Belonging to a noble family Genoese, Giovanni Battista Paggi was forced into exile in 1581 because guilty of murder, though in self-defense. After a stay in Aulla and Pisa, he arrived in Florence at the court of Francesco I de Medici. At the end of 1590 the painter had the chance to return to Genoa, but only within the residences of Prince Giovanni Andrea I Doria, his protector, as they were excluded from the jurisdiction of the Republic.

The Flagellation, signed and dated 1591, comes from the villa built by Andrea Doria outside the city old, where it probably decorated one of the chapels built by Giovanni Andrea and his wife Zenobia Del Carretto. The work reveals the Genoese artist's assimilation of some of the characteristics and methods of Florentine painting at the end of the sixteenth century.