The Sassetti Chapel (Italian: Cappella Sassetti) is a chapel in the basilica of Santa Trinita in Florence, Italy. It is especially notable for its frescoes of the Stories of St. Francis, considered Domenico Ghirlandaio's masterwork.
The Sassetti Chapel (Italian: Cappella Sassetti) is a chapel in the basilica of Santa Trinita in Florence, Italy. It is especially notable for its frescoes of the Stories of St. Francis, considered Domenico Ghirlandaio's masterwork.
Francesco Sassetti (1421–1490) was a rich banker and a member of the Medici entourage, for which he directed the Medici Bank. In 1478 he acquired the chapel of St. Francis in Santa Trinita, after his proposal to add a decoration portraying the saint had been rejected by the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella, where his family had had a chapel (later also frescoed by Ghirlandaio, and now known as the Tornabuoni Chapel) since the 14th century.
He commissioned the execution of the frescoes from the most famed artist of the city, Domenico Ghirlandaio. The date of the contract is that signed next to the portraits of Sassetti and his wife (December 25, 1480), although the work was not carried out until between 1483 and 1486. The central altarpiece, depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds, is dated 1485.
Ghirlandaio portrayed numerous figures of contemporary Florentine society in the scenes. All the work shows the importance of the influence of the Flemish school on Ghirlandaio, in particular the Portinari Triptych by Hugo van der Goes, taken by him to Florence in 1483 and now in the Uffizi.
The Sassetti Chapel was restored in 2004.
The chapel, like the church in which it is located, is in Gothic style, characterized by an ogival arch.
The fresco cycle covers three walls framed by trompe-l'œil architectural elements. The altarpiece is also framed by a painted marble decoration. The two side walls house the tombs of Francesco Sassetti and his wife Nera Corsi, under a gilded arch, a creation of Giuliano da Sangallo. At the side of the altar are kneeling portraits of the two patrons, Nera Corsi on the left and Sassetti on the right: they direct their prayers towards the central altarpiece of the Adoration of the Shepherds, also by Ghirlandaio.
Ghirlandaio's frescoes can also be seen in the upper transept wall, outside the chapel. This area was plastered in the 18th century, the paintings being rediscovered only in 1895, which accounts for their poorer state of conservation. The work outside the Sassetti chapel is attributed to the three Ghirlandaio brothers (Domenico, David and Benedetto) and assistants. Its perspective was devised to offer a perfect view from below.
The first scene painted above the chapel is the Tiburtine Sibyl Announces Jesus' Coming to Augustus. The Sibyl is probably a portrait of Sassetti's daughter, Sibilla. On the pilaster dividing the Sassetti Chapel from the subsequent one is a painted grisaille statue of David. In the vault of the chapel are the four Sibyls, surrounded by flaming aureoles and holding out banderoles describing their prophetic role as assigned them by Virgil:
- Hec teste Virgil Magnus, in ultima autem etate;
- Invisibile verbum palapabitur germinabit.
Only the faces of the Sibyls are attributed to Ghirlandaio; the bodies were probably executed by his workshop.
The fresco cycle extends over three walls of the chapels, and includes six scenes:
Ghirlandaio had possibly never seen the Stories of St. Francis in the Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi, but he must certainly have known those in the Bardi Chapel of Santa Croce in Florence, painted by Giotto in the early 14th century.
This scene is located on the upper left wall, and portrays the young Francis who having renounced all his assets by removing his clothes publicly, is protected by the bishop of Perugia. Francis' raging father is shown with some people restraining him. The scene is set in a northern European city which had been identified as Geneva or Lyon, where Sassetti had served for the Medici. The secondary figures could be work by Domenico's brothers and workshop.
This scene, in the upper central wall, depicts St. Francis being received by Pope Innocent III in 1209 at the Cathedral of Sant Giovanni in Laterano at the time of the Franciscan Order's sanction by the Pope. The figures are portrayed in a cathedral interior, so that the chapel's arch resembles the triumphal arch of the church. The scene is set in Florence instead of Rome, the background showing the Piazza della Signoria, the Palazzo Vecchio and the Loggia dei Lanzi, which did not at that time contain statues). The choice of the city was an allusion to the power and status that Florence had assumed; in Humanist circles it was considered a new Rome or Jerusalem.
A drawing, now in Berlin, shows that initially Ghirlandaio had intended a more traditional iconography following that of the frescoes in Santa Croce and without the portraits. Later he modified it, dividing the pictorial space into three planes: the steps, the church and the background. On the right, in the foreground, are Sassetti's brother-in-law, the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia Antonio di Puccio Pucci; Sassetti's employer, Lorenzo de' Medici; Francesco Sassetti himself and his son Federico. Lorenzo raises his hand to greet Angelo Poliziano, the tutor of his sons who are featured ascending the stairs. They are Giuliano, Piero and Giovanni, the future Pope Leo X, followed by other members of the Humanist Academy, Luigi Pulci and Matteo Franco. Sassetti is pointing out his older sons on the other side of the stairs: Galeazzo, Teodoro and Cosimo.
This painting, which is considered one of Ghirlandaio's masterpieces, provides the most reliable portraits of these various 15th century people, as, unlike the work of Botticelli, who also painted members of the Medici household, they are neither stylised, nor do they appear to be idealised.
This scene is located on the upper right wall. It portrays St. Francis preaching to the Ayyubid sultan Al-Kamil, who asked him to walk over a fire to demonstrate his sanctity. The piece is rather similar to that of Giotto in Santa Croce with the sultan in the middle, St. Francis on the right with his brother friars, but with Ghirlandaio's innovation of a figure in the foreground whose back is to the observer. It is one of the best executed parts of the cycle.
The lower left wall represents St. Francis kneeling, with open arms, receiving the divine sign from an apparition of the crucified Christ supported by a group of cherubim. The fresco was executed in ten days. Although featuring similar iconography to Giotto's work in Santa Croce, it is more likely that Ghirlandaio was inspired by the marble relief of Benedetto da Maiano's pulpit, also in Santa Croce. The miracle portrayed occurred at La Verna, the castles of which can be seen in the background which is characterized by a naturalistic rendering of outstanding quality, including a well executed deer. On the right can be seen a city on a lake, a fanciful representation of Pisa with its Duomo and Leaning Tower.
The last scene of the cycle is on the lower right wall and was executed in 28 days. It shows the dead saint lying on a catafalque in the middle of a large Renaissance church, surrounded by numerous figures. That the composition is derived from Giotto's work in Santa Croce is clearly seen in various elements including the monks' gestures, though Ghirlandaio added different details such as the monumental background and the varying responses of the different figures.
The three people on the right, a father with his son and nephew, are probably connected to the Sassetti family. On the right the tutor Poliziano is again portrayed alongside Bartolomeo Fonzio.
This scene portrays a posthumous miracle by St. Francis, connected to the Sassetti family and for this reason located in a central position of the chapel, although out of chronological order with the death of St Francis. It portrays the resurrection of a boy who had died falling from Palazzo Spini Feroni, a palace on the piazza facing Santa Trinita. According to some authorities, Ghirlandaio was inspired by Masaccio's The Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel.
The resurrected boy is in the middle of the composition, sitting with his hands together on a bed covered with Eastern-style drapes. St. Francis, appearing as an apparition, blesses him from the sky, while, on either side, a group of people attend the scene. Among the people portrayed are numerous figures from contemporary Florence. The five women on the left are probably Sassetti's daughters, their husbands or fiancées being visible on the right in the foreground. The last man in the first left row is Ghirlandaio himself. Also notable is the presence of a Moorish female servant. Other figures portrayed on the right include Maso degli Albizzi, Angelo Acciaioli, Palla Strozzi and Neri di Gino Capponi. The last two people on the right are probably Poliziano and Fonzio.
The scene is also important as it shows in detail the appearance of the Santa Trinita's piazza in the 15th century, with the old Romanesque façade of the church, Palazzo Spini Feroni still with the appearance of a fortress and an undecorated Ponte Santa Trinita. The three figures behind the bier are attributed to assistants.
The Adoration of the Shepherds was painted in 1485. [1] It is recognized as one of Ghirlandaio's masterpieces, as well as one of the Florentine painting school. The work shows clear influences of the Flemish school, the artist having studied Hugo van der Goes' Portinari Altarpiece, which had been taken to Florence in 1483 by the Portinari family for the church of Sant'Egidio. Ghirlandaio's inspiration from that work is shown by positioning and realist handling of the three shepherds on the right, one of which is the artist's self-portrait. The frame has the inscription "Ipsum quem genuit adoravit Maria" ("Maria worshiped the one whom she bore").
Also influenced by Flemish painting is the attention to detail: every object has a precise symbolic role; and the well-rendered airy perspective, with the landscape fading towards a detailed representation of a hill and a town. The farthest city, on the right, is a symbolic Jerusalem with the domed edifice; in front of it is a dead tree, a reference to its conquest. The left city represents Rome, with the two sepulchres of the "prophetic" emperors, Augustus and Hadrian (who, at the time, was thought to be buried under the Torre delle Milizie). In the city, however, a church resembling Santa Maria del Fiore can be seen, a hint of the role of Florence as a new Rome.
The altarpiece is flanked by the two kneeling portraits of the donors.
The scene is set on a flowering lawn, with Mary to the left foreground, kneeling in front of the Child. The manger, before which the Child lies, is an ancient Roman sarcophagus with the inscription "Ense cadens soly mo Pompei Fulvi[us] augur Numen aitquae me conteg[it] urna dabit", an allusion of the coming of Christ through the prophecy of Fulvius, killed by Pompey the Great during the Roman conquest of Jerusalem. The prophecy said that from the sarcophagus housing his remains a God will rise, a reference to the victory of Christianity over Paganism.
Next to Mary is St. Joseph looking upwards as, in the background, an angel is announcing to the shepherds the coming of Christ, while on the left, the long procession of the Magi is passing under a triumphal arch. The arch has the inscription: "Gn[eo] Pompeo Magno Hircanus Pont[ifex] P[osuit]" ("The priest Hircanus erected [this arch] in honor of Gnaius Pompey the Great"). On the left, the two nearest Magi are staring at a light visible from above the hut's roof, coming perhaps from the star. Behind the sarcophagus are an ox and a donkey, symbols of the Jews and the Gentiles.
The three rocks in the very foreground are a hint to the Sassetti, whose name in Italian means "Small rocks". Perched on one of them is a goldfinch, symbol of Christ's Passion and resurrection.
Fra Angelico, OP was a Dominican friar and Italian painter of the Early Renaissance, described by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent". He earned his reputation primarily for the series of frescoes he made for his own friary, San Marco, in Florence, then worked in Rome and other cities. All his known work is of religious subjects.
Masaccio, born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was a Florentine artist who is regarded as the first great Italian painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at imitating nature, recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense of three-dimensionality. He employed nudes and foreshortenings in his figures. This had seldom been done before him.
Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi, professionally known as Domenico Ghirlandaio, also spelled as Ghirlandajo, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of the so-called "third generation" of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio, the Pollaiolo brothers and Sandro Botticelli. Ghirlandaio led a large and efficient workshop that included his brothers Davide Ghirlandaio and Benedetto Ghirlandaio, his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi from San Gimignano, and later his son Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Many apprentices passed through Ghirlandaio's workshop, including the famous Michelangelo. His particular talent lay in his ability to posit depictions of contemporary life and portraits of contemporary people within the context of religious narratives, bringing him great popularity and many large commissions.
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Pinturicchio, or Pintoricchio, also known as Benetto di Biagio or Sordicchio, was an Italian painter during the Renaissance. He acquired his nickname because of his small stature and he used it to sign some of his artworks that were created during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Benozzo Gozzoli was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. A pupil of Fra Angelico, Gozzoli is best known for a series of murals in the Magi Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, depicting festive, vibrant processions with fine attention to detail and a pronounced International Gothic influence. The chapel's fresco cycle reveals a new Renaissance interest in nature with its realistic depiction of landscapes and vivid human portraits. Gozzoli is considered one of the most prolific fresco painters of his generation. While he was mainly active in Tuscany, he also worked in Umbria and Rome.
The Portinari Altarpiece or Portinari Triptych is an oil-on-wood triptych painting by the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes, commissioned by Tommaso Portinari, representing the Adoration of the Shepherds. It measures 253 x 304 cm, and is now in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy. This altarpiece is filled with figures and religious symbols. Of all the late-fifteenth-century Flemish artworks, this painting is said to be the most studied.
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Francesco Sassetti was an Italian banker.
Santa Trinita is a Roman Catholic church located in front of the piazza of the same name, traversed by Via de' Tornabuoni, in central Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy. It is the mother church of the Vallumbrosan Order of Monks, founded in 1092 by a Florentine nobleman. South on Via de' Tornabuoni is the Ponte Santa Trinita over the river Arno; across the street is the Palazzo Spini Feroni.
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Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political states, some independent but others controlled by external powers. The painters of Renaissance Italy, although often attached to particular courts and with loyalties to particular towns, nonetheless wandered the length and breadth of Italy, often occupying a diplomatic status and disseminating artistic and philosophical ideas.
This article about the development of themes in Italian Renaissance painting is an extension to the article Italian Renaissance painting, for which it provides additional pictures with commentary. The works encompassed are from Giotto in the early 14th century to Michelangelo's Last Judgement of the 1530s.
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Giotto di Bondone, known mononymously as Giotto and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period. Giotto's contemporary, the banker and chronicler Giovanni Villani, wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature" and of his publicly recognized "talent and excellence". Giorgio Vasari described Giotto as making a decisive break with the prevalent Byzantine style and as initiating "the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years".
The Baptism of Christ is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Pietro Perugino and his workshop, executed around 1482 and located in the Sistine Chapel, Rome.
The Bartolini Salimbeni Chapel is a chapel in the church of Santa Trinita, Florence, central Italy. Its decoration by Lorenzo Monaco, dating to the 1420s, are one of the few surviving examples of International Gothic frescoes in Italy. The chapel has kept other original elements, such as its altarpiece, an Annunciation, also by Monaco, and the railings.
The Vocation of the Apostles is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, executed in 1481–1482 and located in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. It depicts the Gospel narrative of Jesus Christ calling Peter and Andrew to become his disciples.
The Saint Fina Chapel is an Early Renaissance chapel in the right aisle of the Collegiate church of Santa Maria Assunta, located in San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy. It was designed by Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano in 1468 to enshrine the relics of Saint Fina. The side walls of the chapel are painted in fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio with two scenes from her life, executed between 1477 and 1478.
Nera Corsi was a noble Italian woman of the dynasty Corsi and Francesco Sassetti's only wife. Her tomb, located in the Sassetti Chapel of Santa Trinita in Florence, is the only female tomb in Florence for a married woman in the 15th century.
