L'architettura dipinta negli affreschi di Giotto e dei giotteschi ad Assisi. Rilievo e interpretazione critica del ciclo delle Storie di San Francesco.

The representation of architectural space in painting has been a focus since Roman times, evolving with advances in perspective, optics, and geometry. After a decline following the fall of the Roman Empire, painted architecture reemerged in the late-communal and signorie periods, moving beyond Byzantine models to achieve autonomous volumetric consistency and interact meaningfully with figures.
Giotto exemplifies this shift, creating spatially coherent buildings that actively contribute to the narrative, often realized as “possible” constructions grounded in plausible proportional, compositional, and structural logic.
This research focuses on the Stories of Saint Francis cycle in the Upper Basilica of Assisi, one of the earliest and most accomplished examples of this approach. Unlike previous scholarship, which emphasized attribution, chronology, or figural analysis, this study examines painted architecture systematically, considering it as an active component of spatial and narrative organization. The research includes theoretical framing, case-study analysis, data acquisition, and the decomposition of the frescoes into analytical layers to investigate modes of spatial construction and the interplay between architecture and narrative.
The findings reveal coherent and deliberate representational strategies in which different spatial solutions coexist as part of a figurative language aimed at perceptual clarity and narrative effectiveness. Methodologically, the study highlights the integration of high-precision digital surveying with graphic-interpretative analysis, providing a replicable model for the study, documentation, and valorization of monumental fresco cycles and cultural heritage.