Engramma-English version

Constantine XII and Mahomed II at the Milvan Bridge. Observations on the date of the Battle between Constantine and Maxentius by Piero della Francesca
Monica Centanni, Alessandra Pedersoli
This essay offers an exact date for the frescoes in Arezzo painted by Piero della Francesca portraying the Legend of the True Cross, via the identification of the Roman emperor, not as John Paleologus VIII (as suggested by Warburg on the basis of the Byzantine sovereign’s profile on a medal by Pisanello), but with Constantine XI, brother of John and the last emperor of Constantinople. Disguised as the legendary battle at the Milvian Bridge, the fresco appears to be an allusion to the clash between Constantine Paleologus (who bears the same name as the first Christian emperor) and Mahomed II (in the painting Maxentius’ troops carry Turkish emblems). The fresco can therefore be dated 1453, during those months in which it was almost possible to hope that the new Constantine “in hoc signo” would win the battle against the new Maxentius, but, instead, witnessed the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire.

History and narrative: rhetorics of truth and strategies of fiction
Marginal notes on two essays by Carlo Ginzburg (Carlo Ginzburg, Indagini su Piero. Il Battesimo, il ciclo di Arezzo, La Flagellazione di Urbino [1981, 1982, 1994] Einaudi, Turin 2001; Carlo Ginzburg, Il filo e le tracce. Vero falso finto, Feltrinelli, Milan 2006).
Fabrizio Lollini, Giuseppe Cengiarotti, Daniele Pisani
These three readings offer an analysis of two texts by Carlo Ginzburg. The first (on Indagini su Piero) centres on the interpretation of the Flagellation by Piero della Francesca, and more generally on matters concerning art-historical methodology, and problems of the ‘hyperinterpretation’ of works of art, by which term one means the tendency to overburden the information, whether stylistic or not, that is gathered during research on a work of art, with meanings. The second and third readings (on the recent Il filone e le tracce) are an analytical reflection on the status of the discipline of history, more specifically on the theme of “Truth” in History, compared with its related subject – history as narrative – in the light of Hayden White’s “historiographical scepticism”.

The Flagellation by Piero della Francesca, and the boundaries of history, literature and iconology
Silvia Ronchey, L’enigma di Piero. L’ultimo bizantino e la crociata fantasma nella rivelazione di un grande quadro, Rizzoli, Milan 2006.
(monica centanni, fabrizio lollini)
"There's no need of an heroic life to create sublime works of art"
Henri Focillon, Piero della Francesca, Abscondita. Milan 2004:
(alessandra pedersoli)
Projects by figures: applying iconology to architecture
Maurizio Bergamo, Carlo Zanin, Le tre età della vita. Architettura per la residenza anziani, Iuav University, Venice-Il Poligrafo, Padua 2006
(engramma staff)