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3 - ‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia extructa est’: Bernardino Poccetti and the Decoration of the Canigiani Chapel in Santa Felicita

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2024

Douglas N. Dow
Affiliation:
Kansas State University
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Summary

Abstract: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti, 1553–1612) painted much of the imagery in the Canigiani Chapel at Santa Felicita. Commissioned by Giovanni Canigiani at the end of the sixteenth century, the decorative program—which includes a mural of the miraculous snowfall that led to the foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome—reveals how Canigiani and Poccetti collaborated to create a complex iconography that reflected contemporary Catholic concerns regarding art patronage, the importance of saintly intercessors, and the role of bishops in implementing the reforms of the Council of Trent. Although overshadowed by Pontormo's efforts in the facing Capponi Chapel, the images in the Canigiani Chapel are a striking example of Florentine religious painting in the period of church reform.

Keywords: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti); Canigiani; Santa Felicita, Florence; Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome; Virgin Mary

In the late 1580s, when Giovanni Canigiani turned his attention to the renovation of the chapel that is immediately on the left as one enters the church of Santa Felicita, his family had enjoyed patronage rights to the space for over two centuries (Fig. 3.1). A document drawn up on 17 March 1366 granted Taddeo di Vanni Canigiani the right to establish, endow, and furnish a chapel dedicated to Maria Assunta in this location, with the stipulations that the construction of the chapel be completed within three years of the contract and that the furnishing of it be finished before the end of Taddeo's life. The sixteenth-century renovation of the chapel was precipitated by Grand Duke Ferdinando I's plan to build a viewing room (coretto) above the Canigiani Chapel that would mirror the coretto above the Capponi Chapel on the other side of the church's entrance. Situated above the Canigiani Chapel, such a vantage point provided an unimpeded and elevated view of the nave and high altar of Santa Felicita. Additionally, this viewing room was located along the route of the Vasari Corridor, the private passageway that Giorgio Vasari had affixed to the facade of Santa Felicita in 1565 as it made its way from the Palazzo Pitti to the Uffizi, and which provided the Medici with discreet access to the coretto.

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