Francesco di Giorgio in Urbino and the iconography of the ‘Flagellation'

Alessandro Angelini
The paper focuses on the relief representing the 'Flagellation of Christ' by Francesco di Giorgio conserved in the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria and aims to clarify certain iconographical issues that have remained unexplored, but which might shed new light on the presence of great artists in Urbino at the time of Federico da Montefeltro. The unusual way of presenting such a familiar evangelical subject, with the mourning figures of Mary and Saint John the Evangelist in evoking already the conclusive phase of the Passion, also involved the presence of figures in the right foreground, placed in clear contraposition to the protagonists of Christ's martyrdom. We may infer that the figures are Barabbas, another prisoner and an armed soldier, according to an iconographical interpretation descending directly from the text of Matthew's Gospel. This rare though not exceptional iconography of the episode recalls another fundamental work, Piero della Francesca's 'Flagellation' of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino. Without wishing to enter into the obscure significance of this twofold version of the evangelical subject present ab antiquo in Urbino, we would affirm an entirely evangelical interpretation for Piero's painting too, and the tendency of Francesco di Giorgio to make sometimes cryptic those historical or evangelical subjects which had been elaborated in the humanistic environment of the Urbino court.

Index

Carl Brandon Strehlke Looking for Giotto
read abstract » pp. 5-12
Francesco Aceto Between Giotto and Simone Martini. A rare painted portal with 'Stories of the Passion' in Naples cathedral and its topographical and liturgical context
read abstract » pp. 13-22
Victor M. Schmidt A proposal for Ambrogio Lorenzetti's panel paintings from the church of San Procolo in Florence
read abstract » pp. 23-30
Keith Christiansen The architecture in a Bohemian panel of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
read abstract » pp. 31-35
Gabriele Fattorini On the 'Annunciation' of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum by Jacopo della Quercia
read abstract » pp. 36-46
Francesco Caglioti Desiderio da Settignano the portraitist: “una testa del Chardinale di Portoghallo”, or the 'Saint Lawrence' in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence
read abstract » pp. 47-59
Alessandro Angelini Francesco di Giorgio in Urbino and the iconography of the 'Flagellation'
read abstract » pp. 60-68
Gianluca Amato Benedetto da Maiano: two proposals for the catalogue of terracottas
read abstract » pp. 69-77
Antonio Mazzotta Evidence pointing to the identity of the 'Master of the Sforza Altarpiece'
read abstract » pp. 78-85
Roberto Bartalini Raphael and Sodoma in the Stanza della Segnatura. New findings
read abstract » pp. 86-95
Giovanni Agosti e Jacopo Stoppa Doxiana
read abstract » pp. 96-113
Michele Maccherini Three papers on Beccafumi
read abstract » pp. 114-121
Rosanna De Gennaro About the little-known opisthographic marble altarpiece of the abbey of Montevergine
read abstract » pp. 122-131
Elisabetta Cioni Notes on the 17th-century reliquary of the right arm of Saint John the Baptist of Siena cathedral
read abstract » pp. 132-142
Tomaso Montanari Bernini's caricatures: spirit without corpus?
read abstract » pp. 143-147
Gennaro Toscano The popularity of Dante in France in the early 19th century. Aubin-Louis Millin and ms. XIII.C.4 of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples
read abstract » pp. 148-159
Federica Testa Paolo Lombardi, photographer: portrait of an art dealer
read abstract » pp. 160-167
Laura Cavazzini Alceo Dossena and the forgery of Gothic sculpture between Lombardy and Tuscany
read abstract » pp. 168-176
Luca Quattrocchi Italian art for National Socialism. Antonio Maraini and the Ausstellung Italienischer Kunst von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart exhibition in Berlin in 1937
read abstract » pp. 177-186
Marco M. Mascolo Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Renaissance sculpture and the problems of connoisseurship
read abstract » pp. 187-194