Non-exposed funerary inscriptions and the cult of the cross between Italy and Byzantium, 6th–9th centuries

In Southern Italy, near Torre Santa Susanna, a small town in Apulia between Brindisi and Taranto (Figure 6.1), there is an early medieval fortified church, today known by the name of San Pietro a Crepacore, placed on the unsafe border between Lombard and Byzantine territories in Apulia. The church has had different building phases,¹ as demonstrated, for example, by the window opening cut straight through the beautiful apse fresco and its commemorative Greek inscription,² which the majority of scholars date to the ninth century or, more probably, the first half of the tenth century.³Figure 6.1Southern Italy, position of the mentioned siteshttps://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-u.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429283468/0f844e2d-f109-461d-8add-daa5f8471312/content/fig6_1.tif"/>