The Agency of Architectural Settings – Invention, Time and Place in Fra Angelico's Nicholas V Chapel

Research Seminar

  • Date: Oct 29, 2019
  • Time: 11:00 AM - 01:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Livia Lupi
  • Location: Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rom
  • Contact: paulinyi@biblhertz.it
The Agency of Architectural Settings – Invention, Time and Place in Fra Angelico's Nicholas V Chapel
Foto © Governatorato dello S.C.V. – Direzione dei Musei
Renaissance artists made extensive use of architecture in their work. By creating striking compositions and highlighting structural and ornamental features, they demonstrated their architectural knowledge and originality. In spite of this, two-dimensional buildings have often been interpreted in purely spatial terms, or as lesser counterparts of built structures - an approach that prevents us from recognising the communicative potential of architectural settings.

This talk discusses the narrative ability of architectural images, focusing on Fra Angelico’s Nicholas V Chapel. It examines the active role of architecture in these frescoes, revealing how it subtly but recognisably articulates time and place, thus addressing the theological and political messages of the chapel. This analysis demonstrates Angelico's awareness of the persuasive abilities of architecture in painting, as well as highlighting the poignancy of two-dimensional buildings beyond the representation of pictorial space.

Livia Lupi is a research fellow at the University of Warwick, where she is completing a book, Painting Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy. She held a fellowship at the Warburg Institute and taught at the University of York and Courtauld Institute.

Scientific Organization: Katharine Stahlbuhk



Web-View
Print Page
Open in new window
Estimated DIN-A4 page-width
Go to Editor View