Our tour of Watermill bedrooms continues today with the Ghirlandaio. Here’s Lois’ video to tell you about it
In the video, Lois mentions Domenico Ghirlandaio’s beautiful cycle of frescoes on the life of St Francis in the Sassetti Chapel of the Santa Trinità church in Florence. It’s a great place to see great art without the crowds, often so quiet you may have to put a Euro in the box yourself to illuminate the chapel.
Here’s my favourite fresco there, officially called The Resurrection of the Boy, painted in 1483/5. It was commissioned by the powerful banker Francesco Sassetti. The miracle actually took place in Rome but is transferred to Florence, to allow Sassetti to curry favour with other influental Florentines by putting them in the picture.
The boy had died falling to the street from the window of a nearby palazzo while playing indoors. In the Ghirlandaio scene he is already on his funeral bier, surrounded by mourners, other contemporary powerful Florentines among them, like Palla Strozzi, the richest man in the city. Ghirlandaio put himself in the picture, too, gazing out at us on the right-hand side, hand on hip.
The French windows of the Ghirlandaio bedroom looks out over the mill cascades and the River Rosaro.
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