Hic est filius meus dilectus: <I>l’iconografia del Battesimo di Cristo e il Vangelo di San Matteo tra alto e basso medioevo</I>

Abstract

This paper intends to analyze the most significant representations of the Baptism of Christ made between the 3^rd and the 14^th century both in the West and in the Middle East, in the light of the reading of the text of the Gospel of Matthew about the sacred episode and according to other statements, such as the Old Testament passages interpreted as a figure of those of the New Testament, the apocryphal versions of the Gospels, the numerous texts produced by the Fathers of the Church on the subject of the Baptism of Christ, the various legends which arose in regard to the holy event, as well as the stories of pilgrims to the Holy Land and the baptismal liturgical practice itself, which has evolved over the centuries, in order to highlight the different iconographic elements that make up the scene and to reveal which of them are strictly taken from the Gospel and which derive from the influence exercised by written sources of a different nature.