The Bartolini Salimbeni Chapel (Italian: Cappella Bartolini Salimbeni) 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 chapel, created during the Gothic renovation and enlargement of the church started in the mid-13th century, was owned by the rich merchant family of the Bartolini-Salimbeni since as early as 1363. Their residence, the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, is located in the same square as the church.
Around 1390, the chapel had been already decorated by Spinello Aretino; traces of his work were found during the 1960s restorations. Lorenzo Monaco's frescoes date to the 1420s, when a redecoration program was carried out in the whole church, as testified also by fragments of Giovanni Francesco Toscani's frescoes in the annexed Ardinghelli Chapel.
Monaco was inspired by numerous contemporary examples of Histories of the Virgin cycles, such as the Baroncelli Chapel by Taddeo Gaddi, the Rinuccini Chapel by Giovanni da Milano and others, in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Orcagna's frescoes in Santa Maria Novella, the Holy Cingulum Chapel by Agnolo Gaddi in the Prato Cathedral and the stained glass of Orsanmichele, which perhaps Lorenzo Monaco had collaborated on.
The frescoes were covered by white plaster in 1740, and were rediscovered in 1885–1887 by Augusto Burchi. In 1944, the retreating German forces blew up the nearby Ponte Santa Trinita, also causing damage to the frescoes. They were restored in 1961 and again in 2004.
The frescoes, fragments of which are now lost, occupy the chapel's walls, vault, arch and lunette. Lorenzo Monaco was initially a miniaturist, but also worked on (wooden) panels: an outstanding example of the latter is the altarpiece in this chapel, his Annunciation.
The theme of the frescoes is connected to the contemporary dispute about the Immaculate Conception of Mary, involving the question of whether she had been born without the original sin: the dispute saw the Franciscans and the Benedictines (including the Vallumbrosan Order holding the church at the time) against the Dominicans. Monaco's frescoes were inspired by the apocryphal Gospel of James, dealing with Mary's infancy and supporting the Vallumbrosan's view that she had been not naturally born by her father.
The cycle begins in the lunette on the left wall, portraying the Espulsion of Joachim from the Temple and the Annunciation to Joachim. Below are the Meeting of Joachim and Anne and Anne at the Golden Gate, set in a fanciful Jerusalem with high tower, belfries and other edifices painted in pink. The water of a stream where several youths are drinking is a symbol of Mary as the source of life, while the sea is a hint to her attribute as Stella Maris ("Star of the Sea") and the islet a symbol of virginity. The stories continue in the middle part of the end wall, with the Nativity of the Virgin, following the same scheme of Pietro Lorenzetti's Nativity of the Virgin , with Jesus bathing, and the Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple. The latter scene contains several numerology hints in the steps (three and seven, the number of the Theological virtues and all the Virtues respectively) and in the arches of Solomon's Temple (three like the Holy Trinity).
The scene on the mid-left wall, perhaps the sole executed by Lorenzo Monaco alone, depicts the Marriage of the Virgin. The pretenders who are refused by Mary walk from the right to left such as in the artist's Adoration of the Magi at the Uffizi; one of them (that in the background, behind the arcade) is a possible self-portrait of Monaco, although his age does not correspond to the artist's one at the time. The next scene is that of the Annunciation, whose predella has scenes of the Visitation, Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds, Adoration of the Magi and the Flight to Egypt.
The next episodes depicted include some miracles connected to Mary: the Dormitio, the Assumption and the Miracle of the Snow. In the cross vault are portrayals of Prophets David, Isaiah, Malachi and Micah.
Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi, professionally known as Domenico Ghirlandaio, 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.
Lorenzo Monaco was an Italian painter and miniaturist of the late Gothic to early Renaissance age. He was born Piero di Giovanni. Little is known about his youth, apart from the fact that he was apprenticed in Florence. He has been considered the last important exponent of the Giotto style, before the Renaissance revolution that came with Fra Angelico and Masaccio.
The Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta or Duomo di San Gimignano is a Roman Catholic collegiate church and minor basilica in San Gimignano, in Tuscany in central Italy. It contains important cycles of Renaissance frescoes by artists including Domenico Ghirlandaio, Benozzo Gozzoli, Taddeo di Bartolo, Lippo Memmi and Bartolo di Fredi. It falls within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the "Historic Centre of San Gimignano", with its frescoes being described by UNESCO as "works of outstanding beauty".
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.
The Church of the Gesù is the mother church of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), a Catholic religious order. Officially named Chiesa del Santissimo Nome di Gesù all'Argentina, its façade is "the first truly baroque façade", introducing the baroque style into architecture. The church served as a model for innumerable Jesuit churches all over the world, especially in the Americas. Its paintings in the nave, crossing, and side chapels became models for Jesuit churches throughout Italy and Europe, as well as those of other orders. The Church of the Gesù is located in the Piazza del Gesù in Rome.
The Adoration of the Shepherds is an episode in the story of Jesus's nativity in which shepherds are near witnesses to his birth in Bethlehem, arriving soon after he is actually born. It is recounted, or at least implied, in the Gospel of Luke and follows on from the annunciation to the shepherds, in which the shepherds are summoned by an angel to the scene of the birth. Like the episode preceding it, the adoration is a common subject in art, where it is often combined with the Adoration of the Magi. In such cases it is typically just referred to by the latter title.
Ventura di Archangelo Salimbeni was an Italian Counter-Maniera painter and printmaker highly influenced by the vaghezza and sensual reform of Federico Barocci.
The basilica diSan Pietro is a Catholic basilica and abbey in the Italian city of Perugia. Its bell tower, standing at 70 meters tall, is the tallest structure in Perugia and is one of the city's most significant symbols. It is an Italian national monument
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, 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.
The Sassetti Chapel 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 Tornabuoni Chapel is the main chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy. It is famous for the extensive and well-preserved fresco cycle on its walls, one of the most complete in the city, which was created by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his workshop between 1485 and 1490.
The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century.
San Gaetano, also known as Santi Michele e Gaetano, is a Baroque church in Florence, Italy, located on the Piazza Antinori, entrusted to the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest.
The Life of the Virgin, showing narrative scenes from the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a common subject for pictorial cycles in Christian art, often complementing, or forming part of, a cycle on the Life of Christ. In both cases the number of scenes shown varies greatly with the space available. Works may be in any medium: frescoed church walls and series of old master prints have many of the fullest cycles, but panel painting, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, stone sculptures and ivory carvings have many examples.
The Baroncelli Chapel is a chapel located at the end of the right transept in church of Santa Croce, central Florence, Italy.
The Bartolini Salimbeni Annunciation is a tempera on panel painting by the Italian Gothic painter Lorenzo Monaco, completed just before his death (1420–1424). It is housed in the Bartolini Salimbeni Chapel of the church of Santa Trinita, Florence.
The Della Rovere or Saint Jerome Chapel, otherwise the Chapel of the Nativity is the first side chapel in the south aisle of the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. It was dedicated to the Virgin and Saint Jerome and decorated with the paintings of Pinturicchio and his pupils. It is one of the best preserved monuments of quattrocento art in Rome.
Santo Stefano is a Paleo-Christian, Roman Catholic basilica church in central Verona, region of Veneto, Italy.
Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine is a c.1390 fresco fragment by Spinello Aretino. It was originally discovered in the Bartolini Salimbeni Chapel with the sinopia below Lorenzo Monaco's frescoes in 1961 and is now in the nearby Cialli-Seringi Chapel in Santa Trinita in Florence.
Pietro Paolo Sensini was an Italian painter active in a Mannerist-style painting religious altarpieces mainly in his native city of Todi and nearby towns in Umbria.
