›versus Ad Picturas‹ – Text/Image Relation in Greek, Latin and Arabic Poetry: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Over the last 30 years, many books, conferences and volumes have been devoted to the relationship between text and image in the Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. But there has been little space for poetic texts, which, in addition to the direct or mediated message, also demand the attention of the analyst through the impact of the intertext of the entire Latin poetic tradition, multiplying the levels of meaning and therefore the possibilities of interpretation. In relation to the recognition of the need to consider texts (mental or written) as sources of inspiration for images, we are now in a position to take a further step by applying to medieval culture the concept of iconotext developed by Liliane Louvel (2018) for modern literature. In this vein, the Versus ad picturas conference therefore aims to contribute to the study of the relationship between the images we now call artistic, painted on walls, fabrics, stained glass or parchments, and the verses that often accompany them materially or ideally, and which are now increasingly recognised as essential to their cultural understanding and social framing, in the hope of bringing us closer to the meaning hidden in their combination and the meaning perceived by the commissioners, executors and viewers of the time.

Michele Cutino, University of Strasbourg, France; Francesco Stella, Università di Siena, Italy.