Piero della Francesca

Chronology

Polyptych of the Misericordia

The Flagellation of Christ

St. Jerome in Penitence

Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta Praying in Front of St. Sigismund

Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta

St. Jerome and a Donor

The Baptism of Christ


The History of the True Cross

       Adoration of the Holy Wood and the Meeting of Solomon        and the Queen of Sheba   
       
       
Constantine's Dream

Mary Magdalene

Madonna del parto

St. Julian

Resurrection

Polyptych of Saint Augustine


Nativity

Polyptych of Perugia

Madonna and Child with Saints (Montefeltro Altarpiece)

Paired portraits of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza

Madonna di Senigallia


Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists | Piero della Francesca





 





 
Art in Tuscany
             
 
Piero della Francesca | Flagellation of Christ, Urbino
Piero della Francesca, The Flagellation, c. 1455, Oil and tempera on panel, 59 x 82 cm, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino
Art in Tuscany  
       
   

Piero della Francesca
|
Flagellation of Christ, Urbino
   
   

Renaissance painting differed from the painting of the Late Medieval period in its emphasis upon the close observation of nature, particularly with regards to human anatomy, and the application of scientific principles to the use of perspective and light. The Flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca demonstrates in a single small work many of the themes of Italian Renaissance painting, both in terms of compositional elements and subject matter. Immediately apparent is Piero's mastery of perspective and light. The architectural elements, including the tiled floor which becomes more complex around the central action, combine to create two spaces. The inner space is lit by an unseen light source to which Jesus looks. Its exact location can be pinpointed mathematically by an analysis of the diffusion and the angle of the shadows on the coffered ceiling. The three figures who are standing outside are lit from a different angle, from both daylight and light reflected from the pavement and buildings.

The religious theme is tied to the present. The ruler is a portrait of the visiting Emperor of Byzantium.[1] Flagellation is also called "scourging". The term "scourge" was applied to the plague. Outside stand three men representing those who buried the body of Christ. The two older, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea, are believed to be portraits of men who recently lost their sons, one of them to plague. The third man is the young disciple John, and is perhaps a portrait of one of the sons, or else represents both of them in a single idealised figure, coinciding with the manner in which Piero painted angels.

The Flagellation of Christ (probably 1455–1460) is a painting by Piero della Francesca in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino. Much of Piero's later career was spent working at the humanist court of Federico da Montefeltro at Urbino. There he painted the portraits of Federico and his wife (Uffizi, Florence, c. 1465) and the celebrated Flagellation (still at Urbino, in the Ducal Palace). The Flagellation is his most enigmatic work, and it has called forth varied interpretations. Gombrich has suggested that the subject is rather The Repentance of Judas and Pope-Hennessy that it is The Dream of St Jerome.
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 placed The Flagellation in his personal list of the best ten paintings, calling it 'the greatest small painting in the world'.
The flagellation is a recurring motif in Christian art which depicts a scene from the passion of Christ. Traditionally, this setting features Jesus tied to a column while being flayed with a scourge or whip. In Francesca's portrayal of this event, however, the main focus is not on the flaying but on a grouping of three men who stand in the right foreground. Their identitites are not known though studies of the work have yielded several possibilities. Their relationship to the tragic event in the background is also not clear.
There is no documentation of who commissioned this artwork or the location of the commission. The creation date is only an approximation. The piece is small, a modest 23 x 32 inches, which supports the possibility that the painting was meant for private use. Earliest commentary on the piece suggests that the aim of the patron was to keep the true intention of the work enigmatic. Absent valid documentation, the patron, the identity of the foreground trio and the purpose of the painting remains a mystery.

Description

The theme of the picture is the Flagellation of Christ by the Romans during his Passion. The biblical event takes place in an open gallery in the near 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".[2]

The painting is signed under the seated emperor OPVS PETRI DE BVRGO S[AN]C[T]I SEPVLCRI – "the work of Piero of Borgo Santo Sepolcro" (his native town).

The Flagellation is particularly admired for the mathematical unity of the composition, and Piero's ability to depict the distance between the actual flagellation scene and the three characters in the foreground realistically through perspective. The portrait of the bearded man on the left 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 in the right foreground, and of the sitting man on the left, who is in one sense certainly Pontius Pilate, a traditional element in the subject, but may also represent a contemporary figure.

It has also been suggested that there can be multiple identities for each man depending on how it is read. The interior scene is illuminated from the right while the "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, ii in the Old Testament, was inscribed.


Conventional

According to the traditional interpretation, the three men would be Oddantonio da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, Piero's patron, and his two advisors Serafini and Ricciarelli (who allegedly murdered the Duke on July 22, 1444). The two advisors are identified also as Manfredo dei Pio and Tommaso di Guido dell'Agnello, who were also allegedly responsible for Oddantonio's death due to their unpopular government, which led to the conspiracy. Oddantonio's death would be compared, in its innocence, to that of Christ.


Dynastic

Another traditional view considers the picture a dynastic celebration commissioned by Duke Federico da Montefeltro, Oddantonio's successor and half-brother. The three men would simply be his predecessors. This interpretation is backed by a 18th century document in the Urbino Cathedral, where once the painting 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".


Political-theological

According to this other old-fashioned view, the figure in the middle would represent an angel, flanked by the Latin and the 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, 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 in 2000[3], the painting would be in fact an invitation by Cardinal Bessarion 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[4] agree on the panel being a political message by Cardinal Bessarion, in which the flagellated Christ would represent the suffering of Constantinople, then besieged by the Ottomans, as well as the whole Christianity. The figure on the left watching would be sultan Murad II, with John VIII on his left. The three men on the right are identified as, from left: Cardinal Bessarion, Thomas Palaiologos (John VIII's brother, portrayed barefoot as, being not an emperor, he could not wear the purple shoes with which Constantine is instead shown) and Niccolò III d'Este, 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's contemporary Magi Chapel in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence.


Kenneth Clark

In 1951, the art historian Kenneth Clark 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 in 1453, and of the proposed crusade supported by Pope Pius II 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[5].

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 Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, and the figure on the left as his close friend, the astrologer Ottavio 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

In a recent book,[6] a new interpretation developed by David King, director of the Institute for the History of Science in Frankfurt, Germany, is presented, which establishes a parallel between the painting and the inscription on an astrolabe made in 1462 by Regiomontanus and presented to Cardinal Bessarion.[7] King claims that by searching for monograms of names across the epigram one can establish the dual or multiple identities of each of the eight persons and one classical god in the painting. The young man in red is the eager young German astronomer Regiomontanus, the new protégé of the Cardinal Bessarion. However, his image embodies three brilliant young men close to Bessarion who had recently died: Buonconte da Montefeltro, Bernardino Ubaldini dalla Carda and Vangelista Gonzaga. One of the purposes of the painting was to signify hope for the future in the arrival of the young astronomer into Bessarion circle as well as to pay homage to the three dead young men.

Sir John Pope-Hennessy, 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." 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, which 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 and abstract art. It has been held in especially high regard by art historians, with Frederick Hartt describing it as Piero's "most nearly perfect achievement and the ultimate realisation of the ideals of the second Renaissance period".

 

Piero della Francesca, The Flagellation (detail), c. 1455, Oil and tempera on panel, 59 x 82 cm, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino
 
This panel painting - one of his most famous - was executed by Piero during his first visit to Urbino. It contains subtle references to the situation of the time, which are very difficult to understand today. The theory that seems to be proposed most frequently is that the painting was commissioned as an attempt to favour the reconciliation between the two Christian churches, of the East and of the West, in view of the imminent Turkish attack on Constantinople. Both the presence of the character in the centre, dressed after Greek fashion, and an inscription on the frame ("convenerunt in unum") would seem to support this interpretation.

The Flagellation of Christ was famous in the Renaissance as a demonstration of Piero’s technical skills in perspective. Unusual choice of low view point, striking colors, strange interior lighting, and depiction of contemporary figures — all contribute to what is even now a
somewhat disturbing picture.
From the point of view of composition and perspective the painting is very rigorously planned. The composition appears to be divided into two scenes, separated by the column supporting the temple in which the Flagellation of Christ is taking place. On the right are three figures, arranged in a semi-circle; their identity is not certain. They are probably well-known characters of the time and, as such, they would be portrayed with their real features. The importance of the architecture in this painting, with the elegant classical temple, would suggest that Piero was in touch with contemporary theoretical writings. The onlooker must stand directly in the centre of the painting, for the composition is strictly unitarian, and this unity is achieved by the rigorous use of a single vanishing point. The painting is an ultimate example of Quattrocento linear perspective.

Even though he is working in a unitary space, Piero does not give up his interest in detail, such as the ceiling of the temple or the bronze sculpture on the column with its splendid reflection of the light. The magnificent damask garment worn by the character on the far right, with its contrast between blue and gold, reveals Piero's love for luxurious clothing and for the most fashionable styles, which many Florentine painters had eliminated entirely from their work.



Itinerary in Tuscany| In the footsteps of Piero della Francesca

 

Itinerary in Tuscany| Starting from Sansepolcro, his hometown, follow this itinerary, and see his greatest work of Piero della Francesca in Sansepolcro, Perugia, Urbino, Arezzo, Rimini and eventually Florence.

Itinerary in Central Italy | In the footsteps of Piero della Francesca

 

   
   


Art in Tuscany | Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists | Piero della Francesca

Art in Tuscany | Piero della Francesca in central Italy, an itinerary full of artistic and historical beauty



Alberti's Perspective Construction and One-point perspective
| Tony Phillips, Alberti’s perspective construction, the January, 2002, AMS Feature Column

One-point perspective is the most common systematic method for representing space on a surface. The idea is that the picture in its frame should give the illusion of being a window through which the immobile eye of the observer looks at an outside 3-dimensional world. (Alberti speaks of the canvas as ``an open window through which I see what I want to paint.'') Each spot visible through the window gives a spot in the picture, located at the intersection with the picture plane of the straight line joining it to the eye. Albrecht Dürer illustrates this method in a famous 1525 engraving: a hook on the wall is the eye, and a taut string is the straight line joining the eye to a visible spot beyond the frame.

J. V. Field, Piero della Francesca. A Mathematician’s Art, Yale University Press, 2005
See also the book Review: Piero della Francesca. A Mathematician's Art, Volume ...



[1] John VIII Palaeologus was a Byzantine emperor (1421 – 48). When he acceded, the Byzantine Empire had been reduced by the Turks to the city of Constantinople. John sought in vain to secure Western aid by agreeing at the Council of Florence (1439) to the union of the Eastern and Western churches. His brother, Constantine XI, succeeded him in 1449 and was the last Byzantine emperor.
The son of Manuel II Palaeologus, he was crowned coemperor with his father in 1408 and took effective control of the empire in 1421. He became sole emperor after his father's death in 1425. Of the diminished and fragmented empire, he ruled only Constantinople and the surrounding area. The city was besieged by the Ottoman Turks (1422), and, when Thessaloníki fell to Turkish forces (1430), John appealed to the West for help. He united the Byzantine and Latin churches (1439), but joint efforts against the Turks failed, and the Byzantines refused to submit to the pope. John died amid intrigues over succession.

 
   

This article incorporates material from the Wikipedia articles Piero della Francesca, Flagellation of Christ (Piero della Francesca), and Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, published under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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Urbino | Galleria Nazionale delle Marche

   

The small hill town of Urbino, in the Marche, experienced a great cultural flowering in the 15th century, attracting artists and scholars from all over Italy and beyond, and influencing cultural developments elsewhere in Europe. Urbino is the hometown of Raphael and architect Donato Bramante, but the town owes much of its fame to the Duke of Montefeltro. This mercenary general turned Urbino into an important Renaissance center, attracting artists such as Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello and Giovanni Santi.

The Ducal Palace is one of the most important monuments in Italy andis listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site. The construction of the Ducal Palace was begun for Duke Federico III da Montefeltro around the mid-fifteenth century by the Florentine Maso di Bartolomeo. The new construction included the pre-existing Palace of the Jole. Luciano Laurana, an architect from Dalmatia who had been influenced by Brunelleschi's cloisters in Florence, designed the façade, the famous courtyard and the great entrance staircase. Laurana's light and noble arcaded courtyard at Urbino rivals that of the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome as the finest of the Renaissance. Overcoming the exigencies of the clifflike site, which made an irregular massing of architecture necessary, from the 1460s onwards Laurana created what contemporaries considered the ideal princely dwelling. Many of the refined Early Renaissance carved details are so similar to features in paintings by Piero della Francesca that scholars have debated his possible input in the execution of Laurana's plan.
After Laurana's departure from Urbino in 1472, works were continued by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, who was mainly responsible for the façade decoration.

The Galleria Nazionale delle Marche (National Gallery of the Marche), housed in the palace, is one of the most important collection of Renaissance art in the world. It includes important works by artists such as Santi, Van Wassenhove (a Last Supper with portraits of the Montefeltro family and the court), Melozzo da Forlì, Raphael, Piero della Francesca (with the famous Flagellation), Paolo Uccello, Timoteo Viti, and other 15th century artists, as well as a late Resurrection by Titian.