Mural paintings in Tuscan town of the 14th century. Between elitist consciousness and communal systems of values

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Only a very limited number of mural paintings in urban houses has survived and those that have are often in a poor state of preservation. For this reason in contrast to other corpora of secular painting art history has so far not perceived them autonomously. This thesis wants to show in three case studies (the Casa Datini in Prato, the Canto dei Pecori in Florentine suburb and the Palazzo Galganetti in Colle di Val d’Elsa) to what extent the mural decorations of urban dwellings and their visual particularities are linked to the sociopolitical situation in Tuscan cities of the 14th century. In these frescoes the artists adapt the visual vocabulary of courtly representation as medium of elitist distinction to the functional and representative requirements of the urban city houses in Tuscany. Iconographical models are combined with communal visualization strategies of public pictorial programs, establishing and also communicating communal systems of civic and collective values. The visual results of this amalgamation processes are often ambiguous and little effective. Socially they bridge the gap between the private and the public while they at the same time oscillate between elitist distinction on the one hand and the social need of affiliation to collectivity on the other one. This thesis thus reveals new aspects of pictorial invention in Tuscan visual culture which was until now only analyzed by means of sacral art.