Passion of Christ

Andrea di Bonaiuto's Passion of Christ, painted around 1365, is part of the celebrated fresco cycle in the Spanish Chapel (Cappellone degli Spagnoli) at Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Commissioned by the Dominican order, the chapel's decorative program is one of the most ambitious theological fresco cycles of the Trecento, illustrating Dominican teachings on salvation, the Church Militant, and the life of Christ. Andrea's work here represents a pinnacle of didactic religious painting.

Fresco on plaster wall. Andrea employs a clear, compartmentalized narrative structure with bold outlines and saturated colors suited to the monumental scale, demonstrating the spatial ambitions and figure groupings that characterize the most progressive Florentine painting of the 1360s.