Tra Roma e Bisanzio: il nuovo statuto dell’immagine = Between Rome and Byzantium: the new status of the image

Abstract

The attempt of the article is to identify, in the period between the beginning of III cen. A.C. and the Year 1000, how Christianity detaches itself from the aniconic tradition of the Abrahamitic family, and develops its own peculiar relationship with the image and the gaze, that is the fruitt of synthesis between the late ancient philosophical and pictorial heritage, the Jewish matrix, and the encounter with the "barbarian" cultures. What role does the dogma of incarnation play in the elaboration of this new status of the image? What solutions are developped to make the image licit and to domesticate the gaze? The hypothesis of the article is that within Christianity, once the image is accepted, two different solutions are enucleated, wich will give rise to two forms of seriality. The key moment of this double split is the outcome of the two iconoclastic wars, similar to the last fierce Christological quarrel. A result that will generate precisely the two forms of seriality that the article tries to outline: the Byzantine/Orthodox and the Roman/Catholic.