Flagellation of Christ (Piero della Francesca)
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The ''Flagellation of Christ'' (probably 1468–1470) is a painting by
Piero della Francesca Piero della Francesca (, also , ; – 12 October 1492), originally named Piero di Benedetto, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca i ...
in the
Galleria Nazionale delle Marche The Ducal Palace ( it, Palazzo Ducale) is a Renaissance building in the Italian city of Urbino in the Marche. One of the most important monuments in Italy, it is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998. History The construction of the ...
in
Urbino Urbino ( ; ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of F ...
,
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. Called by one writer an "enigmatic little painting," the composition is complex and unusual, and its iconography has been the subject of widely differing theories.
Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...
placed ''The Flagellation'' in his personal list of the best ten paintings, calling it "the greatest small painting in the world".


Description

The theme of the picture is the
Flagellation of Christ The Flagellation of Christ, sometimes known as Christ at the Column or the Scourging at the Pillar, is a scene from the Passion of Christ very frequently shown in Christian art, in cycles of the Passion or the larger subject of the '' Life of C ...
by the Romans during his Passion. The biblical event takes place in an open gallery in the middle distance, while three figures in the foreground on the right-hand side apparently pay no attention to the event unfolding behind them. The panel is much admired for its use of linear perspective and the air of stillness that pervades the work, and it has been given the epithet "the Greatest Small Painting in the World" by the art historian Kenneth Clark. The painting is signed under the seated emperor OPVS PETRI DE BVRGO S N SEPVLCRI – "the work of Piero of Borgo Santo Sepolcro" (his town). ''The Flagellation'' is particularly admired for the realistic rendering of the hall in which the flagellation scene is situated in relation to the size of the figures and for the geometrical order of the composition. The portrait of the bearded man at the front is considered unusually intense for Piero's time.


Interpretations

Much of the scholarly debate surrounding the work concerns the identities or significance of the three men at the front. According t
Adriano Marinazzo
they might portray the past, the present, and the future, or the three ages of man. Other scholars, depending on the interpretation of the subject of the painting, say that they may represent contemporary figures or people related to the passion of Christ, or they may even have multiple identities. The latter is also suggested with respect to the sitting man on the left, who is in one sense certainly
Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate (; grc-gre, Πόντιος Πιλᾶτος, ) was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official who presided over the trial of ...
, a traditional element in the subject. The notion of two time frames in the composition is derived from the fact that the flagellation scene is illuminated from the right while the supposedly "modern" outdoor scene is illuminated from the left. Originally the painting had a frame on which the Latin phrase "Convenerunt in Unum" ("They came together"), taken from
Psalm 2 Psalm 2 is the second psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "Why do the heathen rage". In Latin, it is known as "Quare fremuerunt gentes". Psalm 2 does not identify its author with a superscription, but Acts ...
, ii in the Old Testament, was inscribed. This text is cited in Book of Acts 4:26 and related to Pilate, Herod and the Jews.


Conventional

According to a conventional interpretation still upheld in Urbino, the three men would be
Oddantonio da Montefeltro Oddantonio da Montefeltro (1428 – 22 July 1444) was the first duke of Urbino in Italy. Oddantonio succeeded his father Guidantonio as count of Urbino. He was the half-brother of Federico da Montefeltro. The testamentary division of the county ...
,
Duke of Urbino The Duchy of Urbino was an independent duchy in early modern central Italy, corresponding to the northern half of the modern region of Marche. It was directly annexed by the Papal States in 1625. It was bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the east ...
between his advisors, Manfredo dei Pio and Tommaso di Guido dell'Agnello, who were murdered together on July 22, 1444. Both advisers were held responsible for Oddantonio's death due to their unpopular government, which led to the fatal conspiracy. Oddantonio's death would be compared, in its innocence, to that of Christ. The painting would then have been commissioned by Federico da Montefeltro, who succeeded his half brother Oddantonio as Lord of Urbino. According to another interpretation, the two men to the left and right of the youth would represent Serafini and Ricciarelli, both citizens of Urbino, who allegedly murdered Oddantonio together with his two bad advisors. Against these interpretations speaks the written contract signed by Federico and the citizens of Urbino, "that he would not bear in remembrance the offenses inflicted on Oddantonio, that no one would be punished for it and that Federico would protect all who may be compromised in these crimes". Moreover, Oddantonio's corpse was buried in an unnamed grave. A painting dedicated to the memory of Duke Oddantonio and to his rehabilitation would thus have been a case of betrayal to the citizens of Urbino.


Dynastic

Another traditional view considers the picture a dynastic celebration commissioned by Duke
Federico da Montefeltro Federico da Montefeltro, also known as Federico III da Montefeltro KG (7 June 1422 – 10 September 1482), was one of the most successful mercenary captains (''condottieri'') of the Italian Renaissance, and lord of Urbino from 1444 (as Duke fro ...
, Oddantonio's successor and half-brother. The three men would simply be his predecessors. This interpretation is backed by an 18th-century inventory in the Urbino Cathedral, where the painting once was housed, and in which the work is described as "The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Figures and the Portraits of Duke Guidubaldo and Oddo Antonio". However, since Duke Guidobaldo was a son of Federico born in 1472, this information has to be erroneous. Instead, the rightmost figure may represent Oddantonio's and Federico's father Guidantonio.


Political-theological (Ginzburg)

According to this other old-fashioned view, the figure in the middle would represent an angel, flanked by the Latin (Catholic) and the Greek (Orthodox) Churches, whose division created strife in the whole of Christendom. The seated man on the far left watching the flagellation would be the Byzantine emperor
John VIII Palaiologos John VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus ( gr, Ἰωάννης Παλαιολόγος, Iōánnēs Palaiológos; 18 December 1392 – 31 October 1448) was the penultimate Byzantine emperor, ruling from 1425 to 1448. Biography John VIII was ...
, as identified by his clothing, particularly the unusual red hat with upturned brims which is present in a medal by Pisanello. In the variant of this interpretation, proposed by
Carlo Ginzburg Carlo Ginzburg (; born April 15, 1939) is an Italian historian and proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for ''Il formaggio e i vermi'' (1976, English title: '' The Cheese and the Worms''), which examined the beliefs of an Ita ...
, the painting would be in fact an invitation by
Cardinal Bessarion Bessarion ( el, Βησσαρίων; 2 January 1403 – 18 November 1472) was a Byzantine Greek Renaissance humanist, theologian, Catholic cardinal and one of the famed Greek scholars who contributed to the so-called great revival of letters ...
and the humanist Giovanni Bacci to Federico da Montefeltro to take part in the crusade. The young man would be Bonconte II da Montefeltro, who died of plague in 1458. In this way, the sufferings of Christ are paired both to those of the Byzantines and of Bonconte. Silvia Ronchey and other art historians agree on the panel being a political message by Cardinal Bessarion, in which the flagellated Christ would represent the suffering of
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
, then besieged by the Ottomans, as well as the whole of Christianity. The figure on the left watching would be sultan
Murad II Murad II ( ota, مراد ثانى, Murād-ı sānī, tr, II. Murad, 16 June 1404 – 3 February 1451) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1421 to 1444 and again from 1446 to 1451. Murad II's reign was a period of important economic deve ...
, with John VIII on his left. The three men on the right are identified as, from left: Cardinal Bessarion,
Thomas Palaiologos Thomas Palaiologos or Palaeologus ( el, Θωμᾶς Παλαιολόγος; 1409 – 12 May 1465) was Despot of the Morea from 1428 until the fall of the despotate in 1460, although he continued to claim the title until his death five years late ...
(John VIII's brother, portrayed barefoot as, being not an emperor, he could not wear the purple shoes with which John is instead shown) and
Niccolò III d'Este Niccolò is an Italian male given name, derived from the Greek Nikolaos meaning "Victor of people" or "People's champion". There are several male variations of the name: Nicolò, Niccolò, Nicolas, and Nicola. The female equivalent is Nicole. The f ...
, host of the council of Mantua after its move to his lordship of Ferrara. Piero della Francesca painted the ''Flagellation'' some 20 years after the fall of Constantinople. But, at the time, allegories of that event and of the presence of Byzantine figures in Italian politics were not uncommon, as shown by
Benozzo Gozzoli Benozzo Gozzoli (4 October 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. A pupil of Fra Angelico, Gozzoli is best known for a series of murals in the Magi Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, depicting festive, vibrant processions ...
's contemporary
Magi Chapel The Magi Chapel is a chapel in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi of Florence, Italy. Its walls are almost entirely covered by a famous cycle of frescoes by the Renaissance master Benozzo Gozzoli, painted around 1459 for the Medici family, the effective ...
in the
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi The Palazzo Medici, also called the Palazzo Medici Riccardi after the later family that acquired and expanded it, is a Renaissance palace located in Florence, Italy. It is the seat of the Metropolitan City of Florence and a museum. Overview T ...
in
Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
.


Kenneth Clark

In 1951, the art historian
Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...
identified the bearded figure as a Greek scholar, and the painting as an allegory of the suffering of the Church after the fall of the
Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
in 1453, and of the proposed crusade supported by
Pope Pius II Pope Pius II ( la, Pius PP. II, it, Pio II), born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini ( la, Aeneas Silvius Bartholomeus, links=no; 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 August ...
and discussed at the Council of Mantua. Again, the man in the far left would be the Byzantine Emperor.


Marilyn Aronberg Lavin

Another explanation of the painting is offered by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin in ''Piero della Francesca: The Flagellation''. The interior scene represents Pontius Pilate showing Herod with his back turned, because the scene closely resembles numerous other depictions of the flagellation that Piero would have known. Lavin identifies the figure on the right as Ludovico III Gonzaga, Marquis of
Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...
, and the figure on the left as his close friend, the astrologer Ottaviano Ubaldini della Carda, who lived in the Ducal Palace. Ottavio is dressed in the traditional garb of an astrologer, even down to his forked beard. At the time the painting is thought to have been made, both Ottavio and Ludovico had recently lost beloved sons, represented by the youthful figure between them. Note that the youth's head is framed by a laurel tree, representing glory. Lavin suggests that the painting is intended to compare the suffering of Christ with the grief of the two fathers. She suggests that the painting was commissioned by Ottavio for his private chapel, the Cappella del Perdono, which is in the Ducal Palace at Urbino and which has an altar whose facade is the exact size of the painting. If the painting was on the altar, the perspective in the painting would have appeared correct only to someone kneeling before it.


David A. King

An interpretation developed by David King, director (1985–2007) of the Institute for the History of Science in Frankfurt, Germany, establishes a connection between the painting and the Latin inscription on an astrolabe presented in Rome in 1462 by
Regiomontanus Johannes Müller von Königsberg (6 June 1436 – 6 July 1476), better known as Regiomontanus (), was a mathematician, astrologer and astronomer of the German Renaissance, active in Vienna, Buda and Nuremberg. His contributions were instrument ...
to his patron
Cardinal Bessarion Bessarion ( el, Βησσαρίων; 2 January 1403 – 18 November 1472) was a Byzantine Greek Renaissance humanist, theologian, Catholic cardinal and one of the famed Greek scholars who contributed to the so-called great revival of letters ...
. The discovery that this epigram was an acrostic was made by Berthold Holzschuh, a member of King's medieval instrument seminar, in 2005. The hidden meanings in the vertical axes include references to Bessarion, Regiomontanus, and the 1462 gift that was intended to replace a 1062 Byzantine astrolabe in Bessarion's possession (now in Brescia). In the same year Holzschuh discovered that the main axes of the epigram corresponded to the main vertical axes of the painting, which pass through the eyes of the Christ figure and those of the bearded man. It was clear that the letters BA IOANNIS on the left of the epigram and the letters SEDES on the right might refer to Basileus (Emperor) Ioannis VIII on his throne. This inspired King to search for monograms of names across the epigram (for example, INRI for Christ and RGO for Regiomontanus), and he found some 70 possibly relevant names corresponding to the 8+1 figures. King thus established dual or multiple identities for each of the eight persons and one classical figure who would eventually feature in the painting. Both Regiomontanus and Bessarion were known to Piero (their common interest was Archimedes), and both Regiomontanus' and Piero's copies of Archimedes' works have been preserved. King hypothesises that donor and donee of the 1462 astrolabe might have conceived the make-up of the painting together with Piero. The young man in cardinal red can now be identified as the eager young German astronomer Regiomontanus, the new protégé of the Cardinal Bessarion. However, his image embodies, amongst others, three brilliant young men close to Bessarion who had recently died: Buonconte da Montefeltro, Bernardino Ubaldini dalla Carda and Vangelista Gonzaga. Each of the images of persons in the painting, as well as of the classical figure atop the column behind Christ, is polysemous. The painting itself is polysemous. One of the several purposes of the painting was to signify hope for the future in the arrival of the young astronomer into Bessarion's circle as well as to pay homage to the three dead young men. Another was to express Bessarion's sorrow that his native Trebizond had fallen to the Turks in 1461, for which he held the Byzantine ruler responsible.


John Pope-Hennessy

Sir
John Pope-Hennessy Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy (13 December 1913 – 31 October 1994), was a British art historian. Pope-Hennessy was Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1967 and 1973, and Director of the British Museum between 1974 and 1976. ...
, the art historian, argued in his book ''The Piero della Francesca Trail'' that the actual subject of the painting is "The Dream of St.
Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is co ...
." According to Pope-Hennessy,
As a young man St Jerome dreamt that he was flayed on divine order for reading pagan texts, and he himself later recounted this dream, in a celebrated letter to Eustochium, in terms that exactly correspond with the left-hand side of the Urbino panel.
Pope-Hennessy also cites and reproduces an earlier picture by Sienese painter
Matteo di Giovanni Matteo di Giovanni (c. 1430 – 1495) was an Italian Renaissance artist from the Sienese School. Biography Matteo di Giovanni di Bartolo was born in Borgo Sansepolcro around 1430. His family relocated to Siena and he is firmly associated with ...
that deals with the subject recorded in Jerome's letter, helping to validate his identification of Piero's theme.


Influence

The painting's restraint and formal purity strongly appealed when Piero was first "discovered," especially to admirers of
cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
and abstract art. It has been held in especially high regard by art historians, with
Frederick Hartt Frederick Hartt (1914–1991) was an Italian Renaissance scholar, author and professor of art history. His books include ''History of Italian Renaissance Art'', '' Art: A History of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture ''(two volumes), ''Miche ...
describing it as Piero's "most nearly perfect achievement and the ultimate realisation of the ideals of the second Renaissance period". The painting is referred to in
Len Deighton Leonard Cyril Deighton (; born 18 February 1929) is a British author. His publications have included cookery books, history and military history, but he is best known for his spy novels. After completing his national service in the Royal Air Fo ...
's 1978 novel, '' SS-GB''.


References


External links

{{Authority control Flagellation, The
Piero della Francesca Piero della Francesca (, also , ; – 12 October 1492), originally named Piero di Benedetto, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca i ...
Flagellation, The Collections of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche Torture in art