An Art Lover's Guide to Florence by Testa Judith;

Author:Testa, Judith;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2016-04-21T20:57:04+00:00

Gozzoli, Procession of the Magi, chapel, Medici Palace. Scala / Art Resource, NY

The festive subject lends itself to lavishness, and Piero de’ Medici, who commissioned the cycle of wall paintings around 1460, enjoyed elaborate displays of his family’s wealth. His personal tastes had little in common with those of his cautious, politically astute father, Cosimo, the banker and behind-the-scenes politician who had guided the Medici to the summit of political power in Florence. In the private spaces where the Medici entertained visiting ambassadors, princes, prelates, and popes, the family spared no expense to create a luxurious environment whose main purpose was to impress. The private chapel where the family attended mass, often in the company of their distinguished guests, and where they sometimes also entertained important visitors, was the perfect spot to showcase Medici artistic interests and, at the same time, underline their wealth and political power. What better subject for this purpose than the gorgeous retinue of the Magi?

The chapel is small, and more than a couple of dozen worshipers would make it seem crowded. But the modest size emphasizes its exclusiveness—only a chosen few would be privileged to enter there. The decoration is elaborate throughout. Floor tiles form intricate patterns in dark-red porphyry, green serpentine, and white marble, all expensive varieties of stone. Framing the entrance to the alcove containing the altar are fluted and gilded pilasters with elaborately carved capitals. Above an altar constructed of deep-red marble, a richly carved and gilded frame surrounds a lyrical painting of the Virgin Mary adoring the newborn Jesus. (A copy has replaced the original by Fra Filippo Lippi, which is now in Berlin.) Painted on the side walls of the altar alcove, hosts of angels adore the infant Savior. But outshining all other decorations are the frescoes on the east and west walls of the chapel, where Benozzo Gozzoli painted a vast landscape populated by the glittering, seemingly endless retinue of the Three Kings.

Gozzoli was in some ways an odd choice of a painter. In a city known for its progressiveness in the arts, Gozzoli was a rather old-fashioned artist, with little interest in the system of one-point perspective that Brunelleschi had invented a generation earlier and even less enthusiasm for the rediscovery of Roman antiquity that characterizes so much of Renaissance culture. What interested Gozzoli were the same princely splendors that interested his patron, Piero de’ Medici: thoroughbred horses, liveried servants, richly brocaded fabrics, gleaming gold, and sparkling jewels. Although the Bible narrative merely describes the arrival of “wise men from the East,” a long tradition in Christian legend and art identified them as both kings and “magi” (wise men); concluded on the basis of their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh that there must have been three of them; and named them Melchior, Balthazar, and Caspar. In Gozzoli’s paintings there can be no doubt that we are witnessing the arrival of royalty.

The sequence begins on the west wall, where in the foreground the oldest king, Melchior, seated on a white mule, pauses on the banks of a little stream spanned by a log.

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