Quo vadis? Study on Italian romance sculpture at the dawn of the third millenium

This brief essay seeks to foster discussion of the study of Italian Romanesque sculpture and to encourage dialogue among all who are passionate about the subject. After characterizing some of the fundamental issues pertaining to the discipline in Italy (regionalism, the production of scholarship, the emphasis on style and biography, and the continuing concern about the relationship between French and Italian Romanesque sculpture), the author turns to two distinctive features of Italian Romanesque sculpture : the interest in antiquity and the lavish attention paid to liturgical furnishings. The essay concludes with a plea for more emphasis on iconography, on liturgy, on patronage, and on integral studies of monuments.