Il ritmo della storia. L'interpretazione simbolica dell'anno liturgico nei diagrammi del XII secolo

Modern studies on the 12th century have often stressed both the development of ‘ratio’ and ‘symbolic thought’ during this period. In this paper we consider two diagrams, where we find a representation of the liturgical year in parallel with the history of Salvation – one in the tradition of Peter of Poitiers’ Genealogia Christi, and the other in Joachim of Fiore’s Liber Figurarum. In these representations, or rather ‘figurae’, in the definition of medieval authors, spiritual exegesis of the Bible and symbolic reading of liturgical times and history are connected. Through these considerations we can see that in the 12th century there is no opposition between ‘ratio’ and symbolism, and that diagrams are the most appropriate medium in which we can appreciate the concordance of this two fundamental items