Proposal for a reading of byzantine paintings inside the Cathedral of Genoa

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the analysis of the early Fourteenth Century byzantine cycle in the Saint Lawrence Cathedral in Genoa: in particular its purpose is to illustrate the iconographic program realized on the counter façade. The questions this article explains are: what is the relationship between painted images and spatial context, which means first the wall on which was carried out, and second the space of the Cathedral; what are the complex meanings of the iconographic themes of the Last Judgement and the Deesis, also in connection to the local devotional culture; and finally, considering the relation patron – subject of the cycle – artist, what are the connections between the Latin devotional needs of patrons and also of the public to which the cycle was intended, and the eastern compositional and expressive repertories of the Byzantine painters.