GIORDANO, Luca

In 1692, Charles II invited Giordano to Spain where he painted frescoes and oil paintings for the royal residences and churches.

The new treasury (Tesoro Nuovo) was built on the north side of the monastery. Its painted decoration, completed in 1704 by the elderly Luca Giordano, constituted the last phase of the decoration of the charterhouse.

Giordano painted Judith in Triumph over Holofernes on the cupola vault. The figure that appears to dominate the vault is the heroic Judith triumphantly displaying the head of Holofernes to the people of Israel. The lunettes contains scenes from the Old Testament, among them Aaron’s Sacrifice, and the Destruction of the Band of Korah above the entrance, and the Erection of the Brazen Serpent above the altar.

This painting by Luca Giordano is likely to date to 1687–89, when the artist was working in Naples before departing for Spain in 1692. Giordano’s skill in depicting a scene that incorporates such a rich panoply of figures resides in his ability to unify different elements within the composition’s broad panorama while retaining many visually arresting components and lively brushwork.

This painting and its pendant, the Marriage of the Virgin, may have been preparatory study for a large cycle on the Life of the Very Holy Virgin, which he executed in the court of Charles II of Spain.

The picture shows the ceiling fresco in the library (Biblioteca Riccardiana) in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. The meaning of the depiction: with the aid of science and wisdom human reason ascends to truth and a perception of divinity.

The canvas, signed “Jordanus” in the bottom left corner, shows a complex allegory that evokes the peace between Florence and Fiesole during the Roman period. This is also an allusion to the lasting peace established by the Medici in Tuscany, represented here by their coat-of-arms, which Jupiter offers to the Glory presented by Minerva. Lower down is the allegorical figure of the Arno and in the background, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore.

This painting is a “soffitta” (i.e., a canvas for a ceiling), which the Neapolitan artist painted for what, in the 16th century, was the “Sala della guardia” in the apartment of Prince Ferdinand, son of Cosimo III, in Palazzo Pitti. This is now the Green Room in the Royal Apartments.

This painting belongs to a series of twelve, painted after the ceiling fresco in the Galleria Riccardiana in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. Their format and their colouring suggest that they were produced for a collection, arranged by main thematic groupings and intended to help the viewer appreciate the dizzying abundance of the frescoes’ figural apparatus from a comfortable perspective. These works, some of which were executed by assistants and all of which can be considered independent copies, contributed greatly to the dissemination and appreciation of the ceiling.

The conflict between the Lapiths, a semimythical tribe of giants, and the Centaurs is supposed to have broken out at their king’s wedding, when the Centaurs tried to abduct the bride. Giordano persuasively presents the details while demonstrating the breadth of his abilities. In the foreground, passions rage and threaten to spill off the canvas as the delightful natural wealth in the landscape recalls the happy celebration so rudely interrupted.

The picture shows one of the ends of the ceiling in the Galleria Riccardiana (above the entrance) depicting Pallas Athena Handing Ingegno the Golden Key to Recognition of Veritas. Assisted by Mercury, the god of commerce and eloquence, Pallas Athena is presenting a gold key to a personification of Ingegno, identified by an eagle helmet. This key will allow him to recognize Veritas, who is kneeling next to him. At the same time, the key can be taken as a reference to the owner of the palace, whose coat of arms bore a key. On the left Athena is presenting a hammer to two women identified as Industria and Artificium by the tools and utensils lying on the ground and by a swarm of bees. Seated on a rock is a youthful Amphion (or Orpheus), whose lute-playing casts a spell on the denizens of the air and the Roman she-wolf.

The Baroque style, which was splendidly represented by Luca Giordano in the Gallery of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, fascinated the Florentines, but did not fully convince them - the weight of a glorious tradition was too great.

This detail of Luca Giordano’s fresco in the Gallery shows Minerva Handing a Key and a Tool to Invention and Skill.

The picture shows one of the ends of the ceiling in the Galleria Riccardiana (opposite to the entrance) depicting the Cave of Eternity. On the left, behind the serpent of eternity, Fortuna is seen wearing a blindfold. Aeternitas has her head veiled and holds an orb in her hand, and a nude Natura is squirting milk from her breast. The old man seated in the cave is identified by the hourglass as Chronos. Around this group hover souls waiting to be born. To the right sit the three Parcae, who are receiving the ball of wool from which they spin the thread of life from the hands of a two-faced Janus. The winged youth with the burning torch is a genius of new life.

The scene can be interpreted as an illustration of eternity, which envelops the worlds of man and the gods.

In the centre of the ceiling of the Galleria Riccardiana the Apotheosis of the Medici is depicted. On the sides Neptune’s Wedding with Amphitrite (left) and the Rape of Proserpina (right) can be seen.

Luca Giordano was a true chameleon of art. Giordano was a pupil of Ribera, influenced by his almost brutal manner. In 1652, he visited Rome, Florence, and Venice. He absorbed something of the Venetian tradition, especially Veronese, which he mixed with the Baroque theatricality of Pietro da Cortona and abandoned Caravaggio-style chiaroscuro. He produced many pieces for Neapolitan churches; shimmering reflections of his prodigiously rapid technique.

Coming from the naturalist studio of the Spaniard Giuseppe Ribera, follower of Caravaggio, the Neapolitan Luca Giordano was also influenced by the Roman Baroque artists as well as by the Venetian 16th century painters. His fluid, luminous style anticipates the development of Venetian painting in the 18th century. In this work the rhythmic articulations of the composition around the cross of St Peter and the smoky colour which seems to fuse in the golden light combine to create an effect of continual movement and intense realism.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 21 minutes):

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa Brevis (Tu es Petrus)

These striking representations of the Greek philosophers Democritus and Heraclitus follow in the tradition of Giordano’s well-known Philosopher series from the 1650s. Both these and his earlier compositions are indebted to the work of Jusepe de Ribera, with whom he Giordano is thought to have trained (though there is no documentary evidence proving this was actually the case). Giordano’s philosophers from the 1650s are strongly reminiscent of Ribera’s single-figure compositions of half-length saints and philosophers of the 1620s and ‘30s; many of which would have been accessible to Giordano in a number of important Neapolitan collections at the time. Many of the philosophers are shown as beggars (‘filosofi-mendicanti’) or scientists (‘filosofi-scienzati’); that is alchemists, mathematicians, geographers or astrologers.

Both works are framed by painted cartouches and flower garlands, the latter were executed by Giuseppe Recco with whom Giordano often collaborated.

Luca Giordano was one of the most important painters of the late Baroque period, practising a heroic, monumental style seasoned with decorative colour. Invited to Spain by King Charles II in 1692, he was soon established as the leading painter at the Spanish Court. For the crown, he painted in particular the biblical stories of Solomon and David in a spectacular series now divided between the Prado and the Royal Palace in Madrid.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 3 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Solomon - Chorus: Your harps and cymbals

The new treasury (Tesoro Nuovo) was built on the north side of the monastery. Its painted decoration, completed in 1704 by the elderly Luca Giordano, constituted the last phase of the decoration of the charterhouse.

Giordano painted Judith in Triumph over Holofernes on the cupola vault. The figure that appears to dominate the vault is the heroic Judith triumphantly displaying the head of Holofernes to the people of Israel. The lunettes contains scenes from the Old Testament, among them Aaron’s Sacrifice, and the Destruction of the Band of Korah above the entrance, and the Erection of the Brazen Serpent above the altar.

Giordano frequently included animals in his paintings, where they suited the subject. He was a talented painter of livestock, and in this scene a bull, dog and lamb are represented.

The new church type, developed in the Baroque period, offered large format vertical picture surfaces on the inner fa�ade and on the dividing wall between the nave and the choir, which were used both for oil paintings and for frescoes. It was not as easy to see the pictures on the inner fa�ade because of the light from the windows, yet it was costumary to incorporate these surfaces into the iconographic program. The most magnificent solutions for this space were found in Naples. Luca Giordano came up with the most ingenious way of reinterpreting this surface through painting. His multifigured and highly animated Expulsion of the Moneychangers from the Temple on the entrance wall of the Chiesa degli Gerolamini, a composition perfectly adapted to the architectural situation with its large centre doorway, would become one of his most celebrated works.

The scene can be understood as a reminder to viewers, in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, that respectful behaviour was expected in sacred spaces, which explains why such scenes are so common on entrance walls in the Baroque period.

This painting belonged to the famous collection of Prince Mikl�s Esterh�zy II (1765-1833).

In 1682, Luca Giordano was commissioned by the Corsini to paint their family chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. The perfection with which he completed this commission on the cupola vault in the space of a mere six months astonished his contemporaries.

This early work by Giordano reveals the classicising influence of Nicolas Poussin, an artist whose works he could have studied in Neapolitan private collections.

The canvas is signed lower left: Luca Giord.

The companion-piece of this painting, Young Bacchus Sleeping, is also in the Hermitage.

The new treasury (Tesoro Nuovo) was built on the north side of the monastery. Its painted decoration, completed in 1704 by the elderly Luca Giordano, constituted the last phase of the decoration of the charterhouse.

Giordano painted Judith in Triumph over Holofernes on the cupola vault. The figure that appears to dominate the vault is the heroic Judith triumphantly displaying the head of Holofernes to the people of Israel. The lunettes contains scenes from the Old Testament, among them Aaron’s Sacrifice, and the Destruction of the Band of Korah above the entrance, and the Erection of the Brazen Serpent above the altar.

Luca Giordano follows Cesare Ripa’s description of Justitia, depicting the figure of Justice in a gold-rimmed white dress and a blue mantle. In this figure the influence of the Venetian Cinquecento can be feet. The source may have been the figure of Venice in Veronese’s ceiling painting in the Palazzo Ducale.

This painting and its pendant, the Adoration of the Shepherds, may have been preparatory study for a large cycle on the Life of the Very Holy Virgin, which he executed in the court of Charles II of Spain.

Two paintings, the Judgment of Paris and its companion-piece, Mars and Venus Caught by Vulcan, depicts episodes from the loves of gods. The style of both paintings show the combination of all influencing styles with which Giordano was familiar: those of Jusepe de Ribera, Pietro da Cortona and the Venetian painters.

This depiction of a peasant eating pasta captures a curious sub-genre of Neapolitan culture. As meat prices rose in the 17th century, pasta became less expensive and provided a more affordable alternative. Maccheroni (as all types of Neapolitan pasta were then termed) was sold by street vendors and often cooked in a meat broth, giving much-needed sustenance to peasants, who traditionally ate it with their hands. So-called mangiamaccherroni (macaroni-eaters) became a familiar spectacle in the streets of Naples, so much so that in the 18th and 19th centuries, tourists would pay for plate of hot pasta in order to watch peasants scoop it with their hands and swallow it whole.

From the 16th century, these mangiamaccheroni became a popular subject in Neapolitan painting, at times used as a humorous personifications of “taste” in representations of the five senses. Luca Giordano painted a number of mangiamaccheroni including one in the Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton and another in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Neapolitan painter, the most important Italian decorative artist of the second half of the 17th century. He was nicknamed `Luca Fa Presto’ (Luke work quickly) because of his prodigious speed of execution and huge output.

He began in the circle of Ribera, but his style became much more colorful under the influence of such great decorative painters as Veronese, whose works he saw on his extensive travels. Indeed, he absorbed a host of influences and was said to be able to imitate other artists’ styles with ease. His work was varied also in subject-matter, although he was primarily a religious and mythological painter.

He worked mainly in Naples, but also extensively in Florence and Venice, and his work had great influence in Italy. After five years back in Naples, Giordano went to Florence again where he produced one of his most important works, the gallery frescos in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (1682). These airy, luminous frescos provide a foretaste of eighteenth century art.

In 1692 he was called to Spain by Charles II and stayed there for 10 years, painting in Madrid, Toledo, and the Escorial. His last work when he returned to Naples was the ceiling of the Treasury Chapel of S. Martino. In his personal self-confidence and courtliness, and in the open, airy compositions and light luminous colors of his work, Giordano presages such great 18th-century painters as Tiepolo.

Commissioned from Giordano a few years after the Assumption (signed and dated 1667) in the same church, the work was sent from Naples to Venice with the Nativity of the Virgin, to take its place on the first altar on the right.

The four paintings in the Royal Collection (Psyche Honoured by the People, Psyche’s Parents Offering Sacrifice to Apollo, Psyche Served by Invisible Spirits, and Venus Punishing Psyche with a Task) form part of a series of twelve, illustrating incidents from the story of Cupid and Psyche as recounted at considerable length by Apuleius in The Golden Ass (Books 4-6).

In general terms Apuleius tells how Venus sought to punish the young Psyche, whose beauty challenged even that of the goddess of love. Accordingly, Venus instructs Cupid to arrange for an unsuitable match for Psyche, but instead Cupid himself falls in love with her. He installs Psyche in his palace, but chooses to visit her only at night. Psyche’s sisters, however, overcome by jealousy, maintain that her lover is in reality a monster. Her curiosity aroused, Psyche, although strictly forbidden to look at him, observes Cupid by the light of a lamp, but taken by surprise she allows oil from the lamp to fall on Cupid and so wakens him. To punish Psyche for her disobedience Cupid disappears. He is sought far and wide by Psyche, but in vain. Both Cupid and Psyche thus incur the wrath of Venus. Psyche then tries to win back Cupid’s favour by performing numerous well-nigh impossible tasks set for her by Venus. These she undertakes successfully except for the last which involves the recovery of Persephone’s casket from Hades.

Although expressly told not to open it, Psyche is again overcome by curiosity and opens the casket only to find that it does not contain beauty, but a deadly sleep that overwhelms her. At this point Jupiter, encouraged by Cupid, takes pity on Psyche and consents to their marriage in heaven.

Even though the series by Giordano amounts to twelve scenes, the Neapolitan artist by no means depicts the narrative in full, and in this respect the series appears to have been left incomplete. The four scenes chosen here illustrate different parts of the story.

Psyche honoured by the People and Psyche’s Parents offering Sacrifice to Apollo are consecutive incidents from the beginning of the sequence. They refer respectively to the open acknowledgement of Psyche’s beauty that provokes the initial jealousy of Venus, and the anxiety felt by Psyche’s parents on suspecting that the goddess has been angered.

The story of Cupid and Psyche was open to several interpretations, some of which during the Renaissance were of a philosophical disposition, but it would appear that Giordano has concentrated more on the narrative elements. The first composition (Psyche honoured by the People) is possibly derived from the sixteenth-century engraving of the subject by the Master of the Die, which forms part of an extensive and influential series of prints designed by Michael Coxie and illustrating Apuleius’s text with a certain degree of literalness. Several of the subjects treated by the Master of the Die were not included by Giordano. An essential difference is that Giordano depicts Cupid as a youth rather than as a child.

The paintings are late works by the artist dating from 1692-1702, the years when he was in Spain at the court of Charles II. The fluidity of the brushwork, the sheer liquidity of the paint, the spirited inventiveness of the compositions, together with the delicate, refined colours are highly characteristic of Giordano at the height of his powers. The charm of the paintings is enhanced by the reduced scale which Giordano so often eschewed in favour of large decorative schemes. Essentially, the story of Cupid and Psyche was a suitable subject for a court artist. The series may indeed have been painted for Queen Maria Ana, the wife of Charles II of Spain, since they were apparently given by the queen to the Duc de Grammont after the death of the king in 1700.

Invisible Spirits illustrates Psyche’s introduction to Cupid’s palace, where she is attended by invisible spirits who invite her to bathe and to dine to the accompaniment of music.

Psyche honoured by the People and Psyche’s Parents offering Sacrifice to Apollo are consecutive incidents from the beginning of the sequence. They refer respectively to the open acknowledgement of Psyche’s beauty that provokes the initial jealousy of Venus, and the anxiety felt by Psyche’s parents on suspecting that the goddess has been angered.

Giordano treated this subject five times.

A tremendous force bears the transfigured body of Christ from the sealed tomb up into the light. The soldiers in the dark foreground, who have been roused from their sleep, witness the mystery and fall back in terror.

An altarpiece in Naples, painted by Caravaggio in 1609 and destroyed in 1805, is cited as the model for this work.

The picture shows a scene from the figural frieze on the long sides in the Galleria Riccardiana. It represents Inferno with Charon and the Furies.

The depictions above the long walls and in the heavenly regions in the Galleria Riccardiana are reserved for classical mythology. The picture shows a scene from the figural frieze on the long sides representing Neptune’s Wedding with Amphitrite.

The depictions above the long walls and in the heavenly regions in the Galleria Riccardiana are reserved for classical mythology. The picture shows a scene from the figural frieze on the long sides representing Ceres, Triptolemus, and Seasons.

The depictions above the long walls and in the heavenly regions in the Galleria Riccardiana are reserved for classical mythology. The picture shows a scene from the figural frieze on the long sides representing the Death of Adonis.

The figure of St Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, is set at the centre of the painting which was commissioned by the viceroy for the church built after the dreadful plague epidemic of 1656.

Luca Giordano continued Caravaggio’s manner in an almost Rococo fashion, as can be seen in his St Michael.

The story of the rape of Lucretia was one of the best-known episodes in the early history of Rome. It told how Sextus Tarquinius, brutal son of the tyrannical king, forced the virtuous wife Lucretia to accede to his lust by threatening that he would kill both her and her servant-boy if she refused, and afterwards claim that he had discovered them together in the act of adultery. To prevent this dishonour to her husband and family, Lucretia permitted herself to be raped, and was thereby able to tell her story and demand vengeance before she committed suicide.

Giordano’s composition recalls a celebrated precedent, painted by Titian and known in several versions. Luca Giordano spent significant time in Venice perfecting his training, between 1650 and 1654, and he would certainly have been aware of Titian’s painting.

The picture shows a detail of the frescoed ceiling in the Gallery of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi.

According to the Old Testament (Judges 4:12-24) Sisera was a Canaanite war-leader, who was defeated by the Israelites.

The painting is an oil sketch.

The fall of the rebel angels is the greatest single theme of the Counter-Reformation. It is a theme that allowed a church in conflict to present its propaganda in the form of its struggle against all forms of heresy. At the same time, the theme of the struggling angel also symbolized the triumph of light over the rebellion of the powers of darkness - giving the painter an opportunity to create a chiaroscuro charged with meaning, in which heaven and hell, the incense of the blessed and the brimstone of the damned are contrasted in an extremely confined space, creating an arc of tension within which the knight-like angel spreads his broad wings and wields his sword in a sweeping gesture of victory.

Giordano sets the scene with relatively few figures compared to, say, Rubens’ Great Last Judgment. Against a background of deep golden light, the archangel balances with an almost balletic movement on the heavy breast of Lucifer, entangled amidst a group of his servants, his angular and batlike wings cutting through the hazy sfumato of the hellfire. What appears at first glance to be so dramatic is not in fact the depiction of a struggle as such. Michael is not attacking the figures from hell with his sword, but is holding it aloft like a sign, as though his mere appearance were enough to cast Satan and his followers into eternal damnation.

This composition is a combination of a mythological subject and a genre scene.

Two paintings, the Judgment of Paris and its companion-piece, Mars and Venus Caught by Vulcan, depicts episodes from the loves of gods. The style of both paintings show the combination of all influencing styles with which Giordano was familiar: those of Jusepe de Ribera, Pietro da Cortona and the Venetian painters.

Raphael’s Liberation of St. Peter in the Stanza d’Eliodoro in the Vatican constitutes a classic prototype and must have made a great impression on the young Luca Giordano from Naples when he studied it in the early 1650s. That the present composition was created with Raphael’s version in mind is clear. The monumentality and symmetry of the composition are similar to Raphael’s fresco as are the idealized nobility of the main figures and the gleaming rendering of the soldiers’ armor. The painting is Roman in concept yet Venetian in style and colour at the same time. Giordano was inspired by Raphael and reformed the old master’s monumental masterpiece.

Attributed to Strozzi in a nineteenth-century catalogue, this painting was later held to be a work of Ribera. This attribution was modified in favour of Luca Giordano. The majority of scholars have accepted the dating as 1650.

The subject was identified as the philosopher Cratetes. Imaginary portraits of ancient philosophers and the representation of events from their lives was very popular in seventeenth-century Italy, Holland and France. The trend can be connected to the new spread of Neostoicism, a philosophical current particularly common to Naples in the 1660’s.

This painting is closely connected to the several series of philosophers that Giordano painted on the model of Ribera’s two philosopher series, both carried out by the Spanish artist in the 1630’s. Giordano’s and Ribera’s philosophers share the strong naturalistic and anti-ideal tendencies that were prized in Neapolitan neo-stoic intellectual circles; circles in which Giordano himself participated. The philosophers are depicted as simple people, dressed in poor clothing and with specific, unidealized physiognomic characterizations that derive directly from the live model.

An old copy of this painting, of slightly larger measurements (123 x 98 cm.), is in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

The companion-piece of this painting, The Triumph of Galatea, is also in the Hermitage.

The companion-piece of this painting, The Rape of Europa, is also in the Hermitage.

The episode of the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, Galilee, is told in the Gospels of Matthew (17,1-8), Mark (9, 2-8), and Luke (9,28-36). Jesus, after taking Peter, James and John with him up on a mountain, transfigured: his face shone with extraordinary splendour and his clothes became dazzlingly white. Immediately after, Moses and Elijah appeared to speak with him and when Peter tried to speak, a cloud enveloped them in its shade and a voice declared the divine descent of Jesus.

The transcendent and metaphysical nature of Jesus’ appearance on Mount Tabor is a perfect subject for the increasingly Baroque tone that characterised Giordano’s work from the period of his Florentine frescoes, through to his departure for Spain (1682-1692). The characteristic mature style of the Transfiguration makes it a precursor of later works, inspired by the vision of Rubens and Bernini. The strong influences of Bernini and close alignment with the works of Baciccio can be seen in the search for brand new effects using light: in fact, light is shown like a cascade, pouring from the background to the foreground, revealing shapes through backlighting. The artist applied colour directly over a very fine brown wash, without preparation, creating effects of extraordinary lightness.

The picture shows the ceiling fresco in the Cappella del Tresoro of the Certosa.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 17 minutes):

Alessandro Scarlatti: La Giuditta, oratorio, Part I (excerpts)

Venus punishing Psyche with a Task (?) was previously interpreted as Psyche visited by her Sisters, but Sir Michael Levey argues that the scene is more accurately identified as Venus setting Psyche a task in the attempt to find Cupid. The task in question may be that of procuring a flask of water from a stream running beneath a high mountain. Venus is the lightly clad figure in the middle pointing towards Psyche, whose own gesture indicates the mountain in the background. As such this scene is the last of those in the present series.

The subject of this composition is taken from Virgil’s Aeneid (8.370-453). Vulcan - the god of fire and metalworking - engages in discourse with his wife Venus as he and his workers create what will become arms that she will later give to her mortal son Aeneas. At Venus’s side is Cupid, who clings to her for protection amidst the fire and cacophony of sound.

Giordano envisaged this story on other occasions, though more often choosing to illustrate the story as told in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. In that telling Venus commits adultery with Mars, following which Vulcan discovers his wife’s transgressions and ultimately catches her with a fine gold woven net.

The painting is signed on the rock lower centre: .LG. (in ligature).

The Palazzo Medici (later Medici Riccardi) was the symbol of the economic power of the Medicis who were the virtual lords of Florence in the 16th-17th centuries. In 1659 Ferdinando II de’ Medici (1610-1670), the Grand Duke of Tuscany, sold his family’s venerable and imposing palace, built by Michelozzo in the fifteenth century, to Gabriello Riccardi (1606-1675) and his nephew Francesco Riccardi (1648-1719). The Riccardi family had moved to Florence from Cologne in the fourteenth century, and in the sixteenth century attained great wealth from banking and commerce.

A number of architects contributed to the remodeling of the palace which took thirty years. The most spectacular intervention into the original fabric was the construction, beginning in 1670, an east-west gallery wing. In 1676 the library was built directly beside the gallery. In 1684-89 another new wing was built to the north.

The new owners’ pride in the tradition-rich history of their palace is expressed in the painted decoration of the newly created rooms.

In the Great Hall of the building, called the Gallery, the ceiling was covered by frescoes in 1683-85 by the Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano, in order to show off the glories of the Medici family. Baroque civilization entered Florence with Pietro da Cortona in Palazzo Pitti and with Luca Giordano in Palazzo Medici Riccardi (1683-85).

The Palazzo Medici (later Medici Riccardi) was the symbol of the economic power of the Medicis who were the virtual lords of Florence in the 16th-17th centuries. In the Great Hall of the building, called the Gallery, the ceiling was covered by frescoes in 1683-85 by the Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano, in order to show off the glories of the Medici family. Baroque civilization entered Florence with Pietro da Cortona in Palazzo Pitti and with Luca Giordano in Palazzo Medici Riccardi (1683-85).

The Vendramin Chapel in the Venetian church of San Pietro di Castello opens out from the left arm of the transept. It is dedicated to Our Lady of Carmine to celebrate the Patriarch Francesco Vendramin. The altarpiece depicting the Virgin and Child with Souls in Purgatory occupies the central position of the chapel.

The companion-piece of this painting, Judgment of Paris, is also in the Hermitage.