Flagellation of Christ

Recognised by Schubring as the work of Francesco di Giorgio, after the most varied attributions, from Bertoldo to Pollajolo, from Verrocchio to Leonardo, this very beautiful relief, datable to around 1475, bears witness less to a superficial relationship with the anatomical dynamism and soft plasticity of Florentine sculpture of the later quattrocento than to a personal reading of Donatello. The transitions between the planes of the relief, down to the schiacciato, and the breaking up and synthesis of the modelling in the details, are in fact used to expressive rather than naturalistic or illusionistic ends, and answer to a lyrical vision, a feeling of moral unease and of pietas.