Les saints réparateurs

Through a comparative exploration of figurative motifs drawn from literary, hagiographic, and cinematic traditions, this article interrogates the semiotic morphogenesis of repair in its relation to the medial regimes of visibility. From Petronius’ unbreakable glass to the eucharistic crystal of sacred sculpture, and on to the specular configurations of Deleuzian cinema, a trajectory unfolds wherein material fragility ceases to be a mere property and becomes a tensional operator of belief. Mobilizing a semiotic approach that is not only structural but also modal and topological, the study highlights the processes of discursive transubstantiation through which matter becomes the site of a symbolic operation of grace. The visual sign is conceived here as a locus of differential intensification, where the event of fracture and that of recomposition are inscribed within a semiotic economy of thresholds, gaps, and overdeterminations. The crystal-image, as a node of unstable visibility, thereby redefines the ontology of representation within a space where material expression, actantial virtuality, and the axiological horizon of belief are inextricably entwined.