We're in the Uffizi looking at two portraits that were once joined as a diptych, so they would have been connected by a hinge. This is the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Frederico de Montefeltro and Battista Sforza. Now she...
He had just died, and this was a commemorative portrait. This was a way that he could remember his wife. And we think that it was actually painted by Piero della Francesca, possibly from a death mask that had been made of her. Look at how dressed up she is.
DR. STEVEN ZUCKERMANN They're both very It reminds me of the fact that we're so used to photographs being taken of us from the time we're very little. It's true. This was a very privileged thing, and only the extremely wealthy could have an image that could outlast them. I'm also reminded that women actually used to pluck their foreheads because it was considered to be especially beautiful to have a very high forehead. You often see that in Northern painting, and it's important to remember that Federico de Montefeltro actually brought Northern painters, that is, Flemish painters, down to his court, and in fact, Piero, who's an Italian painter, was a very important Italian painter.
seems to have borrowed that northern interest, perhaps not only in the high far head, but also in the great intricacy and specificity of the landscape. We have this wonderful atmospheric perspective. One of the other characteristics that I think is so interesting here is the very strict profile in which both figures are rendered.
The formality that you were talking about comes through because of the profile. This is based on coinage from ancient Rome, which by the way, the humanists of the Montefeltro Accord and other other numinous quartz at this time were actively collecting. And if you think about a rendering of Caesar or even on modern coinage, you generally have a perfect profile. And you see that here.
The one interesting detail is that the portraits are almost always facing right. And here, the Duke is facing his wife, facing left. Actually, we know that he had suffered wounds on his right side of his face. He was missing an eye. That's right.
And part of his nose was missing. So that may have been the other reason why we only see the left side of his face. but there is that formality and power that comes from the profile pose, but also that bird's eye view of the landscape, so the figures tower over the landscape. So there really is symbolism in this painting, and there's actually symbolism outside of this painting as well.
You had mentioned this was a diptych, and when this painting was closed, you would actually only see the exterior, and the exteriors are painted as well. Let's go have a look. There's a lot of symbolism on the outside of this painting. It's covers, you could say. You have two triumphal chariots, which is an image that actually comes from ancient Rome as well.
On both of them, we can see the people that are portrayed on the inside of the painting. Right on the back of Battista Sforza's portrait, we see her born in a triumphal chariot, surrounded by figures who represent her virtues, and the same with the Duke. Also below that, we have these inscriptions in the form of a letter to the Duke.
in Latin. Dr. Now, that classical inscription refers specifically to the virtues that are represented on those triumphal chariots. One example of that can be seen on the Duke's chariot which shows facing us sitting, but full frontal, a personification of justice.
You can see she's actually holding scales of justice in her hand as well as a sword. On the female portrait, the card is being drawn not by horses, but by unicorns. It's really a fanciful landscape that they're in as well. There is a There is this real sense of imagination and an attempt to invent a kind of iconography that ennobles the figures represented. And we have that typical Piero della Francesca sense of geometry and formality that I think complements the portraits themselves.