Desiderio, crudeltà e conversione nell’«Agnes» di Rosvita di Gandersheim

In her last hagiographical poem, «Agnes», Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (935-973) elaborates in 459 rhymed hexameters a story already told in many hagiographical an hymnological texts, the story of young roman virgin Agnes (it was told by pope Damasus, Prudentius, Ambrosius, Beda, and the anonymous «Passio Agnetis»). The paper presents and analizes Hrotsvit’s «Agnes» in his literary, historical, hagiographical, religious components and particularly insists on the themes of “desire”, “cruelty”, “conversion” and “martyrdom” which occur in it.