The Chapel of the Magi: Benozzo Gozzoli's Frescoes in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi Florence

The procession of the three Magi unfolds with a mixture of exotic, oriental splendor and stately, bourgeois respectability in the fresco cycle painted by Benozzo Gozzoli on the walls of the Medici family private chapel in Florence. Completed in 1459 and restored between 1988 and 1992, Gozzoli's popular frescoes set the divinely prophesied cavalcade of the Magi against a landscape strewn with allusions to the Last Judgment and contemporary Florence. Enlivened by dramatic juxtapositions of choirs of angels, hunting scenes, castles and Eden-like gardens with peacocks, the paintings incorporate 32 realistic portraits of Gozzoli's contemporaries, including his noble patrons, the Medici. Featuring 184 color plates with scores of close-ups, this lavish volume, edited by Italian art historian and restorationist Luchinat, includes scholarly essays on Gozzoli's iconography, his involvement in humanist circles and the recent restoration. (Dec.)