Contro le immagini: le radici dell’iconoclastia

The study presents the various ways and reasons for opposing images, to the point of destroying them (iconoclasm). Thus an analysis is offered of the basic Platonic and Augustinian position, the turn that Plotinus gave to it and then the perspectives of Judaism, Christianity and Islam regarding images, passing through some of the key historical moments (the Second Council of Nicea, the Carolingian reaction, the Reformation and the French Revolution) and arriving at a hypothesis about contemporary civilisation, according to which the sheer mass of images tends to rob them of visibility and of meaningfulness, in a sort of ‘light’ iconoclasm that coexists with forms of vandalism and ideological extremism.