The Crossing of the Red Sea

Of all the scenes on these walls, this is the one whose author is hardest to pin down. Giorgio Vasari, writing in the 16th century, gave it to Cosimo Rosselli. Several later scholars proposed Domenico Ghirlandaio, who painted the Calling of the First Apostles directly across the chapel, while others see in the style the hand of Biagio d'Antonio, a Florentine painter of the same generation. Today it is usually credited to Rosselli and Biagio together, and the question has never been settled.

The story runs from right to left. Far back on the right, Moses and Aaron plead with Pharaoh to let their people go. Then comes the sea, which has closed over the Egyptian army. The soldiers wear the armour and carry the weapons of 15th-century Italy, Pharaoh cries out as the water takes him, and a few men try to swim back to the Egyptian shore. Above them hangs a dark storm with hail falling on the pursuers, while further left sunlight breaks through and a rainbow appears.

On the safe shore, Moses leads the Israelites away into the landscape, and in the foreground his sister, the prophetess Miriam, plays a stringed instrument in thanksgiving.