Libri, lettura e biblioteche nella tarda antichità: Un Panorama e qualche riflessione

Does Late Antiquity — whether considered under the perspective, even if partial, of books, reading, libraries — show an autonomy or at least a specificity, or rather is it only a period of transformations, during which Antiquity knows its twilight while Middle Age is beginning? It is difficult to answer to this question. Anyway, on the ground of the evidences here considered, it is possible to say that Late Antiquity is deeply different from the previous period. Ancient models disappear or resist for some time only if adapted to the new socio-cultural contexts, and at the same time new models of books, writing, reading, libraries have a bigger preponderance, finally turning in a system of written culture completely different from the past one. For what concerns the parallel with the following period, the Middle Ages, it would be crucial to assess if books, reading, and libraries of that period have their roots in Late Antiquity, and, if so, to what extent; or, on the contrary, if they gained their own, specific morphology. But similar considerations are beyond the topic of this paper.