Evan A. Gatti, associate professor of art history, presented "Episcopus 'al Fresco': Episcopal Imagery in the Painted Programs of North Italy at the turn of the Millennium" at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, England on July 3, 2013.
Gatti’s paper was included in a session called Shaping Episcopal Ideology: Relics, Images, and Books co-sponsored by EPISCOPUS: The Society for the Study of the Secular Clergy in the Middle Ages and Conventus: problems of religious communal life in the High Middle Ages. Focused on a portrait of Poppo of Aquileia (1019-1045) included in the apse of the Basilica in Aquileia, the paper presented the bishop as a skilled negotiator. Bridging Aquileia’s past to its contested present, Poppo is included beside the city’s apostolic founder St. Mark, saints of local and clerical importance, the imperial family, and a rare image of the Virgin and Child in Majesty. This paper is part of a larger book project that looks at frescoes and illuminated manuscripts from Northern Italy as they relate to the medieval bishop.