ABSTRACT
The eve and the aftermath of the Treaty of Aachen was a turbulent time along the Adriatic coast. This was where the interests of Byzantium and the Carolingian empire clashed head on. This chapter focuses on fragments of early medieval ciboria in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie which, although frequently mentioned in the scholarly publications on sculpture in the Upper Adriatic and Dalmatia, have never been thoroughly analysed. The crux of Fortunatus' tempestuous episcopate was the relationship between Grado and its ever-burgeoning neighbour Venice, which reached a nadir in late 802 or early 803 with murder of Patriarch John I, who had occupied the see of Grado for more than thirty years. The murder of the patriarch alarmed local opponents of the Galbaii clan, who fled to Frankish-controlled Treviso in 803. When Italian scholars started writing more frequently about the monuments of Grado after Second World War, they did not question Cattaneo's assessment of the ciborium's Byzantine style.
