Religio in stagno: Nature, Divinity, and the Christianization of the Countryside in the Late Antique Italy

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which Christians in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages might see nature as charged with religious significance. It does this first by examining the context and implications of the conversion of a pagan sacred spring in southern Italy to a baptistery; then by studying the subtle and allusive letter (Variae 8.33) in which Cassiodorus describes the site and the fair and religious festival held there.