Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti e l’interesse per l’arte bizantina, tra riflessione critica e insegnamento.

This study offers an in-depth exploration of Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti's enduring intellectual interest in Byzantine art, a recurring yet often hidden theme that permeates his career as a critic, editor, and teacher. Grounded in the methodology of the Viennese School (Riegl, Wickhoff) and characterized by a rejection of Longhi's historiographical constraints, Ragghianti's approach is reconstructed through a meticulous analysis of unpublished correspondence with leading Byzantinists such as Sergio Bettini, Giuseppe Galassi, Otto Demus, and André Grabar. The research reveals a scholar who actively cultivated international networks to reevaluate Byzantine formal languages ​​as revolutionary tools for understanding the evolution of Western art. The article also explores Ragghianti's diverse scholarly output, highlighting his ability to identify Byzantine echoes in unexpected contexts, from court celebrations in Ingres's work to Jan van Eyck's "crystalline" landscapes. A significant portion of the analysis is devoted to Ragghianti's sophisticated critical parallels, particularly the connection between Paul Cézanne's spatial inversions and the "reverse perspective" of late antique and Byzantine mosaics. Furthermore, the study examines Ragghianti's pedagogical rigor, as evidenced by his inclusion of the doctrinal canons of the Council of Trullo (692) regarding the representation of Christ and his detailed attention to the "Byzantine mine" of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome. A final, innovative section analyzes Ragghianti's "critofilms," with particular attention to "The Art of Money in the Late Empire" (1958). The study highlights Ragghianti's pioneering use of cinematic "crossfades," a visual tool he employed to demonstrate the transition from Roman realism to Byzantine abstraction, particularly through the evocative physiognomic-formal transition between the portraits of Empress Theodora and her widow Turtura. Through the synthesis of archival sources, formalist criticism, and audiovisual experimentation, this research demonstrates how Ragghianti elevated Byzantine aesthetics to a fundamental component of a universal and inclusive history of human creativity.