ABSTRACT
The relationship between space, place and fictive architecture in late medieval Italian art will form the focus of this discussion, concentrating on Altichiero da Zevio's Oratory of St George in Padua. In the Oratory of St George, Altichiero included recognizable structural and decorative hints at the architecture of the Veneto, thus locating the narratives in the region and giving them a concrete, local dimension. Architecture constructs a new space, or, more accurately, creating a place to enable habitation. Three elements of Altichiero's fictive architecture stand out as Venetian: window fretwork, ogee arches and purely decorative, highly ornate crenellation. Architecture constructs a new space, or, more accurately, it shapes and specifies it, creating a place to enable habitation. This is also the case with architecture in painting, which specifies the pictorial surface, thus articulating a setting for its narrative. There are also architectural characteristics of the city of Verona, under whose dominion lay Zevio, Altichiero's town of origin.
