Books by Elisa Antonietta Daniele
Conference Presentations by Elisa Antonietta Daniele
Inside the Teatro Mediceo, Bernardo Buontalenti’s stage set for L’amico fido (1586) featured a ga... more Inside the Teatro Mediceo, Bernardo Buontalenti’s stage set for L’amico fido (1586) featured a garden where mechanical rabbits, deer and birds scampered around real scented plants, enchanting the spectators with their lifelike movements. For the brutal “caccia bellissima” performed in 1589, real buffaloes, wolves, and monkeys—among other animals—were released in Florence to be hunted and forced to fight, their reluctance to engage overcome by the jolting effect of the fireworks. On the early modern stage, real birds in flight could enliven the skies painted on the ceilings, arousing the disgust of the spectators by tragically burning their feathers on the lamps. Fish in crystal bowls under torchlight dazzled the audience with luminous and flamboyant effects.
This panel explores the presence and exploitation of animals in early modern performative— broadly conceived—cultures. Be they living creatures or automata, it considers their appearance and acts on stages, in the play scripts and libretti, their representations in the extant preparatory or commemorative images. From large wild animals like rhinoceroses and bears to smaller beings such as bees, along with imaginative sea monsters and bivalve mollusks, these creatures provoked epistemological engagement and a range of empathetic responses. Staged in enclosed, controlled spaces, they embodied—and sometimes challenged—human-centered narratives as well as contemporary approaches and conceptualization of the natural world.
http://www.1718.ucla.edu/news/student-research-chrzanowski/
This panel considers visual, textual, material, and performative engagement with processes of com... more This panel considers visual, textual, material, and performative engagement with processes of commodification in the early modern world. It explores how images, objects, and practices converted environments into resources, natural resources into lucrative items with commercial and tax-yielding significance, and destructive forces and forced labor into idealized landscapes and aestheticized bodies. The panel shifts the focus from the collection and display of phenonmena in cabinets of curiosities, to the mechanisms and processes through which raw materials were converted into commodities.
The commodity, and the creation of its idea, following Karl Marx, develops independently of its creators and is capable of triggering transformations of humans and landscapes. While worldly goods is a familiar theme from studies, for example, of still lifes and of tulip mania, this panel fastens onto resources, such as minerals, pearls, metals, pigments, glass, ambergris, sugar, and paper, and onto ways in which these materials accrued new values and meanings. Such conversions of resources into products often entailed material, formal, and social transformations, which were often managed through diverse media, re- mediation, and repetition. Accordingly, “Converting Natural Resources” considers how new audiences and consumers for commodities were cultivated through narratives, images, and artifacts.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- commodification of nature and trade
- describing and embodying challenges around the acquisition of raw materials
- economic thought and utilitarian value in natural history and scientific treatises
- displacements and processes of transculturation
- laboring, enslaved, gendered, and racialized bodies
- ecologies of commodities (affective dimensions, desire, environmental impacts)
- journeys and transformations of resources (narratives, serial modes of representation, processions)
- changing approaches to nature and artifice
In the middle of the 17th century, a series of courtly performances – ballets, tournaments, danci... more In the middle of the 17th century, a series of courtly performances – ballets, tournaments, dancing banquets – were staged in the indoor and outdoor spaces of the Savoy court in Turin, Piedmont, during the regency of Christine of France. The surrounding Alpine environment was ubiquitous in the scenographies of these spectacles – be they two-dimensional scenographies, or more complex walkable backdrops and huge machineries transforming public spaces such as Piazza Castello. Focusing on the drawings realized by Giovanni Tommaso Borgonio to record these events, this paper delves into the forms and roles of these recreations. It explores how performing the Alps’ climatic conditions, natural resources and phenomena (shadows, echoes), and elements of the landscape geography (passes, caves) was a means of exploring and celebrating what it meant to be an inhabitant of the Alpine area and of re-framing a difficult environment as a dynamic, resource-rich and pivotal connective tissue, despite its roughness.
This roundtable interrogates early modern archives of visual, performative, literary, material, a... more This roundtable interrogates early modern archives of visual, performative, literary, material, and extractive/instrumental engagement with mountainous environments. Navigating through different media (chalk drawings, emerald objects, sculptural recreations, analogical writing), speakers bring to the fore new valences that accrued to symbolic and actual mountains as a consequence of varied factors, including: territorial expansion, intensifying mobility, mineral exploitation, the sacralization of landscape, and evolving attitudes toward nature. A series of short presentations by discussants is followed by open dialogue probing the ascendancy of mountains in the early modern cultural imagination. What did it mean to visualize, recreate, or use the figure, matter, and topography of mountains? How do early modern attitudes differ from or overlap with contemporary ecological approaches?
This paper analyzes the commemorative album for Il Tabacco, a ballet staged in Turin in 1650 at t... more This paper analyzes the commemorative album for Il Tabacco, a ballet staged in Turin in 1650 at the court of the Duchess of Savoy, Christine of France. The album’s drawings, in ink and watercolor with silver or gold accents, take the viewer on a journey following in the footsteps of tobacco: where it was grown, how it was prepared, and even how it was smoked according to diverse geographically-specific customs as the product moves through the world.
Focusing the analysis on the extant visual record and associated libretto, the paper illustrates the integration and translation of sweeping and fine-grained transcultural motifs and influences. These ideas were manifested in ways that bodies of foreigners were depicted on stage, particularly in terms of their movements, costumes, fabrics, and through the languages of attributes and ornaments. In particular, this ballet is a valuable source for investigating how a non-human historical actor could be translated into the allegorical language of performance and its corresponding figurative culture. Considering calligraphic lines, alchemical metaphors, and the bodies of the dancers in relation to the various shapes of tobacco, the paper demonstrates how the ballet tells the story of a semantically unstable commodity that is at times considered a panacea for all ills and at others accused of being a dangerous threat to individual health as well as national wealth.
FOURTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF ICONOGRAPHIC STUDIES Rijeka, 15 – 16 October 2020, 2020
This paper explores the two fresco cycles devoted to Saint Francesca Romana (Francesca Bussa de’ ... more This paper explores the two fresco cycles devoted to Saint Francesca Romana (Francesca Bussa de’ Leoni 1384-1440), in the monastery of Tor de’ Specchi in Rome, at the foot of Campidoglio, founded in 1433. The two cycles, created by different painters and realized twenty years apart, are situated in two adjoining spaces of the monastery.
The first, attributed to Antoniazzo Romano and his school, was frescoed in 1468 in a space used for prayer (ancient monastery chapel). These images, colorful, represent in twentyfive scenes her charitable actions and miracles. The second fresco, colorless (terra verde), is situated in the ancient refettorio, is dated 1485, and is composed by ten scenes depicting her conflicts with monstrous creatures.
This proposal will analyze the two parietal decorations in relation to their source, the Tractati della vita et delli visioni di santa Francesca Romana (1447), a collection of texts recording mainly her miracles and visions written in Roman vulgar by her confessor, Ianni Mattiotti. Each image of the cycles is presented by a caption from this agiographic source. The examination will thus highlight that words and images are linked by a participative relationship: they interact in order to build the sense of the whole scene, often composed by two consecutive moments of the same event.
The paper will then unearth the iconographical devices and narrative strategies employed in some of these paradigmatic pictures to translate visually the sainthood concept. The task is to grasp how images and words work together and how this interaction makes possible the visualization of the different polarities inherent to holiness. Indeed, whereas the polychrome cycle shows forms of holiness linked to a vivifying dimension – healing the sick, supplying food, her charitable activities occurring in a real urban space in her city – the terra verde cycle depicts a noxious dimension characterized by light deprivation, indoor spaces, and opposition to the Devil’s torments.
Finally, we will proceed with the articulation of a reflection focused on the gestures exhibited in the frescoes and consequently on the persecutory nature of the images that describe the female body of the saint. These accentuated gestures, together with the opposing categories present in the paintings (external vs interior, colorfull vs colorless, blocked action vs moving action, etc.), constitute the site of elaboration that allows the viewer to recognize the saving action of Francesca’s sainthood.
Among the myriad allegories covering the Sala del Mappamondo, the four personified continents sta... more Among the myriad allegories covering the Sala del Mappamondo, the four personified continents stand out around the vast world map. First of all the analysis focuses on their formal strategies of presentation and the vocabulary of attributes they adopt, borrowed from ancient Roman coinage, to investigate the reasons behind their classical-style robe and the ideological statement emerging from this adoption. This figurative code is also compared to the previous Camerino dei Continenti in Rome’s Palazzo Firenze, outlining visual and semantic analogies. Finally, the paper interprets the representation in relation to the patron’s communicational needs: indeed, the personifications are organically integrated with the various components of the hall to form a complex celebratory organism expressing the ideals of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese regarding his own temporal and spiritual role in the world and the role of the counter-reformed Church more broadly.
Journal Articles by Elisa Antonietta Daniele
This article explores the two fresco cycles devoted to Saint Francesca Romana (Francesca Bussa de... more This article explores the two fresco cycles devoted to Saint Francesca Romana (Francesca Bussa de’ Leoni 1384-1440) in the monastery of Tor de’ Specchi in Rome, founded in 1433. The two cycles, created by different painters twenty years apart, are situated in two adjoining spaces of the monastery. The first, attributed to Antoniazzo Romano, was frescoed in 1468 in a space used for prayer and mass (the Oratorio) and represents her charitable actions, miracles, and celestial visions. The second cycle dated to 1485, in terra verde technique, is situated in the ancient refectory and depicts Francesca Romana’s encounter with demonic creatures. Intriguingly, although Francesca was not canonized until 1608, she is presented as a saint in both cycles. We analyze the two parietal decorations in relation to their sources, the Tractato delli visioni di santa Fran- cesca Romana and Tractato delle bactaglie. These two texts were written in Roman vulgar by Francesca’s confessor, Giovanni Mattiotti, in 1447 to record her divine visions and battles with evil. By focusing on selected scenes from both the cycles, we ascertain how closely the images adhere to Mattiotti’s written accounts or, instead, the autonomy of the images. The aim is to grasp how images and words work together in dialogue and how, thanks to this interaction, the different polarities inherent to holiness can be rendered visual. Indeed, whereas the colorful scenes show aspects of holiness linked to a vivifying dimen- sion – Francesca is welcomed into the heavenly realm in the presence of Christ and the Virgin – the terra verde images depict a noxious dimension characterized by light deprivation, indoor spaces, and opposition to the Devil’s torments. Ultimately, by investigating visual forms, material aspects, and narrative strategies, we unearth how Francesca’s sainthood status has been translated and codified.
The paper analyses the articulated celestial geography of the Last Judgement by Beato Angelico, k... more The paper analyses the articulated celestial geography of the Last Judgement by Beato Angelico, kept at San Marco National Museum of Florence, pointing out the theological substratum of the juxtaposition of “garden” and “city” and comparing the iconological and exegetical role which the correlation between these two forms undertake in the context of other works by Angelico.
The Center & Clark Newsletter, No. 68, Fall 2019 , 2019
Contributions in book by Elisa Antonietta Daniele
Bodies and Maps: Early Modern Personifications of the Continents, 2020
In the Sala del Mappamondo, on the piano nobile of Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola, America, Europe,... more In the Sala del Mappamondo, on the piano nobile of Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola, America, Europe, Africa, and Asia in the form of four female figures enrich the corners of the large world map painted on the south-east wall. They are seated outside of the golden frame encompassing the oecumene, each one looming before her own niche like idols emerging from their dark corners, summoned in the presence of viewers to guide them in a voyage through the world contained in the room. First, the analysis focuses on their formal strategies of presentation and the vocabulary of attributes they adopt, borrowed from ancient Roman coinage, to investigate the reasons behind their classical-style robe and the ideological statement emerging from this adoption in the context of the complex celebratory organism of the hall. Secondly, the figurative code deployed in the Room is compared to the previous Camerino dei Continenti in Rome’s Palazzo Firenze and three lunettes in Rome’s Palazzo Ruggeri (1553 and 1591, respectively), outlining visual and semantic analogies. The Camerino offers an early representation of our theme brimming with mythological and erudite references - in the panel of the vault with Europa, Asia, and Africa - as well as exotic ones in the external ornamentation. Even the later lunettes depict an oecumene which is anachronistically still tripartite, though visually anchored in a recent source (i.e. the Theatrum orbis terrarum frontispiece). Starting from the main case-study and considering these less-studied frescoes, it is thus possible to delve into forms of confluence (intertwining or instances of resistance) between the world of antiquity and the world of geographic exploration, as displayed by each image, eventually shedding light on potential motivations and iconological implications.
Eventually, the plurality of worlds at play in Caprarola – this essay argues – is a means for re-drawing the present, folding the viewer’s gaze of manifold worlds into the celebrative demands of Alessandro Farnese, specifically his project of building a single, universalizing mirror image of the world he coveted. The geographical and anthropological multiplicity exhibited in this room is thus translated and re-channeled by its allegory into a unifying and all-encompassing vision that embraces places – the ones depicted in the world map and extensive cartographic cycle covering all the walls – but above all times. In the decorative apparatus of the Room of Maps, the personifications play a fundamental role, that of depicting and enacting the synchronous coexistence of past and present. The latter is thus permeated by the vestiges of the former in order to make sense of itself, using a figurative code rooted deep in a past age to represent a world that was, by then, inchoately modern and irreparably changed.
Conquistare la montagna. Storia di un'idea | Conquering Mountains. History of an Idea, 2016
This essay looks at the idea of conquering a mountain in terms of representation, building on the... more This essay looks at the idea of conquering a mountain in terms of representation, building on the quest for the Mountain of Eden as depicted by literature (Dante), travel diary (Columbus), visual arts (Giovanni di Paolo, Luca Signorelli), cartographical or philosophical codification (Le Fleurs des histoires, Tabula Cebetis). It sheds light on the intricate relations among biblical sources and empirical knowledge, pilgrimage-voyages and exploratory expeditions, physical or mental journey as expressed visually and textually by these different, and yet consistent, critical instances that have the localization and possibly conquest of the earthly Paradise at their core.
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Books by Elisa Antonietta Daniele
Conference Presentations by Elisa Antonietta Daniele
This panel explores the presence and exploitation of animals in early modern performative— broadly conceived—cultures. Be they living creatures or automata, it considers their appearance and acts on stages, in the play scripts and libretti, their representations in the extant preparatory or commemorative images. From large wild animals like rhinoceroses and bears to smaller beings such as bees, along with imaginative sea monsters and bivalve mollusks, these creatures provoked epistemological engagement and a range of empathetic responses. Staged in enclosed, controlled spaces, they embodied—and sometimes challenged—human-centered narratives as well as contemporary approaches and conceptualization of the natural world.
The commodity, and the creation of its idea, following Karl Marx, develops independently of its creators and is capable of triggering transformations of humans and landscapes. While worldly goods is a familiar theme from studies, for example, of still lifes and of tulip mania, this panel fastens onto resources, such as minerals, pearls, metals, pigments, glass, ambergris, sugar, and paper, and onto ways in which these materials accrued new values and meanings. Such conversions of resources into products often entailed material, formal, and social transformations, which were often managed through diverse media, re- mediation, and repetition. Accordingly, “Converting Natural Resources” considers how new audiences and consumers for commodities were cultivated through narratives, images, and artifacts.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- commodification of nature and trade
- describing and embodying challenges around the acquisition of raw materials
- economic thought and utilitarian value in natural history and scientific treatises
- displacements and processes of transculturation
- laboring, enslaved, gendered, and racialized bodies
- ecologies of commodities (affective dimensions, desire, environmental impacts)
- journeys and transformations of resources (narratives, serial modes of representation, processions)
- changing approaches to nature and artifice
Focusing the analysis on the extant visual record and associated libretto, the paper illustrates the integration and translation of sweeping and fine-grained transcultural motifs and influences. These ideas were manifested in ways that bodies of foreigners were depicted on stage, particularly in terms of their movements, costumes, fabrics, and through the languages of attributes and ornaments. In particular, this ballet is a valuable source for investigating how a non-human historical actor could be translated into the allegorical language of performance and its corresponding figurative culture. Considering calligraphic lines, alchemical metaphors, and the bodies of the dancers in relation to the various shapes of tobacco, the paper demonstrates how the ballet tells the story of a semantically unstable commodity that is at times considered a panacea for all ills and at others accused of being a dangerous threat to individual health as well as national wealth.
The first, attributed to Antoniazzo Romano and his school, was frescoed in 1468 in a space used for prayer (ancient monastery chapel). These images, colorful, represent in twentyfive scenes her charitable actions and miracles. The second fresco, colorless (terra verde), is situated in the ancient refettorio, is dated 1485, and is composed by ten scenes depicting her conflicts with monstrous creatures.
This proposal will analyze the two parietal decorations in relation to their source, the Tractati della vita et delli visioni di santa Francesca Romana (1447), a collection of texts recording mainly her miracles and visions written in Roman vulgar by her confessor, Ianni Mattiotti. Each image of the cycles is presented by a caption from this agiographic source. The examination will thus highlight that words and images are linked by a participative relationship: they interact in order to build the sense of the whole scene, often composed by two consecutive moments of the same event.
The paper will then unearth the iconographical devices and narrative strategies employed in some of these paradigmatic pictures to translate visually the sainthood concept. The task is to grasp how images and words work together and how this interaction makes possible the visualization of the different polarities inherent to holiness. Indeed, whereas the polychrome cycle shows forms of holiness linked to a vivifying dimension – healing the sick, supplying food, her charitable activities occurring in a real urban space in her city – the terra verde cycle depicts a noxious dimension characterized by light deprivation, indoor spaces, and opposition to the Devil’s torments.
Finally, we will proceed with the articulation of a reflection focused on the gestures exhibited in the frescoes and consequently on the persecutory nature of the images that describe the female body of the saint. These accentuated gestures, together with the opposing categories present in the paintings (external vs interior, colorfull vs colorless, blocked action vs moving action, etc.), constitute the site of elaboration that allows the viewer to recognize the saving action of Francesca’s sainthood.
Journal Articles by Elisa Antonietta Daniele
Contributions in book by Elisa Antonietta Daniele
Eventually, the plurality of worlds at play in Caprarola – this essay argues – is a means for re-drawing the present, folding the viewer’s gaze of manifold worlds into the celebrative demands of Alessandro Farnese, specifically his project of building a single, universalizing mirror image of the world he coveted. The geographical and anthropological multiplicity exhibited in this room is thus translated and re-channeled by its allegory into a unifying and all-encompassing vision that embraces places – the ones depicted in the world map and extensive cartographic cycle covering all the walls – but above all times. In the decorative apparatus of the Room of Maps, the personifications play a fundamental role, that of depicting and enacting the synchronous coexistence of past and present. The latter is thus permeated by the vestiges of the former in order to make sense of itself, using a figurative code rooted deep in a past age to represent a world that was, by then, inchoately modern and irreparably changed.
This panel explores the presence and exploitation of animals in early modern performative— broadly conceived—cultures. Be they living creatures or automata, it considers their appearance and acts on stages, in the play scripts and libretti, their representations in the extant preparatory or commemorative images. From large wild animals like rhinoceroses and bears to smaller beings such as bees, along with imaginative sea monsters and bivalve mollusks, these creatures provoked epistemological engagement and a range of empathetic responses. Staged in enclosed, controlled spaces, they embodied—and sometimes challenged—human-centered narratives as well as contemporary approaches and conceptualization of the natural world.
The commodity, and the creation of its idea, following Karl Marx, develops independently of its creators and is capable of triggering transformations of humans and landscapes. While worldly goods is a familiar theme from studies, for example, of still lifes and of tulip mania, this panel fastens onto resources, such as minerals, pearls, metals, pigments, glass, ambergris, sugar, and paper, and onto ways in which these materials accrued new values and meanings. Such conversions of resources into products often entailed material, formal, and social transformations, which were often managed through diverse media, re- mediation, and repetition. Accordingly, “Converting Natural Resources” considers how new audiences and consumers for commodities were cultivated through narratives, images, and artifacts.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- commodification of nature and trade
- describing and embodying challenges around the acquisition of raw materials
- economic thought and utilitarian value in natural history and scientific treatises
- displacements and processes of transculturation
- laboring, enslaved, gendered, and racialized bodies
- ecologies of commodities (affective dimensions, desire, environmental impacts)
- journeys and transformations of resources (narratives, serial modes of representation, processions)
- changing approaches to nature and artifice
Focusing the analysis on the extant visual record and associated libretto, the paper illustrates the integration and translation of sweeping and fine-grained transcultural motifs and influences. These ideas were manifested in ways that bodies of foreigners were depicted on stage, particularly in terms of their movements, costumes, fabrics, and through the languages of attributes and ornaments. In particular, this ballet is a valuable source for investigating how a non-human historical actor could be translated into the allegorical language of performance and its corresponding figurative culture. Considering calligraphic lines, alchemical metaphors, and the bodies of the dancers in relation to the various shapes of tobacco, the paper demonstrates how the ballet tells the story of a semantically unstable commodity that is at times considered a panacea for all ills and at others accused of being a dangerous threat to individual health as well as national wealth.
The first, attributed to Antoniazzo Romano and his school, was frescoed in 1468 in a space used for prayer (ancient monastery chapel). These images, colorful, represent in twentyfive scenes her charitable actions and miracles. The second fresco, colorless (terra verde), is situated in the ancient refettorio, is dated 1485, and is composed by ten scenes depicting her conflicts with monstrous creatures.
This proposal will analyze the two parietal decorations in relation to their source, the Tractati della vita et delli visioni di santa Francesca Romana (1447), a collection of texts recording mainly her miracles and visions written in Roman vulgar by her confessor, Ianni Mattiotti. Each image of the cycles is presented by a caption from this agiographic source. The examination will thus highlight that words and images are linked by a participative relationship: they interact in order to build the sense of the whole scene, often composed by two consecutive moments of the same event.
The paper will then unearth the iconographical devices and narrative strategies employed in some of these paradigmatic pictures to translate visually the sainthood concept. The task is to grasp how images and words work together and how this interaction makes possible the visualization of the different polarities inherent to holiness. Indeed, whereas the polychrome cycle shows forms of holiness linked to a vivifying dimension – healing the sick, supplying food, her charitable activities occurring in a real urban space in her city – the terra verde cycle depicts a noxious dimension characterized by light deprivation, indoor spaces, and opposition to the Devil’s torments.
Finally, we will proceed with the articulation of a reflection focused on the gestures exhibited in the frescoes and consequently on the persecutory nature of the images that describe the female body of the saint. These accentuated gestures, together with the opposing categories present in the paintings (external vs interior, colorfull vs colorless, blocked action vs moving action, etc.), constitute the site of elaboration that allows the viewer to recognize the saving action of Francesca’s sainthood.
Eventually, the plurality of worlds at play in Caprarola – this essay argues – is a means for re-drawing the present, folding the viewer’s gaze of manifold worlds into the celebrative demands of Alessandro Farnese, specifically his project of building a single, universalizing mirror image of the world he coveted. The geographical and anthropological multiplicity exhibited in this room is thus translated and re-channeled by its allegory into a unifying and all-encompassing vision that embraces places – the ones depicted in the world map and extensive cartographic cycle covering all the walls – but above all times. In the decorative apparatus of the Room of Maps, the personifications play a fundamental role, that of depicting and enacting the synchronous coexistence of past and present. The latter is thus permeated by the vestiges of the former in order to make sense of itself, using a figurative code rooted deep in a past age to represent a world that was, by then, inchoately modern and irreparably changed.
Il Paradiso è stato evocato formalizzato principalmente sotto tre vesti: come giardino, come città, o come Empireo. Se quest’ultimo nasce dell’esigenza di conciliare dottrina cristiana e sistema tolemaico - dando vita all’immagine di un cielo accuratamente graduato e fondato precipuamente sull’articolazione di luce, ordine e simmetria - il giardino e la città sono invece metafore formalizzate dell’Eden e della Gerusalemme celeste, confini temporali della storia biblica. Nella tesi si cerca di dimostrare la ripresa e la correlazione nel XV secolo di una formula di matrice bizantina che articola l’aldilà sulla giustapposizione figurativa di due modelli, quello edenico-ortense e quello celeste-urbano appunto, considerando quelle rappresentazioni letterarie e pittoriche fornite di una struttura paradigmatica. Tramite il tema del Giudizio Universale - filo conduttore figurativo della tesi - le due versioni paradisiache delle Scritture vengono a edificare uno schema bipartito in cui le due dimensioni convivono in un rapporto di reciproca contaminazione iconografica e teologica; così è per i Giudizi Universali di Beato Angelico, di Giovanni di Paolo, di Van Eyck e di Bosch: le loro immagini sono caratterizzate dalla compresenza dell’umano con il divino, del naturale con l’architettonico, del giardino con la città.
Da un punto di vista teologico, la rappresentazione simultanea dell’Eden e della Città celeste è definita dalla concezione temporale della storia della salvezza e dall’approccio tipologico di Sant’Agostino che lega indissolubilmente passato, presente e futuro. Questi complessi grovigli esegetici, ai quali è dedicata la parte introduttiva della tesi, sono necessari per comprendere la doppia immagine di questa geografia celeste, in cui ci si sofferma sulle nozioni, cristiane e non, di amore e s’insiste sull’inesauribile dinamica spirituale della vita paradisiaca, una concezione che prolifererà fino alle porte della Controriforma, quando nuove esigenze dottrinali si profileranno all’orizzonte mutando nuovamente il panorama paradisiaco e la concretezza immaginifica del secolo precedente.
Fondamentale per la comprensione di ogni singola opera analizzata è il costante raffronto con i testi. Ad esempio, i possibili intrecci temporali tra Eden, Chiesa nella storia e Chiesa nell’eternità sono dettati dalle complesse e insolute ambiguità teologiche dei testi canonici, apocrifi e patristici citati lungo la tesi. L’opera di Beato Angelico è analizzata parallelamente a quella di Lorenzo Valla, in modo da istituire un dialogo non solo tra arte ed esegesi, ma anche tra arte e letteratura. Nel rappresentare, infatti, il luogo della beatitudine definitiva come un giardino, è sottolineato come la nostalgia religiosa sia rafforzata dalla nutrita poesia classica su loci amoeni, campi elisi, età auree che, in età umanistica, ha particolare diffusione. L’inesauribile ricchezza simbolica dell’intreccio tra temi bucolici e temi urbani nelle rappresentazioni paradisiache considerate, dimostra anche come l’analisi dell’opera d’arte costituisse un’operazione esegetica addita exegesi e come l’esegesi abbia potuto attingere linfa allo stesso riferimento iconografico.