconographic repertoire, with apotropaic value, includes fairs with gradients, cantharoi and peacocks, imperial portraits and, in the larger plaque, the tree of life between two sea monsters and the utere felix inscription. The stylistic rendering of the images indicates a Roman-Byzantine cultural matrix and it is probable that the bracts were made in some Italian factory, perhaps in the same Luni. Above all, the specific modes of representation of the emperor, assign the whole to the full sixth century.