Resumen de Visual Hagiography and its Context: The Narrative of the Shrine of San Donato
A discussion of the relationship between the iconography of an extensive narrative of San Donato's life depicted in the reliefs of the Arca di San Donato at Arezzo Cathedral in Arezzo, Italy, and the cult of the patron saint and civic religion in the late-medieval commune of Arezzo. The narrative of the reliefs depicts Donato as the special apostle and protector of Arezzo, where he had founded a church. Within the very complex model of sainthood it offers, he is presented according to the traditional figure of the bishop saint in, among other things, his ability to preach and convert, while traditional aspects of sainthood are reworked to communicate innovative content related to his civic patronage. The special patronage he exercised over Arezzo constitutes the basis of the local civic cult, in which the saint represents the seat of political authority that spiritually grants the communal institutions their legitimacy. The case of the Arca shows that the meaning of visual hagiographical narratives needs to be interpreted through an accurate reconstruction of the historical context of their creation and the study of their “function.”
