Dons d’églises

Abstract

This contribution makes the history, in the long term of the Christian world, of a gesture: the presentation of the small model of the church by the one who is the donor (the patron, the benefactor, the protector). What is the significance of this gesture, in its formal analogies, in the precision of its act, down to the greatest detail of the hand, the fingers, the posture? A long journey, but one that lingers a little longer on the extraordinary altar stone of the church of Avenas (late 11th-early 12th).

Keywords

• Caravaggio
• architecture
• gesture
• gift
• Loreto