l simbolo "moralizzato" cristiano nei monumenti alla memoria (Parte II): i modelli architettonici nella storia

This second article concludes the author's study of memorial monuments by considering the decisive role played in their historical metamorphosis by architectural models. These can he identified as archetypes which, through the successive canonical ages of Western civilisation, distinguish the motifs and iconography of the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans and of Christianity in the broadest sense, up to and including post Illuminist paradigms. The analysis leads to the ascertaining of a metahistorical persistence of architectural and figurative models - as described by H. Focillon - until the mid-20th century, albeit in a contextual transformation of continually altered symbolic values. Such alterations are indeed intrinsic to the meaning but not to the medium: man is always represented in his epic, saintly or heroic personae through painting and sculpture combined with architecture. The contemporary era, on the other hand, seems close to oriental models in omitting to depict itself on its own monuments, omitting, too, in the process the high ethical and moral value that such defections have for the education of peoples. References - H. von HESBERG, Monumenta, Milano 1992 - E. PANOFSKY, Tomb sculture / Its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini, New York 1964 - H. COLViN, Architecture and the after-life, New Haven and London, 1991 - M. PETRANTONI (a cura di), Il Monumentale di Milano - Il primo Cimitero della Libertà 1866-1992, Milano 1992