Скачать или смотреть A Closer Look Episode 35 - An early view of Florence with Dr Nicholas Eckstein

Inside the small Gothic Loggia del Bigallo in Florence – directly across from the far better-known baptistery and cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore – lies one of the earliest representations of the city in art. It’s part of a much larger fresco known as The Madonna of Mercy, showing a monumental Virgin Mary venerated by men and women who gather around her. These people could almost be stand-ins for members of a lay confraternity that met in the Loggia del Bigallo, praying, listening to sermons and planning their charitable activities in the medieval city we see beneath them.

In this episode, historian Dr Nick Eckstein joins Limelight’s Dr Nick Gordon to take us inside the loggia, and also inside the city and the mentality of its inhabitants.

You can view a high resolution image of the Madonna of Mercy here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...