The Church as the Path to Salvation (east wall)

1366 · Cappellone degli Spagnoli, Santa Maria Novella, Florence

religious

In the foreground, in front of the side wall of the Cathedral of Florence, we can see the hierarchic order of the medieval society: the Pope, at his left the Emperor and King, a prince, at his right the Dominican general and a bishop. Before them are the friars at the left and laymen at the right; then noblemen and knights, merchant, scholar, finally women and the lower ranks of the society. The basilica in the background is the symbol of the Church.

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The Church as the Path to Salvation (east 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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