NOTE A MARGINE DELLA SERIE DEI RILIEVI RAVENNATI CON PUTTI E TRONI VUOTI

This article discusses the series of reliefs depicting putti holding attributes of deities next to empty thrones. The reliefs are located in various Italian cities, mostly in museums, while some marbles are reused. The presence of two identical reliefs reused in the church of San Vitale has led to the hypothesis that in Ravenna there were originally two distinct series. However, it is more likely that one of the reliefs was transported in modern times from Rome: the trade of antiquities between Rome and Ravenna has been documented since the 4th century AD, as well as during the Renaissance. In Rome there probably existed a second series, to which the relief in Paris, three reliefs in Florence, and one in Rome itself should be attributed. The use of themes with a long history in Greek art, such as Eros keraunophoros, demonstrates the artistic level of the workshops that executed the two monumental complexes. Petrographic and isotopic analyses conducted on the two reliefs in the Archaeological Museum of Venice have shown that they are made of Luni marble. It is hoped that similar analyses will be carried out on other marbles from the series, in order to clarify issues such as the provenance of the reliefs in the two series.