Have you ever looked at Piero della Francesca from this point of view?

 

A few days ago we were in Urbino, and of course we visited the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche at Palazzo Ducale, even if the building is currently under restoration. The museum was almost empty, and out the windows the sky was painted with the same cold grey that characterizes the two Piero della Francesca’s masterpieces here preserved.

 

Even if jailed into a poor plexiglass box, and with a spotlight turning the screw on it, the “Flagellazione” doesn’t lose its impressive power. The image conceived by Piero is an extraordinary eye catcher, made of hidden places and obscure sides. Who is inside the buildings, up the stairs, behind the surface? What do the three characters on the right have in their pockets? Who is the mysterious man looking at Jesus suffering?

 

Art historians, scholars, scientists, novelists have all given their interpretation. Even Silio Bozzi of Ancona’s forensic department is amongst those who have attempted to explain this puzzling piece. Some of them are truthful, others are simply pleasant readings that remind us how far human imagination can go when the yearning for truth doesn’t get satisfied. What we can say in this case is what physicist Stephen Hawking declared a few week ago: it is not true that nothing comes out from the black holes. Information does.

September 22, 2014