page_title: Chiostro dello Scalzo
section_title: The Frescoes
hierarchical_section_title: Chiostro dello Scalzo / The Frescoes
caption_attribution_description: English: "The Visitation" by Andrea del Sarto
context_page_description: The Chiostro della Scalzo or is a cloister in Florence, Italy that originally led to a chapel once belonging to a religious company known as the Compagnia del diciplinati di San Giovanni Battista or della Passione di Cristo. The term "scalzo" makes reference to the barefoot brother who carried the Cross during its public processions.
  "Compagnia" was the name given to these Florentine congregations of layman who contributed towards defending Roman Catholicism. Each company had a different practice: the "Laudesi" promoted prayer through the singing of hymns, those for the doctrine taught catechism to children, while the charitable companies offered assistance to the poor. The Compagnia della Scalzo was a disciplined confraternity that practiced penance, often in the form of self-flagellation.
  The Compagnia della Scalzo was established in 1376, and used the church of San Giovannino dei Cavalieri on the via San Gallo as early as 1390 for its meetings. When the company purchased land behind this church in the first half of the 15th century, it proceeded towards creating its own premises, which included a chapel, the cloister and entrance still visible today.
context_section_description: The murals comprise twelve scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist and form a narrative that begins to the right of the entrance. The first scene is the Annunciation to Zachary (1523), followed by The Visitation (1524), then The Birth of the Baptist (1526), The Blessing of the Young St. John (1519), Meeting of Jesus and the Young St. John the Baptist in the Desert (1518), The Baptism of the Christ (ca. 1509-1510), The Baptist Preaching to the Crowds (1515), The Baptism of the Crowds (1517), St. John's Capture (1517), The Dance of Salome (1522), The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1523), and The Presentation of the Head of St. John the Baptist (1523). The date of each scene does not follow the narrative sequence. 
  The cycle also includes four figures representing Christian virtues into tromp l'oeil niches to look like sculptures: Faith (ca. 1523) and Hope (1523), flank the entrance and carry the Latin inscription "Laudate Dominum in trio sancto eius" ("Praise the Lord in His holy place"), while Charity (ca. 1513) and  Justice (1515) flank the former passage way into the chapel with another Latin phrase, "Introbibo in Domum Tuam" ("I shall enter your household"). 
  The narrative scheme is framed by pilasters and cornices decorated with patterns. Such pictorial elements blend with the architecture of the cloister.
  The main artist here is Andrea del Sarto (Florence, 1486-1530), whose portrait can be admired in the plaster bust placed over the entrance by Domenico Geri (1724). Andrea was one of the greatest painters of his time and was called by the biographer Giorgio Vasari in his 1568 edition of Lives "a most excellent artist", "without error". Andrea worked in all media - drawings, oil paint and fresco - and received altar piece commissions as well as devotional scenes, portraits as well as mythological subjects. Although he created his own style, he was influenced by Flemish and German  prints (e.g. Albrecht Dürer and Lucas van Leyden), antique sculpture, particularly Hellenistic, the great masters of Florentine figurative art (Masaccio, Ghiberti and Ghirlandaio) and the high renaissance style of his contemporaries such as Michelangelo and Raphael. 
  As in other cases, del Sarto called for the collaboration of fellow artist Francesco di Cristofano, known as Il Franciabigio (Florence, 1424 - ca. 1525), who shared a workshop with him. In the two scenes at the Scalzo by Franciabigio, The Blessing of the Young St. John in the Desert and The Meeting of Jesus and the Young St. John in the Desert, a less formal and more intimate atmosphere is achieved. 
  Paintings by both these artists are housed in the major state museums in Florence - the Palatine Gallery in Pitti Palace, the Uffizi Gallery, the Museum of Andrea del Sartio's Last Supper at San Salvi, and the Accademia. Other major fresco cycles can be admired at Santissima Annunziata, the in Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano and at San Salvi.
  The frescoes were removed using the strappo technique by Leonetto Tintori between February, 1963 and July, 1968.   They were exhibited 1968-69 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Rijks museum in Amsterdam, and the Hayward Gallery in London.
caption: 02 The Visitation, Andrea del Sarto
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