FOGGINI, Giambattista
(b. 1652, Firenze, d. 1725, Firenze)

First Mass of St Andrea

1685-87
Marble, height 287 cm
Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence

The vogue for marble reliefs made itself felt in Florence in the 1670s, with the work of Giambattista Foggini in the Corsini Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine. The chapel was erected by the noblemen Bartolomeo and Neri Corsini in honour of their collateral ancestor, Andrea Corsini, who had died in 1374 and been canonized in 1629. Neri Corsini was a career churchman and a protegé of Alexander VII, who had made him a cardinal in 1664. Thus the chapel was conceived to celebrate the strong connection of the Corsini with Rome, and the patrons found the perfect exponent of the High Baroque style in Foggini.

Foggini's approach to narrative was influenced by examples of Cortona and Algardi. These influences emerge in the Corsini Chapel, which was initially to have only one relief, St Andrea in Glory, above the altar. Foggini's success there led to the decision to complete the decoration of the lateral walls with further reliefs rather than paintings. Their subject matter, the First Mass of St Andrea and the Battle of Anghiari, gave scope for pictorial effects probably intended to recall the 'paragone'. Both the lateral panels of the Corsini Chapel take Algardi's Meeting of St Leo the Great and Attila as their touchstone.




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