L'ekphrasis antica tra visualità e scrittura. Genealogia di un concetto

This paper focuses on the reciprocity between visual and verbal that characterizes ancient ekphrasis. According to the authors of the Progymnasmata (Aelius Theon, Hermogenes, Nicolaus, Aphtonius), a major feature of ekphrasis is its vividness (enargeia), i.e. its ability to "bring before the eyes" what is absent. Ekphrasis is not aimed at the imitation of a given object, but at the effect this very object produces on the audience. This ecphrastic shift, according to which the fictive object is more vivid, and hence more persuasive, than the real object, is a key feature of Philostratus' Eikones. Philostratus himself defines his own work as a logos graphes, i.e. as a "speech on verbal images," which is paradigmatic for the mutual dependence between visual and verbal in ancient ekphrasis.