The Lost Grammar of Anti-Jewish Iconography. Rediscovering Medieval Visual Literacy in Istria

This paper examines the visual language of late medieval wall painting in Istria, focusing on its anti-Jewish iconographic dimension. It argues that this aspect has remained insufficiently interpreted due to a modern loss of iconographic literacy, which has obscured symbolic structures that would have been legible to medieval viewers. The analysis is based on selected case studies, including the allegorical Crucifixion in the church of St George in Lovran, the frescoes of the Living Cross and the personifications of Ecclesia and Synagoga in St Catherine in Lindar, and related examples from the Istrian region. Particular attention is given to the role of zoomorphic motifs – most notably the pig, the donkey, and the scorpion – as well as to gestural signs and specific attributes conventionally associated with Jews in medieval Christian visual culture. The study demonstrates that these elements operate not as isolated details but as components of a differentiated visual system in which animalization, metaphorical blindness, and emblematic signs function within distinct yet interconnected semantic registers. This system contributes to the construction of religious otherness through a structured visual rhetoric embedded in sacred space. Glagolitic graffiti incised into the frescoes further indicate that such imagery was not only legible but actively interpreted by contemporary viewers. These later interventions reveal a continuity of meaning that extends beyond the moment of production, while also highlighting the distance between medieval and modern modes of visual understanding. By reconstructing this symbolic framework, the paper proposes a method for recovering aspects of medieval visual literacy and offers a reassessment of the role of anti-Jewish imagery in the Istrian fresco tradition