L'immagine dell'arte bizantina nella storiografia occidentale di fine '800: il caso dei mosaici del battistero di San Giovanni in Fonte a Napoli

From the end of the nineteenth century on the mosaics of the baptistery of San Giovanni in Fonte have been held to pertain to two different artistic periods. One part was identified as 'Roman' and ascribed to the fourth century, while another, considered less naturalistic, was attributed to a later, Byzantine tradition. Although most of the academe agrees now on dating the decoration to the episcopate of Severus (368–410), the dichotomist 'reading' of the mosaics continues to influence studies on the baptistery. By identifying in late eighteenth-century historiography, more precisely in the 1898–1908 decade, the origin of the two-phases thesis, the present study will underline that the perception was influenced by contemporary ruminations on the nature of Byzantine art and the development of the 'Orient or Rome' debate.