La processione a Forlì del 1636 in onore della Madonna del Fuoco e gli incroci dei saperi. Il progettista degli apparati

Abstract

«A map with no figure and our woman in the middle» miraculously escaped the fire that had devastated the school-house of the master Lombardino da Ripetrosa in Forli on the night between 4 and 5 February 1428. That night – as we are told by the painter and fifteenth-century chronicler Giovanni di Mastro Pedrino from Forli, pseudonym of Giovanni Merlini – the master’s house burned down entirely, so that «non ne romaxe altro che le mura e una carta con alcuna figura e nostra Donna in mezzo. E perche parve grande miracolo fo tolta dai calonixe de Santa Croxe con reve(re)ncia: e questa fa assa(e) miraculi». We will illustrate the engravings by Floriano Dal Buono for the decorations that in 1637 accompanied Bezzi’s account on the procession of 1636 for the translation of the woodcut with the Madonna del Fuoco into the new chapel of the Forli cathedral and we will propose Giovanni Battista Aleotti as a possible identification for their designer.