Recovery of the Wood (left) from Which the True Cross is Constructed

1385 · Chancel Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence

religious

In the third image field from the top on the south wall - as in all four frescoes on the south wall - two scenes are combined. The wood, buried earlier by Solomon, floats to the surface of a pond where many who had fallen ill sought to be cured. Jews pull the wood from the water and construct from it the True Cross.

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Recovery of the Wood (left) from Which the True Cross is Constructed

About the Artist

Agnolo Gaddi

1350 – 1396

Florentine painter, the son of Taddeo Gaddi. He continued the Giotto tradition but modified it still further in the direction of decorative elegance. He is particularly notable for his cool pale colours, which infiuenced the refined late Gothic art of artists of the next generation such as Lorenzo Monaco. Agnolo's works include frescos on The Story of the Cross in the chancel of Sta Croce (after 1374) and on The Story of the Virgin and her Girdle in the Chapel of the Holy Girdle in Prato Cathedral (1392-5). Many panel paintings also are attributed to Agnolo.

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