Roman wallpainting has been the subject of innumerable studies from the eighteenth century to the present day, but the epic-themed friezes of Late Republican and Early Imperial Italy have been comparatively neglected throughout this history of scholarship. This thesis therefore seeks to examine the three painted and stucco Iliad friezes from Pompeii, all found on the Via dell'Abbondanza, and the Odyssey frescoes from a house on the Esquiline in Rome, as four examples of a type which had a long history in the Graeco-Roman world, even if their survival in the archaeological record is scant. The primary aim of the study is to understand each frieze in the knowledge of how they might have been regarded in antiquity, as elucidated in Pausanias' commentaries on Polygnotus' Iliupersis and Nekyia frescoes in Delphi, and to understand their extra-textual insertions and spelling discrepancies not as artistic errors but as reflections of the geographical and chronological contexts in which the friezes were displayed. Through detailed study of their iconography and epigraphy, alongside contemporary writers' discussion of the epic genre and its specific concerns for a Roman audience, this study aims to show that the most fruitful course of enquiry pertaining to the friezes lies not in an argument about whether they are entirely faithful to the Homeric epics or depart from them in puzzling ways, but in the observation that reliance on the text and free play on it go hand in hand as part of the epic reception-culture within which these paintings belong.

La thèse consiste en une étude monographique analytique et transdisciplinaire des peintures médiévales à sujet religieux de la vallée de Suse (Piémont). Cette région présente en effet, et particulièrement dans cette longue fin du Moyen Âge, entre les XIVe et XVIe siècles, une aire géographique dense et fréquentée puisqu'il s'agit d'une des voies de traversée des Alpes par excellence. Articulée entre deux grandes entités politiques, les états de Savoie et le Dauphiné de Viennois, la vallée relève du diocèse de Turin mais connaît une agitation religieuse certaine par la présence vaudoise. Elle offre ainsi un panorama complexe et une lecture fascinante des vallées de montagne des Alpes occidentales. Son corpus de peintures murales conservées et documentées représente un matériel important pour son analyse à travers les représentations culturelles dans les images, suivant une approche anthropologique. À travers l'étude des caractéristiques iconographiques et stylistiques en parallèle des données pluricontextuelles religieuses, politiques et sociologiques, la recherche a pour objectifs d'analyser les enjeux culturels des représentations murales alpines. La thèse explore ainsi d'une part les interactions entre les territoires et les pouvoirs, les relations entre l'image et les pratiques religieuses. L'analyse se penche d'autre part sur les réceptions artistiques en lien potentiel avec les aléas historiques et religieux et l'implantation spatiale. Les effets de migration des artistes mais aussi la question des transferts culturels et artistiques les concernant sont traités, notamment à travers les relations entre les sites centraux et ceux de périphérie. L'objectif de la thèse est en effet d'esquisser une synthèse de la peinture murale valsusaine à la fin du Moyen Âge, tout en questionnant la problématique des cultures alpines, finalement plurielles, et leurs enjeux à travers l'image murale médiévale. / The thesis comprises a monographic, analytic and transdisciplinary study of the medieval paintings with religious subject matters in the Susa valley (Piedmont). This area is densely populated and travelled, particularly during the long end of the Middle Ages between the XIVth and XVIth centuries, as it is one of the main thoroughfares through the Alps. Split between two major political entities, Savoy and the Dauphiné Viennois, the valley pertains to the diocese of Turin despite the religious turmoil due to the waldensian presence. Thus it offers a broad view of the complex and fascinating mountain valleys of the western Alps. Its corpus of preserved and documented wall paintings is a substantial material for analysis through cultural depictions with an anthropological approach. By studying distinctive iconographic and stylistic features concurrently with the pluricontextual religious, political, and sociological data, the study aims to analyse cultural stakes of alpine mural depictions. The thesis delves on the one hand into the interactions between territories and powers, the relationships of images with devotional customs. On the other hand the analysis looks into artistic receptions and their links to historical and religious vagaries or spatial settlements. The effects of artist migrations and the broader question of cultural and artistic transference they pertain to are also addressed, for instance through the relationship between central and peripheral sites. The objective of the thesis is indeed to sketch a summary of Susa valley paintings in the end of the Middle Ages, while surveying the issues of the subtly plural alpine cultures and their stakes through medieval murals.