Framing the Miraculous: the devotional functions of perspective in Italian Renaissance tabernacle desingn

• Autores: Paul Davies
• Localización: Art history: journal of the Association of Art Historians, ISSN 0141-6790, Vol. 36, Nº. 5, 2013, págs. 898-921
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This essay considers the devotional functions of perspective in Italian fifteenth-century tabernacle design, asking why the perspectival backdrop became such a ubiquitous motif, especially in tabernacles designed to house the Eucharist, relics or miracle-working images. It maintains that the principal function of perspective was not an attempt to represent the natural world but rather a means of revealing the heavenly one; and it identifies five devotional functions associated with perspective, namely "focusing devotion", "revealing the hidden", "enhancing the size of the holy", "distancing the heavenly", and "radiating holiness". These functions, so the essay contends, were to have an impact beyond the micro-architectural world of liturgical furnishings and go on to influence the use of perspective in largescale architecture as is shown through the analysis of two works by Donato Bramante: Santa Maria presso San Satiro and his celebrated Tempietto.