The Cover Painting
The painting is a detail of Piero della Francesca’s masterpiece “La flagellation of Christ” (1), possibly the most famous, intriguing and mysterious of his works. You can admire it at the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino (you are excused in case you had to miss any section of the Conference in order to do so 😉). After that, you might also like to walk a few steps away to the n.10 of Via Valerio, to discover a court which allegedly Piero represented as the scene of his flagellation (2). A couple of houses further down the street you can also see the largest plane tree in Europe.
Although the literal subject of this breathtaking picture is obvious, many things indicate that it also conveys a metaphorical or symbolic subject---starting from the fact that the supposedly religious subject, the flagellation of Christ, is somewhat in the background (on the left side of the picture), while three mysterious bystanders, apparently unrelated to it, are in the forefront (on the right side). Yet, since this apparently imposing, but actually small table (58.4 cm. × 81.5 cm., 23.0 in. × 32.1 in.) was noticed by David Passavant in a neglected corner of the sacristy of Urbino’s cathedral in the early XIX, some 35 different interpretations have been proposed.
In particular, the identity of the three characters in the forefront is uncertain. For our purposes, they may well represent three philosophers, as shown by the calm, steady and intellectually engaged attitude of their discussion. To be sure, they are debating about scientific and metaphysical realism, as indicated on the one hand by the rigorous geometrical perspective and the scientific exactness of the representation of both the people and the landscape (a typical feature of Urbino’s humanistic culture), and on the other hand by the fact that the artists transfigures everything sub specie aeternitatis, calling us to contemplate the metaphysical nature of things and persons, as if we could perceive directly their platonic ideas. Platonism, of course, was the other main features of the Renaissance humanism. From this viewpoint, the Flagellazione recalls another famous work at Palazzo Ducale, the “Ideal city” (3), sometimes also attributed to Piero della Francesca, but more probably due to Luciano Laurana, the very architect of this Palace. It’s striking how our three philosophers are able to keep the hyperuranic calm of their discussion even in spite of the dramatic scene in the background, the savagel whipping of Jesus.
Most likely, however, by this work the painter intended to represent (not just metaphorically, but even literally) some hot issues in the local and/or international politics of his day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellation_of_Christ_(Piero_della_Francesca).
Some recent and well supported interpretations (e.g.,
focus on the assaults of the Ottoman Turks to the dwindling Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium. This is symbolized by the flagellation of Christ commanded by the sultan (the character seen from behind in a turban), where Pontius Pilate is played by the Byzantine emperor John VII Palaiologos, seated on the left as a powerless spectator to the scene. In order to prevent the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Turks, an alliance was planned between it and some western powers, and an ecumenical council was held in Florence in 1438, where the Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church were reunited. This epoch-making event is represented also by other great paintings of the time, like Benozzo Gozzoli’s “Cavalcata dei Magi” (Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence)(4).
If so, the young blond man at the right-hand side represents the heir to the empire, Thomas Palaiologos (in the purple imperial dress but barefoot, because not yet reigning), who went to Florence urging the westerners to launch a crusade in support of the empire (like a Zelensky of his days). The crusade would probably have been led by Federico II of Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino and one of the military chiefs for the Pope. Thomas was accompanied to Florence by the character on the left, most probably Bessarion, the orthodox bishop of Trebizond, a humanist and a disciple of the neo-platonic philosopher Gemistos Plethon. Bessarion played a key role in the reunification of Greek and the Roman Church, and when eventually the Ottomans conquered Constantinople (1453) and the majority of the Orthodox Church split again from Rome, he became a Roman Catholic cardinal and one of the famed Greek scholars who contributed to the great revival of letters in the 15th century. He was twice considered for papacy, and he left to the Franciscan Monastery in Cesena a series of 20 beautifully illuminated choirbooks he had originally commissioned for St. Anthony’s convent in Constantinople. The third man, on the right, would then be Niccolò III of Este, who hosted the Council when it later moved to Ferrara, and would have been one of allies in the crusade. Another hypothesis has the young blond man be an angel, trying to unite the Greek and the Latin Christians (on his right and left, dressed in the respective typical fashions), against the Muslim threat.
On a quite different key, other interpretations (e.g., https://www.ibs.it/piero-della-francesca-assassino-libro-bernd-roeck/e/9788833918150)
hinge on a revolt that took place in Urbino against the misgovernment of two ministers of the young duke Oddantonio in 1444. The revolt culminated in the murder of Oddantonio (caught in his sleep) and his ministers, which opened the way to the succession of Federico II, otherwise excluded from power as an illegitimate son of the earlier duke Guidantonio. In this case, the three characters would be Oddantonio, barefoot in his night gown stained by his own blood, flanked by his two ministers, or, in another versions, by the two leaders of the revolt. On that occasion Oddantonio’s sister Violante fled Urbino, to become the saintly and learned wife of Cesena’s lord Domenico Malatesta “Novello”, the founder of the famous library. Oddantonio and Violante had been born to Guidantonio by Caterina, from the all-powerful Roman family of the Colonna, clearly hinted at by the column to which Christ is held.
According to this kind of interpretations, in the flagellation scene on the left the murdered duke is portrayed as the whipped Christ, while Pontius Pilate, who had him flogged, represents Federico II, who according to consistent rumors was the secret instigator of the homicide. However, it is difficult to understand why a painting produced when Federico himself was in power, or even commissioned by him, could represent such an indictment against him. Other versions, therefore, set him in yet a different and more favorable role.