life, and that prelate was deposited in the chapel on his death, in the year 1511,[1] but was afterwards taken to Naples, and interred in the Episcopal chapel.
Having returned to Florence, Filippo undertook to paint, at his leisure, the chapel belonging to Filippo Strozzi the elder, in the church of Santa Maria Novella, but having completed the ceiling he was obliged to return to Rome; here, for the same cardinal Caraffa, he constructed a Tomb with ornaments of stucco, as also certain figures in the recess of a small chapel beside that above described, in the church of the Minerva, with other figures, some of which were, in part, executed by Filippo’s disciple, RatFaellino del Garbo.[2] The chapel ofThe tomb was estimated by Maestro Lanzilago, of Padua, and by the Roman, Antonio called Antoniasso, two of the best painters then in Rome, at two thousand gold ducats, exclusive of the cost of ultra-marine and the expenses of the master’s assistants. When Filippo, therefore, had received this sum he returned to Florence, where he completed the before-mentioned chapel of the Strozzi, with so much judgment and such admirable design, that the work awakens astonishment in all who behold it, and not for those qualities only, but also for the novelty and variety of the many fanciful objects depicted in it; among these may be enumerated men in armour, temples, vases, helmets, with their crests, and other arms, trophies, banners, spears, draperies of various kinds, buskins, ornaments for the head, sacerdotal vestments, and other things, all painted in so admirable a manner, that they merit the highest commendation.[3] Among the events depicted in this work, is the Resurrection of Drusiana by St. John the evangelist, and the amazement experienced by the surrounding people, at the sight of a man who restores life to the dead by a simple sign of the cross, is expressed with the utmost force and truth;
- ↑ An error most probably of the press. Cardinal Oliviero Caraffa died in 1551, when upwards of eighty years odi. — Ed. Flor., 1846-9.
- ↑ These works also have been ruined by restorers. —Bottari.
- ↑ The beauty of the female heads is likewise worthy of remark. This work is upon the whole in tolerable preservation, except that it has been somewhat injured in the lower parts. It has also been restored to a certain extent, as we learn from a marble tablet in the chapel. This was done by command of the brothers Filippo and Ferdinando Strozzi, in the year 1753.
