La scritta sulla Chiesa di San Michele in Escheto presso Lucca e quella enigmatica di San Saba a Roma

This paper reconsiders two different inscriptions that are located on the exterior wall of San Michele in Escheto near Lucca and in the lower church of San Saba in Rome respectively. The first one can be dated to the last years of the XIII century or to the very beginning of the XIV; indeed, by considering an error in the text as well as its paleographical origin, the paper argues that presumably the signature in the inscription does not refer to the author of the text, but rather to the lapicide who engraved it. The second inscription dates back to the tenth century and is a riddle that was intended to challenge the reader: thanks to a later manuscript source, which elucidates some of the riddle’s textual features and its original context, it can be argued that this inscription is a forged epigraph, whose author pretended that it was written on the base of Marius Victorinus’ statue in Trajan’s Forum.