Sacrificio e violenza sacra nella propaganda crociata di età avignonese: Marino Sanudo e l’immagine della Terra Santa

Abstract

After reviewing the scholarly debate on the sacralization of war and the symbolic centrality of Jerusalem in the notion of crusade, this essay focuses on the propagandistic elaboration of the Holy Land image in the context of the debates of the Avignon period, paying specific attention to the works of Marino Sanudo. In this context, the temporal distance from the first crusades and the need to assert continuity with their tradition enhance the recovery of the image of Jerusalem, the place of Christ’s sacrifice and of the crucesignatus’s military and penitential itinerary.