Icone moderne: un santo, un fotografo e la trasformazione del santino religioso in media comunicativo = Modern icons: a saint, a photographer and the transformation of the religious holy card into communicative medium

Abstract

Modern icons: a saint, a photographer and the transformation of the religious holy card into communicative medium. As the first saint to have a photographic documentation, in the 50s of the twentieth century, Padre Pio chose Gaetano Mastrorilli, a photographer from Bari, as the official witness of his evangelical work. The latter created with his shots the image that would idealize the figure of the monk, making his portrait an icon of worship and his gestures a concrete testimony of the action of the Holy. The photos, printed and reproduced on thousands of postcards and holy cards, synthesized the communicative and charismatic abilities of the Capuchin friar, who found in the professional and artistic talent of Mastrorilli the interpreter of an ideal symbiosis of communication between the subject and his photographer. Photography helped to transform the "santino"- holy card – from little image linked to the ancient popular religious culture of something magical and superstitious into a modern communicative medium of faith, based on real and spontaneous elements in which evangelization takes place "from the distance" that is, even in the absence of the saint himself.