In recent decades, art historians have stressed the benefits of analysing medieval images and their contents within their specific context and, in particular, have underlined the importance of their visual impact on contemporary beholders to determine their functions and specific meanings. In other words, in the analysis of a medieval image, it has become fundamental to verify where it was collocated and whom it was aimed at, and which practical reasons it was made for (its visibility, fruition, and usability). As a result, new perspectives have been opened, creating an active historiographical debate about one of the most fascinating and studied iconographic themes of the Middle Ages: the royal divine coronation. Hence, there has been a complete rethinking of the function and meaning of this iconographic theme. For instance, the divine coronation of the king might not symbolically allude to his earthly power but to the devotional hope of receiving the crown of eternal life in the afterworld. Moreover, in the specific case of some Ottonian and Salian illuminations, historiographers have proposed that their function was not only celebrative (a manifesto of the political ideologies that legitimized power), but also liturgical and religious. This paper places this topic in a historiographical framework and provides some preliminary methodological considerations in order to stimulate new research.

This paper analyses the royal images and the sacred elements; or rather, it studies the pictures of the kings of Sicily in Norman-Swabian and Angevin-Aragonese period (1130- 1343) produced inside the court with an official intent, and it examines their meaning regarding the royal sacrality of the king there represented: in other words, the relationship of the sovereign with the sacred element. In this way, it will achieve, regarding this matter, a different position in comparison with the previous interpretations given by historiography.

This is the text of the presentation “Charles V and the Fury at the Prado Museum: The Power of the King’s Body as Image” at the International Conference “El poder del la imagen en el Museo del Prado” (Madrid, December 12th-13th, 2017). By analysing the bronze sculpture Charles V and the Fury (Leone and Pompeo Leoni, 1549-1564. Prado Museum, Madrid), this paper aims to underline the necessity to study royal images in their context (with particular attention to their visibility) to understand better their social use and function. This type of methodological approach can be without any doubt very useful for the historiography in the overall analysis of the leader’s portrait and can stimulate new researches for the future and reformulate some of the traditional conceptions on this topic.

La critica storiografica ha spesso visto, forse un po’ troppo entusiasticamente, la rappresentazione dell’imperatore Federico II di Svevia in una cospicua serie di manufatti artistici. Passando in rassegna presunte e reali raffigurazioni dello Svevo nella sfragistica, nella numismatica, nella glittica, nell’oreficeria, nella scultura, nella pittura e nella miniatura, in questo saggio si fa lo Status quaestionis sulla ritrattistica fridericiana cercando di delineare quali furono le immagini prodotte all’interno della sua corte e su sua stessa iniziativa, in altre parole le sue raffigurazioni ufficiali. Giungeremo così, dopo un percorso ad esclusione che lascerà ben pochi superstiti, a rintracciare quei ritratti che lo Stupor mundi volle dare di sé e che ancora oggi sono conservati.

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