page_title: Italia turrita
section_title: From the Middle Ages to 18th century
hierarchical_section_title: Italia turrita / History / From the Middle Ages to 18th century
caption_attribution_description: English: image of "Italia turrita"
context_page_description: Italia turrita is the national personification or allegory of Italy, in the appearance of a young woman with her head surrounded by a mural crown completed by towers. It is often accompanied by the Stella d'Italia, from which the so-called Italia turrita e stellata, and by other additional attributes, the most common of which is the cornucopia. The allegorical representation with the towers, which draws its origins from ancient Rome, is typical of Italian civic heraldry, so much so that the wall crown is also the symbol of the cities of Italy.
  Italia turrita, which is one of the national symbols of Italy, has been widely depicted for centuries in the fields of art, politics and literature. Its most classic aspect, which derives from the primordial myth of the Great Mediterranean Mother and which was definitively specified at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries by Cesare Ripa, wants to symbolically convey the royalty and nobility of Italian cities, the abundance of agricultural crops of the Italian peninsula and the shining destiny of Italy.
context_section_description: In the centuries following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Italian peninsula lost its political and administrative unity, shattering into multiple autonomous state. In the early Middle Ages period, the personification of Italy in a turreted woman almost completely disappeared from the collective imagination, limiting itself to appear rarely but without having those distinctive features, such as the walls or the cornucopia, which had so characterized it in Roman times.
  Italia turrita was rediscovered at the beginning of the 14th century, shortly after the Medieval commune, when the first signoria began to be born. From the Middle Ages the allegorical depiction of Italy began to transmit torture and despair: the country, in fact, was no longer the absolute protagonist of those important political and military events that they had characterized ancient Roman history so much, but it was relegated to a simple province of the Holy Roman Empire. 
  The representation continued to be nostalgic of past glories even during the Renaissance and Humanism, as well as during the descents of foreign armies in the Italian Wars of the 16th century. In 1490, Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, had an Italia turrita painted on a medallion of the castle in Piazza Ducale, Vigevano. The Caesaris Astrum appeared again in 1574 on the cover of Historiarium de Regno Italiae, a book written by the historian Carlo Sigonio.
  The first to resume a figure of Italia turrita more similar to that of the ancient age was Cesare Ripa in the 17th century, who describes it, in his Iconologia, as in the sestertius of Antoninus Pius, also combining them with a star that shines above his head : the reason for this association lies in the fact that in ancient Greece Italy was joined by the Star of Venus, being the Italian peninsula located west of Greece. The Star of Venus is in fact visible on the horizon, immediately after sunset, in the west. The Stella d'Italia ("Star of Italy"), which symbolizes the shining destiny of Italy, dating back to ancient Greece, is therefore the oldest national symbol of Italy. Cesare Ripa definitively specified the characteristics of the Italia turrita, characteristics that have come down to us:
  [...] A beautiful woman dressed in a sumptuous dress, and rich with a mantle on top, and sitting on a globe, has crowned the head of towers, and walls, with the right hand she holds a scepter, or an auction, which with the one, and with the other, is shown in the aforementioned Medals, and with the left hand a cornucopia full of different fruits, and beyond that we will do again, having a beautiful star above the head [...]
  — Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, 1603
  In response to the criticisms made by European travelers on the Grand Tour that focused on Italian culture - judged to be retrograde - and on the poverty of the Italians in the face of the country's monumental and artistic wealth, Italian intellectuals of the 18th century they reacted by becoming bearers of a change that led to the birth of less asphyxial movements and richer in cultural ferment. These events also had repercussions on the representation of towered Italy, which became the "protector of the arts".
caption: The Italia turrita by Cesare Ripa. We can see, above the allegorical personification, the Stella d'Italia ("Star of Italy"), which symbolizes the shining destiny of Italy
exif: {}