Saint Peter and Simon Magus

Benozzo Gozzoli (Benozzo di Lese di Sandro) Italian

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 601


These four panels were commissioned in the 1460s by the Alessandri family in Florence in order to update a Gothic-style altarpiece painted 150 years earlier in the church of San Pier Maggiore. In them, the fifth-century bishop of Florence resuscitates a dead child on the square in front of San Pier Maggiore; the magician Simon Magus crashes to the ground at the feet of Emperor Nero when Saint Peter commands the demons who suspended him in midair to let him go; Saint Paul falls from his horse at the apparition of Christ; and Totila, king of the Goths, asks the blessing of Saint Benedict. From his work with Fra Angelico and the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gozzoli evolved a style of great charm and narrative engagement.

Saint Peter and Simon Magus, Benozzo Gozzoli (Benozzo di Lese di Sandro) (Italian, Florence ca. 1420–1497 Pistoia), Tempera on wood

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