Forme del processo e figure della verità. Interpretazione retorica del dipinto La Calunnia di Sandro Botticelli

In this paper, the author proposes a rhetorical reading of painting Calumny of Sandro Botticelli, tempera on panel executed between 1494 and 1497 and preserved in the Uffi-zi Gallery in Florence. Recovering classical interpretation of trial in Renaissance culture, Botticelli determines by antithesis the legal value of justice, describing shape of unfair trial and oblivion of truth in judgment. Botticelli uses an ekphrastic technique, typical of Greek culture, and reworks mytholo-gy with modern language. The explanation proceeds according to three methodological levels of investigation about the work analyzed. 1) Analysis of the origin of painting in literary genre of rhetorical ékphrasis in Greek culture and in Renaissance age. 2) Description of iconographic unfair trial, represented by painting, through exegesis of meaning of rhetorical forms, historical context and allegorical figures. 3) Iconological interpretation of painting (in the sense of Erwin Panofsky) such as para-digm of classical in modern age, through definition of eight dialectical oppositions in the representation. In conclusion, the investigation leads to three meanings (historical, cultural and theoret-ical) that can be derived from the work of Botticelli about the concept of classical. In this way, the value of classical is explained by the relationship between truth and trial.