Ricerc@Sapienza

The article offers a first survey on the studies concerning imagination in an aesthetic and
cognitive perspective in Italy in the last two decades. From the aesthetic point of view, the
research is focused in particular on reconsidering the imaginative function of organizing the
sensible matter of perception, thus making it available to the subject’s experience – it is the
process Kant called “schematism”. The recent aesthetic studies in Italy make new forms of
schematism emerge, from the “free schematism” (Garroni), inspired by Kant’s aesthetic

The visuospatial system integrates inner and outer functional processes, organizing spatial, temporal, and social interactions between the brain, body, and environment. These processes involve sensorimotor networks like the eye–hand circuit, which is especially important to primates, given their reliance on vision and touch as primary sensory modalities and the use of the hands in social and environmental interactions. At the same time, visuospatial cognition is intimately connected with memory, self-awareness, and simulation capacity.

In this paper I deal with the role dress and clothing play in the constitution and shaping of individual identity. Through the close analysis of a number of case studies, namely the substitute king (“King of substitution” šar pūḫi) and “A man’s substitute for Ereškigal” (ana pūḫi amēli Ereškigal) rituals, as well as the practice of exposing royal robes as representation of the king in his absence, I explore the mechanisms that make possible for clothing to both represent and substitute the individual.