Abstract
How much can geometry and mathematics reveal about paintings? How far should hidden meanings be trusted in art? Jo Marchant investigates the latest, and possibly most controversial, interpretation of a Renaissance masterpiece. The cover shows Piero della Francesca's The Flagellation of Christ, painted around 1460 and now on view in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino. Piero is admired for his outstanding use of perspective — on the tiled floor, for example — which has helped make this painting one of the most famous masterpieces of the Renaissance. But the painting is famous too for containing a number of mysteries, particularly the identity of the three men on the right. Science historian David King has joined the fray, to the consternation of many art scholars, with a new and innovative hypothesis claimed to identify all of the mysterious figures at a stroke. In a News Feature Jo Marchant reports on the historical and mathematical detective work behind King's identification, which started with an inscription on a fifteenth-century astrolabe, and also explains the rival theories that are more generally accepted by the art world.
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