Frescoes on the south wall

1335 · Cappella di Bardi di Vernio, Santa Croce, Florence

religious

The upper scenes on the south wall show the pope's encounter with the emperor: Constantine recognizes the apostles Peter and Paul on the painting that Sylvester shows him, allows himself to be baptized, and recovers his health. Beneath these scenes appears the Miracle of the Bull. In the dispute with the Jewish scribes over the true God before Constantine and his mother, Helena, one of the scribes, in order to demonstrate the power of his God, kills a wild bull simply by whispering a word in its ear.

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About the Artist

Maso Di Banco

Florentine painter. Almost nothing is known of his career (Vasari does not mention him), but he is regarded as the greatest of Giotto 's pupils and followers on the strength of Ghiberti 's testimony that he was the painter of the frescoes illustrating the legend of St Sylvester in the Bardi Chapel of Santa Croce, Florence. Maso is mentioned in connection with the Bardi family in a document of 1341. It was a member of this family that provided for the foundation of a chapel bearing the family name. The Bardi di Vernio chapel in Sta. Croce was largely decorated by Maso di Banco. The frescoes representing five scenes from the legend of St Sylvester possess clarity of design and harmony of colour. The stately figures here are sometimes even more massive than Giotto's and the lucid and beautifully coloured compositions are of almost geometric clarity (although it has been argued that some of the effect of monumental simplicity may be due to restoration). The architectural settings and figures in the St Sylvester Resurrecting the Bull and Miracle of the Dragon anticipate the monumental style of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca. On stylistic grounds other works have been attributed to Maso, including panels in Budapest (Museum of Fine Arts), Chantilly (Musée Condé), and New York (Brooklyn Museum and Metropolitan Museum).

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