BORGO SAN LORENZO (pieve di San Lorenzo) – Dating back to 1615 when, according to sources, the altar in which it was placed was founded by the Borgo S. Lorenzo citizen Vittorio Grossi, perhaps in memory of some pestilence (or other negative event) and attributed to Matteo Rosselli, one of the most influential Florentine painters of the first half of the seventeenth century. Indeed, despite its intensely devotional character (in fact, he depicts the two saints Domenico and Francis who, along with the Virgin, implore Christ not to punish men for their sins), in the spirit of the Counter-Reform which required depicting highly comprehensible sacred representations and a highly uplifting character, shows a remarkable artistic level for the intense pathos of the figures, for the precise design, for the definition of volumes, for what concerns realism and for the chromatic brilliance as well. The overhanging lunette, which represents the Christ (in a sub-optimal state of preservation) is not relevant to the rest of the work and has been recently identified as one of the works of the seventeenth-century Florentine painter Francesco Furini, coming from the nearby Franciscan church of San Francesco.
© Il Filo – Idee e Notizie dal Mugello
