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Le costellazioni a Monteoliveto

2021, Ricche Minere

Abstract

This research tries to give a meaning to the presence of the 48 ptolemaic constellations in the ceiling of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria in Monteoliveto in Naples. This Giorgio Vasari’s masterpiece mixes the constellations with allegorical figures of virtues and christian concepts in a three parted ceiling connected together with a beautiful grotesque decoration. The uniqueness of this iconographic apparatus was commissioned by Gianmatteo Cristiani d’Aversa and Miniato Pitti, two of the most powerful characters in the Olivetan Order in the middle of sixteenth century. These “desiderata” forced Vasari to reshape the entire ceiling so to host the articulated imaging device that we can still see. The whole decoration of the ceiling is a sophisticated system of mnemonics that works on the placement of a virtue in a specific area, near to a specific constellation that never appear twice, so to have a direction of reading too. This method of mnemonics has Greek origins, was also elaborated by Cicero, and it passed through the Middle Age to reach the Renaissance with new strength and new uses for monks, scholars and orators.