Natacha Piano
I have been working on monumental art (IVth-XIVth c.) since 1999. Throughout three masters and one PhD achieved in various countries (universities of Geneva, Lausanne, Poitiers and Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, Rome) I elaborated a research method at the crossroad of iconography, epigraphy, topography, liturgy, and fresco stratigraphy. My approach is able to embrace the multi-layered complexity of medieval art at the intersection between spirit and matter. And it is in position to establish archaeologically precise milestones, like the one of the frescos of St-Sernin in Toulouse.
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Papers by Natacha Piano
Our analysis starts with a literal iconological description allowing to dive deep into the epigraphical content of the images. This will point the analysis in the direction of the theological sources able to enlighten an allegorical comprehension.
The Virgin and Child with the four living beings is first attested in the mosaics of Santa Maria Nova (XIth century), the church of the Greeks living in medieval Rome. Its inscription recalls the Christmas songs performed by the main Roman basilicas and suggests a prototype in the lost decoration of the chapel of the crib in Santa Maria Maggiore.
This text is widespread in the Christmas liturgy north of the Alps. Interestingly, the sarcophagus of Saint-Junien (France, XIIth century) shows it in an iconography of the 24 Elders of the Apocalypse where the Virgin is represented as an Ecclesia and throne of Wisdom spreading out of the divine Word.
The iconography of the Virgin with the 24 Elders of the Apocalypse also appears in Rome (apse mosaics of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere). The question whether this particular meaning could have been a part of an ecclesiological program developed under the same Pascal I, maybe in the framework of the arrivals of the Greeks escaping iconoclasm, constitutes the horizon of the present study.
This operation achieves explaining a current theme – the Final Judgement – organized however in a totally paradoxical way, that finds no explanation in the Bible or in the medieval occidental nor oriental art.
This atypical subject is depicted in the frescoes of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul de Montgauch, a small Romanesque church depending on the episcopal center of Saint-Lizier, in southern France. The iconographic trend of the Final Judgement and the related official exegetic texts known in the medieval West remain powerless to explain the astonishing formal, epigraphical and theological anomalies of the decoration.
Unexpectedly, the Cathar theology of the late XIIth century of southern France, whose main lines can be roughly reconstructed through various sources, enlightens all the strangest iconographic aspects of the painted program and surprisingly offers a coherent explanation. A document written in the very context of Montgauch provides this interpretation with a solid confirmation offering room for innovation to other authors working on examples of southern France and northern Spain.
The expressions mostly used by medieval writers ("porta clausa", "porta coeli", "porta paradisi","porta salutis") are contextualized in a diachronic approach and analyzed throughout the quotation of a hundred Latin texts of various kind written between the IVth and the XIIIth centuries.
The analysis uncovers the existence of two main streams – the oldest founded in the IVth century –constantly reshaped by a great variety of exegetical traditions reflecting the general theological trends of their time. These two branches finally merged into a central, polysemous stream of thinking unified in the person of the Virgin by the time she fully took over the meaning of the Ecclesia (XIIth century).
The observation of precise formal links recurring from tradition to tradition proves that the main changes have been operated by authority texts spreading from Rome throughout the medieval world, blending together to create new patterns.
While the literary theme appears on images from the IXth century onwards, this theoretic enquiry provides the art historian with a valuable interpretation tool which allows giving value and depth to the interesting materialization of the Virgin door in monumental art and architecture involving the use of doors, windows or arches.
In the first part, the research process builds on the outcomes of an on-site research: a description of the stratigraphy of the painted layers of the fresco, followed by an archaeological point by point survey conducted by a professional restorer.
This work allows reading the inscription as precisely as possible and recognizing the hand of two different painters. The outcomes of the archaeological and formal analysis lead to a chronographical calculation allowing several propositions of dating to the exact day.
In the following step, the author dives deep into local historical sources, very little exploited until then, and achieves isolating and validating one of the hypothesis of dating, which allows restoring the identity of the sponsor of the paintings.
In the XIIth century, Toulouse, and particularly the church of Saint-Sernin, was the artistic capital of western-southern France and northern Spain. Therefore, by discovering the precise circumstances of the execution of the fresco, the present study places a major chronological milestone in the field of scientific research of these two domains, as well as in the whole medieval occidental world.
Our analysis starts with a literal iconological description allowing to dive deep into the epigraphical content of the images. This will point the analysis in the direction of the theological sources able to enlighten an allegorical comprehension.
The Virgin and Child with the four living beings is first attested in the mosaics of Santa Maria Nova (XIth century), the church of the Greeks living in medieval Rome. Its inscription recalls the Christmas songs performed by the main Roman basilicas and suggests a prototype in the lost decoration of the chapel of the crib in Santa Maria Maggiore.
This text is widespread in the Christmas liturgy north of the Alps. Interestingly, the sarcophagus of Saint-Junien (France, XIIth century) shows it in an iconography of the 24 Elders of the Apocalypse where the Virgin is represented as an Ecclesia and throne of Wisdom spreading out of the divine Word.
The iconography of the Virgin with the 24 Elders of the Apocalypse also appears in Rome (apse mosaics of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere). The question whether this particular meaning could have been a part of an ecclesiological program developed under the same Pascal I, maybe in the framework of the arrivals of the Greeks escaping iconoclasm, constitutes the horizon of the present study.
This operation achieves explaining a current theme – the Final Judgement – organized however in a totally paradoxical way, that finds no explanation in the Bible or in the medieval occidental nor oriental art.
This atypical subject is depicted in the frescoes of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul de Montgauch, a small Romanesque church depending on the episcopal center of Saint-Lizier, in southern France. The iconographic trend of the Final Judgement and the related official exegetic texts known in the medieval West remain powerless to explain the astonishing formal, epigraphical and theological anomalies of the decoration.
Unexpectedly, the Cathar theology of the late XIIth century of southern France, whose main lines can be roughly reconstructed through various sources, enlightens all the strangest iconographic aspects of the painted program and surprisingly offers a coherent explanation. A document written in the very context of Montgauch provides this interpretation with a solid confirmation offering room for innovation to other authors working on examples of southern France and northern Spain.
The expressions mostly used by medieval writers ("porta clausa", "porta coeli", "porta paradisi","porta salutis") are contextualized in a diachronic approach and analyzed throughout the quotation of a hundred Latin texts of various kind written between the IVth and the XIIIth centuries.
The analysis uncovers the existence of two main streams – the oldest founded in the IVth century –constantly reshaped by a great variety of exegetical traditions reflecting the general theological trends of their time. These two branches finally merged into a central, polysemous stream of thinking unified in the person of the Virgin by the time she fully took over the meaning of the Ecclesia (XIIth century).
The observation of precise formal links recurring from tradition to tradition proves that the main changes have been operated by authority texts spreading from Rome throughout the medieval world, blending together to create new patterns.
While the literary theme appears on images from the IXth century onwards, this theoretic enquiry provides the art historian with a valuable interpretation tool which allows giving value and depth to the interesting materialization of the Virgin door in monumental art and architecture involving the use of doors, windows or arches.
In the first part, the research process builds on the outcomes of an on-site research: a description of the stratigraphy of the painted layers of the fresco, followed by an archaeological point by point survey conducted by a professional restorer.
This work allows reading the inscription as precisely as possible and recognizing the hand of two different painters. The outcomes of the archaeological and formal analysis lead to a chronographical calculation allowing several propositions of dating to the exact day.
In the following step, the author dives deep into local historical sources, very little exploited until then, and achieves isolating and validating one of the hypothesis of dating, which allows restoring the identity of the sponsor of the paintings.
In the XIIth century, Toulouse, and particularly the church of Saint-Sernin, was the artistic capital of western-southern France and northern Spain. Therefore, by discovering the precise circumstances of the execution of the fresco, the present study places a major chronological milestone in the field of scientific research of these two domains, as well as in the whole medieval occidental world.