ABSTRACT
The canonical interpretation may have depended on the image of God the Father designed originally for the vault above the painting, to which the upturned eyes of Christ were directed. In the West, the Gospel accounts provide the basic clues for recognizing the subject: three disciples, the cloud, Moses and Elijah, a radiant Christ. The most effective solution was to exploit the Byzantine formula of rays of light emanating from the almond shaped mandorla, which traditionally had signified the Divine presence in Byzantine models. Fundamental to representations of the theme was the implicit distinction between the mystical and the episodic treatment of the subject. The selection of the Transfiguration for an altarpiece might have been dictated by political motives, as an explicit indication of loyalty to the Pope in a period of shifting allegiances among Italian states. The recovery of the Transfiguration theme presents a challenge, perhaps intentional, to those modern artists who have attempted it.
