Géopolitique des polyptyques
Neville Rowley
Throughout the twentieth century, one of the most dynamic areas of research into Italian painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance was the virtual reconstruction of dismembered polyptychs. A study of the large altarpiece painted by Sassetta for the church of San Francesco in Borgo San Sepolcro enables to retrace the evolution of this phenomenon, in which the practice of attribution, initially anglophone, soon became specifically Italian, while the objects of study moved over time from private hands to museums open to the public. Is it then possible to speak of a real “polyptychs’ geopolitics”?