La rappresentazione dello spazio architettonico nel Medioevo

The medieval architecture presents aspects and characteristics that clearly distinguish them from other architectures that preceded and followed. This is manifest from the point of view of both formal and visual, and structural and constructive. The representation, coeval with architecture, which we received in pictorial images, is manifested by a figurative language difficult to interpret. The characteristics of medieval architecture are closely related, connected, interdependent with the universe cultural, social, political, economic, that has produced them. It seems obvious that these two worlds, which are constructed space and the graphical representation, are nothing but two aspects of the same reality, which is the conception of space peculiar to medieval civilization. It can be deduced that the key to interpret a particular aspect of this universe (in this case, the spatial entity which is the architecture, or the appearance projective that is its two-dimensional graphic representation), can be searched in the one, in the other, or both, the most significant components of the universe. The study focuses on the reading of the paintings that appear peculiar to illustrate and document the principles, the methods, the devices used by medieval artists to represent architectural space, regardless of the greater or lesser intrinsic artistic importance of the pictorial work. The investigation is centered in the time period covering the last three centuries of the medieval period to the dawn of the Renaissance. ln these images rarely architecture is seen as an end in itself, but it almost always appears in a narrative context. The story, graphic and pictorial expression, overcomes the widespread illiteracy and, through pictures, assumes great power over the senses and the spirit of medieval man. The Church knowingly makes use of the representation to instruct him and train him. Therefore, the symbolism presides in the art and, in particular, the architecture in which, for example, the temple is first of all a symbolic structure; alteration of its forms helps to make them lead to the intrinsic meaning. In this context also the color becomes symbolic suggesting a system of values directly related to the oral tradition. We are therefore in the presence, in the narrative iconography, in addition to the contemporary vision of the inside - outside of the architectural space, even in the contemporary account of the event and its exposure, which follows the typical structure of the narrative report. All this may seem absurd to our modern eyes heirs of the Renaissance, but if we pause for a moment to grasp the deep meaning of these images, will alert all the richness of representation that is in them, and we realize what immense potential of visual and emotional communication is capable this seemingly strange and ingenuous system of representation. The works, which we have received, translate into a real message that you must try to analyze its components in order to get closer to the understanding of this fascinating human fact that is the medieval architecture.