Benozzo Gozzoli e la Fraternita dei fiorentini di Pisa
Luigi Lazzerini
According to Vasari, Benozzo painted in Pisa «in the oratory of the Confraternity of the Florentines… the altarpiece and many other images». Starting with a detailed reconstruction of the fifteenth-century history of the Pisan Fraternita dei Fiorentini, which assisted those condemned to death, and of another confraternity, strictly connected with the Fraternita, the Compagnia del Corpo di Cristo, to which Benozzo and the members of his family belonged, the paper proposes a new hypothesis for the identification of the altarpiece mentioned by Vasari. At the same time, it tries to clarify the specific characteristics of the iconographic program developed in the oratories of confraternities dedicated to comforting condemned criminals.