"Il mosaico di Ganagobie e lo spazio liturgico cluniacense. Il significato dell’iconografia pavimentale e l’eredità classica nel romanico"

The mosaic floor of the Cluniac monastery of Ganagobie, together with that of Saint-André-de-Rosans, is an extraordinary example of 12th century Romanesque mosaic art. The decoration, limited to the apse area, presents us a lively world populated by knights, animals and monsters framed by vegetal and geometric patterns, gathering a series of iconographic suggestions related to chivalric romance, to bestiaries, to late antique and eastern art. The analysis of the work allows us to undertake a series of considerations about the role of the work related to the space in which it is inserted and its link with the Cluniac monastic liturgy. The mosaic floor not only reflects the inclination of the monastic order towards the decorative arts, it is also a window on the vision that the monks had of the world, on their scientific, literary, theological knowledge and on their moral values. The reprise of oriental textile art in the mosaic is evident, resulting from the circulation of precious objects that occurs through trade and pilgrimages to the Holy Land and beyond; this allows us to know what artistic exchanges occured in the Mediterranean at the time, where the East becomes a source of inspiration through travel stories and the circulation of artefacts. Finally, the intention is to highlight the role of monasticism in the conservation of the classical heritage, also through the use of late antique iconography, and what was the meaning that the Cluniac order might give it in the 12th century in relation to what it intended to communicate