Pietà with Saints

Abstract

This painted terracotta sculpture in San Salvatore al Monte in Florence has been attributed to Santi Buglioni, a sculptor who worked both in glazed terracotta and in cold-painted terracotta. The Pietà (Mary mourning over the dead Christ on her lap) has been expanded with the addition of St. John the Evangelist holding Christ's head, the Magdalene bowing at his feet, and St. John the Baptist, St. Francis of Assisi, and what looks to be St. Anne. The Baptist was dead by this point and Francis would not be born for over a millenium, and so this is not a historical moment but rather a timeless icon. Christ's body is almost in the round, the Magdalene and John the Evangelist are in relatively high relief, the Virgin Mary and Anne's heads and shoulders are in high relief (their bodies less so), and John and Francis are in lower relief, accentuating the central figure and creating a sense of space and a distinction between the figures who were present for Christ's death and those not. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.