Sebbene il colore sia conditio sine qua non per percepire gli oggetti secondo il pensiero antico la sua importanza negli studi archeologici e storico artistici è stata sottovalutata fino al XX secolo.
Le recenti innovazioni scientifiche nella diagnostica dei beni culturali hanno permesso un incremento qualitativo e quantitativo degli studi sul colore per il periodo classico e tardo medievale. Meno esplorato rimane il periodo di transizione della Tarda Antichità e del primo Medioevo, cruciale per lo sviluppo della storia culturale del colore nelle epoche successive.
Articolato in due parti, il libro si propone, in un primo tempo, di esplorare sotto il profilo cromatico vari supporti della cultura figurativa tardo antica per cercare di cogliere l’eventuale sviluppo di una cultura cromatica propria del periodo in esame. Nella seconda parte si affrontano le problematiche relative al colore in architettura, considerando l’evoluzione dello spazio cromatico e della sua percezione attraverso lo studio di una serie di cantieri di scavo, restauro e studio che lo rivelano e lo interpretano.
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Although colour was considered to be essentially for the perception of objects in ancient thought, its importance in archaeological and art-historical studies was underestimated until the 20th century.
Recent scientific innovations in cultural heritage diagnostics have enabled a qualitative and quantitative increase in colour studies for the Classical and late medieval periods. Less well explored remains the transitional period of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, crucial for the development of the cultural history of colour in subsequent eras.
Divided into two parts, firstly the book aims to explore the chromatic profile of various media in Late Antique visual culture, attempting to grasp the possible development of a distinct chromatic culture. The second part addresses issues related to colour in architecture, considering the evolution of chromatic space and its perception through a series of excavation, restoration, and research projects that reveal and interpret it.
Elisabetta Neri, an archaeologist and archaeometrist, is an associate researcher at UMR Orient&Méditerranée in Paris and a MCF at Sorbonne University. She was a Marie Curie fellow at the University of Liège (2020-2022) and served as a tenure-track researcher at the University of Florence (2022-2025), where she led the Colour Concept project, which is the origin of this book. She has authored around 200 publications focused on ancient and medieval decoration, city and countryside topography, and late antique religious phenomena. She has taught archaeology and the history of classical and post-classical art at various Italian (Milan, Pavia) and French (Sorbonne University, Paris-Nanterre) universities. Between 2014 and 2018, she taught Roman history (University of Cergy-Pontoise) and Byzantine history (Sorbonne University). She is an elected member of the Ambrosian Academy and has won the Maccabruni Prize (2012), the Saint-Augustin Prize (2025), and an FIS Consolidator project called Color2Code (2025).
Paolo Liverani is a full professor of Ancient Topography at the University of Florence. Previously, from 1986 to 2005, he was head of the Department of Classical Antiquities at the Vatican Museums. He is a member of several academies, including the National Academy of the Lincei, the Academia Europaea, the German Archaeological Institute, the National Society of Antiquaries of France, and the Archaeological Institute of America. He has authored over 350 publications and specializes in Roman topography, late antiquity, and ancient polychromy. Regarding the latter, notable works include the exhibition he curated, I colori del Bianco (Vatican Museums 2004), and the organization of two international roundtables on ancient polychromy (Florence 2015; Rome 2022).
Fulvio Cervini is a full professor of Medieval Art History at the University of Florence. From 1999 to 2005, he worked at the Superintendency for the Historical, Artistic and Ethno-anthropological Heritage of Piedmont, handling territorial protection in the provinces of Alessandria and Verbania, and directing the Royal Armoury in Turin. Among his publications are the books The Portals of the Cathedral of Genoa and European Gothic (Florence, 1993), The Trivulzio Candelabrum (Cinisello Balsamo, 2000), Romanesque Liguria (Milan, 2002). He has recently curated the exhibitions Milleduecento (Matelica, 2018), Sculpted Alessandria (Alessandria, 2018-19), Federico da Montefeltro and Gubbio (Gubbio, 2022, in collaboration with other scholars), and Precious Alessandria (Alessandria, 2024).
