Painted Glories: The Brancacci Chapel in Renaissance Florence

Eckstein (Italian history, Univ. of Sydney) focuses on placing the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel painstakingly and surprisingly into the context of historical and the deeply religious Catholicism of the time. The book is divided into five chapters plus a prolog, introduction, and epilog. The author's scholarship yields some heretofore overlooked facts: during the 1400s and 1500s, he explains, much of the groundwork for the chapel was financed both by aristocratic widows as well as by widows of the poorer classes who worshipped the Madonna del Popolo, which stands at the chapel's altar. It is well known that the frescoes were the collaboration of two famous painters, Massaccio (1401–28) and Masolino (1383–1447), with their unfinished work completed by Filippino Lippi (1457–1504). The frescoes illustrate scenes in the life of Jesus Christ, St. Peter, and St. Paul, and the various harmonious panels (in terms of their seamless fit although they are by two artists) could easily have been understood and believed by ordinary people at every time up to today. Eckstein also discusses historical events in terms of their religious significance, especially in the last chapter on the Battle of Anghiari.