Gaetano Marini e l’instrumentum inscriptum di committenza cristiana. Anuli signatorii e signacula ex aere nel cod. Vat. lat. 9071.

As is well known, among the unpublished works of Gaetano Marini there is the first corpus of ancient Christian inscriptions of the whole Roman world. Divided into four volumes, now it is in the Vatican Apostolic Library (cod. Vat. lat. 9071-9074). Here for the first time, with great foresight, Marini has brought together and presented all the ancientChristian instrumentum inscriptum known up to then. In this work I intends to present, as a case study, the section dedicated to the Sigilla, i.e. the anuli signatorii and the signacula ex aere. My choice is motivated by the renewed interest in the study of these inscribed objects, hitherto rather neglected despite their undoubted information potential. The limits of Marini’s sylloge are the characteristic limits of the time in which Marini worked, even if he tried to overcome them in the belief that one of the main tasks of a scholar was to collect as many documents as possible.