RU 
EN Marco D’Attanasio
University “G. d’Annunzio”, Chieti, Italy
Pope St. Leo the Great (440–461) commissioned a New and Old Testament cycle and Prophets and Apostles to decorate the walls of St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Paul’s Outside the Walls. These paintings became a reference model over the coming centuries, especially between 12th and 13th century. After the Gregorian Reform, that system of images was imitated in many churches in Rome as well as in the dependent territories of the Holy See, thus starting the figurative tendency known as Renouveau Paléochrétien — as Hélène Toubert called it.
The reference to a pictorial model from the Early Christian age was a markedly symbolic operation, that is to say, such a reference suggested a close connection with the traditional values. This idea is even stronger in pictorial cycles made outside Rome, so that art became the privileged way to spread a specific meaning: the cultural and political belonging to the Holy See.
At the eastern end of the Patrimonium Petri there was the March of Ancona, a region that popes and emperors vied for its control since the assignment by Charlemagne to Pope Adrian I. One of the most important towns of the March of Ancona was Ascoli Piceno, where there are only a few frescoes dated back to the second half of the 12th century: the fragmentary New Testament cycle in Sant’Ilario and the Prophets in Sant’Angelo Magno. My paper will argue that both those frescoes recall the iconography of St. Leo’s painted cycles in Rome and reproduce the formal point of view that can be found in Rome: the painted architectonic frame that separates the episodes of the Passion of Christ is a poor translation of the frame in stucco present in the painted cycle in St. Paul’s and probably in St. Peter’s Basilica, whereas the Prophets in Sant’Angelo Magno are stylistically similar to the Elders of the Apocalypse painted in the presbytery of the roman church of San Giovanni a Porta Latina.
Therefore, it is possible to recognize in both painted cycles two important cases of Renouveau Paléochrétien, as they are figurative evidence of the way in which Rome was capable to exercise its power also in its peripheral domains.
Ekaterina Rikota
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
The Valley of the Loir is a region in central France situated in the northern part of the Loir-et-Cher department in close proximity to the city of VendÔme, formerly attributed to the dioceses of Chartres and Le Mans. Within one part of the river, on the spot less than 50 km long, fragments of Romanesque wall painting are present in more than 20 churches. Such a high concentration of art in the region was caused by the many routes of pilgrimage from the north crossing the Loir river.
The subject of this research are the little-known to Russian art historians monuments of wall painting of the 12th century, among which the most intact and significant are Saint-Gilles in Montoire, Notre-Dame in Areines, Saint-Julien in Douy, Saint-Jacques-des-Guérets and Saint-Julien in Poncé-sur-le-Loir. Interest in this issue is due to the fact that both the region as a whole as well as individual art ensembles are not studied enough. The greater number of frescoes were discovered by the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. By that time, owing to the efforts of the first restorers and enthusiasts, the most substantiated and complete studies had been carried out and published.
Our investigations, based on the stylistic and iconographic analysis of the 12th century wall paintings of the Valley of the Loir and neighbouring lands, make it possible to unveil certain common trends in the development of arts in the region during the century. Synthesis of the stylistic borrowings from traditions of Carolingian and Ottoninan art, with influences introduced by foreigns painters, leads to an immensely authentic result. Iconographic schemes, usually drawn from Early Christian sources, acquire new intonations and unconventional forms, often distant from their origins. The second task of this research, of no small importance, is comprehension of the phenomenon of the existence of arts on the background of vita rustica. The relatively fully intact state of certain painting cycles makes it possible to study the problem of compiling programmes that meet the requirements of both parish and pilgrims.
Roberta Cerone
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
The frescoes in the lower church of the Sacro Speco at Subiaco closed the complex architectural history that during the 13th century, from the time of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), saw the growth of the sanctuary created around the cave where St. Benedict of Norcia retired in the early 6th century.
The cycle with stories of the saint, signed by Magister Conxolus, has so far been considered by the critics only for its stylistic and formal characters in connection with the paintings in Rome and Assisi during the nineties of the 13th century. Starting from these acquisitions, the paper will analyse the selection and the display of the stories — one of the first cycle about the life of Benedict on such a large scale by the middle years of the Middle Ages, their iconography and their reading direction in relation to the holy stairs leading to the cave and in the broader context of the debate on new religious orders after the Council of Lyons (1274).
From this perspective, one can see significant parallel with the friars and, in particular, with the Franciscans who, just few years before, had glorified their founder in the famous basilica of Assisi. The similarities with the pictorial cycle of the upper church of San Francesco, in fact, seem to go beyond the stylistic point of contact already identified by the critics to include broader issues. The foundation of two churches also in Subiaco and the decoration of the lower church with the celebration of the founder at a time shortly after the frescoes in Assisi, can not fail to reveal a comparison — and perhaps of an antagonism — that existed between two entirely different types of common life: the traditional monasticism and new orders.
Moreover, the reinterpretation of the architectural phases of the cloister, a necessary prerequisite to the reading of the paintings, can propose a different reconstruction of the relationship between the two churches by assuming a change to the sanctuary path and to the system of access to the chapel of St. Gregory.
Vadim Maiko
The Institute of Archaeology of Crimea, Russia
In the art of medieval Soldaja a special place is occupied by pieces of fresco paintings of different buildings in the city. Every survining fresco of Soldaja presents a unique phenomenon. A fresco painting partly survided only in “Temple with an arcade”. There are archive materials about painting in the temple of the Twelve Apostles, in chapels on the lower storey in the so-called Georgievskaja and Dozornaja towers and Consular fortress. Fragments of fresco paintings were discovered in a temple on the area of Barbakan, in chapels on the first tier of the tower of Jacopo Torsello, in the temple on the south-west area of Posad, in the temple of Paraskeva, in the monastery of St. Panteleimon on the south slope of mountain Perchem, and in the monastery in the natural boundary of Dimitraki. Among the surviving frescos of Genoese Soldaja, related to the painting of the Italian Renaissance, we will mention the following.
The fresco of “Temple with an arcade” was discovered in 1958 during repair work. In spite of its debatable character, it is possible to consider that the fresco is related to traditions of Italian painting of the 14th and first half of the 15th centuries.
A fresco painting of the chapel on the lower storey of the Georgievskaja tower is preserved only in a few small fragments. It is possible to assert from the archival data that an image of Deisis and a medallion with an image of Lamb with a labarum were placed here.
A fresco on the arch in the court of the Consular fortress was revealed during restoration in the 1970s. At present, it is not very clear. Judging from the archival data, it was an image of Christ, sitting on a throne.
The fresco of a chapel in the cistern of the Dozornaja tower is now preserved in a few small fragments. According to archival data, the image of the Mother of God of Mercy was probably placed here.
Frescos of the church of the Twelve Apostles were known from the beginning of the 19th century and are interpreted as the “Last Supper”. Already by the middle of this century they were poorly distinguished and their reconstruction, undertaken by D. M. Strukov, is no more than a hypothesis.
Anastasia Egorova
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
The paper is dedicated to the visual diagrams of the Latin Middle Ages at a time of prosperity in the 13th century, which is a very distinctive type of book miniature. In particular, this work covers the collection of diagrams known as the ‘Mirror of Theology’, acknowledged to be the most prominent visual representation of Catholic didactics of the time.
Our focus is on a miniature with a schematic drawing of a cherub. It is not only an image, but at the same time is also a table, where the main points of the ‘Six-winged Cherub’ tract by Alan of Lille (De sex alis) are written in. The emergence and development of this iconography can be traced through several manuscripts. By the detailed analysis of each of the miniatures, we sought to understand and trace how exactly the coexistence and interrelation of word and image is expressed in these pieces. Furthermore, we attempted to compare this iconography to other didactic visual diagrams belonging to Speculum Theologiae and present it as a part of the set of miniatures rather than a separate illustration.
In order for this paper to be accomplished, for the first time in the Russian language bibliography, the tables of the above-mentioned manuscript were read and translated. The way in which the illustrations were composed was analysed, including how exactly the images and texts correspond with each other, and how they take their, at times, interchangeable and, at times, irreducible places.
Visual diagrams raise a wide plethora of questions and issues in the scientific community. Unfortunately, there are no fundamental works that would cover and analyse all issues related to the diagrams of ‘Mirror of Theology’ in Russian or in international historiography. This is what determines the high relevancy of the chosen topic.
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