Bust of St. Lucy

Abstract

This half-length glazed terracotta sculpture of St. Lucy (holding her eyes on a plate), is housed in the Church of Santa Cristina in Bolsena. Cardinal Giovanni di Medici (later Pope Leo X) commissioned the work from Benedetto Buglione in 1493-7 as a part of a major campaign to redecorate the church and tomb of the martyr, largely carried out by Buglione, who was involved in the architectural design of the facade and many sculptures on the interior and exterior of the church. Buglione and the Della Robbia never figured out how to create a red glaze, but they were able to achieve purples, blues, and greens, as visible here. Gentilini suggests that this sculpture along with other decorative fragments of glazed terracotta from the same church, might have originally been a part of an elaborately decorated tomb. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.