Sul valore simbolico della pietra nelle architetture religiose medievali: casistica piemontese con confronti extraterritoriali

At the end of the 12th century, Benedetto Antelami obtains the supply of Verona Red Limestone directly from the cave for the Baptistery of Parma. This does not abide by the medieval building custom of using materials from nearby sites, to reduce the costs. Therefore, the chosen lithotype takes on a symbolic primigenial value, before being sculpted by the magister, thus evoking other meanings for the community to which the work was destined. A stone from a distant source witnesses the prestige of the client, who takes on the costs of the supply and ensures its arrival to the building site. The Parma case traces a digression within the signification process of stone. This topic is addressed by proposing the analysis of a few religious buildings in the centre of Piedmont dating back to XI-XIII centuries, through an interdisciplinary method based on the history of the territory, architecture and petrography. Thanks to the identification of similarities, such as building techniques in alternating bands in locations which were far from one another at the time, the due extraterritorial comparisons are made.