Mario D'Onofrio (Minturno, 21 February 1943 - Rome, 1 June 2025) graduated in Literature in 1969 from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” with Géza de Francovich, discussing a thesis entitled The Cathedral of Old Caserta. In the same year, he enrolled in the School of Advanced Studies in Art History at the same university and graduated.
In 1973, he was awarded a two-year scholarship at the University of Bonn, financed by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which enabled him to begin his research on Carolingian art, the results of which would also be included in the monograph Rome and Aachen (1983).
In 1974, at the then Institute of Art History at the Sapienza University of Rome, he began his long academic career, first as a full assistant to the chair of Medieval Art History.
The beginnings of his scientific activity are marked by the publication of important essays and monographs: The churches of Dvin (1973), the result of the project on Armenian architecture directed by Géza de Francovich and financed by the CNR, The Cathedral of Old Caserta (1974) and the volume Campania (1981), co-signed with Valentino Pace for the series Romanesque Italy.
In 1984 he was appointed associate professor, in 2000 extraordinary professor and then full professor of Medieval Art History at the Department of Art History of the Faculty of Humanities at La Sapienza University, where he served as Director between 2002 and 2008.
At the same time, from the early 1990s until 2008, he also collaborated actively with the Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples, where he taught History of Medieval Art of European Countries and then History of Medieval Art.
During these fruitful decades, southern Italy remained at the centre of his scientific interests, directed in particular to the study of the abbey of Montecassino and Romanesque cathedrals, to which he reserved numerous fundamental essays. From these premises, in the context of the European Centre for Norman Studies, of which he was one of the founding members (1991), he developed the idea for the exhibition The Normans. People of Europe: 1030-1200, held in Rome in 1994.
Like the studies on the South, a constant in his scholarly production is the Roman Middle Ages, as shown by the works dedicated to the figure of Pope Nicholas III and the Lateran Patriarchate, the exhibition organised on the occasion of the Jubilee of 2000 Romei and Jubilees. The Medieval Pilgrimage to St. Peter's (350-1350), volumes the Reworking Antiquity in the Middle Ages (2003) e The artistic patronage of the popes in Rome in the Middle Ages (2016), edited by him.
The year 2000 opens with the exhibition The Wings of God. Messengers and Winged Warriors between East and West, curated together with Marco Bussagli and held at the Castello Svevo in Bari. This marked the start of an intense season of conferences of an international nature, starting with the one dedicated to Sculpture of the Norman Age between England and the Holy Land. Historiographical issues (2001). In 2006, he promoted the international conference Adolfo Venturi and Art History Today, organised as part of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the scholar's birth.
During this period he devoted himself to writing the monograph Spring and nobility. The figure of May in the Middle Ages (2005), a prelude to other studies dedicated to iconographic themes, including Giotto and the wedding procession at the Scrovegni (2009) e The camera picta murals in the Caetani Palace in Fondi (2016).
In 2013, after training generations of students and art historians, his academic activity came to an end. The scientific one continues unceasingly and fruitfully, as confirmed by the international conferences promoted and organised together with Manuela Gianandrea: Funds in the Middle Ages (2013) e Medieval Gaeta and its Cathedral (2016).
For his high scientific and cultural merits, he was awarded the title of Officier of the Ordre du Mérite Culturel of the Principality of Monaco, received the Capo Circeo European Prize and the Gold Medal International Prize of the Maison des Artistes.
His scientific activity was mainly oriented towards the following research areas:
A. ROMANESQUE IN SOUTHERN ITALY AND NORMAN EUROPE
After the dissertation on The Cathedral of Old Caserta, published with an introduction by Mario Salmi, immediately broadened its study interests to medieval Campania, first by researching individual buildings from the 11th-13th centuries, then by framing the regional Romanesque in the synthesis work Campania, co-authored by V. Pace. Then the study was extended to the whole of Southern Italy, culminating in further essays on significant buildings (from the abbey of Montecassino to the cathedral of Salerno, from the cathedral of Anglona to the so-called Tomb of Rotari in Montesantangelo, from the cathedral of Aversa to the unfinished Venosa). It is in this direction that the investigation into the artistic production of the Norman period has matured, which has been included in the catalogue of the exhibition The Normans people of Europe, and in a comparative essay between the art of southern Italy and that of the Anglo-Norman regions.
B. ARMENIAN ARCHITECTURE
At the same time, he turned his attention to Armenian medieval architecture, having been called to join a C.N.R. research group headed by Géza De Francovich in 1971. After several study missions in the territory of historical Armenia, he published a volume on the churches of the ancient capital, Dvin, and two essays on the residential palaces of the 5th-6th centuries.
C. CAROLINGIAN ART
In the following years, facilitated in his research in Germany by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, he devoted himself to Carolingian art, whose relations with the models of late antique and early Christian Rome he highlighted through an interdisciplinary method in the volume Rome and Aachen.
D. ART AND PILGRIMAGE
Art and the phenomenon of pilgrimage suggested a further line of research to him. His contributions in this area, including the exhibition catalogue Romei and Jubilees. The medieval pilgrimage to the tomb of St Peter, 350-1350, They investigated the main shrines of Christian Europe and the events connected to them, grasping their common artistic, religious and historical-cultural aspects in general.
E. MEDIEVAL ART IN ROME AND THE PATRONAGE OF THE POPES
The study on the artistic patronage of Niccolò III Orsini, the synthesis on Roman art and the overview of architectural production in the Rome of the popes prompted him to investigate other Roman topics such as, for example, the palace of the popes (Patriarchio) at the Lateran. This was followed by a larger publishing project, which he coordinated, on the artistic patronage of the popes in Rome in the Middle Ages.
F. SCULPTURE OF THE NORMAN AGE AND CASSINESE SCULPTURE
A particular line of research, prompted by previous studies on the Normans, is the Norman-era sculpture found in the territories of conquest and beyond. This is attested by the International Conference on Norman Age Sculpture between England and the Holy Land. Historiographical issues, He edited the publication of the Proceedings. At the same time, in the wake of these results, he started a systematic survey of medieval sculpture in the abbey of Montecassino.
G.REWORKING THE ANTIQUE
Still on the subject of medieval sculpture, he drew the attention of scholars to the reworking of antiquity in the Middle Ages, i.e. those technical and formal interventions aimed at modifying in some way the original configuration of an ancient artefact not only according to precise practical requirements, but also in relation to the cultural ideological motivations of the time that, together with reuse, imposed the re-culturation of that artefact.
H. GIOTTO
With the first years of the new millennium, his study interests shifted to Giotto, whose symbolic values he sought to focus on with regard to certain iconographic choices expressed at the Scrovegni in Padua - on the wall of the Judgement - in the presentation of the biblical heavens with their respective thematic implications and - in the scene of the Wedding Procession - in the detail of the “maio” depicted on the balcony of Mary's house in Nazareth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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