IRIS: https://IRIS.unica.it/cris/rp/rp87715

Curriculum: Archaeological, Artistic, Film and Music Heritage.

Supervisor: Prof.ssa Nicoletta Usai Co-Supervisor: Prof. Andrea Pala

Project title: Oriental influences on the franciscan art of the late Middle Ages.

This research aims to outline a cross-cultural synthesis of the relationship between the image and interior space of two churches: The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and the Cappellone degli Spagnoli of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. On the one hand, it is a distinctively Western narrative that reveals the underlying reasons for the orientation of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi toward the east and consequently tells the secrets of the configuration of the images on the eastern wall. On the other hand, by placing the same pictorial and spatial relationships in the cosmopolitan cultural context unfolded by the Mongolian Empire in the thirteenth, fourteenth century, this part through the analysis of the pictorial configuration of the Spanish Chapel tells the story of the Dominicans’ mission to the East.