Mysterious Man

Who is the hairy-faced soldier by the ladder? The door was shut but unlocked to the Church of San Lorenzo in Borgo San Sepolcro, so we took the liberty to enter and helped ourselves to the light switch. Emerged from complete darkness was Rosso Fiorentino’s majestic deposition of 1528, a complex, sustained masterpiece with a mystery unsolved. Why did Rosso paint this hirsute character? Could he be plagued with a rare medical condition that causes excessive hair growth on the face? Or is it the artist’s reaction to recent events in Rome during which he was captured and tortured? The palette is unusually dark for the artist, which matches the Evangelist’s description of the eclipse the day of the Crucifixion but perhaps also hints at the horrors of the Sack of Rome which had occurred only a year before. Some scholars even suspect that it is a portrait of Rosso’s pet baboon ‘Bertaccione’! In any case, it is a delightful surprise for those following the Piero della Francesca trail.