Penso, vedo e dimostro: il ritratto del committente nelle pale d'altare. Il caso genovese in età moderna

This essay explores for the first time the inclusion of the donor within the sacred context of the altarpiece in the area of Genoa from the end of the fifteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth. Through the exemplification of case studies different aspects are studied. In the firts place, the transformations dictated between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by the circulation of Flemish models, favouring the elimination of a donor of minuscule proportions compared with the sacred figures. In the second place, the practices dictated by the Counter-Reformation climate whereby, albeit in the absence of a specific theorisation, the portraits within a sacred context is assimilated to a mystical experience of visualisation.