This chapter is concerned with method in art history and focuses on R. G. Collingwood’s impact on Michael Baxandall’s contribution to this subject in Patterns of Intention (1985). It begins with a discussion of Baxandall’s appeal to Collingwood’s notion of “re-enactment” and Karl Popper’s “situational logic,” followed by an explanation of the Collingwoodian roots of his “triangle of re-enactment.” Taking for granted that the proper interpretation of Collingwood’s notion of “re-enactment” is in terms of Peirce’s notion of “abduction,” itself understood in terms of the “Gabbay–Woods schema,” I then offer a reading of chapter IV and Baxandall’s analysis of Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ, that bring to the fore the central influence of Collingwood’s conceptions – the claim being that Baxandall’s successful application of them shows their worth.

The third chapter examines the iconography of the ‘hand of God’ spread during the late Roman Empire from the mid-third century onwards, and in the context of interactions between pagan, Jewish and Christian cultures. This particular iconography leads directly to the idea of self-coronation – although still an iconographic rather than performative reality – since it conveys the emperor being crowned by a celestial hand from above, without priestly intervention. Numismatic sources emerge here as crucial evidence, particularly in the case of third- and fourth-century Roman emperors. The iconography of the emperor being crowned by the hand of God did not extend to early Byzantium, but survived in medieval art through the iconography of the king or emperor being crowned by Jesus Christ.