![]() It is argued, however, that the panels of the altarpiece must have been rearranged before Fineschi’s time, most probably during the mid-sixteenth-century church renovation by Giorgio Vasari. The article also reconsiders the arrangement of the saints’panels in the main tier, since the arrangement deduced from Fineschi’s manuscript does not correspond to the now widely accepted 1969 reconstruction by Christian von Holst. Furthermore, the manuscript reveals that the saint on the far right side in the Virgin in Glory in Munich (central front panel), now commonly supposed to be Saint John the Apostle, is in fact Saint Thomas. These works can be attributed to the anonymous artist known as Pseudo Granacci, who also participated in other projects by Ghirlandaio workshop around the time of Domenico’s death. ![]() In addition to the three panels mentioned in earlier studies, the author identifies four, possibly five, panels whose relationship to the altarpiece has been hitherto unrecognized. ![]() Written in the late eighteenth century, the manuscript describes the altarpiece when it still stood in the church, also providing rich information about the predella panels. This essay discusses the reconstruction of Domenico Ghirlandaio’s double-sided altarpiece for the cappella maggiore of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, based on an unpublished manuscript by the Dominican friar Vincenzio Fineschi. Such conclusions recast modern understanding of this important monument of the Italian Renaissance as resulting from a collaborative approach to iconographical invention that challenges prior notions of artists working in humanist contexts in the period as ‘passive’ recipients of ‘active’ textual programs. Moreover, it reveals Raphael's intellectual grasp of difficult religious and philosophical ideas, as expressed in his ingenious conjoining of medieval and classical Roman forms, ideas of materiality and immateriality, and body and soul. This also permits a clarification of the contributions of the patron (Julius II), intellectual advisor (Giles of Viterbo), and artist (Raphael). Understood in this way, the private library may be viewed as a fluid discursive space created for a discerning pontiff and suited to its contemplative function. It also uniquely combines all four branches of knowledge-philosophy, theology, poetry, and jurisprudence-depicted in the room. Not structured as an unalloyed Platonic hierarchy, Theology presents Christ’s material body as simultaneously present in heaven and on earth, and structures a corresponding interpenetration of the terrestrial and celestial realms. Designed in particular dialogue with the Philosophy (‘School of Athens’) fresco on the Stanza’s opposite wall, Theology embodies the philosophical concord between Plato and Aristotle. This article introduces source texts and images that support a new analysis of the iconography of the Theology (‘Disputa’) fresco, and the proposition that it was conceived as the visual and conceptual centerpiece of the Stanza della Segnatura (1508-11).
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