Flagellation
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Authors
Agnolo di Polo or Benedetto Buglioni, attributed to
Date
Type
image
Language
Keyword
Flagellation , Christ , Jesus
Alternative Title
Abstract
This painted terracotta sculpture is in one of the chapels of the Sacro Monte at San Vivaldo. The Sacro Monte (literally sacred mountain) is a pilgrimage site built by the Franciscans. Small chapels each contain painted terracotta sculptures with events from the Passion of Christ. These chapels are arranged on the hilly terrain so that they evoke the actual geography in the Holy Land of the places in which the events occurred. In a time in which pilgrimage to the Holy Land was for the most part impossible (because the territory was under Muslim control), the Sacro Monte offered a substitute or a simulacrum that was thought to be efficacious. In 1516, at the request of the Franciscans of San Vivaldo, Pope Leo X promulgated a brief granting indulgences (time off purgatory) to all who visited the site, which made it a major pilgrimage destination. At this and other Sacri Monti (of which there are several in Lombardy and Piedmont), devotees were to come in penitence, perhaps at night with a lantern, and move from chapel to chapel saying prayers. This sculpture is located in a chapel meant to be Pilate's house, and thus also containing the Flagellation, and, in an aedicule on the exterior, the Ecce Homo. (The location of the chapel, in the north-west of the site, reflects current thought about the location of Pilate's house in Jerusalem.) Some of Christ's tormentors are here shown as dark skinned, with exaggerated racialized features, and in exotic costume, a racist way to distinguish these evil figures from the pale figure of Christ. A real flagel, made of rope, has been inserted into the hands of the figure on the left -- this is modern, but originally the sculpted figures must have held similar flagels. This work has been attributed on the basis of style to Agnolo di Polo, a follower of Verrocchio, or Benedetto Buglioni, both of whom specialized in terracotta sculpture. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Description
Sacro Monte, San Vivaldo (Montaione)
Citation
Antonio Paolucci, Guida di S. Vivaldo (S. Vivaldo: Frati Minori di S. Vivaldo, 1976); Lorenzo Lorenzi, "Le terrecotte policrome di San Vivaldo," in Una "Gerusalemme" toscana sullo sfondo di due giubilei 1500-1525, ed. Sergio Gensini (Montaione: SISMEL, 2004), 109-20; Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani, ed., La Gerusalemme di San Vivaldo (Florence : Polistampa, 2006), cat. 8, pp. 66-70.