Bearing of the Cross, Crucifixion, Descent into Hell (north wall)

1366 · Cappellone degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

religious

The end wall (the north wall) of the chancel chapel is devoted entirely to three scenes from the Passion of Christ: the Bearing of the Cross at bottom left, the Crucifixion in the middle, and the Descent into Hell at bottom right. The Crucifixion extends over the entire width of the upper wall segment as a multifigure image of Golgotha. In this scene the crosses of the two thieves create recessional axes into space, although the actual space depicted is relatively shallow.

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Bearing of the Cross, Crucifixion, Descent into Hell (north wall)

About the Artist

Andrea Da Firenze

Andrea da Firenze (Andrea Bonaiuti), Florentine painter. From January 1346 he was registered in the Arte dei Medici e Speziali in Florence. The earliest paintings that can be attributed to him suggest that he must have formed a close association with the workshop of Andrea di Cione. The small portable triptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels (centre panel, Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst; side panels of the Nativity and the Crucifixion, Houston,Museum of Fine Arts) shows the influence of Maso di Banco and of the painter of the Strozzi Chapel frescoes in the Chiostrino dei Morti, Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Andrea da Firenze is remembered mainly for his frescoes in the Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence. This is a church of the Dominican Order, and the frescoes, illustrating the Triumph of the Faith and the Dominican doctrine, in both their severity and their meticulous detail, accorded with the expository style of the Dominican preaching friars. Andrea is last recorded in 1377 working on frescoes of the Life of St Raynerius in the Campo Santo at Pisa.

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