Ronchey, S. “Il ‘salvataggio occidentale’ di Bisanzio. Una lettera di Enea Silvio Piccolomini e l'allegoria pittorica di Bisanzio nel primo Rinascimento.” Bisanzio, Venezia e il mondo franco-greco (XIII-XV secolo. Atti del Colloquio Internazionale organizzato nel centenario della nascita di Raymond-Joseph Loenertz. O.P. (Venice, 1-2 December 2000). Eds. C. A. Maltezou and P. Schreiner. Venice: Istituto Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e Postbizantini, 2002. 125-50, 529-44.

The interpretatio byzantina of the Cavalcata dei Magi painted by Benozzo Gozzoli in the Medici Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi Palace at Florence is at the centre of this further contribution devoted to the oft-misunderstood presence of the Oriental question, the Byzantine Empire and its representatives in early Renaissance painting. The iconographic analysis of the frescoes is tied to that of the historical and political background of their commission: the “Western salvage of Byzantium,” supported by Bessarion and the philo-Greek component of the Roman Curia, with Nicolas of Cusa as its leader.  Further, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II), who called the Council of Mantua for this reason in 1459, the same year in which the frescoes were painted - energetically promoted the project.

In light of the plan to re-establish the empire in Morea and the crusade called by Pius II in Mantua, the dynastic alliances of the last Palaiologoi with the Italian signorie, increasingly forming into a veritable “philo-Byzantine clan,” come into focus, along with the juridical, ideological, and symbolic role with which Pius II invests the porphyrogenitus Thomas Palaiologos – destined for the throne of the dreamed-for New Byzantium – during his sojourn in Italy.

The powerful echoes of these events and the celebration and reiteration, on the occasion of the Council of Mantua, of the political and religious plans elaborated exactly twenty years previously during the Council of Ferrara and Florence, can be seen in contemporary painting: in Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ, in Andrea Mantegna’s Corteo dei Magi and, with even greater clarity, in Benozzo’s Cavalcata. The latter might also hold one of the “hidden portraits” of Thomas Palaiologos (identified with certainty in subsequent artistic commissions, especially those of Pius II), or more properly, a symbolic effigy in the form of the young, blond “leader of the hunt” with the cheetahs – a continual subject of perplexity and debate among scholars.

If the study of the portrait avails itself of a comparison with Piero’s Flagellation, the presence of Thomas Palaiologos at the Council of Florence is suggested by historical evidence unknown or under-valued until now, such as Sfrantze’s Chronicon minus and Pero Tafur’s Travels.  An extensive iconographic apparatus supplements the essay.