Master of the Legend of Apollo and Daphne
The wrong time.
The right place.
Not a journey on a road. A journey through time.
- Artist
- Master of the Legend of Apollo and Daphne
- Work
- Crucifixion
- Date
- c. 1498
The encounter
Two journeys. One painting.
Andrea’s perspective
The Crucifixion did not take place in Florence in 1498. And yet the painter brings it into his own world. That was what fascinated me: a first journey through time, carrying a sacred event into the city of the artist. Then another, more than five centuries later, carrying us into his time.
We are looking at a painting. But for a moment, we seem to be looking out through it. That double journey is why I bought it. Not a journey on a road. A journey through time.
Look closer
Florence, not Golgotha.
The Salamon entry identifies Florence beyond the cross: the Arno, the Torre della Zecca and Brunelleschi’s dome. Saints Jerome and Paul flank Christ. It suggests that the panel may once have crowned an unidentified altarpiece. For me, the distance is not empty space. It is where the second journey begins.
“For a moment, we seem to be looking out through it.”
A changing attribution
A name made of stories.
Catalogued as Fiorenzo di Lorenzo in 1937, the painting was later attributed by Andrea De Marchi to the anonymous Master of the Legend of Apollo and Daphne. The entry also reports Nicoletta Pons’s cautious proposal to identify this master as Giovanni di Benedetto Cianfanini. This remains a hypothesis.
The documented work
Artwork
& sources.
Identity
- Attribution
- Master of the Legend of Apollo and Daphne
- Title
- Crucifixion
- Date
- c. 1498
- Medium
- Tempera on panel
- Dimensions
- 45 × 30 cm
Provenance
Achillito Chiesa collection
Agosti collection, Milan
Private collection
Literature
G. Botta, Le collezioni Agosti e Mendoza, Milan, 1937, no. 137, pl. XII.
Sources & attribution notes
The record follows the Salamon entry used for the first version of this page. The suggested dating through the state of Florence’s building sites is not presented as established: that connection has not been demonstrated in the supplied documentation.