Narrative Theory and Piero as History Painter

Author(s): Louis Marin and Greg Sims

Source: October, Vol. 65 (Summer, 1993), pp. 106-132
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778766
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Narrative
Theory
and Piero
as
History
Painter*
LOUIS MARIN
TRANSLATED BY GREG SIMS
The title of
my paper,
"Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter,"
requires
some
justification
in the context of a
colloquium
devoted to Piero teorico
dell'arte. For in the
process
of
underscoring
the two sides of Piero's
oeuvre,
Vasari's
Life of
Piero
already
deals
explicitly
with this theme as a leitmotif that
traverses it: he was a
great
mathematician,
a consummate
geometrician
and
perspectivist,
but
conjointly
with this excellence of
learning,
Piero's oeuvre also
displays
a
painterly
excellence. To discuss Piero the theoretician of art therefore
involves
discussing
Piero the
writer,
author of
geometrical
treatises such as the
De
perspectiva pingendi.
But since Piero was also a
painter,
we are faced with the
question
of the relation between the work of the savant and that of the
painter:
in what sense is the
painter's practice
theoretical? In what sense can the
products
of this
practice,
the frescoes and the
paintings,
be seen as theoretical
objects,
if
not as
"applications"
of the
theory
of
perspective?
In what sense is a fresco or
a
painting,
both
products
of a
painterly practice,
also the
product
of an
"applied"
theory?'
It seems to me
that,
from this
point
of
view,
two
working hypotheses
can
be advanced in order to sketch out a
problematic
of Piero's
painted
work,
in
particular
his work as a
painter
of
history. Recounting
the
story
of the
discovery
and veneration of the cross in his fresco at San Francesco
d'Arezzo,
in his
capacity
as a
painter,
Piero
presents
a
theory
of
narrative,
a
theory
that should
not
immediately
be conflated with a
philosophy
and
theology
of
history.
Just
as
*
Originally published
as "La theorie narrative et Piero
peintre
d'histoire,"
in Piero della Fran-
cesca: Teorico
dell'Arte,
ed. Omar Calabrese
(Rome:
Collana di Stududi
Semiotici, 1985).
1. This
question
is all the more
germane
in that the dates of Piero's scientific works
suggest
that
they
are late
works,
certainly coming
after a certain number of his
major pieces, including
the
Arezzo
cycle,
the
subject
of this
study.
The
scope
of
my analysis goes beyond epistemology (the
relation between a "scientific"
theory
of the
representation
of
space
in
painting
or a "scientific"
theory
of
proportions
and the
production
of
painted works).
It is also
historical,
since it concerns
the
chronology
of Piero's life and
work,
the
history
of theories of the
representation
of
space
or
proportion,
and the
history
of the relations between such theories and the social and cultural
practices
of
painting.
OCTOBER
65,
Summer
1993,
pp.
107-132. Translation ? 1993 October
Magazine,
Ltd.,
and
Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
Piero della Francesca. The
Legend
of the True Cross. c. 1452-66.
Main
chapel,
San
Francesco,
Arezzo.
t)1
OCTOBER
perspective theory
constructs a
geometric
structure for the
representation
of
three-dimensional
space
in two-dimensional
space
on the basis of certain
prin-
ciples
linked
by
an
explicit
or
implicit
axiomatic,
narrative
theory,
in the same
way,
on the basis of certain
principles,
constructs a
syntactic,
semantic,
and
pragmatic
structure,
a
representation
of
history,
or rather a
story,
an iconic
representation
of a narrative.
Hence a second
hypothesis
that flows from the first: the
question
of the
relations between a
theory
of
perspective
and a
theory
of
narrative,
between a
theory
of the
representation
of
space
constructed
"prospectively"
and a
theory
of the
representation
of narrative constructed
"narratively,"
and more
generally,
the relations between a
representation
of
space
and a
representation
of
history
at a certain historical
moment,
in-a certain
geographical place,
in a certain
cultural
domain,
in the oeuvre of an artist like Piero della Francesca.
The first
hypothesis
should lead to a
theory
and
methodology
of
reading
written,
especially
narrative, texts;
the second to a
theory
and
methodology
of
reading,
or rather
looking
at,
painted
"texts,"
in
particular
iconic narrative
"texts." As far as written narrative is
concerned,
my analysis
will be confined to
chapters
64 and 130 of
Jacobus
de
Voragine's Legenda
aurea,
while the
painted
narratives will be those of the
Discovery
and
Proving of
the True Cross
cycle
at
Arezzo.
The
problematic
outlined in these two
hypotheses immediately presents
itself,
it seems to
me,
in a structural
form,
a form that-it should be added-
far from
eliminating
it,
actually requires
historical
research,
but with a new
orientation. We read a theoretical work
by
Piero,
the De
perspectiva pingendi,
and
we read in the
Legenda
aurea a collection of narratives devoted to the
discovery
and veneration of the cross. At San Francesco
d'Arezzo,
we look at Piero's
frescoes
recounting
in
painted
form this
discovery
and veneration. What is
missing
in this
example
is a fourth
term,
a theoretical text that would set out
the narrative
structure,
the
theory
of a narrative
representation
of
history,
precisely
the
theory
of the narratives in the
cycle
of the cross.
C 4 D
Theory
of I I Narrative
Theory
Perspective
A
(De
Perspectiva
pingendi) 3a
2
+
*
v
B A
Painted Narrative < Written narrative
oeuvre
(painted
1 (written narrative
text) (San
Francesco
text) (Legenda aurea)
d'Arezzo
Frescoes)
108
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter
Relation
1,
going
from the narratives to the frescoes
(A--B) is,
as we
know,
attested
by
the entire critical and historical tradition: the narratives of the
Legenda
aurea
(chapters
64 and
130)
constitute the
primary
material for the
cycle,
the
corpus
of the
program
(but
not the
program
as
such).
Relation
2,
between the
theory
of
perspective
(C)
and the frescoes
(B),
can
be studied
(as
indeed it has
been) by moving
back and forth between
examining
the frescoes
(an
iconic narrative
text)
and Piero's book
(the
written theoretical
text).
Relation
3,
one of whose terms
actually
remains to be
constructed, i.e.,
the
narrative
theory (D),
has to be established
through
a
reading
of the
Legenda
narratives
(3a),
and
by examining
the frescoes
(3b),
which
present
a visual
version of such a
theory.2
And
lastly,
relation
4,
between
perspective theory
and narrative
theory (C
&
D),
would constitute the theoretical-and
problematical-background
for
the research. An
interesting approach
here would be to ask how
Piero,
the
theoretician of
perspective, painter
of the
legend
of the
cross,
himself read the
narratives of the
Legenda;
or,
more
precisely,
to ask
whether,
as he
read,
Piero
the theoretician of art didn't
readily
discern certain elements of the narrative
theory
in
question,
"models"
allowing
us to construct the
theory
that remained
unwritten in his "scientific" oeuvre.3
2. Two remarks are called for here:
(1)
the relations 3a and 3b are not
given
since one of the
terms that
they
link with the other two remains to be
constructed,
and thus the relations themselves
have to be constructed in order to establish the relation
(this
is an
interesting example
of the
construction of a relatio that is
generative
of one or several of its
relata); (2) moreover, and this is
particularly
noticeable in relation
3b,
this relation is established between terms that
belong
to
heterogeneous
semiotic fields
(the legible,
the
visible) and, consequently,
for theoretical reasons-
the
specific
constraints of the
plane
of content and the
plane
of
expression-as
well as historical
reasons-the
social, cultural,
and historical constraints
proper
to each one of these fields-the
passage
from one field to another cannot be one of
simple
translation
(from the
Legenda
narratives
to the Arezzo frescoes and vice
versa).
There is no
guarantee,
for
example,
that at a
given
time
and
place,
the
readability
of a written narrative is coextensive with that of an iconic narrative.
3. This
problematic,
which is both historical and
theoretical, poses complex
and
important
problems.
The first would consist in
asking (and
this has been
done) whether Piero was in
possession
of all the elements of his
theory
of
perspective
when he was
painting
the Arezzo
cycle,
and if so,
whether these elements were
already
constituted as a
system.
The second
problem,
which is also
historical,
concerns the elaboration
of
the
"program" (the proposed commission, accepted by
the
painter)
based on the narrative
material, the
corpus
constituted
by
the
Legenda: why
the
story
of
the cross
among
all the stories in the
Legenda? Why
select this
particular
narrative or
episode
from
among
those
comprising
the
Legend
of the Cross in the
Legenda?
Is the
Legenda
the
only
narrative
material involved in the elaboration of the
program? Why
the
adjunction (if that's what we're
dealing with)
of
episodes
or narrative elements that do not
belong
to these narratives? Insofar as
the contract for the commission has not
survived, is it
possible "objectively"
to locate the
gaps
between the
program
and its realization
by
the
painter?
In the middle of the
Quattrocento,
for a
painter
like Piero at that
point
in his
career,
and
taking
into account the circles in which he was
moving
and for whom he was
working,
is it
possible
to determine the
degree
of freedom he
enjoyed
with
respect
to the
program?
The third
problem
is
methodological:
it concerns the theoretical and
historical illusion that consists of
projecting
models of
reading
narrative texts on a
reading,
or
better,
a
legibility-socially, culturally,
and
historically
determined
(which doesn't mean that such
109
OCTOBER
It is thus
appropriate
to
proceed
on two
fronts,
the first
being
to read with
particular
attentiveness the
complete corpus
of the
Legenda
narratives contained
in
chapter
64,
"De Inventione Sanctae Crucis"
(The
Discovery
of the
Cross),
and
chapter
130,
"De Exaltatione Crucis"
(The
Veneration of the
Cross),
without
simply resorting
to a
summary
based on the frescoes at
Arezzo,
as Piero's critics
and commentators most often
do,
as a
preliminary
to their studies of the
cycle
-an attitude that assumes the frescoes have no other
function,
at this
stage
of
the
research,
than to illustrate these
narratives,
and
which,
inversely,
also as-
sumes that the narratives have no other function
apart
from
serving
as the
supposed program
for the frescoes. If it were
pursued
with
any
coherence,
this
implicit
circle would
finally
rule out
precise study
of the narratives and the
frescoes: the frescoes could be viewed
only through
the
grid
furnished
by
the
narratives, which,
in
turn,
could
only
be read
through
the screen of the fres-
coes.4
a determination is
determinist)-of
the narrative texts of a
corpus.
It should be understood that
when we
pose
the
question
of Piero's
reading
of the
Legenda
narratives,
we are
trying
to discover
whether such a
reading
can be
approached objectively;
in other
words,
we are
inquiring
into the
"iconic" textual
productivity
of a book like the
Legenda
in the middle of the
Quattrocento
in Piero's
social, cultural, artistic,
and
geographic
circle. Hence a fourth
problem
that stems less from an
observation of fact than from a
methodological requirement:
it would be a
question
of
exploring,
with
great
theoretical
vigilance,
the relation between what Levi-Strauss
thirty years
ago
called
"homemade"
explanatory models-thus, in this case, models located in the text of the
Legenda-
and the
contemporary structure-i.e., theory-seeking
to
integrate
them
by accounting
for their
internal incoherence on the theoretical and historical level. But the fifth
problem,
of an
epistemo-
logical nature, is that it nonetheless remains true that a set of
propositions
reconstructed as consti-
tuting
the narrative
theory
of Piero, the
history painter,
could not derive from the same
genre
of
discourse as the set of
propositions
found in the De
Perspectiva pingendi. It is
precisely
the establish-
ment of the
generic
and
specific
differential relations between the
theory
of
perspective
and
narrative
theory
that constitutes the
background problematic
for this
study. (Narrative theory
is
obviously
to be understood in the double sense of a
theory
of a written, verbal narrative and a
theory
of a
painted
iconic narrative
[a
fresco]).
4. This
methodologically
and
theoretically
vicious circle is broken, as far as the written texts
are concerned, by introducing
"contexts" that make it
possible
more or less
conjecturally
to recon-
struct the
ideological program
of those who commissioned the work. From this
point
of view, the
"program"
could be considered as the
writing
of a
secondary
narrative in relation to the
primary
reference narratives, selecting
a
particular episode
or
adding others, a
writing
whose motives are
to be found in the work's various contexts of
production:
the members of the
family
that commis-
sioned it, Francesco Bacci and above all his son Giovanni, who was, as we know, linked to Aretino
and to Roman humanist circles (in particular, Tortelli); the historical and
geographical
context of
the 1450s, which reveals the
complex
imbrication of
politics
and
religion,
added to which one has
the social, cultural, and
religious
"contexts" constituted
by
the Franciscan church at San Francesco,
and the fact that the Bacci
family happened
to have a
private chapel
in the chancel. Is it
possible
to
imagine
a more
exemplary
imbrication of the
"private"
and the
"public,"
of the
family
and
religion?
As for the frescoes, the same external
analysis
can be carried out
by examining
the
iconographic
"context" of
previous
illustrations of the
legends
of the
discovery
and veneration of
the cross:
Agnolo
Gaddi at Santa Croce in Florence, Cenni di Francesco at San Francesco in
Volterra,
and the architectural "context" of the site to be
painted,
with its walls, its windows, its internal
volume, its
place
in the overall edifice, but also the historical "context" of Piero's career, which then
110
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter
The two narrative ensembles of the
discovery
and veneration of the cross
are located in two different sections of
Jacobus
de
Voragine's
book,
hence the
prejudicial question
of the
conjunction
of these two narratives in the same
painted
ensemble.5 The
prologue
to the
Legenda
is
perfectly explicit
about this
disjunction
and,
consequently,
about the difference created
by
the
painted
representation;
it
explains
that life is divided into four
parts-deviation,
re-
newal, reconciliation,
and
pilgrimage-which correspond
to the four
great
periods
of sacred
history:
from Adam banished from Paradise to
Moses,
from
Moses to the birth of
Jesus
Christ,
from the Birth to the
Resurrection,
and
finally,
the
period
of time since then
(where
one cannot fail to note a reflexive
"fold" in each individual
life, which,
falling
within the last of the
periods
of
sacred
history,
is itself divided into four
subperiods).
The Church
represents
these four
great periods
in the
liturgy;
sacred
history
in its successive
stages
is
represented by
a
liturgy
that runs from
Septuagesima
to
Easter,
from Advent
to the
Nativity,
from Easter to
Pentecost,
and from Pentecost to
Advent,
each
representation being governed by
the
reading
of a certain book in the Bible-
Genesis, Isaiah,
the
Apocalypse,
The Book of
Kings
and The Maccabees. And
these four
periods
refer in turn to the four
seasons, winter,
spring,
summer,
and fall,
and to the four times of the
day: night, morning, midday,
and
evening.
The author then notes the existence of a
gap
in this
representation, namely
the time that
elapses
between the
Nativity
and
Septuagesima,
a
gap
filled
partly
by portions
of the reconciliation
(stage
III)
and
partly by
the
pilgrimage (stage
IV).
He also notes that
liturgical
time-the
liturgical representation
of historical
time-disrupts
the
sequence,
since the Church
begins
the
cycle
with the renewal
(stage
II),
moves on to the
portions
of the reconciliation
(III bis)
and the
pilgrimage
(IV bis),
and continues with the deviation
(I),
the reconciliation
(III),
and the
pilgrimage
(IV).
In other
words,
the book follows the
liturgical
order
that
(a)
reverses the two historical time
sequences,
the deviation and the
renewal,
and
(b) introduces,
in
place
of this
reversal,
representations-themselves
his-
torically
ordered-of
sequences
3 and 4 of historical time.
The
discovery
of the cross
(May
3)
takes
place during
the time of the
reconciliation
(sequence 3),
and its veneration
(September 14)
during
the time
of the
pilgrimage (sequence
4), which, itself,
as has
already
been
noted,
dupli-
poses
the
problems
of
dating
his
work,
of its execution
(Did
he have
help?
If
so,
who and
when?),
of
possible interruptions (Was
the
cycle painted
in
stages?
Did he use a
single
or two successive
scaffoldings?)-all problems
whose
consequences
for the
stylistic analysis
of the work should not
be underestimated.
5.
Certainly
the same holds true for the
cycle
at Santa Croce in Florence and the one at San
Francesco in
Volterra,
except
that,
in the latter
case,
the two
episodes
of the
discovery
and veneration
are themselves
part
of a
chapel
decoration that includes a
Circumcision,
an
Annunciation,
a
Nativity
with an Adoration
by
the
shepherds,
and a Massacre of the Innocents.
111
OCTOBER
cates the
totality
of the four
periods
of human life. It is
perhaps
not
insignificant
that the Annunciation and the Passion take
place during
the time of the devia-
tion.6
This first observation
concerning
the
Legenda
narratives in
general,
and
the narratives of the
discovery
and veneration of the cross in
particular,
thus
reveals that there is no
linear,
monodromic time in these
narratives,
but rather
a set of
complex temporalities,
structured as a
multilayered,
embedded
repre-
sentation. It is therefore
preferable
to
replace
the
linear,
unidirectional tem-
porality
with a two-dimensional
plane,
or even a three-dimensional
space.7
Let us now move on to
chapter
64,
"The
Discovery
of the Cross." Like
most others in the
Legenda,
this
chapter
is
preceded by
a
preamble,
but unlike
most,
this
preamble
is itself a
narrative,
a kind of
summary
or narrative
diagram.
The first sentence
simply explains
the name of the
feast,
but this name
is,
in a
sense,
itself a narrative: "One
says 'Discovery
of the
Holy
Cross' because it is
reported
that the
Holy
Cross was found on a certain
day."
But what comes next
is
something
of a
surprise,
for we learn that
prior
to the
day
it was found the
cross has
already
been found on four
separate
occasions: "Nam et
anteafuit
inventa
a Seth. ... In
fact,
it had
previously
been found
by
Seth,
son of
Adam,
in
earthly
paradise,
as is recounted
below,
by
Solomon,
by
the
Jews
in the
probatic pond,
and this
day by
Helena on Mount
Calvary."
In the
chapter
in
question,
the
Holy
Cross has thus been found at the
very
beginning
of the
text, hodie,
today,
the
liturgical
feast
day,
as well as at the end
of the
text,
tali
die,
on a certain
day,
at a "historical" moment. But between the
beginning
and the
end,
it is also found on four other occasions. There are thus
two
temporal
frames,
that of
liturgical
time and that of historical
time, which,
through
their
repetition,
tali
dielhodie,
delineate a kind of
temporal unity
of
presence,
an identical
present
of commemoration marked
by
a double limit in
which, however,
the cross has
already
been found four times. This is
why
one
and the same cross can have been found
just
once,
yet
in four different
ways.
Horizontal, linear,
historical time is inscribed within another
temporality-an
immobile,
temporal plane
where the successive events of the
discovery "repeat"
the final
event,
which is also the first: a
figurative
structure of time in which
6. For the
moment,
I shall content
myself
with
pointing
out that the two "feasts" are
represented
in the Arezzo
cycle,
one of them
directly (the Annunciation)
as at
Volterra,
the other
indirectly
through
its instrumental
sign (the Passion),
as at Florence and Volterra.
7. It is
appropriate
to
emphasize
here the value of the term "schema." We know
that,
in the
lexicon of ancient
rhetoric,
schema
signifies
a
stylistic figure.
Here,
in an
epistemological
discourse
on
history
and
narrative,
I am
giving
it the sense of a matrix of
possible representations
constructed
in the
imagination by
means of
regulated operations conforming
to a determinate
principle.
The
schema thus
pertains
both to the form of
space
and to the
category
of the
understanding-a
mediation,
it effectuates the
projection
of
understanding
into
spatial
form,
where the latter is
determined
by
this
very operation.
The schema thus has the value of an
epistemological
instrument
of
description.
112
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter
chronicled,
historical time is
caught.
In this mode and
modality
of the
figure,
of the
type
and
antitype,
the
story's
narrative exhibits its structure.8
We also notice that the cross does not exist as the
true,
Holy
Cross before
Christ's Passion is
accomplished
on
it,
which is
why
the cross is found "histori-
cally" just
once,
after the
Passion,
by
Helena on Mount
Calvary,
and it is this
cross that is found
liturgically,
hodie,
today, May
3. But this is also the cross that
has
"figuratively"
been found four
times,
meaning
that it has been found in
four transformations of the
figure
of the cross in the "real"
cross;
for the real
cross
already
transforms the four
figures
in its
reality.
In other
words,
the cross
is the
operator
of the four
transformations,
the
operator
behind the
functioning
of the narrative structural mechanism of the
history
of the
Holy
Cross.9
Indeed,
in the text in
question,
in the variants of the narrative as well as
successively
in the
history
itself,
the cross takes the form of a small
bough,
a
piece
of the wood from the tree of
knowledge,
a
branch,
a
tree,
a
plank (or
a
beam),
a wooden
bridge,
four essences of
wood,
and
finally
the cross of the
Passion; then,
and
only
then,
it becomes a
sign,
several
signs, military ensigns,
referring
to a
lost,
forgotten object,
hidden or
resembling
other
objects.
And it
is
finally
the "true" cross discovered
by
Helena. The narrative and its variants
(in which we
undoubtedly
find all the
historically
determined characteristics of
analogical,
allegorical,
or
symbolic
modes of
thought)
are, however,
produced
in all their
complexity by
the
trajectory-in
the text-of this
polymorphous
"object," by
the
functioning
of this
operator
of narrative transformation called
the
"cross,"
which both is and is not a
cross,
which is both there and not
there,
which is its own
sign
and the referent of this
sign,
and so on. A
syntactic
operator,
it is also a semantic
operator
in the sense that it articulates
opposites,
fundamental
oppositions (life/death,
natural/supernatural,
nature/culture, God/
mankind, East/West, believers/unbelievers,
etc.)
whose
conjunction produces
meaning
in a
symbolic, metaphoric
form as well as a
narrative,
metonymic
form.
Now-and this is an essential element
brought
out
by
an attentive
reading
of the
complete
text-the text of the narrative shows us on two different
occasions that the cross is indeed a
syntactic
and semantic
operator,
the first
time
narratively,
as a
syntactic operator,
and a second time
discursively,
in the
mode of
commentary,
as a semantic
operator.10
Here is the first
passage,
where
8. It should be
pointed
out that the historical narrative does not reveal its structure outside a
particular
mode and
modality,
both of which
pertain
to a cultural field within a determinate historical
moment.
9. In these
particular narratives,
the cross is thus one of the
possible representations produced
as a
spatial
schema of the
imagination
of historical
time,
but it is also an
operative representation
that mobilizes the
deep
structure of the narratives.
10. In other
words,
the cross constitutes one of these "homemade
models," to use Levi-Strauss's
term,
by
means of which "men
try
to veil or
justify
the contradictions between the real
society
in
which
they
live and the ideal
image they
have of it"
(Structural
Anthropology,
vol.
2,
trans.
Monique
113
OCTOBER
the
operator
of the narrative transformations is
presented
in narrative form:
"Thus,
contemplating
the
great beauty
of this
tree,
Solomon recommended that
it be cut down and
placed
in the House of the Wood.
However,
as
John
Beleth
says,
it could never be
put anywhere,
and there was no
way
of
fitting
it into
any
place
whatsoever: it was either too
long,
or it was found
wanting
due to its
excessive
smallness;
when it had been shortened in accordance with the
pro-
portions required by
the
place
in
question,
it then seemed so short that it
appeared wholly
unsuitable." The tree of the cross is neither
long
nor
short,
neither wide nor
high,
because it is at once
long,
short, wide,
and
high:
it
occupies
all
spatial
dimensions without
being
situable in
any
determinate
place;
it is unsituable. Cut
according
to the architectural
proportions-rationalibiter-
of the
gallery,"
the tree beam nevertheless remains
unproportionable,
but this
is because it lends itself to all and
any proportions:12
it is the universal
generator
of
proportion
in
general.
It is omni-functional.
Figurative
evidence is
provided
of this
omni-functionality:
the wood
goes
from
being
a beam or column to
being
a
bridge.
The
piece
of wood that was
to
serve,
vertically,
as a column is
placed horizontally
on the
ground,
not as
part
of a
floor,
as a
support
or a
covering,
but as a
bridge,
a means of
traversal,
of
passage.
It is hard not to see this omni-dimensional
object-operator,
this
magi-
cally "plastic" object
that shrinks or
expands beyond
the bounds of measurement
as a module of
perspective
and
proportion (isn't
it Vasari
who,
when
discussing
a
picture
of a lifeless Christ
by Piero,
no doubt
foreshortened,
mentions its
"longhezza dell'impossibile"?),
but which is manifested in the narrative text
only
in
a
figurative
form.13
Layton [New
York: Basic Books, 1976], p. 100). Applied
to the narratives in
question,
this notion
makes it
apparent that,
on the one hand, the narratives themselves
propose explanatory "hy-
potheses" concerning
the stories
they
tell and, on the other
hand,
that if one
hopes
to
bring
to
light
their
signifying structure,
it will
require
a
precise analysis
of these
"hypotheses."
These remarks
are all the more
germane
in this instance since more than two centuries
separate
the
composition
of the
Legenda
from Piero's
reading
of
it,
in an
entirely
different social, cultural, historical,
and
indeed
ideological context, and since, by
the
very
fact of their distance and historical
displacement,
the "models"
proposed by
the narrative
describing
and
interpreting
the
story
are
necessarily
oriented
and
manipulated
with other ends in mind.
11.
Proportionality
constitutes the continual leitmotif of
chapter 7,
Book 3 of the first Book of
Kings.
12. This
expression
is found in Honorius of Autun's De Inventione Sanctae
Crucis,
which
is,
as we
know,
one of the numerous texts
compiled by
the
Legenda:
"Inventum est
per
omnia
capabile."
Yet
in this text, the
only point
at which the functional
polymorphousness
of the
object
"cross"
appears
is
during
the construction of the cross of the Passion
by
the
Jews,
which is the
point
of its
unproportionality.
This is how,
in the narrative
text,
the cross
escapes
the
empirical
level of narrated
objects,
thus
becoming,
in the mode of the miracle
(i.e., figuratively),
a
productive
schema,
a schema-
operator.
We should also note
that,
unlike Jean Beleth,
Honorius does not recount the Solomon
episode.
The
unproportionality
of the wood of the ante Christum cross becomes its
omni-propor-
tionality
once we reach the Passion.
13.
My
remarks on the
"schema-operator"
of the cross in the text of the
Legenda
in connection
114
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter
A second
passage
in the narrative-the one
following
the construction of
the Cross of the Passion
by
the
Jews-presents,
in the mode of discursive
commentary,
a further function of the
operator.
Indeed,
we read that the wood
of the beam
(column,
bridge)
of the
great
tree,
remarked
upon by
Solomon
and
rejected by
his
workers,
is
actually
four essences of
wood,
corresponding
to the four dimensions of the
cross,
and
finally
that these four woods are
already
signified by
the famous
passage
in
Ephesians
3:18: "the
power
to
comprehend
with all the saints what is the breadth and
length
and
height
and
depth."
This
is revealed in a
commentary by
Saint
Augustine
that is
quoted by Jacobus
de
Voragine:
the breadth is the
crosspiece,
on which the hands were
outstretched;
the
length
from the
ground up
to the
crosspiece
is the
part
to which the
body
was attached
(by
the
hands);
the
height,
from the
crosspiece
to the
top,
is the
part
to which the head was
fixed;
and the
depth
is the section of the Cross
buried in the
ground.
Saint
Augustine
extends these four
"physical"
dimensions
into four
"metaphorical"
dimensions: the
width,
bearing
Christ's
hands,
sym-
bolizes
good
works
accomplished
in
Christ;
the
length, bearing
the
body, sym-
bolizes the attachment to
Jesus;
the
height, bearing
the
head,
symbolizes
the
hope
of celestial
goodness,
while the
depth
in the earth
symbolizes
the stricture
against profaning
the sacraments.
Diagram
of the
totality
of the universe ac-
cording
to Saint
Paul,14
and filtered
through
Saint
Augustine's gloss
(which
is
with Piero's
reading
of it can be related to Carlo
Ginzburg's
remarkable
study
of the mensura Christi
in Urbino's
Flagellation (Carlo Ginzburg,
The
Enigma of
Piero,
trans. Martin
Ryle
and Kate
Soper
[London: Verso, 1985]). Finding
in Wittkower and Carter's article the identification of the module
on which the architecture of the
Flagellation
is based, but
noting
with Carter the existence of a
different
system
of measurement, independent
of the one
proposed by
Pacioli in De Divina
Propor-
tione, namely
Christ's
height, Ginzburg
shows how this unit of measurement, whose function is to
organize
the
picture formally,
is found
by
Piero in a
precious
relic of Latran, the columns that were
thought
to
correspond
to the
height
of Christ: "an invaluable document-the exact measurement
of the Savior's
height,
a model of
corporeal perfection.
An invaluable document, but not
unique:
during
the same
period,
there were other
writings
or monuments that
provided conflicting
indi-
cations of Christ's
height," among
them
"printed prayers containing
an
image
of Christ and a line
segment accompanied by
the words: 'This is a measure of Christ, Our Blessed Savior, who was
fifteen times taller than this"'
(Ginzburg, Enigma). The
perspectival, proportional
module that I am
evoking
with the
schema-operator
"cross"
certainly
does not have the metrical
precision
of the
mensura Christi, but this is because it functions at another level in the formal
organization
of the
Arezzo frescoes: no
longer
at the level of an architectonics of scenic
space,
but at that of a narrative
structuring
of
history.
14. "And that Christ
may
dwell in
your
hearts
through faith; that
you, being
rooted and
grounded
in love, may
have
power
to
comprehend
with all the saints what is the breadth and
length
and
height
and
depth,
and to know the love of Christ which
surpasses knowledge,
that
you may
be
filled with all the fullness of God"
(Ephesians 3:17-19). The translator of the
Jerusalem
Bible notes
that "Saint Paul makes use of this enumeration, which in Stoic
philosophies designated
the
totality
of the universe, in order to evoke Christ's universal role in the
regenerations
of the world," and
adds: "Should one wish to be more
precise,
the dimensions
may
be those of the
mystery
of Salvation
or, better still, those of the Love of Christ, which is its source."
115
OCTOBER
in fact
quoted),
the cross
appears
in the narrative of the
Legenda
as the
operator
of its
paradigmatic
structure,
as a
privileged
semantic
operator.
It is
appropriate
at this
point
to make one essential remark
concerning
this
passage: cosmologically,
the cross is
clearly presented
in a flat
plane.
The
depth
of which
Jacobus
de
Voragine speaks, following
Saint Paul and Saint
Augustine,
is not the
depth
of a third dimension but the section of the cross
hidden beneath the
ground.
The cross
actually
articulates and
symbolically
signifies
the four
anisotropic
dimensions of universal
space:
the heavens above
(height),
the earth below
(depth),
left and
right (width),
and the distance be-
tween heaven and earth
(length).
We are therefore
dealing
not with a volume
where the cross would constitute its three-dimensional
articulation,
but with a
depthless plane
and its various orientations.
Clearly,
as a result of
Augustine's
commentary,
the text manifests a certain
"depth,"
but it is the
symbolic
or
metaphoric depth
that
gives
each of the orientations of the cosmic
plane
a
religious
and moral value:
good
works,
perseverance, hope, respect
for the
sacred
mysteries.'5
According
to our initial
hypothesis,
Piero's
cycle
of frescoes at San Fran-
cesco
d'Arezzo,
the "iconic" narrative of the
discovery
and veneration of the
cross,
draws its coherence not from the
corresponding
narratives in the
Legenda,
but from their narrative structure
or,
more
precisely,
from the
syntactic
and
semantic
operator responsible
for the
functioning
of this
structure,
an
operator
that the narratives themselves
present
as an
operator
of narrative
syntax
and
semantic,
paradigmatic signification:
the cross is
thus,
in the
strong
sense of the
term,
as much the
subject
of the
cycle
as its
object.
It is not
just
the
history
of
its avatars that is
"imaged"
here
(the
cross as a
figured object),
nor is it
simply
one of the narratives in this
history
that is articulated
by
the cross
(the
cross as
figurative object),
it is the
very
narration of this narrative that
acquires, through
the
cross,
both its transformational
dynamic
and its structural mechanism: the
cross as schema and iconic
(syntactic
and
semantic)
operator.16
15. It is this
metaphorical, symbolic depth
that
appears
in
chapter
130,
in the
introductory
prologue
to the
discovery
of the
cross,
a
prologue
in which the two
great paradigms
are
opposed,
the
negative
ante-Passionem
Christi,
and the
positive post-Passionem
Christi: on the one
hand, "vilitas,
infructuositas,
ignobilitas,
tenebrositas, mors, foedor;"
on the
other,
"pretiositas,
fertilitas, sublimitas,
charitas,
vita
perpetua,
odor suavitatis." We should also note that the
syntagmatic presentation
of
chapter
64
("The Discovery")
is
opposed
to the
paradigmatic presentation
of
chapter
130
("The
Veneration").
16. The distinction between
figured object, figurative object,
and
schema-operator corresponds
roughly
to the levels of
manifestation,
surface
grammar,
and
deep
structure
proposed by
A.
J.
Greimas for the
study
of narrative
(see Greimas,
Du
sens;
Essais
semiotiques [Paris:
Editions du
Seuil,
1972]), except
that
my analysis
is carried out in the visual and iconic
domain,
and
procedures
valid
for the
analysis
of a written text cannot be
directly
translated into this domain. The
figurative object
is more akin to what Pierre Francastel calls a
"figurative
tool,"
although
here
again,
as Hubert
116
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter
Within the limits of this
study,
there is no
question
of
embarking
on an
exhaustive
analysis
of the Arezzo
cycle.
I shall
simply
limit
myself
to a few
examples
of the
functioning
of what I am
calling
the "cross as
schema-operator"
at various levels of
generality
in its
functioning.
7
The first level-the most
general-concerns
the relations between the
painted
narrative utterances
[enonces]
and the narrational enunciation of the
narrative. Here we encounter the often-debated
problem
of the order in which
the
cycle
is to be
read, thus,
its
syntagmatic organization,
which,
compared
with
that of
preceding cycles, appears
not to conform to what is assumed to be a
principle
of intersemiotic
transposition
from
"discursivity"
to
"figurativity"-in
other
words,
the
passage
from the
linearity
of the written narrative
representing
a chronicled order of the
history
to the
regular
succession,
in the
registers
dividing up
the surfaces of the
walls,
of narrative
(iconic)
episodes, following
the twin rule of an orientation from left to
right
and from
top
to
bottom,
with
each
register containing
one
episode.
What is needed here is a
comparison
with the two
cycles preceding
the
one at
Arezzo,
those at Florence and
Volterra,
not to mention the one at
Empoli
by
Masolino,
of which the
sinopia
are all we know. Now the studies that have
been done-and this is
true,
it seems to
me,
of the Arezzo
cycle-do
not
appear
to have
sufficiently
refined the various elements of the discourse that describes
the
cycles,
nor do its basic
categories
seem
adequately
constructed. We need to
distinguish
(1)
on the level of the
history
to which the narrative
refers,
the
chronicled units of this
history
and their chronicled relations of
succession,
including
the
interruptions,
which are themselves
significant;
and
(2)
on the
level of the
representation
of this
history
in narrative form, the narrative se-
quences
into which each of these chronicled units is divided, along
with their
narrative succession
(which
can also be
subject
to
ellipses,
allusions, condensa-
Damisch has
emphasized,
the
figurative object
is not a
"sign" simply
to the extent that it is transferred
from one level of institutional
reality
and from an
already
constituted order of
signification
to
another
(the painted fresco),
but also to the extent that this transfer itself has a
signifying
function
and thus endows the "borrowed"
sign
with
specific significations
and functions (see Damisch, Theorie
du
nuage [Paris:
Editions du Seuil, 1972]). The notion of
schema-operator
aims to
encompass
simultaneously
the transfer of the
sign
from one order of
"reality"
to another, the
specific power
of structuration that it
thereby acquires,
and its
pragmatic, effect-producing
force. In this sense,
this notion is
clearly
related to what
Jean-Francois Lyotard,
in Discours, figure (Paris: Klincksieck,
1971),
calls the
figural
or the
matrix-figure:
the
schema-operator designates
the forms of
figural
work in both the mechanism of
figures
and the
system
of
figuration.
17. Even
though
I cannot
really pursue
the
point,
it has to be
emphasized
that the levels of
generality (or formality)
hierarchized in this
way
lead to
regimes
of
"proof"
that differ as much
by
the
type
of the elements of demonstration that are
proposed
as
by
the
degree
of
probability
or
possibility acquired by
the
descriptive
or
interpretative
discourse. (See Ginzburg's
remarks on this
subject
in The
Enigma
of Piero.) Contexts hierarchized
according
to their
decreasing generality
and
their
analysis
would thus allow us to delimit the fields of
possibility
or
compossibility
for a
given
artist in a
given
time and
place, and, at the same time, would delimit the fields of the
possible
and
compossible
in the
corresponding interpretative
discourses.
117
OCTOBER
tions, etc.);
but
(3)
we also need to take into consideration the units of the
representation's
material base
(lunettes, registers,
or
bands)
and the
arrange-
ment of these material units within the edifice
(partitions,
walls,
up high,
down
low, etc.)-in
other
words,
the architectonic loci
[lieux]
and their architectural
order-and to
distinguish
them from
(4)
the narrative loci and their sceno-
graphic
order
(in front, behind,
high,
low),
a distinction
corresponding
to the
one between the
plan
of the
representation
and the
represented space.
To take
just
one
example:
the chronicle-unit of the referential
story
most
often called "the Death of Adam" involves two narrative
sequences
in
Agnolo
Gaddi-"Seth at the
gates
of Paradise
receiving
the branch from the tree of
mercy"
and "Seth
planting
the branch in the heart of Adam's dead
body"-
whereas with
Piero,
this same unit involves three
sequences-"Adam aged
and
sick," "Seth at the
gates
of
Paradise,"
and "Seth
planting
the branch in the
mouth of Adam's dead
body."
In Gaddi's
version,
the two
sequences
take
place
in two architectonic
loci,
a lunette
(Seth)
and a
riquadro
below it
(Adam),
whereas
in
Piero's,
the three
sequences occupy
the same material
surface,
the lunette of
the
right-hand panel
(when
facing
the
altar),
but with a lateral
right-left
ori-
entation. At
Volterra,
Cenni di Francesco
paints
two
sequences,
like
Agnolo
Gaddi in
Florence, but,
like
Piero,
within the same
lunette,
only
with a
left-right
lateral orientation.
I won't take this
analysis any
further,
but shall
simply
introduce one
essential
precondition
for a
reading
of the Arezzo frescoes:
prior
to
running
one's
eye
over the
arrangement
of the
figures
in order to discern the "narrative"
in the
image,
this
reading
involves
traversing
a definite
space,
an architectural
decor that
necessarily implies
an
anisotropic space
of
heterogeneous
dimensions
and
specific
directions,
which is determined
by
the beholder's
position
and
perhaps
even more so
by
his or her
movements,
more or less constrained within
the
space (facing
the
altar,
his or her back to the
entrance,
standing
in the
middle
along
a central
line,
then
turning
around to
leave, etc.).
This
space
of
the
placement
and
displacement
of the beholder-which has
nothing
to do with
that of the beholder
standing
in front of la Brera's
Flagellation
or Pala-is first
of all an architectural
space,
the hollow internal volume of an
edifice,
and
secondly,
it is a functional
religious
and familial
space
(in
this case,
a commem-
orative
family chapel,
situated in the chancel of a Franciscan
church)
in which
one's movements are
regulated by
the
protocols
of
public
and
private religious
ceremony.
To
pursue
the
comparisons among
the three
cycles,
one of the decisive
transformations that Piero introduces over his forerunners concerns what we
have been
calling
the narrative locus:
perfectly
determined in Gaddi or Cenni
di
Francesco,
it becomes in Piero what could be called a site of
figuration,
a
space
in which
figures
are
arranged, by
means of which a
represented space
fragmented
into
independent
loci is rationalized into a
unitary,
harmonic
space.
To this can be added an
equally important
observation
concerning
the
plan
of
118
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter
both the
theory
of the iconic narrative and its
reading:
the
place
(and
the
movements)
of the beholder is not identified with the
point
of view determined
by
the
perspective.
At
Arezzo,
the
perspectival
site is an
(abstract, theoretical)
ideal site that the beholder cannot
occupy,
and which is
perfectly
distinct from
its "real" site in the Bacci
chapel-which
does not mean that we were meant to
ignore
this ideal
site;
on the
contrary,
we shall discover
just
how
important
it is
for
constructing
a
reading
of the frescoes.
In order to schematize the
comparison
in the order of
reading
in the three
cycles,
a few
diagrams:'8
1 2 3 4
1-1
3a
7
8 7 6 5
j/
9a
la
9b
lb
8
\2b 2a
18. I should
point
out here-and this is a weakness in
my analysis-that
the
proposed
schemas
are not constructed to the scale of the
corresponding
edifices,
and also that in order to make the
itinerary
of their
reading
clearer and more
explicit,
I have not taken into account either the narrative
sequences articulating
the chronicled units or their order of
presentation.
I shall deal with this
question
below. As for the Volterra
cycle,
the narratives of the
discovery
and veneration of the
cross are linked to a
history
of the
Virgin (A, B, C, D,
E in the
schema) with,
in
particular,
A,
an
Annunciation, B,
a
Nativity, separated by
a window from
C,
an Adoration of the
Shepherds,
D,
a
Massacre of the
Innocents,
and
E,
a Circumcision. We would need to examine the effects of
meaning
resulting
from this
conjunction
for the
cycle
of the
discovery
and veneration
proper.
And still on
the Volterra
cycle,
it is worth
pointing
out the inversion in the orientation of the
reading (4a, 4b)
in the last lunette on the
left,
a
prelude
to the
backtracking
involved in the
arrangement
of the
lower
registers (5, 6, 7, etc.).
Less
easy
to
explain
is the inversion in the final
riquadro
on the
right
(9a, 9b), although
it
may
be the
presentation
of a conclusive form.
119
OCTOBER
T 0 >0<
3
1,\
o8
V
You will notice that
only
with the Arezzo frescoes does the
itinerary
of
reading
produce
a double crossover: the
first,
between the
plan
and the
space,
occurs
at the back
window,
the
opening
that allows
light
into the chancel and into the
family chapel
(from
3 to 4 on the
plan
of the back
wall,
and from 6 to 7 in the
architectonic,
volumetric
space).
The
operator
of the narrative
itinerary (the
cross as
operative
schema and as module of
construction) produces
a crossed
articulation in the
plan
and the
space,
and
through
this crossover
generates
the
architectural
space
(the
luminous internal
volume),
in accordance with the
fresco's
plan.
120
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter
The second crossover occurs on the left-hand wall between the first lateral
narrative movement of the
discovery
and
proving
of the true cross and the
movement from the lower to the
upper part
of the
wall,
from the defeat of
Chosroes to the return of the cross to
Jerusalem,
in which the crossover move-
ments are marked
by
a
complex
series of
angular
transformations of the cross
as a
sign
and the cross as an
object, revealing
the
schema-operator-operations
that
generate
the
space represented
in the
plan,
and which are also based on
it.19
These
very
schematic remarks are
simply
intended to
highlight
the nec-
essary
constraint that
frescoes,
architectonic
loci,
and their architectural order
impose
on a narrative
itinerary
of
reading
and,
consequently,
on the succession
of narrative
sequences representing
a
story; they
are also intended to
signal
the
fact that
only
the
structuring
function of the
schema-operator
"cross"
(which,
once
again,
in the absence of sound
arguments
to the
contrary,
cannot
simply
be identified with the
figurative
or
figured object,
the
"cross")
allows us to
uncover a narrative coherence in the
cycle
that is not
governed by
the constraint
of
linearity (always implicitly presupposed,
it
seems),
which is one of the char-
acteristics of written narrative. Nor can this
operator
be identified with the
esoteric,
mysterious presence
of a secret
archetype.
In this
case,
it is a con-
structed
model,
an iconic
equivalent
of the two
(syntagmatic
and
paradigmatic)
models found in the narratives of the
Legenda,
whose
operations
are
designed
not to
provide
an
explicit interpretation
of the miraculous
episodes
in the
story
they
tell
(as
is the case in the
Legenda)
but,
relative to the "content" of the
story
rendered in
"images,"
to resolve the
problems posed by
the
architecture,
which
the
painter
has to decorate in
conformity
with a
plan
that is itself based on the
Legenda
narratives.
Moreover,
as I have described
it,
the
functioning
of the
schema-operator
"cross" neither contests nor
compromises readings-which
could be called
paradigmatic-of
the
cycle proposed by
a certain number of
interpreters,
Mik-
hail
Alpatov
and Laurie Schneider
among
others,
whatever
meanings
these
paradigms might
otherwise
have,
since
Alpatov,
for
one,
has no trouble
conju-
gating
a
syntagmatic,
narrative
reading
with this
paradigmatic reading.
As I have
said,
an
itinerary
of
reading
cannot be reduced
simply
to
casting
one's
eye
over a surface and its
illusory depth.
In an architectonic
volume,
it
also involves the beholder's movements
(albeit
an ideal
beholder),
which the
very
structure of the Arezzo edifice
imposes.
It is
by taking
account of this
movement-displacement, doubly regulated by
the succession of
episodes
on the
walls and
panels (the
narrative
logic
of the
story
to be
told)
and
by
the archi-
tectonic structure of the
chapel-chancel,
that the effects of the
functioning
of
the
schema-operator
"cross"
appear. Supposing
that this ideal beholder is situ-
19. Hubert Damisch's
analyses
are
particularly
decisive in this
regard.
121
OCTOBER
ated in the internal volume of the
chapel,
five
stages
can be
distinguished.
First,
he or she faces the wall on the
right
(relative
to the rear of the
church)
in order
to
read,
from
top
to
bottom,
the scenes in the
lunette,
then those in the first
register;
second,
rotating through ninety degrees,
the beholder faces the back
wall in order to read the first
panel
on the
right, framing
the window
(The
Carrying of
the
Holy Wood),
then
moving
down and
obliquely
across the
window,
he or she comes to a second
panel,
to the left of the window
(the Annunciation),
and
then,
on the same
level,
but
moving
back to the
right-hand
side of the
window,
to a third
panel
(The
Dream
of
Constantine); third,
rotating through
a
further
ninety degrees,
the beholder is once
again facing
the wall on the
right,
in order to read the lower section of the
panel
(The Victory of
Constantine over
Maxentius);
fourth,
with a further
ninety-degree
rotation,
the beholder is back
in his or her
previous position,
but
looking
now at a fourth
panel,
to the left of
the
window,
in the
upper part
of the
register
(The
Torture
ofJudas);
fifth,
another
ninety-degree
rotation
brings
the beholder around to face the wall on the
right,
where he or she
reads,
in
succession,
the
upper register
(The Discovery
and
Proving
of
the True
Cross),
the lower
register
(The Victory of
Hercules over Chrosoes
and His
Execution),
and
then,
retraversing
the
upper register,
the lunette
(The
Return
of
the Cross to
Jerusalem).20
This
gives
us the
following
schema of the five
moments and their
overlapping:
F
--------'------7,
I F-
AA
A
A
1
L
2 -
-
3
l-
4 _
5 _
3
20. I am not unaware of the somewhat
arbitrary
character of
placing
the beholder in a fixed
point
in the
chancel-chapel
of San Francesco d'Arezzo. It establishes not a
"point"
or even a
"place"
of
viewing,
but a
relatively
abstract "site" of
viewing, perhaps
indicated and
signified by
the cross
on the
altar,
which would thus constitute the
figure
of this
placement
and of the various
specified
rotations.
122
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter
Here 3
repeats
1,
and 4
(partially) repeats
2. This double
repetition
reveals the
"crossover" between the
plan
(the
back
wall)
and the
space
(the
right
wall, back
wall),
while the three successive readings of 5
bring
out the "crossover" in the
plan
(the
left
wall).
B 1 2 3 4 5 6 C
21
22
23
24
25
26
F
12 13 14 15
G
31
32
33 /A
34
H
D E
A remarkable
figure
from the De
perspectiva pingendi
and Piero's commen-
tary
on it are of considerable relevance here: "A il
quale pongo
che sia
l'ochio,"
an
eye
that Piero himself
says
is divided
by
the
diagonals
BE and CD into four
equal parts,
each one of them
capable
of
being
considered as an
eye facing
the
four sides of the
square,
"as if at
point
A there were four men
looking
at the
sides
FG, GI,
IH and HF . . ." To come back to the
eye
at
point
A,
Piero
considers it as a circle and demonstrates the "virtu visiva"
through
"the inter-
section of the nerves that intersect in the center of the
crystalline
humor,
and
from which the visual
rays emerge."
Piero's demonstration is no doubt
centrally
concerned with the
angles
and limits of the
eye's
field of
vision,
and with the
"reasons"
why objects appear
to
grow
smaller in
space.2'
For
my purposes,
I
shall consider this demonstration as the
synchronic, geometric
translation of
the successive movements of the "ideal beholder" at the center of the edifice's
volumetric
space,
where this beholder's movements back and forth and the
repetitions
in his or her
placement manifest
the "intersection" that
Piero,
the
theoretician of
perspective,
situates in the
globe
of the
eye.
The
eye
is
certainly
there,
but situated in
space,
where it is
equally subject
to the vertical dimension
21. See Rudolf Wittkower and B. A. R.
Carter,
"The
Perspective
of Piero della Francesca's
Flagellation," Journal of
the
Warburg
and Courtauld Institutes 16
(1953),
pp.
292-302,
and Hubert
Damisch's demonstration in
L'Origine
de la
perspective (Paris: Flammarion, 1987).
123
The
Discovery
and
Proving
of the
True Cross.
The
Victory
of Hercules over
Chrosoes and His Execution.
i:?l?
i:i F1IBf BiE r 7
M:
I? p
As
f
a
i' : ;:j:::
il- ?$.:
B
?P
Iltl %i ?layi aL

::
: kw - --"-?II ' F I
"iiir
% ,?:
k-
:j;
I
urlr
(high
and
low),
the horizontal
dimension,
the formal
apparatus
of
perspective,
the architectonic structure of the
edifice,
and
subject
as well to the constraints
of
geometry, along
with those of a narrative structure whose accounts of the
discovery
and veneration of the cross offered Piero the
(syntagmatic
and
par-
adigmatic)
models in the
schema-operator,
the "cross."
By way
of a
second,
less
general example,
I shall
attempt
a
reading
of the
upper register
on the
right-hand
wall,
The
Queen
of
Sheba Received
by
Solomon.
The scene is divided into two
parts:
on the
left,
the
Queen
of Sheba arrives
with her retinue. "Come to hear the Wisdom of
Solomon,
as she was about to
cross the lake
[where
the Sacred Wood in the form of a
plank
or beam serves
as a
bridge],
she saw in her mind that the Savior was to be
hung
on this wood.
Thus,
she
sought
not to
pass
over
it,
but at once
began
to
worship
it." On the
right,
the
Queen
of Sheba meets Solomon in his
palace,
marked
by
rows of
Corinthian
columns,
all
"divinely
measured,"
according
to Vasari. As far as the
arrangement
of the narrative
figures
in the first
sequence
is
concerned,
I shall
focus
exclusively
on their movements from left to
right, culminating
with the
famous
figure
of the
Queen
kneeling.
In the other
sequence,
the
Queen,
en-
tering
from the
right,
bows before Solomon in the
center,
who is
accompanied
by
five
dignitaries
from his
court,
to his left. Between the two
sequences
lies
our
"object,"
the wood of the cross:
placed horizontally
on the
ground,
it is
presented
almost
frontally
in a
very strong oblique
in the
plane
of the
represen-
tation,
abutting
the first row of columns
represented
in all their
superb verticality,
almost lined
up
one behind the other. If the
arrangement
of the
figures
is a funda-
mental factor in iconic narrative
representation,
it has to be
pointed
out that in
order to enter Solomon's
palace
from the
right-after
her arrival from the
left-the
Queen
and her retinue must leave the frame and the
plane-whether
through
the "front" or the
"back,"
it doesn't matter-but in
any
case
following
a direction that is
strongly
indicated
by
the
placement,
in the
represented space,
of the beam
bridge.
In the iconic
narrative,
the
figurative object
"cross" cannot
function as a
bridge,
that
is,
as an instrument of transit from left to
right.
The
Queen
of' Sheba
Receive(l by
Solomon.
Indeed,
it "resists"
(so
to
speak)
this movement to the
point
where the
figures
are
obliged
to reenter from the
right. Figuratively,
the
bridge
in the narrative is
an uncrossable
barrier,
as it is in the
Queen's
vision.22 The
"bridge"
is an obstacle
that
prevents
their lateral movement
(parallel
to the
plane
of
representation),
yet
this is the direction in which
they
are headed. On the other
hand,
by pointing
beyond
the frame
(which,
it should be
emphasized,
is not the
point
of view of
a "real"
beholder,
but rather the "ideal" site of a
gaze),
the
"bridge"
facilitates
and orders the
passage-the
transit-not of the
narrative,
but of the
narration,
from one
sequence
to the next. The
bridge's
orientation,
almost
perpendicular
to that of the
figures
in the
narrative,
is the marker of their
representative
enunciation. While the
transversally placed figured object
(the
wood of the cross
as beam
bridge) prevents
the lateral
passage
that is
iconically
narrated,
by
its
very transversality
and as an
object
of
figuration
it
produces
the order of the
narration;
it effectuates the narrative transformation from one
sequence
to the
next.23 In other
words,
the "cross" is here at once an
object
in the iconic narrative
22. This
point
deserves to be
developed:
the
representation
of the
bridge
as a
barrier,
an obstacle,
and not as a means of transit could be
interpreted
as the
way
in which the
Queen
of Sheba sees it
in her
vision,
or rather as the effect of this
envisioning
(which
would make the
figured object
a
figurative object):
"in her
mind,
she saw that the Savior was to be
hung
on this wood.
Thus,
she
sought
not to
pass
over it." An
inconsistency
in the
representation
would thus serve to
signify, by
its
very inconsistency,
another level of
signification
or
degree
of
reality. Although
much more
explicit,
an aberration in the
"represented" image
endowed with the same
signifying
function can
be found in Urbino's
Flagellation,
where two out of three
figures
in the same
spatial
unit and in the
same
plane
are dressed in
contemporary
costumes. The third
figure,
a
young,
barefooted man,
introduces a
supplementary "inconsistency"
that reveals a third level of
reality. (On
these various
levels of
reality,
see the work of Sven
Sandstrom,
Kenneth Clark,
Marilyn
Lavin,
Thalia Gouma-
Peterson,
and Carlo
Ginzburg
on
Piero.)
This remark on the
Queen
of Sheba
episode
is not
opposed
to
my analysis;
on the
contrary,
on the level of the
narrative,
it would account for the
signifying
effect of a mechanism
pertaining
to the narration. In other
words,
through
the
functioning
of the
schema-operator,
the narrative text
regains
its textual cohesion
by resolving
on the level
of
the
enunciation
(and,
in the final
analysis,
that of the
beholder)
the difference between the levels of
reality
indicated
by
the
"inconsistency"
in the
placement
of the
figured object.
23. It
may
be wondered whether this transformation isn't
prepared
for
by
the
group
of four
I
1.
OCTOBER
(a
figured object)
and the
subject
of the iconic enunciation of the
story:
it
articulates the one with the
other,
the
laterality
of the
arrangement
of the
figures
and the
perpendicularity
of the mechanism of narration. Here
again,
but in a
less
general way
than
before,
it is the
functioning
of the
schema-operator
"cross"
that,
on the level of the
story being
told,
resolves the double incoherence of a
bridge
that is a barrier and the
contradictory figurative arrangement
of the two
sequences,
from left to
right
in the
first,
from
right
to left in the second. In
every
sense of the
term,
the
schema-operator
"cross" converts the
sequences;
it
effectuates the transformation of the narrative
by
a marker of narration.24
Let us take a third
example,
still more restricted in its
generality,
the
episode
of the Annunciation: here the
object
"cross,"
in either
figured
or
figu-
rative
form,
has
disappeared
from the iconic narrative utterance.
Among
others,
this is one reason for the
questions
raised about the
pres-
ence of this
sequence
in the
cycle
of the
discovery
and veneration of the
cross,
since the Annunciation is absent from the reference narrative in the
Legenda
and from the other narratives in the
compilation.
In
fact,
comparing
the Arezzo
cycle
with those in Florence and
Volterra,
one notices
that,
within the
cycle,
the
Annunciation is substituted for the
episode
of the construction of the
cross,
the
prelude
to the Passion.25 Yet the
schema-operator
"cross"
organizes
and artic-
ulates the entire scene. To
begin
with,
the
plane
of the
representation
is
clearly
subject
to a
rigorous quadripartite
division of four loci
occupied by
God the
Father
(top left)
with the annunciating angel
(bottom
left),
and
by
the second
floor of the
building
with its window
(top right),
and the
Virgin (bottom right).
The central column and the
angle
formed
by
the first floor wall indicate
height,
while the banded marble floor,
the
cornices,
and the entablatures indicate
breadth.
horses on the left, where the first two are shown front-on, "looking"
out of the frame, the third
shown with its white
hindquarters
and its head in
profile
but obscured
by
the hostler, the fourth,
with a "lateral"
gaze
and its head in
profile,
with one
eye
visible. See Hubert Damisch's
analyses
of
this
question.
24. See the
theory
that I have constructed and
developed
on markers of narration in iconic
narrative in Detruire la
peinture (Paris, 1979).
25. An "aberrant"
iconographic
detail in the Arezzo Annunciation
points
to this
operation
of
substitution: the fact that the
angel
is
carrying
not a
lily
but a
palm.
One
naturally
thinks of the
palm
of the
martyr
and the absolute
martyrdom
of Christ's Passion on the cross, prototype
of all
martyrdom.
The
palm
would thus constitute a
supplementary
or vicarious
figure
of the cross. Yet
it will also be noted that the
angel carrying
the
palm
in the
presence
of the
Virgin
is the essential
figure announcing
the
Virgin's
own death, the
palm
that the
angel
tells her has been
picked
in
Paradise.
(See
the narratives of the
Assumption
of the
Virgin
in the
apocrypha
of Pseudo-Meliton,
The
Apocryphal
New Testament, pp. 209ff.)
The
palm
would thus be less a substitute for the cross
than the
antitype
of the branch from the tree of
mercy
that Seth
brings
back from Paradise and
plants
in the heart of the dead Adam (and
thus also, in the final
analysis,
the
antitype
of the cross
itself).
This
"displaced" iconographic
detail thus establishes the indicated
correspondence
between
Eve and
Mary
in the "Ave" of the Annunciation (AVE, EVA).
I should add that in Cenni's
Annunciation at Volterra the
angel
is also
carrying
a
palm.
128
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter 129
The Annunciation.
IY',
.,
:r:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:
r-
y 5i
OCTOBER
The same is true of the scene's floor
plan
with its
illusory spatial depth:
you
need
only
cast
your eye
over
it,
schematically,
in order to
recognize
the
cruciform structure that
organizes
it. To the
eye,
it takes on the
aspect
of a
(horizontal) T,
where the back wall of the bottom two
loci,
like that-invisible
but
perceptually implied-of
the
upper right
locus
(the
second floor of the
building),
constitute the cross bar
(its
width),
while the downstroke of the T
(its
length)
is
marked,
at its
extremities,
by
the central column
(on the
edge
of the
scenic
ramp)
and
by
the
engaged
column in the back
wall,
linked
together by
the architrave of the coffered
ceiling.26
If this last dimension extends
beyond
the limit
imposed by
the back
wall,
the informed
eye
does not
posit
or even
imply
it,
even if
equipped
with the
geometry
of the De
perspectiva pingendi-
unless the
upper
left
(celestial) locus,
that of God the
Father,
which remains
entirely open, suggests
its
possibility.
Lastly,
the
schema-operator
"cross" articulates the
plane
of
representation
and the
represented plane
in order to construct the
represented space,
this
very
articulation
being
exhibited
by
the
position
of the four
figures,
since
they
are
situated at once in the four
compartments
into which the schema divides the
surface
of the
panel
(the plane
of
representation)
and at the limits of the loci
that it articulates on the scene's floor
plan
(the
represented plane):
God the
Father is situated between the
represented
interiors,
although
his shadow does
fall on the back wall
(in
the left
part
of the
panel),
the wall that constitutes the
limit of both interior and exterior
space,
both of which are left
open.
The
angel
(in
the lower
section)
is no doubt in his
"proper" place,
but the
tips
of his
wings
extend
beyond
the frame on the
left,
just
as the
Virgin,
to whom he addresses
his
salutation,
occupies-with
a
power long
remarked
upon-the place
reserved
for
her,
the
"loggia"
(an
interior that is covered
yet open), though
her blue
cloak falls behind the column that defines the
space's
limit.
Finally,
the
window-a
figure just
as
important
as the other three-forms a "hole" in the
second-floor
wall,
leading
into the closed and dark
interior,
but its
half-open
shutter both solicits and turns the beholder's
gaze away, beyond
the
represented
scene and toward the luminous
open
window at the back of the
chancel-chapel,
to the
point
where the "natural"
light
admitted
by
this window
is,
so to
speak,
captured by
the mechanism of
representation:
the shadows that are
cast,
notably
that of the wooden
bar,
would thus mark this
capturing
in the
represented
space.
The
schema-operator
"cross" is therefore
fully
functional in the Annuncia-
tion,
the
only episode
in which the
figured
and
polymorphous object,
the
"cross,"
is
absent,
just
as the
episode dealing
with the narratives of the
discovery
and
veneration of the instrument of the Passion and
Redemption
is
missing
from
26. It is
interesting
to consult Honorius of Autun's De Inventione Sanctae Crucis on this
point,
since he describes with
great precision
the formal variations in the letters
"signifying"
the
Cross,
T
and X
(tau
and
chi).
130
Narrative
Theory
and Piero as
History
Painter
the
Legenda.
But it is
noteworthy
that the ensemble of the scene would need
only
to be
presented
in a
rigorously
frontal fashion for the scheme that
organizes
it
(and
the
operator
that
produces
its
space)
to become
clearly
visible on the
surface of the
panel,
where the central
column,
concealing
its twin
engaged
in
the back
wall,
would constitute its
length
(to
use the
language
of the
Legenda,
quoting
Saint
Augustine),
and the band of dark marble
decorating
the external
architrave
of
the
Virgin's "loggia"
would be situated
exactly
in the continuation of
the same dark band
adorning
the
upper part of
the back wall. In other
words,
it
is Piero's
propositions
on
perspective-in
this case
totally "gratuitous,"
since
they
are not
required
either
by
the architectonic structure of the wall itself or
by
the "real"
placement
of the beholder-that blur and conceal the cruciform
schema-operator
of the construction and articulation of the
space
of
represen-
tation and of the
represented space.
One of the motifs of this
blurring (among
others)
is no doubt the
integration
of "natural"
light
into the iconic
represen-
tation,
and thus the transformation
(a
transformation not
lacking
in
allegorical
and
symbolic
value)
of the
necessary
condition of all
visibility,
lux,
into the
means of
representability,
lumen.
To
conclude,
I shall take a
final,
perfectly specific example:
the
Proving of
the True Cross in the
upper register
of the left
wall,
in the narrative order of the
cycle. Beginning
with The
Victory of
Constantine over Maxentius
(in
the lower
register
of the
right
wall),
the cross is
visually depicted
as a cross and no
longer
in the forms that
exegetically prefigure
it
(the
branch of the tree of
mercy,
the
"unproportionable"
beam in
King
Solomon's
palace,
the uncrossable
bridge
leading
to the
palace
and,
at the same
time,
cast into the
probatic pond, etc.).
The cross is absent from both the Annunciation and the Dream
of
Constantine.
Yet,
in the
Victory of
Constantine, even if the cross seems to stand within the
Emperor's easy
reach,
it is still not as the
"real,"
historical
cross,
instrument of
Christ's
passion,
but as a
sign:
In hoc
signe,
vinces. The
pictorial, plastic
treatment
to which Piero submits it and its
placement
in the overall ensemble of the
episode
show this to be the case. In the
Discovery
and
Proving of
the True
Cross,
it is thus the
"real,"
the "true" cross that Helena finds
along
with the other
two,
from which it is
transcendentally
and
irrefutably distinguished by
a
major
miracle
(the
resurrection of the dead
man).
The beholder has been
expecting
this "true" cross since the
beginning
of the
cycle,
and now he finds it. And
yet
already
it is no
longer
the "real"
cross,
but the
true,
the real relic of the
cross,
what remains of the true
cross,
of the "referent"-a "whole
fragment"
whose
theology-indeed,
whose semiotic
theory-should
be
carefully
studied. It is a
sign
that
encapsulates
and condenses a
story
and the narrative of a
past history,
but which also broaches a new
history,
a new narrative that
proves by
its
efficacity-the
resurrection-that this
singular
cross is the
very
truth of its
sign.
The
figured object
"cross"
(as
a
cross)
is thus
represented
in the
scene,
its
transverse bar or "width" on the horizontal in a
plane parallel
to the
plane
of
representation,
with its
longitudinal upright given
a
doubly oblique
orientation:
131
OCTOBER
it is situated both in the
plane
of the
painting
and in the
plane
of the
represented
scene. And it is
precisely
in this narrative
sequence
that what we have been
calling
the
schema-operator
"cross" is identified with the
figured object,
the
"cross," and,
beyond
this,
with the
"real,"
the "true" referent that this
object
represents-a
coincidence of the
schema,
the
operator,
and the
figure
that
iconically
defines the constitution of the cross as a relic.
Indeed,
the
figured
object,
the
"cross,"
is not limited in the
representation
of the narrative
sequence
to its
represented figure.
It carries out an
operation
that is not
simply
the
narrative
operation
of the miracle of a resurrection: it manifests the
operative
schema that has been at work
throughout
the
cycle,
from its first
representation
on. The
figured object
is at once the schema and the
operator
of a
placement
of the narrative
figures
in accordance with a "cruciform" scenic structure in
which the
object
"the
cross,"
presented
as such
(as
a
cross),
is also the
represen-
tation of a scenic
apparatus
that
positions
the
figures
in
space.
At the head of
the
cross,
the resurrected man is
placed,
arms
apart, parallel
to the cross's
transverse
bar,
whose two extremities are defined
by
two
personages-the
woman in the blue
cloak,
presented
almost with her back to the
beholder,
her
profile
hidden,
and the bearded man with hands
joined,
almost front-on. Saint
Helena,
kneeling,
and situated in the continuation of the
upright
of the
cross,
obscures its lower
end,
while her four
attendants,
also
kneeling,
conceal its
"depth,"
to use
Augustine's
term,
the section that is buried in the
ground,
while
their attitudes
present
what this section of the cross
allegorizes, namely respect
for the sacred
mysteries.
Better still-and here the
narrative,
its
model,
and its structure
join up
with the
representation,
its formal
model,
and its
prospective
theoretical
structure-it will be noticed that the cross's transverse
bar,
in the
plane
of
representation,
is a kind of "viewfinder"
placed
in the line of
sight
of the
personage
in the conical
hat,
seen in
profile,
a line
forming
a
tangent
with the
two blind
"oculi,"
whose mottled marble decorates the facade of the Renaissance
church
(presented
in an almost
perfect
frontal
fashion),
and
ending precisely
in the
cross-joint
of the first cross located on the
left,
in the narrative
sequence
preceding
the one the beholder is
currently looking
at,
as
if,
unaware of the
present (represented)
miracle that
proves
the
reality
of the
cross,
the
personage
in the conical hat
(who
represents
the
beholder)
were-on the level of the
narrative-retrospectively perceiving
the
religious
truth
by
the
grace
of this
theoretical,
prospective
"viewfinder" offered to him in the
figured object,
the
transverse bar of the cross.
Thus,
precisely
to the extent that the
schema-operator
of
representation
coincides with the
represented object,
the miraculous
sign
that the
representa-
tion
represents,
Piero the theoretician of narrative and Piero the theoretician
of
perspective
can be seen as one and the same.
132