Ordinare il mondo. Diagrammi e simboli nelle pergamene di Vercelli

[Autom. eng. transl.] The historical research of the last decades has seen in an ever clearer way the importance and diffusion during the Middle Ages of symbolic schemes and diagrammatic representations. An emblematic case is the collection of diagrams preserved in the parchment scrolls of the Chapter Archive of Vercelli. The volume makes them the object of study, widening the gaze from the simple explanation of them to the research of the models, the authors and the historical circumstances of the production. Far beyond their function as useful schemes for storing data, these figures reveal higher purposes. According to the symbolic modalities proper to that time, the diagrammatic-figurative representations aim to illustrate the order of creation, of the world and of history: to understand it, meditate on it and outline in the light of it possible paths of spiritual and moral growth and ecclesiastical designs, social and political goals for the future