Madonna della Natività (Arnolfo di Cambio)
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| Madonna della Natività |
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| Arnolfo di Cambio , approx. 1300–1305 |
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Marble sculpture, 60 cm × 125 cm |
| Museo dell'Opera del Duomo ; Florence |
The Madonna della Natività is a group of marble sculptures (60 × 125 cm) by Arnolfo di Cambio and helpers, created at the beginning of the 14th century. It comes from the old facade of the Florence Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore and is now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence .
History and description
The lunette of the left portal of Santa Maria del Fiore housed the representation of the Nativity , with the reclining Madonna and some figures and reliefs around her. According to the traditional iconography used by Giotto in those years, Maria is a figure lying on the elbow. This position was also reflected in the Dormition Virginis (Death of Mary) in the right lunette. She wears a wrinkled cloak and appears to be expressing a slight melancholy. The group of figures was designed to be viewed from below and the highlighted volume creates a kind of trompe-l'oeil effect. The figure is based on other works on the facade, such as the statue of Boniface VIII.
There were at least two angels on the sides of the arch and possibly the part about Mary contained reliefs. A sheep can be seen below the fragments, which could have been part of an announcement to the shepherds from 1310. An anonymous person who described the façade finally remembered that there were "many figures of shepherds and animals" in the right lunette. Even when designing the facade before it was demolished by Bernardino Poccetti , you can see the Madonna lying down with a relief behind it.
The figure was removed from the facade in 1588, after which the traces are lost. In 1904 it was found by Georg Swarzenski among the works sold by Stefano Bardini , along with other sculptures such as the Dormition , which later came to Berlin. The relief with the fragment of the Annunciation to the Shepherds was instead in the Medici Galleries and was only combined with the other fragments of the facade in 1936 in the Bargello Museum.
literature
- The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Firenze . Mandragora, Florence 2000, ISBN 88-85957-58-7 .