Madonna col Bambino e una colomba

Florence in the 1490s fell under the spell of a fierce Dominican preacher, Girolamo Savonarola, who denounced luxury and worldly beauty and for a few years all but ruled the city. Piero di Cosimo painted this Madonna in that changed climate. Gone is the light, decorative sweetness of Botticelli, whose work had delighted the Medici court a generation before. Piero gives the Virgin dark hair, a plain shawl drawn over her head, and a grave, almost melancholy face. She sits holding the Christ child, who reaches toward the small dove that gives the picture its name, a traditional emblem of the Holy Spirit and a sign of the Passion still to come.