L’immagine di Enea nell’arte tardoantica e medievale

Between the 4th and 14th centuries, the traces of Aeneas in artistic production are discontinuous: the representations of the Virgilian hero and his deeds are concentrated in some particular chronological moments, and then substantially disappear for long stretches, except to re-emerge in isolated contexts in which the image that classical tradition had handed down to us appears radically transfigured. The artistic medium in which the visual memory of Aeneas recurs most is, obviously, that of the miniatures that accompany both the text of the epic poem in manuscripts and the compositions that took inspiration from that ancient source to propose a reinterpretation in the key of a courtly romance and with a decidedly medieval structure; but alongside the miniatures, floor mosaics, historiated fabrics, sculptures and wall paintings bear witness, both materially and through the memory of written sources, to the prestige and authority that the character of Aeneas maintained in the post-ancient age.