(ANSA) - Rome, August 22 - A new study could shed light on three mysterious panels that have baffled scholars for centuries.
The three paintings, which depict formal, idealized cityscapes, were probably commissioned for the palace of Duke Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino in the 15th century.
However, experts have argued for decades over their mathematical precision, the locations they depict, who painted them and what purpose they served.
New research unveiled in Italy could cast fresh light on the three panels, which now hang in the western Italian town of Urbino, Berlin, and the U.S. city of Baltimore.
The study suggests they may have been the culmination of a broader 14th and 15th-century trend, in which detailed and stylised cityscapes were used as memory tools and meditation aids.
The study, headed by a geography professor and cartography expert from Macerata University, Giorgio Mangani, suggests the paintings were far more than just representations of different cities.
Rather than providing information about or replicating a specific site, the many views and street plans were instead used to memorize information that frequently had nothing to do with the city in question.
"In fact, the more realistic the representations were, the more they worked as effective rhetorical devices," the expert said.
Mangani's study initially focused on sections of devotional manuals, which were widespread among mendicant orders in the 15th and 16th centuries.
These suggested that readers use either interiorised mental images of cities familiar to them or painted or etched urban views to help them focus during prayer.
"During the era of urban explosion, therefore, views of cities replaced the role previously played by individual medieval buildings," continued Mangani.
"In effect, each building was used to 'contain' a concept that needed to be remembered".
The expert said this accounted for the appearance of crucifixes or nativity scenes in the background of easily identifiable historic representations, such as those of Antonello da Messina.
"Their presence helped more effectively root religious narratives in the viewer's interior, thanks to the emotional force of an urban image already familiar to the individual," he said.
Mangani's theory is that the practice started in a religious context but gradually assumed a wider usage, being used to memorize historical and scientific ideas.
According to the expert, this would also explain other forms of urban iconography, such as the paintings frequently found inside chests, the drawers of writing desks and bedsteads.
