Classicismo in versione sacra: le pitture murali di San Pietro a Tuscania

The subject of our analysis is the system of decoration framing the Romanesque paintings of the church of San Pietro in Tuscania (Viterbo). Echoes of classicism and late antiquity pervade the painted architectural elements and the ornamental frames of the paintings. Single decorative motifs evoke the refinery of the classical period of the 1^st and 2^nd centuries A.D., and are inserted in an ornamental context seemingly designed to imitate the decorative painted marble and architectural elements of late antiquity. These echoes of late antiquity were probably in part influenced by the Roman paintings of the Romanesque or pre-Romanesque period. If we give a general look at the paintings, however, the recovery of classicism seems to be part of a historical context in which th central theme of the Deity is paramount and it is therefore hard to pick out humanistic features when the sacred aspect is dominant; except, possibly, in the six lay saints in military attire painted along the base of the apse, the only tangible sign of the recognition of sacred dignity applied to figures not directly part of the religious world.