• Bacci Michele

Images of saints, their heroic deeds and astonishing miracles are among the most recurrent themes in pre-modern European art. This course offers a detailed introduction to their iconography, which will be studied in its historical development from the Early Christian era to the nineteenth century.

Students will be required to regularly attend the classes, which will enable students to acquire an in-depth knowledge of the iconography of the saints. This will be the subject of a final written examination. The students' individual work, which will be tested in the oral examination, will consist of a careful reading of the reference text (Caskey, Cohen and Safran, Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages), in such a way as to enable them to recognise and contextualise each of the works reproduced in the illustrative apparatus. Students will be also requested to learn the fundamental concepts discussed in the other two books.

Reference text: Caskey, Jill, Adam S. Cohen, and Linda Safran, Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages. Exploring a Connected World, Ithaca and London 2022.

Readings: 

Kessler, Herbert L., Experiencing Medieval Art, Toronto 2019.

Belting, Hans, Das Bild und Sein Publikum im Mittelalter, Berlin 1995 [éd. française L’image et son public au Moyen Âge, Paris 2006].