Piazza Piattellina
corner of Via del Leone
corner of Via del Leone
the tabernacles of florence
THE TABERNACLE
Madonna col Bambino
In the fresco, the Virgin sits with the Child in her arms on a throne shaped as a concave niche with a ribbed pediment. On either side of the throne is a partition at the ends of which are arranged two amphora vases, which thin ribbons connect with the archway of the seat. Flanking the group of the Madonna and Child is arranged, on the left, San Michele the Archangel, in armor and mantle, while holding a sword in his left hand and in his right hand the scales for the weighing (and subsequent judgment) of souls. Raffaele, on the right, holds the pyxis containing the fish gall that will be used to heal old Tobias from blindness (according to the scriptural account) and leads by the hand the latter's son, the adolescent Tobiolo.
Tabernacle
The large tabernacle has distinctly early 15th-century forms. Such the round arch animated by numerous lobes reveals, supported then by two corbels with acanthus leaves resting on two narrow pilasters. Carved into the spandrels are two aristocratic coats of arms, now very worn, which barely allow a glimpse of two heraldic crescents, which attested to the commissioning of the work.
THE STREET
Piazza Piattellina
In the Renaissance, the square was called "degli Orpellai" because it was home to the workshops of artisans who specialized in working copper into very thin sheets, also known as similoro, which were used to decorate leather. The current name comes from the presence in the square of the market that sold dishes and kitchenware and was proposed in the 19th century.
AUTHOR
Florentine Painter
(2nd half of the 15th century) Guarnieri recalls an attribution, advanced after the 1959 restoration conducted by Lanfranco Benini, between the so-called "Master of San Miniato" - a late follower of Fra' Filippo Lippi, whose main work (the name-piece) is precisely in the church of Santi Giacomo and Filippo (or San Domenico) in that Tuscan town - and Raffaello by Francesco Botticini.
The artist
(2nd half of the 15th century) There is an analogy with the physiognomic characteristics of the figures present in a "Lamentation over the Dead Christ" in a tabernacle in Via Santa Lucia, which Padoa attributes to Donnino di Domenico del Mazziere, but which, because of similarities in style, can be approached to the characters painted on the walls of a small roadside chapel near the locality called Casanova di Ama, in the commune of Gaiole in Chianti in the province of Siena, dated 1496. These, in turn, appear very similar to similar frescoes in the abbey of Passignano, attested as the work of Filippo di Antonio Filippelli. It would therefore be to the latter painter that the figures of the tabernacle in Via del Leone would seem to refer to.
Tibit
The formal characteristics of the painting definitely bring it back into the late 15th-century sphere and thus after the execution of the architectural aedicule, placed at the beginning of the 15th century.
PICTURES
Fresco
Piazza Piattellina corner of Via del Leone
Streetview
Piazza Piattellina corner of Via del Leone
Tabernacle
Piazza Piattellina corner of Via del Leone
FUTHER INFORMATION
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