Cosimo Rosselli’s Birmingham altarpiece
- Submitting institution
-
Birmingham City University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32Z_OP_D0059
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
-
-
- Title of journal
- Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 97
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- -
- ISSN
- 0075-4390
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2015
- URL
-
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/warburg/jwci/2015/00000078/00000001/art00006
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
1
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Rosselli’s ‘Adoration of the Magi’ can today be seen in the Barber Institute, Birmingham. The gallery guide refers to the ‘complex subject matter’ of the painting and its unknown original location. The article sets forward a thorough iconographical analysis, relating this to the authors’ detailed hypothesis as to the identity of its patron, the church and chapel for which it was painted, the saints that it invokes and the officiating religious order. The analysis goes far beyond that of previous scholars in relating the iconography to one particular order and church, its founding saint, local history and named Gianfigliazzi family individuals. The findings are set before the scholarly community for their value as contributions to knowledge about the iconography, date and context of the altarpiece.
For fifty years Rosselli’s painting has been divorced from its original setting—a large, luminous, gallery curiosity, the work of a largely-forgotten artist of reputedly unremarkable ability. This paper has facilitated the possibility—in contrast to the previous vacuum—of envisaging the painting in a specific liturgical space within a particular historical context, the Gianfigliazzi Chapel of Saint Benedict in Santa Trinita, Florence. While Rosselli’s style was soon eclipsed, the paper shows that the artist was then at the peak of his activity and capable of innovation.
The research benefited from a Small Research Grant from the British Academy, facilitating one month in Florence to undertake topographical research and consult primary sources in the Gianfigliazzi family archive. The article includes a fresh iconographical analysis of the altarpiece. The founding father of the methodology of iconographical analysis was Aby Warburg (1866–1929) and much of the research for the article was conducted at the Warburg Institute. It is fitting, therefore, that it was published in <The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes>
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -