The Baroque, between heaven and earth

Abstract

The Baroque is a movement which is generally considered to have begun in the last third of the sixteenth century and to have ended in the mid eighteenth covering the period between classicism and neo-classicism. During this period, however, the Baroque civilisation expressed itself in a multitude of different styles and forms, whether in artistic, philosophical or social terms. To perceive the movement's relative unity, it is therefore necessary to understand that it emerged at the end of a dark, troubled century, one in which human values had gone astray and people had lost their ideological references.