Benozzo Gozzoli in San Gimignano
The three years Benozzo Gozzoli spent in San Gimignano are at the center of an exhibition running from 18 June until 1 November 2016. The exhibition takes place in some of the most suggestive places of Tuscany: the Duomo and the Church of Sant’Agostino in San Gimignano, the Monteoliveto Abbey, and the Benozzo Gozzoli Museum in Castelfiorentino.
Benozzo arrived in San Gimignano in 1464, right after the decoration of the Cappella dei Magi in Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence. He stayed in the city until 1467, when he would move to Pisa to paint the vast series of frescoes of Old Testament scenes for the Camposanto (severely damaged during World War II).
In San Gimignano Benozzo executed a cycle of seventeen scenes from the life of Saint Augustine in the choir of Sant’Agostino, and a series of public and private religious commissions including the Madonna and Child with Angels and St. John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Augustine and Martha, focus of the exhibition. Originally created for the convent church of Saint Mary Magdalene and now housed in the Museo Civico, the painting is shown for the first time with its predella fragments on loan from the museums of Milan, Avignon, and Madrid.
Source: Il Giornale dell’Arte
Madonna and Child with Angels and Saints John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Augustine and Martha, 1466, tempera and gold on wood, San Gimignano, Museo Civico
Predella with Beata Fina and Mary Magdalene, 1466, tempera and gold on wood, Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais
Predella with Christ between Mary Magdalene and St. John the Evangelist, 1466, tempera and gold on wood, Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera
Predella with St. Jerome and Beato Bartolo, 1466, tempera and gold on wood, Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Posted by Martina Bollini