Golubeva Irina

Coronation of the Virgin by Jacopo Torriti in the apse of Santa-Maria Maggiore (1292–1296). To the question of commissioners and artists in Rome at the end of the 13th century

Abstract

The second half of the 13th century was the time of wide renovation of churches in Rome and other cities of Central Italy. The attributions of these monuments are still under discussion by historians of art. In the last decades, these questions have been studied through the prism of the historical situation and the assessment of commissioners’ infl uence on the creative process. The topic of this article, by contrast, is the personal contribution of the artist to Christian artwork. In the history of Italian duecento, the names of the masters of Roman school — Jacopo Torriti, Philippo Rusuti and Pietro Cavallini — are the most important ones, because they paved the way to the art of the new era, i.e. the Renaissance. These masters creatively reconsidered and refi ned the artistic experience of the past, they appealed to liturgics and theology, made use the full range of painting techniques, the result of which was that they were able able to objectify highly complex concepts in their works. The city of Rome in the late 13th century, with its continued classical tradition and persistent connections with Byzantium, with the high-educated clerical commissioners and their unlimited fi nancial resources, turned out to be exactly that point in time and space where such monuments could appeare. This article provides a historical, iconographic and stylistic analysis of the mosaic composition Coronation of the Virgin, made by Jacopo Torriti in the apse of Santa-Maria Maggiore in 1292– 1296, where such a concept as an “artist-author” or “artist-creator” was perfectly reflected.

Keywords

13th century Italian art, Proto-Renaissance art, medieval art, Jacopo Torriti, Santa Maria Maggiore, Coronation of the Virgin, Roman mosaics

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Information about the author

Golubeva Irina

Student status: Graduate student;
Place of study: St. Petersburg Academy of Arts; 17 Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation;
ORCID: 0000-0003-0983-1292;
Email: igolubeva@yandex.ru.