Madonna and Child Enthroned between Saints John the Baptist and Bernard with Eight Angels

This Madonna was painted for a street corner. In 1356 a Florentine named Gherardo di Bernardo Manfredi founded a chapel at a tabernacle in the square of Santo Spirito, south of the Arno, and a stone plaque recorded it. The fresco dates from that year, eight years after the Black Death of 1348. The plaque also explains the monk in white. He carries no attribute of his own, and he is taken to be Saint Bernard only because Bernardo was the name of the founder's father. Giottino turned both saints half away from us, towards the Virgin, something new in painting of those years. John the Baptist, in his shaggy camel skin, alone twists his head round to face whoever is passing. Around 1700 the fresco was moved to a corner of Via del Leone, where a copy stands today.