Frescoes on the ceiling of the north transept of the Lower Church in Assisi.

It is assumed that the Magdalen Chapel was the starting-point of the work carried out by Giotto and his assistants in other parts of the Lower Church, including the right transept and the vault. It has been recently demonstrated that these areas were frescoed before Pietro Lorenzetti painted the scenes of the Passion in the left transept, a work executed before 1320. It is thought that as soon as the frescoes in the Magdalen Chapel were completed, Giotto and his workshop were commissioned to redecorate the right transept of the vault. This area had been previously frescoed in the late thirteenth century, as is indicated by the presence of Cimabue's large fresco of the Madonna enthroned with angels and St. Francis, which was spared.
At the beginning and in the middle of the 20th century the frescoes in the Lower church were cleaned and painstakingly restored. Since then some have held them to be the work of utmost quality from Giotto's own hand, others as the ambitious work of pupils. The debate is open up to now.
The fresco cycle on one side consists of large scenes from the life of the Virgin and the childhood of Christ separated by decorative bands with busts of Prophets, while the other side represents scenes from the Passion of Christ. The west wall is occupied by scenes representing the Miracle of St Francis in Sessa (in two parts) and the Annunciation.

Fra Angelico, Armadio degli Argenti, Massacre of the Innocents, 1451-52

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata (Basilica of the Most Holy Annunciation) is a Roman Catholic minor basilica in Florence and the mother church of the Servite order. It is located at the northeastern side of the Piazza Santissima Annunziata.
n 1448, according to an early chronicle, Fra Angelico received from Piero de Medici, Cosimo's son, the prestigious assignment to decorate the doors of a silver treasury for the new oratory to be constructed near the chapel of the Santissima Annunziata in the church of the same name. Fra Angelico did not begin work on this extensive series of small paintings until after his return from Rome in 1449/50. The silver treasury panels were the last major commission undertaken by Fra Angelico and he was evidently unable to bring the project to completion before he was called back to Rome, where he died in February 1455.

Herod, with crown and sceptre, watches from above the infanticide he has ordained. The sinister, dark-clad soldiers pour through the archway wielding black daggers against the children. The mothers, shown in a great variety of terrified postures and with looks of horror, attempt to protect their infants, but to no avail.

Art in Tuscany | Fra Angelico | Paintings for the Armadio degli Argenti (1451-52)

The inlaid marble mosaic floor is one of the most ornate of its kind in Italy, covering the whole floor of the cathedral.The inlaid marble mosaic floor is one of the most ornate of its kind in Italy, covering the whole floor of the cathedral. This undertaking went on from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, and about forty artists made their contribution. The floor consists of 56 panels in different sizes. Most have a rectangular shape, but the later ones in the transept are hexagons or rhombuses. They represent the sibyls, scenes from the Old Testament, allegories and virtues. Most are still in their original state. The earliest scenes were made by a graffito technique: drilling tiny holes and scratching lines in the marble and filling these with bitumen or mineral pitch. In a later stage black, white, green, red and blue marble intarsia were used. This technique of marble inlay also evolved during the years, finally resulting in a vigorous contrast of light and dark, giving it an almost modern, impressionistic composition.
The uncovered floor can only be seen for a period of six to ten weeks each year, generally including the month of September. The rest of the year, they are covered and only a few are on display.
The large panel in the transept The Slaughter of the Innocents (Strage degli Innocenti) is probably the work of Matteo di Giovanni in 1481. The painter was worryingly preoccupied with this theme - his disturbing paintings can be seen in the Palazzo Pubblico and Santa Maria dei Servi.

Matteo di Giovanni, Massacre of the Innocents

The Chapel of our Lady also holds one of the four versions of the Massacre of the Innocents, which Matteo di Giovanni, an artist born in Sansepolcro, and one of the leading figures of fifteenth-century Sienese art, painted in the course of a decade. The canvas on deposit at Santa Maria della Scala, is the work made by the artist in 1482 for the church of Sant'Agostino in Siena.
Matteo di Giovanni painted four monumental compositions of the Massacre of the Innocents, three for Sienese churches and one in inlaid stone for the pavement of the Duomo.
The picture painted for Sant'Agostino, like the final one made for the Basilica of Santa Maria dei Servi (also known as San Clement), seems to present some iconographic innovations, probably the fruit of the terrible echo, still resonating among his contemporaries, of the siege and massacre perpetrated by the Turks at Otranto in 1481.
Here, in the place of clothing and armor with a classical imprint, oriental styles prevail, and even in the facial features we can detect some 'Moorish' characteristics. The entire scene is marked by ferocity and cruelty, emphasized also by the range of colors used. The arches and columns of Herod's palace suggest that the artist had visited Rome. He has left no foreground space and every inch of Herod's hall is occupied by screaming mothers, dead or dying babies, and bloodthirsty soldiers. The marble pavement is covered by infant corpses. Impassive courtiers flank Herod's throne, while the gloating king is portrayed as a monster: one hand is outstretched to order the butchery; the other, like a claw, clutches the marble sphinx on the arm of his thronThe panel for the church of Sant'Agostino was originally part of an altarpiece 'in the ancient style', topped by a gold ground lunette which was removed in the seventeenth century, while the panel itself, although moved to a different place, always remained inside the church.

Matteo di Giovanni, Massacre of the Innocents, 1488, Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples

Domenico Ghirlandaio | The Adoration of the Magi, Slaughter of the Innocents

The town beyond this, in which we can see monuments such as the Colosseum, Trajan's Column, the Torre delle Milizie, and a pyramid, is meant to be reminiscent of Rome.

Art in Tuscany | Domenico Ghirlandaio | The Adoration of the Magi

The Tornabuoni Chapel, or Cappella Tornabuoni, is the main chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. It is famous for the extensive and well-preserved fresco cycle on its walls, one of the most complete in the city, which was created by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his workshop between 1485 and 1490.
Domenico Ghirlandaio and members of his workshop decorated the chapel between 1486 and 1490. Ghirlandaio was commissioned by Giovanni Tornabuoni, a rich and powerful member of the city's elite.
The scene Massacre of the Innocents was the one that Vasari, in his biography of Ghirlandaio, considered the best in the cycle, due to its dramatic and frantic composition. It is probable that Ghirlandaio was inspired by scenes of ancient Roman bas-reliefs, like that depicted on the arch in the background.On the vault (the ceiling) of the chapel the four Evangelists were depicted. The right wall was dedicated to the life of St John the Baptist, and the left wall shows scenes from the life of Mary. Ghirlandaio also designed the rear wall. The panels on that wall have been dispersed over several collections, but the stained glass windows are still present.
This fresco shows the slaughter king Herod ordered when the three wise men had refused to tell him the whereabouts of the newborn Jesus. Herod wished to have Jesus killed, as he considered him as a competitor. Not knowing where to find Jesus, Herod must have thought "well then, let's simply kill all infants in Bethlehem".
In the foreground is a tumultuous, dramatic scene with desperate mothers, violent soldiers and bloody limbs of children. The Roman arch in the back serves mainly to close the background, thereby limiting the space in the foreground. Vasari, the great biographer of Renaissance artists, celebrated this work most because of the variety in emotions in the faces.


Art in Tuscany | Domenico Ghirlandaio | The Tornabuoni Chapel