Image and Language.
Italian art history in an international context

The art and architectural history of the Renaissance can only be read today in its variety and contradictions. It is necessary that we discuss it from different geographical, intellectual and methodological points of view. Such critical analysis of established narratives enables us to look differently at the earlier literature and at contemporary methodologies, but also to reflect on current issues and discourses in other fields. Awareness of the need for a comparative historical perspective and a reflection on the origins of our discipline is both crucial, as is the task of interrogating the relationship between the "image" and "languages". This grants full respect to the autonomy of the (material) artefacts and their aesthetic experience, while simultaneously drawing strategies of objectification and detachment into the investigation and shedding light on the emergence of social and discursive spaces.