Proefschrift Göttingen.

Genre théâtral généralement méconnu, les sacre rappresentazioni naissent à Florence, à la moitié du XVe siècle, sous l’impulsion des Dominicains de Saint-Marc. Les buts de ce théâtre sont d’abord pédagogiques. Les enfants sont, à cette époque, au centre d’intérêts civils et religieux importants. Il s’agit d’en faire à la fois de bons citoyens et de bons chrétiens. La pratique du théâtre était, pour saint Antonin, le prieur de Saint-Marc, un moyen ludique de faire acquérir aux enfants la connaissance des Écritures et de méditer avec eux sur l’exemplarité des protagonistes. Les auteurs de sacre rappresentazioni sont néanmoins des laïcs : artisans ou fonctionnaires de l’État, leurs intérêts privés et leurs amitiés les amènent, dans la plupart des cas, à fréquenter les Médicis. Les Médicis et Saint-Marc : les sacre rappresentazioni évoluent et, d’une certaine manière, dépendent de ces deux pôles du pouvoir. Ils vont conditionner leur développement ; d’eux va dépendre aussi leur passage de forme de communication orale, fortement liée à l’occasion et à sa représentation, à succédané de littérature pieuse, destiné à être lu. La sacra rappresentazione a longtemps suscité le désintérêt et le mépris de la critique. Pourtant, elle constitue un filtre irremplaçable pour pénétrer au cœur du Quattrocento florentin, au cœur des esprits, des modes de pensée et de vie d’une société qui semble s’être stratifiée entre ses lignes. / The sacre rappresentazioni [a theatrical genre, generally unfamiliar] are born in Florence, in the mid-fifteenth century, led by the Dominicans of San Marco. The purposes of this theatre are primarily educational. Children, at the time, are in the centre of important civil and religious interests. They must become both good citizens and good Christians. Practicing theatre was, from the point of vue of St Antoninus [the prior of San Marco’s convent], a fun way for children to acquire knowledge of the Scriptures and to meditate on the exemplary protagonists. The laymen who composed the sacre rappresentazioni have also in common (in most cases) to be close to the Medici family: they are craftsmen or state officials, and their private interests or their friendship led them to frequent the great men of the family. The Medici and the San Marco's convent: the sacre rappresentazioni evolve and, in some way, depend on these two poles of power. They condition their development; their transition from an oral form strongly bound to the occasion and its representation, to an erastz of pious literature, intended to be read and forgotten will depend on them too. The sacra rappresentazione has long generated the disinterest or contempt of criticism. However, it is an irreplaceable filter into the heart of the Florentine Quattrocento, in the heart of the society spirit, of modes of life, modes of think that seems to have stratified between the lines.

This dissertation analyzes fifteenth-century representations of the Last Supper that were painted on the walls of monastic refectories located in and around the city of Florence, with a focus on the viewer’s multi-sensory experience of the paintings in their spaces of reception and in relation to theatrical performance. The project explores Domenico Ghirlandaio’s innovative approach to the composition and its relationship with the refectory (or dining hall) through compositional changes, particularly with his Last Supper at the convent of Ognissanti (c. 1480-1481), that marked an important pivot in the presentation of this familiar iconography by demonstrating a greater awareness of and engagement with the viewer. These pictorial innovations relate to the performance of devotional plays (sacre rappresentazioni) in fifteenth-century Florence and inspired the construction of sacred mountain sanctuaries (sacri monti) composed of multi-media sculptural groups arranged in devotional chapels. My dissertation illustrates how each of these modes of representation—painting, performance, and multi-media sculpture—reacted to and altered their spaces of reception, involving their viewers as active participants in immersive, sensorial experiences. The first chapter explores the origins and development of the monumental Last Supper frescoes in Florence’s monastic refectories, a tradition known as i cenacoli fiorentini. I discuss the iconography, provide a brief catalogue of the paintings, and observe how Ghirlandaio moved the standard composition from reinforcing the two-dimensionality of the refectory wall and toward an immersive experience that encouraged a sense of association between the painted scene and the space of reception. In the second chapter, I argue that, in addition to quattrocento techniques of pictorial illusionism, the dynamic performances of sacre rappresentazioni informed the interest in activating the viewer’s emotional engagement with the Last Supper fresco. Chapter three more directly involves the space of the refectory in my analysis, as I explore how the various functions and multi-sensory conditions of the refectory environment enhanced the performative and immersive qualities of the cenacolo painting. Finally, the fourth chapter extends my discussion to the sacri monti pilgrimage sites located in San Vivaldo and Varallo, Italy. I draw comparisons between the three-dimensional chapel environments and the Last Supper refectory frescoes. By placing these works in dialogue with one another, I observe new insights in the canonical cenacoli images and engage the sacri monti with the broader field of Renaissance art history. / 2024-06-24T00:00:00Z