Esperienze “psicotrope” e spazi religiosi tardo-antichi. La “casa dell’iscrizione” dell’insula 104 di Hierapolis di Frigia tra autorappresentazione pubblica e dimensione privata.

This paper aims at re-reading the well-known “house of the inscription” of the insula 104, discovered by the Italian Archaeological Mission at Hierapolis of Phrygia. Starting from the studies by N. Brocca, R. Cacitti, T. Ritti and A. Zaccaria Ruggiu, it is time to re-read such a testimony on the basis of the recent researches concerning the relationships between some specific places of worship and the emotional and/or religious experiences. As it is well-known, in this place an inscription reproducing the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh was discovered – an inscription running around the walls of the room and reproduced also on both the door and the window of the place (probably locked during the reading/recitation of the text). On the basis of the recent scholarly debate, this paper aims at contextualizing the place of worship also in light of some late-antique Christian “psychotropic” experiences connected to the meditation of actual codices in pariete (Aug., Serm. 319,8 [NBA 33/III, 766-768]; Poss., Vita Aug. 31,2 [Bastiaensen 1975, 236]), as well as the relevance of emotional experiences lived around some elitist late antique places of worship (cf. Orig., De orat. 31.4).