CIPPUS. - A parallelepiped of stone or marble, either to mark a burial and therefore with a corresponding inscription, or to delimit a boundary or border.

Sepulchral cippi have been known since the most remote antiquity and were also used by Christians for their open-air tombs in Rome and in all the regions of the Empire, according to the local forms in use. Such, for example, is the cippus of Abercius (v.) and that of Tollia Asclepiake (v. BASSILLA). Examples of Christian boundary or property cippi, sometimes cylindrical in shape, are preserved in the Lateran Christian Museum, such as, for instance, those of the vineae Irenianae with the monogram 8, coming from the Villa Panfili; a cippus with an inscription of the 5th century on one side and of the 6th-7th century on the other, indicating a property of the monastery of Sts. Andrew and Stephen near S. Maria Maggiore; a small boundary column relating to a property of the deaconry of S. Adriano in the Roman Forum; finally, one that refers to a silk mill with the date 1029.

Bibliography

BIBL.: For boundary cippi: O. Marucchi, I monumenti del museo Pio-Lateranense, Milan 1910, p. 44 and pl. 45.

Enrico Josi

@incollection{ec3_cippo, author = {Josi, Enrico}, title = {Cippo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1685}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cippo} }

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Cippus

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