LOCATION: S. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, window sV - Pepi Chapel, assigned in 1500 to the attorney and diplomat Francesco di Chirico Pepi

DIMENSIONS: c. 270 x 200 cm.

PROVENANCE: original location

CHRONOLOGY: 1500-1510

AUTHOR: not documented

PATRON: Francesco di Chirico Pepi

SUBJECT/S: Round-headed lancet window depicting St. Francis receiving the Stigmata. In the panel at the bottom of the window the Death of St. Francis and the Pepi (?) coat of arms are represented.

CRITICAL NOTES: Dated by Luchs to the years 1500-1510, the window appears to be a free copy of another stained glass window of the same subject which is in the Florentine church S. Salvatore al Monte (see Firenze C . di S. Salvatore al Monte 2). The composition of the S. Salvatore window is more complex and provides a fuller account of the Stigmata for, in the expansive, steeply sloping landscape, a fellow monk, rapt in prayer, is depicted. Only the figure of St. Francis appears in the S. Maria Maddalena window; thus, this window is a more simplified version of the S. Salvatore composition. A preliminary study of the leading of the two windows seems to indicate that the same "cartoni" may have been used for both compositions.

CONDITION: In fair condition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• A. LUCHS Cestello. A Cistercian Church of the Florentine Renaissance, New York, 1977, pp. 116-118;

• ID Stained Glass above Renaissance Altars: figural Windows in Architecture from Brunelleschi to Bramante, in "Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte", 48, 1985, pp.177-224;

• ID The Convent of Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi and its Works of Art, Florence, 1990, pp. 13, 15-18.

PHOTOGRAPHIC REFERENCE: CVMA-Italia archives

EDITOR: Renee K. Burnam February 2003