Un approccio di cultura visuale all’arte di Ravenna fra Tarda Antichità e Medioevo

With its Late Antique and Medieval monuments, Ravenna is still an everlasting source of inspiration for scholarly research. This paper observes it from a different point of view, considering its mosaics, architecture, and liturgical space with an approach of visual culture. After a short introduction that explains the methodology and scope of this article, three case studies are explored in a broad perspective, analyzing visual strategies and untangling the communication codes utilized in three churches. It will appear that, if examined with an approach of visual culture, the liturgical space was created to convey messages from the part of the patrons, messages that are otherwise difficult to understand. In other words, the apses of Ravenna Late-Antique churches hold subtle and unique significances related to the prestige of the local Church and the bishop’s role in the Christian community of the Empire, something that is possible to appreciate only with a visual approach to the liturgical space.