Ronchey, S. “Malatesta e Paleologhi. Un'alleanza dinastica per rifondare Bisanzio nel quindicesimo secolo.

The essay investigates and reconstructs the dynastic, political, and religious intricacies involved in the “Western re-foundation” of Byzantium project in the 15th century.  The plan for the “Western salvage of Byzantium” in Morea – developed between the 1420s and 1460s, promoted with particular energy by Bessarion and Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II), and resulting in the failed anti-Turk expedition led by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta after the Pope’s death – began with the marriage of Theodore II Palaeologus and Cleopa Malatesta. The death and burial of the latter, dedicatee of a verse tombeau by Bessarion preserved in M. Marc. gr. 533, may be connected to the mysterious identification of the so-called “Mystras mummy.”  Analysis of the political and dynastic events focuses subsequently on the Italian sojourn of Thomas Palaeologus.  As legitimate heir and sovereign in pectore of the New Byzantium envisaged in the plan to re-conquer the Morea promoted by Pius II, he was the subject of both crucial political expectations and artistic commissions laden with unusual symbolism. In effect, the figure of Thomas and concomitant political and dynastic events are reflected in the major Italian paintings of the period. The historical elements allow us, in particular, a deeper iconographic analysis (documented by illustrations in the appendix) of the most important product of the philo-Byzantine atmosphere of the period – and manifest in the Western political and religious enterprise against the Turks – Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ.

The undertaking, however, was destined to fail and so, after the abortive “Western salvage” of Byzantium, this is how the juridical, institutional, political, ecclesiastical, and ideological legacy - and, in certain ways, the very Byzantine way of life - moves to the Grand Duchy of Moscow.  The marriage of Zoe Palaeologina and Ivan III (The Great) Vasilyevich marks the definitive decline of the plan to reunite the First and Second Rome with the birth of the Third Rome.

 

REVIEWS

M. Campanelli in RR: Roma nel Rinascimento (2001), pp. 130-133.

M. Di Branco in La parola del passato 59 (2004), pp. 309-317.

M. Campanelli in Medioevo latino 26 (2005), p. 1,294.

 

CITED BY

B. Roeck, Mörder, Maler und Mäzene – Piero della Francesca «Geißelung». Eine kunsthistorische Kriminalgeschichte. Munich: Beck, 20105. 211-12.

L. Muti – D. De Sarno Prignano, A tu per tu con la pittura: studi e ricerche di storia dell’arte. Faenza-Monfalcone: Edizioni della laguna, 2002.  38.

C. Pertusi, “L’apocalittica domenicana e la Flagellazione di Piero della Francesca,” Italia medioevale e umanistica 44 (2003), pp. 115-60: 117, n. 2; 118, n. 6; 143, n. 85; 147.