Un’allegoria antigiudaica agostiniana in contesto francescano. La Croce Vivente di Garofalo all’Ermitage di San Pietroburgo

The aim of this essay is to analyze the reasons why Bernardino Tisi, known as Garofalo, reused the iconographic program of a fresco, created between 1522 and 1523 in the refectory of the Augustinian convent of Sant’Andrea in Ferrara (now in the Pinacoteca Civica in Ferrara), in a canvas which was painted a few years later for the refectory of the observant Franciscan nuns of San Bernardino, also in Ferrara (today in the Hermitage of St. Petersburg). The identification of some small differences between the two paintings and the analysis of the new female Franciscan context can help us to understand the meaning of this iconographic reuse, while some details lost due to the detachment of the fresco, but still legible in the canvas of the Hermitage, allow us to grasp the general meaning of the original figurative program even better.