Patrons and Artisans: Spaces and Forms of Self-Representation in Medieval Churches in Basilicata (12th-13th Centuries)

Chiara Audizi (Ursula Nilgen Hertziana Foundation Fellow)

The project proposes an analysis of the relationship between patrons, artists, and users within Lucanian places of worship between the 12th and 13th centuries. The research pays particular attention to the theme of self-representation and the communicative strategies that were implemented to convey specific messages, both through individual artistic works and in the general conception of each monument. Taking into account the historical, political, and cultural context of the centuries of reference, the research proposes a study of sacred spaces as places of personal and collective memory, with a focus on the ways in which this memory is celebrated and transmitted. In this sense, one of the aims of the project is to reread some pivotal monuments of the Lucanian Middle Ages by moving crosswise between different artistic media – sculpture, painting and epigraphy – and considering them, from case to case, in connection with different spaces and their related functions. From a more general point of view, the research finds its place within a broader methodological framework, oriented toward reconsidering the critical historiography that over the decades has focussed on artisanal production in the Middle Ages in Basilicata. Thus, the project presents itself as an opportunity to probe nodes and explore historiographical questions that are still topical, such as the existence or non-existence of a real ‘regional artistic language.’