Resumen de Franciscan Chapel Decoration: The "St. Silvester Cycle" of Maso di Banco at Santa Croce in Florence
The fresco decoration of the Holy Confessors Chapel at the Franciscan church of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, comprises eight scenes from the life of Saint Silvester, in addition to various subsidiary decorations. Most likely donated to the church by Gualtiero di Jacopo de'Bardi and his son, the chapel's decoration is generally accepted to be by the largely unknown artist Maso di Banco. The depiction of the life of Saint Silvester is without precedent in surviving Florentine or Franciscan art, though Maso's cycle does share compositional and iconographical details with a number of earlier depictions elsewhere. The presence of the fresco demonstrates how, by including non-Franciscan saints in their chapel dedications, Franciscan friars gained an opportunity to fit their founder, their own lives, and their ongoing vocation to the public within the broad tradition of Christian history.
