The Virgin Appearing to Saint Philip Neri

This picture is 3.43 metres high because it was made to stand over an altar. Senator Pietro Nerli commissioned it around 1674 for his chapel of Saint Philip Neri in the Roman church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and it left Rome before 1698 at the wish of Ferdinando de' Medici, the Grand Prince, whose collecting method was consistent. A copy went onto the altar and the original went to Florence. In 1697 he had taken Raphael's Madonna del Baldacchino out of Pescia cathedral the same way, and the town objected so loudly that the panel had to be moved at night. Philip Neri, who died in 1595 and was canonised in 1622, kneels in a chasuble while the Virgin and Child appear above him on a cloud. The altarpiece now hangs in a living room of the palace, the Hall of Apollo.