Description
The Chapel of the Magi is a small room on the piano nobile of Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, entirely covered by a cycle of frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli from 1459. It was the Medici's private chapel, and it is the painter's masterpiece.
Inside, you feel as if you are in a windowless room where a procession that never ends files past: horses, hunters, leopards, falcons and dozens of faces. They are the Three Kings, at least on paper. In reality they are the Medici and their allies.
The Journey of the Magi runs along three walls, among castles, hunting scenes and fantastical plants. You feel as if you are watching the procession from inside a bend in the road, as it passes all around you. Plants and animals are painted so realistically that they document the botany and zoology of the time.
The religious pretext served a political message. The procession recalls the passage through Florence of Pope Pius II in 1458, on his way to Mantua, with princes and lords in tow. That is why the work celebrates the power of the family more than devotion.
On the wall to the right of the altar ride Cosimo the Elder and his son Piero on two mules, preceded by a young man on a white horse, perhaps an idealized Lorenzo the Magnificent. Behind them come Sigismondo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, and Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan.
Farther back file philosophers and humanists, among them Marsilio Ficino, and Byzantine dignitaries with long beards. On the south wall the bearded man on a white horse is Emperor John VIII Palaiologos. On the west wall Giuliano de' Medici has a spotted leopard on his horse.
The painter also put himself in the crowd. How to find him? He looks straight at the viewer, and his name is written on his red hat: "Opus Benotii," the work of Benozzo. It was the advice of Leon Battista Alberti.
In the apse, around the altar, two choirs of angels in the style of Fra Angelico, Benozzo's master. Framing them are the floor of colored marbles, the gilded ceiling and the inlaid wooden stalls designed by Giuliano da Sangallo.
The altarpiece is a late 15th-century copy of Filippo Lippi's Adoration of the Child: the original is now in Berlin. The chapel was one of the first decorations of the palace, just completed by Michelozzo, and it has no windows.
Don't miss
• The wall of the Medici.
• Giuliano de' Medici's leopard.
• Benozzo's self-portrait on the hat.
• The choirs of angels.
Did you know?
• The three girls on horseback are said to be Lorenzo the Magnificent's sisters: Nannina, Bianca and Maria.
• Today's entrance is a corner cut away in the 17th century to make room for the grand staircase.
Inside, you feel as if you are in a windowless room where a procession that never ends files past: horses, hunters, leopards, falcons and dozens of faces. They are the Three Kings, at least on paper. In reality they are the Medici and their allies.
The Journey of the Magi runs along three walls, among castles, hunting scenes and fantastical plants. You feel as if you are watching the procession from inside a bend in the road, as it passes all around you. Plants and animals are painted so realistically that they document the botany and zoology of the time.
The religious pretext served a political message. The procession recalls the passage through Florence of Pope Pius II in 1458, on his way to Mantua, with princes and lords in tow. That is why the work celebrates the power of the family more than devotion.
On the wall to the right of the altar ride Cosimo the Elder and his son Piero on two mules, preceded by a young man on a white horse, perhaps an idealized Lorenzo the Magnificent. Behind them come Sigismondo Malatesta, lord of Rimini, and Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan.
Farther back file philosophers and humanists, among them Marsilio Ficino, and Byzantine dignitaries with long beards. On the south wall the bearded man on a white horse is Emperor John VIII Palaiologos. On the west wall Giuliano de' Medici has a spotted leopard on his horse.
The painter also put himself in the crowd. How to find him? He looks straight at the viewer, and his name is written on his red hat: "Opus Benotii," the work of Benozzo. It was the advice of Leon Battista Alberti.
In the apse, around the altar, two choirs of angels in the style of Fra Angelico, Benozzo's master. Framing them are the floor of colored marbles, the gilded ceiling and the inlaid wooden stalls designed by Giuliano da Sangallo.
The altarpiece is a late 15th-century copy of Filippo Lippi's Adoration of the Child: the original is now in Berlin. The chapel was one of the first decorations of the palace, just completed by Michelozzo, and it has no windows.
Don't miss
• The wall of the Medici.
• Giuliano de' Medici's leopard.
• Benozzo's self-portrait on the hat.
• The choirs of angels.
Did you know?
• The three girls on horseback are said to be Lorenzo the Magnificent's sisters: Nannina, Bianca and Maria.
• Today's entrance is a corner cut away in the 17th century to make room for the grand staircase.