Deposition

Bernardo di Stefano Rosselli's Deposition, dated 1512 and now at the Museum of Santa Verdiana in Castelfiorentino, depicts the descent of Christ's body from the cross — one of the most emotionally charged subjects in Christian art, developed with particular intensity in the work of Perugino, Fra Bartolommeo, and Rosso Fiorentino. Rosselli came from a Florentine family of painters but worked primarily in the Valdelsa and Valdarno region south of Florence, producing altarpieces for small towns and monasteries. The Deposition format, presenting the moment when Christ's lifeless body is lowered from the cross and mourned by the Virgin, John, and the holy women, served as a focus for meditation on the Passion and the sacrifice of the Eucharist. The Museum of Santa Verdiana preserves the work within the ecclesiastical tradition of the town it was created to serve.

The Deposition composition organises multiple figures around the descending body of Christ creating a pyramidal arrangement that concentrates emotional weight at the centre. The Virgin's grief and the laborious physical act of descent are rendered simultaneously. Rosselli employs a warm conservative Florentine palette. The landscape background establishes the narrative's historical setting at Golgotha.