Manoscritti degli Ab Urbe condita libri di Tito Livio illustrati nel Medioevo

This thesis is dedicated to the illustration of the manuscripts of the Ab Urbe Condita libri (decades I, III and IV) by Livy in the Middle Ages. The work of this Paduan historian has always been at the centre of numerous philological research studies, aimed at the reconstruction of textual transmission, but has received less recognition in the field of historical-artistic studies. For this reason, this thesis intends to offer a comprehensive and systematic study of the medieval illustration of Livy's work, made possible for the first time thanks to the inventory of Latin and vulgarised manuscripts, produced in Italy between the last decades of the 13th century and the late 14th century. This corpus of illustrated manuscripts is analysed from the stylistic point of view to specify the dating and the historical-artistic context of production. Furthermore, this research takes into consideration the text-image relationship, the choice of the depicted themes and the iconographic elaboration which is associated with the figurative culture of the illuminators and to the requests of the clients that influence the conception of illustrative systems.