«L'usura peccato assente o dissimulato nei purgatori del secolo XIII? Un percorso tra fonti iconiche e fonti scritte»

In the otherworld’s visions written in XII-XIII Centuries the usury is an absent sin, whereas in the Visio Pauli, the founding text of western visiones, the usurers are expressly punished by eating their tongues. On the other side, we found stable artistic portrayal of the usury’s punishment in the Romanic Cathedrals: the usurer/avaricious hangs with a bag. This topic representation changes about on XIV Century, when, especially the Italian Painters portray usurers condemned to swallow money or fused gold. The iconography of the usury’s punishment seems to include others sins contiguous to usury: calumny and envy. Hence the iconography can disclose a galaxy of sins disguising the usury also in the written otherworld visions of XII-XIII Centuries.