Evan A. Gatti, associate professor of art history, presented "From Aosta to Aquileia: An Art of Northern Italy or Bishops at the Border?" on Oct. 6 as part of the Visiting Artist Series at the State University of New York-Plattsburgh.
Gatti’s talk investigated a series of early 11th century north Italian fresco fragments and considers their connections as part of narrative of borderlands. Important territories along the road to Rome, the towns of northern Italy were caught in a struggle between the aspirations of German kings hoping to be crowned Roman emperors and the desires of the landed nobility and local populations.
The frescoes that remain from this period reveal a nimble iconography that while disparate in style and composition forms a meta-narrative that recognizes the significance of being located “in between” along the boundaries of medieval and modern-day Italy.