church, there is a fresco, by Cosimo Bosselli, the subject of which is the Beato Filippo receiving the Habit of the Order of Our Lady.[1] For the monks of the Cestello this artist painted the picture of the High Altar, with a second picture for another chapel in the same church; he also painted that in the little church above the Bernardino, which stands beside the entrance to the Cestello.[2] For the brotherhood of the above-named Bernardino, he likewise painted the banner they bear in procession, as he did that for the company of San Giorgio, on the latter of which he depicted an Annunciation.[3] For the above-named nuns of Sant’Ambrogio, Rosselli painted the chapel of the Miracle of the Sacrament, which is a tolerably good work, and considered the best executed by this master in Florence; he therein depicted a procession supposed to be proceeding along the piazza of that church, and in which the bishop is seen bearing the Tabernacle of the above-mentioned Miracle; he is accompanied by his clergy and a vast number of the inhabitants, men and women, clothed in the dress of those times. In this work, among many other portraits, is that of Pico della Mirandola,[4] so admirably executed that it does not seem to be a portrait, but a living man. In Lucca, in the church of San Martino, there is a painting by Cosimo Rosselli, on the right hand as we enter by the smaller door of the principal façade; this work represents Nicodemus executing the Statue of the Santa Croce,[5] and afterwards the passage of
- ↑ This story, from the life of San Filippo Benizi, is the last of the pictures on the left of the entrance. — Ed. Flor., 1849.
- ↑ The church then called that of the Cestello, now Santa ]Taria aegli Angeli (or popularly, Santa Maddalena dei Pazzi), has been restored, and Bottari declares the works of Cosimo Rosselli to have been destroyed; but the latest Florentine annotators assure us that the Coronation of the Virgin is in the chapel now belonging to the Giglio family. In that church is one of those here mentioned. The authority they cite is that of the Jesuit Father Bicha, Chiese Fiorentine.
- ↑ The Brotherhood of San Bernardino has been long suppressed, and the picture is lost, as is that of San Giorgio.
- ↑ This work still exists. See Rumohr, Italianische Forschungen, vol. ii. p. 285. For an engraving from this work, see also Malvasia, Felsina Fittrice; and Lasinio, who gives the whole series.
- ↑ The Statue di Santa Croce is the celebrated Crucifix of Lucca, called
who is enraged at her having become a Christian. For the Legend of St. Barbara, See Mrs. Jameson, Poetry of Sacred and Legendary Art. The work is now in the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.
