ANDREA DEL SARTO (b. 1486, Firenze, d. 1530, Firenze) Disputation over the Trinity 1517 Oil on wood, 232 x 193 cm Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence In the same period as the Madonna of the Harpies, according to the evidence of Vasari confirmed by stylistic links, Andrea painted another great panel, for the altar of a chapel in the Augustinian church of San Gallo. At the time of the siege of Florence in 1529 it was taken to safety inside the walls, to San Jacopo tra' Fossi, as were the two earlier paintings (Noli me tangere and the Annunciation). The painting depicted the Disputatio
ANDREA DEL SARTO (b. 1486, Firenze, d. 1530, Firenze) Disputation over the Trinity 1517 Oil on wood, 232 x 193 cm Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence In the same period as the Madonna of the Harpies, according to the evidence of Vasari confirmed by stylistic links, Andrea painted another great panel, for the altar of a chapel in the Augustinian church of San Gallo. At the time of the siege of Florence in 1529 it was taken to safety inside the walls, to San Jacopo tra' Fossi, as were the two earlier paintings (Noli me tangere and the Annunciation). The painting depicted the Disputation over the Trinity, which also came into the Medici collections a century later. The subject of the picture is not rare in central Italian painting during this period of spiritual and religious debate. We need only mention the emblematic solutions provided by Raphael for analogous themes with the Disputation on the Sacrament in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, or the Ecstasy of St Cecilia, painted in 1514 for the church of San Giovanni in Monte at Bologna. Moreover, it was particularly congenial to the Augustinian clients of the monastery of San Gallo, who wished to present a theme dear to St Augustine, who is in fact depicted while leading a lively debate among other saints, in the presence of a stupendous Magdalene with the features of Lucrezia kneeling beside St Sebastian. We get the best possible idea of the admiration aroused by the picture from the enthusiastic words of Bocchi: "In this church there are three wonderful pictures by Andrea del Sarto: but the one on the right, with saints disputing about the Trinity, is of all pictures in all places the most wonderful. In this picture we see what a lively colouring, a drawing of rare quality, a unique mastery, can do. Who ever saw clothing so lifelike, or the reliefs of surfaces so marked, the features of persons so vivid, and liveliness so conforming with the truth?. . . It does not seem as if these figures were
Size: 3528px × 4208px
Photo credit: © Carlo Bollo / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: artwork, paint, painter, painting, paintings
