Secrets of the Medici Palace and Its Private Chapel: Six Studies in the Early Italian Renaissance

This book is an in depth study of the beautiful Medici palace chapel painted by Benozzo Gozzoli in mid-fifteenth century Florence, Italy. Famous for its Journey of the Three Kings, these studies unveil the religious, social, and political iconography of the chapel. The iconography focuses on the practical function of the chapel as a sacred space and as a private confessional for the family. It identifies the birds and trees in the sanctuary and shows how they relate iconographically to the theologically based program throughout the chapel. In a forthcoming book, it will be shown how Cosimo and the painter co-opted much of the iconography and setting from Gentile da Fabriano's Epiphany altarpiece and its patron Palla di Nofri Strozzi