Piero's Madonna del Parto: Facts and Conjectures

摘要

Despite the large amount of work on Piero della Francesca's Madonna del Parto, there are some problems that require attention, the most important being the alleged effect of the Council of Trent on this picture, which was withdrawn from the cult from 1583 to 1697: the usual interpretation that it had become unorthodox appears to be without foundation. There are also some questions about its iconology, which raise interesting conjectures about syncretic inputs.