The fresco cycle at the Palazzo della Ragione reveals the personalities, occupations, and actions of the citizens of Padua not as the products of chance, but as particular instantiations of the influence of celestial bodies. The cycle is the most encyclopedic visualization of astrological knowledge produced in late medieval Italy, yet despite its extraordinary richness, the frescoes remains marginal within the field of late medieval Italian painting. Indeed, the cycle poses serious methodological difficulties: originally painted by Giotto di Bondone between ca. 1309 and 1312, the cycle was repainted and expanded after a fire in 1420. In this talk, Anna Majeski argues that we should consider the relationship between the two versions of the cycle within a larger history of astrological imagery and their evolving political and social function. In addition, she positions the frescoes in relation to a new form of astrological imagery that uses astrology as a framework for ordering the social body.

Anna Majeski is the Donald and Maria Cox/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize Fellow in Medieval Studies (year one of a two-year fellowship) at the American Academy in Rome and PhD candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

The event will be held in English.