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 Cappella dei Magi - Chapel of the Magi
Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Via Camillo Cavour 3, Florence, Italy

Style: Renaissance

The Chapel of the Magi occupies an important place in the Medici Palace which Cosimo the Elder built, starting in about 1444, in accordance to the architectural design by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo. The Chapel is divided into two juxtaposed squares: 


2020 Photos

"Adoration of the Christ Child"


Rectangular apse   ...  
The first pictorial element in the Chapel was the altar panel bearing Filippo Lippi's "Madonna with Child and Young St. John", which was sold during the last century and today is in Berlin. In its place is a copy attributed to the Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino, a follower of Lippi
 ...  
Flanking the altar are two frescoes panels - "Angels in Adoration" - that complement "Adoration of the Christ Child"



Plaster ceiling above the altar    ...    Flanking wall frescoes:
"Angels in Adoration, " by Benozzo Gozzoli ....   IHS: Christogram



"Angels in Adoration" - left panel fresco
  Lower right detail below:


Detail - "Angels in Adoration" - left panel fresco





"Angels in Adoration" - right panel fresco  
Three details below:


Detail #1 -
"Angels in Adoration" - right panel fresco  



Detail #2 - "Angels in Adoration" - right panel fresco



Detail #3 - "Angels in Adoration" - right panel fresco






"Madonna with Child and Young St. John"
AKA: "Adoration of the Child"
The painting is in oil on a poplar panel    ...   The center pictorial element in the Chapel was the altar panel of Filippo Lippi's "Madonna with Child and Young St. John", which was sold during the last century and today is in Berlin. In its place is a copy attributed to the Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino, a follower of Lippi   ...    Restored  in 1992.  ...

"
It is a highly individual depiction of the familiar scene of the Nativity of Jesus in art, placed in a mountainous forest setting, with debris from woodcutting all around, rather than the familiar stable in Bethlehem, and with the usual figures and animals around the mother and child replaced by others." - Hartt, Frederick, History of Italian Renaissance Art, (2nd edn.) 1987, Thames & Hudson (US Harry N Abrams)   ...  
Three details below:


Detail #1 - "Madonna with Child and Young St. John"
God the Father   ...   Holy Spirit depicted as a dove



Detail #2 - "Madonna with Child and Young St. John"
St. Romuald   ...   John the Baptist as a boy



Detail #3 - "Madonna with Child and Young St. John"


Marble panel below
"Madonna with Child and Young St. John"



Altar with wooden  strigil motif





Partial reprint

"Procession of the Magi"
Florence Webguide: Palazzo Medici Riccardi
(online Feb. 2020)

In 1459 the Medici commissioned Benozzo Gozzoli to paint the family’s private chapel. 

The very small, quaint and charming chapel has remained quite intact from Renaissance times and still contains all of its original furnishings.

Gozzoli was a pupil of Fra Angelico's whose influence can be seen in spite of Gozzoli's much more vibrant use of color and fantasticated landscapes.

The apparent subject of the painting is the 'Procession of the Magi', the three wise men on a journey to Bethlehem to see the newborn Christ child.

But in actuality the fresco is working on several levels:
In 1438 Cosimo financed a meeting called the Council of Florence in which the Eastern and Western factions of the church tried to resolve their differences.  For this occasion the city became host to multi-national dignitaries and high-ranking authority figures from exotic eastern locations. Gozzoli's fresco, with its clear Byzantine images, is meant to recall the highly prestigious episode and the part the Medici's played in it.

The painting is also full of portraits of significant figures, including Medici family members. There are representations of John Palaiologus, Emperor of the East, and Pope Eugenius IV, but also of Cosimo the Elder, Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano and their father Piero de Medici and others. 


"Procession of the Magi" - East Wall
By Benozzo Gozzoli


"Procession of the Magi" - East Wall


Detail #1 -
"Procession of the Magi" - East Wall
Jerusalem



Detail #2 - "Procession of the Magi" - East Wall


Detail #3 - "Procession of the Magi" - East Wall


Detail #4 - "Procession of the Magi" - East Wall
The artist slipped his own self-portrait into the fresco.  Not only is this the face of Benozzo Gozzoli but his name is also written on the cap to dispel any doubts!   ...   True to life representation of Lorenzo (left) and Giuliano.  At the time of the painting these images represented the boys' real age, about 10.



Detail #5- "Procession of the Magi" - East Wall
Although no longer living at the time of the painting, the family founder Cosimo the Elder was included in the crowd on a humble donkey   ...   Piero the Gouty to the right on a white horse   ...  
"Having begun the work in the spring-summer of 1459, Benozzo probably completed the work rapidly over the space of a few months, with the help of at least one assistant, under the supervision of Piero di Cosimo de' Medici. It was probably Piero who suggested that the artist should use Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi as a model for the frescoes. The extraordinary complexity and subtlety of the technique of execution, in which true fresco alternated with dry fresco, permitted the painter to work with meticulous care, almost as if he was engraving, like the goldsmith he had been in Ghiberti's workshop." - Wikipedia: Magi  Chapel



Detail #6 - "Procession of the Magi" - East Wall
Lorenzo the Magnificent represented as a young king, Caspar, one of the three Magi,  on horseback.



Detail #7 - "Procession of the Magi" - East Wall


Carved wooden stalls  below the mural   ....   Note marble floor



Carved wooden stalls








"Procession of the Magi" - West Wall
By Benozzo Gozzoli


"Procession of the Magi" - West Wall
Three details below:


Detail #1 - "Procession of the Magi" - West Wall


Detail #2 - "Procession of the Magi" - West Wall
Melchior, one of the three Magi



Detail #3 - "Procession of the Magi" - West Wall


Detail #4 - "Procession of the Magi" - West Wall
Giuliano de Medici, an idealized likeness, with a cheetah, animal typical of Asia and seen in Florence when brought by the Byzantine representatives.



Detail below:









Photos and their arrangement © 2020 Chuck LaChiusa
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