Piero della Francesca's Flagellation: The Triumph of Christian Glory

* This article was brought to completion with the assistance of grants-in-aid from the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society and from the American Council of Learned Societies. Portions of the material were presented in a talk at the meeting of the College Art Association in St. Louis, Missouri, January 1968.

Abstract

The Flagellation by Piero della Francesca (Figs. 6–8) seems, at first glance, to defy one of the most hallowed principles of Christian narrative illustration. The Biblical subject is relegated to a secondary position in space, while in the foreground, forced upon our vision by their proximity to the picture plane, are three imposing figures which have no apparent connection with the Flagellation scene. Yet, despite the physical and psychological separation, the two groups relate to each other visually. Christ and his tormentors echo the triad in the foreground. Christ's pose is almost exactly that of the central figure. The turbaned man with his back turned, under the portico, bears the same relationship to the Flagellation scene as the spectator of the painting has to the foreground figures. So clear and deliberate is the formal analogy between the two groups that one is led to suspect the arrangement is not so inverted as at first it seems. In the study that follows I shall suggest that the main theme is in fact in the foreground: the painting depicts a moment of enlightenment, as the gesturing man on the left explains to his listeners the meaning of their relationship to the Flagellation of Christ.