Heavenly Visions: Experiencing Euphemia's and Hippolytus's Martyria

This article analyzes two late antique martyrdom narratives in order to assess the specific manner in which they use visuality to create a sense of physical presence. It comments mainly on the accumulation of ekphraseis with which the authors Asterius of Amasea and Prudentius blur the limits between the fictional reality they create in their texts, and the materiality of the paintings their narrators see. Such blurring makes their audience at once viewers and partakers in the narrated pain and glory of faith connected to the martyr. Thus, the narrators experience vividly with the "eyes of the soul" the physical effect of ineffability reached when in proximity or contact with the martyr's relics in the martyrium, a holy place where heaven and earth meet. Furthermore, through these ekphraseis, the narrators are able to transmit such experience to their audience who, even if not physically in contact with the relics, can benefit from their healing powers too.