Tra  Oriente e  Occidente : riflessioni su un dipinto inedito già nella collezione dei Marchesi d'Invrea (Varazze)

A series of photos preserved in the archive of Liguria's Superintendence of Cultural Heritage records an unusual object, namely a painting that displays a mixture of Byzantine and Gothic elements. While the shape of the panel and its iconographic program, which presents a full cycle of the Dodekaorton, are "Greek" and stylistic features indicate that it was made by a Byzantine painter early in the fourteenth century, the wooden frame recalls Gothic Latin features. The juxtaposition suggests that the painting was made in an area where both Eastern and Western artistic influences coexisted and were expressed in a likely Western devotional context. The icon was most likely made for a church in Liguria, which links it to the complex phenomenon of Genoese Byzantinism. It is this historical contextualization that enables us to understand the meaning of the painting's hybrid character.