Il dramma e l'immagine. Teorie cristiane della rappresentazione (II-XI sec.)

[Autom. eng. transl.] The book proposes a parallel reading of two major questions in the history of the high medieval Church: the discourse against the spectacles (II-V century) and the querelle between iconoclasts and iconophiles (VII-IX centuries). The intent is to understand if at the bottom of the single arguments there is a common and shared structure of thought, and if this structure can be understood as a complete and articulated 'Christian theory of representation'. How can the condemnation of any form of entertainment coexist with the strenuous defense of icons and their cult? For what reasons do the Church Fathers forbid idols, but exhort man to be an actor in his own life? The analysis of the concepts of drama and image, conducted on the patristic sources, shows that the Christian idea of representation is marked by an unbridgeable distance with respect to Greek-Hellenistic thought. Entertainment and drama, spectator and gaze, actor and action take on new meaning; image, icon, relationship and likeness, seeing and representing are terms that refer to new epistemological presuppositions. Founded on the paradox of the incarnation that unites the invisible with the visible, Christian thought involves a veritable revolution of visio and actio. A decisive theoretical revolution to understand the vast chapter of 'Christian theater', which flourished in medieval Europe from the tenth century.