St Lawrence

Domenico Ghirlandaio died in January 1494 with the high altar of Santa Maria Novella still unfinished. His brothers Davide and Benedetto and the rest of the family workshop carried on, and it was only completed around 1498. Those were turbulent years for Florence. The Medici were driven out in 1494, the Dominican friar Savonarola came to dominate the city, and in 1497 the patron's son, Lorenzo Tornabuoni, was beheaded for plotting the Medici's return. Lorenzo is the Italian form of Lawrence, the early Roman deacon who stands in this narrow panel, more than two metres tall. The museum lists it as the work of Ghirlandaio and his workshop. The altarpiece stayed in the church for some three centuries, until a refurbishment in 1804 took it apart, and in 1816 this panel and two others were acquired for Munich by Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria.