Greek Myths, South Italian Pottery and Vase-Inscriptions: Hellenic Culture and Local Identities in 4th Century BCE Magna Graecia

This paper deals with the importance of the analysis of the inscriptions on southern Italian Red-Figure vases on several respects, starting with the study of their layout, their mise en page, their palaeographical and linguistic shape. This kind of study could enable us to address many relevant questions, such as, e.g., the role of inscriptions as part of the visual image / as a visual signal of the painted scene, which would be also useful as for the understanding of every single piece; the hypothesis of a correlation between the dialect shape of the inscription and the subject depicted on the vase; the comparison between the inscriptions on the vases and those on other durable material of the same areas etc.