The transparency of a figuration that plays with singular effectiveness as much with natural light made protagonist as with the unexpected possibilities of color has not failed to touch some of the most sensitive chords of our culture. Something that has to do, not even too veiledly, with the aesthetic inclinations of a modernity tending to privilege the formal aspects of the works of the past. An attitude that has certainly counted in the fortune that, from Proust onward, medieval stained glass has known.

In the Middle Ages, stained glass windows were an integral part of religious ritual, fulfilling very specific didactic functions, offering stories that were part of a collective culture. Their construction was the result of technical and artistic expertise that involved very broad specializations, knowledge and material structures. Hence, to study stained glass windows is, in fact, to deal with the subject of medieval artistic culture and its geography, the circulation of models, the presence of sites, as well as techniques and symbols. The importance of Castelnuovo’s book lies in having been able to combine all these aspects while keeping an eye on the technical, artistic and cultural implications within which the history and fortune of stained glass grew.