St Peter and the Brancacci chapel

Despite their familiarity to all admirers of fifteenth-century Florentine art, the frescoes in the Brancacci chapel in Sta Maria del Carmine present a surprising number of iconographical puzzles. Margaret Finch proposes some solutions, based on studying the chapel's decoration within a tradition of depictions of the life of St Peter, to whom it was originally dedicated.

Painted by Masaccio and Masolino in the mid-1420s, the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel at Sta Maria del Carmine, Florence were cleaned in 1984-88, and are now well-illuminated and viewed by small groups at 15-minute intervals (Fig. 1). (1) A visit today is usually preceded by an innovative DVD, which charms tourists (as well as at least one jaded art historian) with such wizadry as populating views of the piazza in front of the Carmelite church with enlivened characters from the frescoes.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The chapel was founded in 1386 by Piero di Piuvichese Brancacci. A nephew of the founder, Felice di Michele Brancacci, was responsible for the chapel when Masaccio and Masolino were engaged in the 1420s, and a Petrine cycle was begun, honouring the founder's name-saint. (2) The edges of a contemporaneous fresco on the altar wall, below the window, as well as pieces of decorations painted on the window jambs, were found in the 1980s by Umberto Baldini, Ornella Casazza, and their team of restorers. Apparently, the altar-wall fresco was on view for less than half a century. Felice was exiled in early 1435 (he belonged to an anti-Medicean faction), and sometime thereafter the chapel was entrusted to a women's group, the Compagnia di Santa Maria del Popolo. The arrival in 1460, or slightly earlier, of the large thirteenth-century panelled Madonna del Popolo (also restored now, and benefiting from good lighting) changed things. (3) The fresco below the the window was covered by the newly arrived altarpiece, and the chapel's dedication shifted from St Peter to the Madonna del Popolo. (4) Another few decades would pass before Filippino Lippi finished the bottom tier of frescoes left incomplete by Masaccio and Masolino. (5)

Summary of the scholarship and a proposed new approach

Modern writers have agreed with Vasari that Masaccio was the greatest master since Giotto and that the chapel served as a school for generations of artists. Masaccio's pioneering style, with sculptural forms and carved-out spaces is extolled, often with emphasis on the Tribute Money. (6) The figures in the confronting scene, the Miracle at the Temple and the Raising of Tabitha by Masolino, have invited stylistic comparison. The two scenes of Adam and Eve on the entrance pilasters are contrasted: Masolino's cameo representing elegant International-Style mannequins versus the anguish in Masaccio's 'passion play' representing the common man. A textbook tradition is the contrast of Masaccio's Expulsion with Jan van Eyck's Adam and Eve in the Ghent altarpiece: Italy versus Flanders. (7) Scholars have worked on the possible sharing of 'hands' in the sidewall frescoes and in the quartet of scenes flanking the altar. (8)

Iconographical research has grappled with diverse questions. Some writers have speculated about whether additional Genesis episodes were intended to accompany the ones on the entrance pilasters. (9) The absence of a 'Delivery of the Keys' in this retelling of Peter's story raises the possibility that the Tribute Money was intended as its substitute, (10) A different proposal is that Donatello's small relief combining the Delivery of the Keys with the Ascension was originally intended for the altarpiece of the chapel, perhaps as a predella. (11)

A perennial concern is the reconstruction of subjects of the lost lunettes above the surviving tiers of the frescoes. From Vasari comes the information that on one side was the Calling of Peter and Andrew; on the other, the Navicella (Christ walking on the water; Peter floundering). (12) Since these both call for seascapes, one thesis maintains that they were selected because of Felice Brancacci's maritime interests. (13) As for the upper window wall, recently discovered sinopie show faint images of Peter; these suggest adjustments to the conventional wisdom about the meaning of the whole programme. (14) The hunt for the identities of portraits hidden among onlookers in painted scenes has engaged some authors. (15) One theory proposes that the chapel advocates the pro-papal stance of Florentine politics; another says the chapel depicts Peter as the 'first apostle'. (16) Yet another hypothesis is that the Tribute Money was designed to advocate the proposed Florentine income tax (the catasto). (17)

My own approach to the topic begins with some early, Tuscan landmarks and a pictorial tradition of Petrine subjects. These examples question the assumption that the chapel's programme was so rare that its iconography must have been occasioned by current, local politics. That idea tends to diminish and secularise the frescoes, whereas early Petrine art in Florence demonstrates an iconographical tradition there. (18) Next I will consider the iconographic implications of a 'Redeemer' upon the altar of the chapel. Correspondences will be developed between the left and right sides of the room in the lowest tier of scenes finished by Filippino Lippi. Also set forth is the idea that the chapel's iconological environment, modified about 1460 and again in the 1480s, did not suffer as much as might be assumed.