Interchanges and circularity of models: the case of late medieval cave paintings in the sanctuary of San Michele at Le Grottelle di Padula. This is the title of the exceptional research and study work edited by Dr. Eleonora Chinappi and published in Venezia Arti, the art history magazine of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

We read in the abstract:

The recent restoration of the partially unpublished late medieval paintings of the sanctuary of San Michele in Padula has allowed us to examine the pictorial texts and their context. These include isolated panels, devotional aedicules and painted altars in the core of the sanctuary and in the atrium, including narrative scenes rich in lively stylistic and compositional solutions expressed through languages ​​of popular intonation.

Although the hermitage, then sanctuary, represents by definition an isolated place, it reveals an inverse tendency to openness, a nature that has proven to be particularly permeable to allogenic elements over the centuries. From this perspective, the paintings in question are interesting for a series of reflections, which concern the exchanges and circulation of models. The final results of these analyses offer an authentic fragment regarding the figurative culture of the Regnum.

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