Anaelle Rossi

Anaelle Rossi (France, 1999) is a doctoral student in art history at the Université de Grenoble Alpes and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, under the supervision of Guillaume Cassegrain and Giovanni Careri. Her thesis The Stories of Esther. Judaic traditions and Christian thought in northern Italy (1490-1630) intends to question the representation of the story of the biblical heroine Esther, in order to identify the cultural and political issues that seem to be linked to this motif in modern times. A hermeneutic reading, in which texts and images will be intimately associated, will seek to distinguish from this narrative framework the cultural constants from which the historical and imaginary figure of the Jew will be viewed.

 

During her residency at Villa Medici, Anaelle Rossi will research the work of artist Giovanni Guerra in Rome, depicting the narrative of the Book of Esther. In particular, a painted cycle, present at Villa Medici, whose singularity corresponds to its association with a cycle representing the stories of Joseph. The embodiment of an identity tension in these two Old Testament characters suggests that Esther belongs to a Hebraic imaginary, built on a Christian dialectic. An updated look at Giovanni Guerra’s work in Rome will allow us to deepen the reasoning behind the thesis, as regards the relationship between pictorial and theological questioning, between Catholic and Jewish communities, specific to this iconographic theme.