La capsella argentea di San Nazaro. Primi risultati di una nuova indagine

For the 1600th anniversary of Ambrose’s death, a team from the Archaeological Institute of the Università Statale di Milano made a new study of the famous Saint Nazarus reliquary and took excellent new photographs printed here. F. Salvazzi gives a material description of the reliquary, while G. Sena Chiesa provides a iconographical commentary in which she criticizes old hypotheses and proposes some new ones. G. Sena Chiesa also deals with the issue of authenticity, as the reliquary discovered by Saint Carlo Boromeo in 1578 has sometimes been dated to the 16th century. With the majority of contemporary scholars (H. Buchhausen, C. Bertelli, H. Brandenburg), G. Sena Chiesa concludes that the reliquary does date from the 4th century and shows that it fits well within the evolution of Christian art at this time. [Rédaction]