Towards a typology for the placement of names on works of art

In recent years, scholars have examined the visual and material impact of inscriptions,¹ including the ways in which form, display, and disposition are bearers of meaning.² I contribute to this investigation by focusing on one aspect of an inscription’s visual function: the placement of a patron’s name on a work of art.³ Antony Eastmond has highlighted instances in which Late Antique inscriptions were manipulated – through content, the use of abbreviations, and placement – in order to draw readers’ attention to names within specific visual contexts.⁴ He argues that ‘although all inscriptions of this period owe their origins to the older Greco-Roman epigraphic habit’, a shift occurs in which ‘materiality and configuration of the words begin to overtake the content’.⁵