Tra religione ed Estetismo: il Compianto di Niccolò Dell’Arca con gli occhi di D’Annunzio

In three of his works, D’Annunzio talks about his visit to the Compianto sul Cristo Morto by Niccolò Dell’Arca, sculpted in the second part of the 15th century and preserved in Bologna. The aim of this paper is to analyse these passages in order to show how his description of this work of art, whose subject is inspired by the Gospels, combines classical reminiscences and his modern sensibility. Religion and Aestheticism – which finds expression in literature, art and music – coexist in a mystical vision meant to describe the writer’s initiation to music.