Poetry, dogma and politics in Late Antiquity: the case of Venancio Fortunato and the Carmina Figurata

Abstract

Venantius Fortunatus was a Late Antique aristocratic male, formed in the schools of grammar and rhetoric, he joined the Christian religious life without abandoning its status of court poet and hagiographer. Fortunatus, of Italian origin, became “troubadour” throughout Gaul, to stop linking to the monastic experience of Poitiers, strategic enclave where he reached the Episcopal office. 

His carmina are a testament to the political and ideological context in which moved as a builder of affective and social networks, in addition to revealing the persistence of the Greco-Roman tradition, to which Christianity transformed with new contents and experiences of life.