Main description (English)

The article proposes a study of visual communication and the creation of memory through rites and ex-voto works of art provoked by the plague epidemics in Rome in the modern period. This analysis of the power of images emphasizes the eloquence of the symbolic image that acts: offering gratitude for the end of the plague and seeking to affect the future through the intercession of the invoked saint. It relies on a corpus developed through a survey of a sample of Roman churches — San Pietro in Vincoli, San Biagio and San Carlo ai Cati- nari, San Rocco all’Augusteo, Sant’Ambrogio e San Carlo al Corso, Sant’Andrea delle Fratte, Santa Maria in Campitelli, San Marcello al Corso, Santa Maria della Concezione dei Capuccini, and Santa Maria del Carmine alle Tre Cannelle — in search of works by Guido Reni, Nicolas Poussin, Antoniazzo Romano, Giacinto Brandi, Francesco Cozza, Pietro da Cortona, and Carlo Rainaldi, and of objects used during the epidemics. The work of art becomes heritage.