Die Auferweckung der Tochter des Jairus

In these years Santa Maria Novella was a building site. Cosimo de' Medici, made Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569, had Vasari tear out the screen that divided the friars' choir from the congregation and refit the church with matching altars, so a Florentine family taking a chapel there was buying into a brand-new interior. Niccolo Gaddi had taken his in 1566. The altarpiece he got was the last thing Bronzino painted. He was 69, he had been the Medici court's portraitist for 30 years, and he died in November 1572 with the picture done or all but done. His pupil Alessandro Allori worked on it as well. Borghini, writing in 1584, gave Allori the still life along the bottom, the pot, the book and the candles.