Memling e il viaggio dei Magi. La "cinetica africana" e l'ossessione della danza nella percezione rinascimentale

The Gospel of Matthew (2: 1-12) tells us that three wise men, the Magi, came from the East to worship the divine child, the future King of the Jews. Since the early centuries of the Christian era, new data was gradually added to the canon of tradition. And only in the Fourteenth century did John of Hil-desheim define one of the Magi as being "Ethiopian", meaning that he came –according to the geographic knowledge of that time-from sub-Saharan Africa in its broad sense.As a result, in iconography, three banners were created to differentiate between the countries and peoples of origin of the three character. In Hans Memling’s work, the African king’s standard is the only one showing a colorful full length figure, characterized by an enthusiastic and lively dynamism, instead of elementary symbolism. This icon summarizes the Western view of African kinetics: it defines a "national and ethnic" model, going beyond the stylized form expressing the Renaissance perception of foreigners. It arises from the common belief that Africans did not think of anything but dance. This idea of expressing themselves and "living" while dancing has become the figurative paradigm of the exotic and picturesque attitude of individuals and peoples profoundly "different" from us. In the history of culture the paradigm is well represented and developed between the Middle Ages andRenaissance: see, for example the iconography of coats of arms, the images included in the first ethno-graphic chronicles, the shows of the European courts and the representations and parodies of Moorish dance.