epigrafe

Epigrafe is a term used to describe inscriptions or short quotations placed at the beginning of a text or on a physical object such as a monument, statue, or tomb. The word derives from the Greek epigraphē, meaning inscription. In common usage, the sense most familiar to readers is literary: an epigrafe or epigraph is a quotation, motto, or brief excerpt chosen to suggest a theme or set the tone for the work that follows. Such epigrafes are often attributed to another author, though they may be anonymous, and they are typically printed before the main text, sometimes in a distinct typographic style.

A second, broader sense of epigrafe concerns inscriptions that are carved, engraved, or painted on surfaces in the built environment. These architectural epigrafes identify dedications, founders, dates, or commemorations on buildings, monuments, plaques, or tombs. They serve historical, commemorative, or documentary purposes and are a primary source for epigraphy, the scholarly discipline that studies inscriptions to understand language, dating, iconography, and historical context.

In practice, epigrafes can function as thematic pointers within a text or as public records on a physical object. In publishing, epigrafes are carefully chosen to illuminate themes or foreshadow content; in archaeology and art history, epigraphy provides direct textual evidence from inscriptions. The term is closely related to epigraphy and to the English term epigraph, which denotes both the text and the practice of studying inscriptions.