Pontormo's Capponi Chapel

Pontormo's work in the Capponi Chapel in Santa Felicita, Florence, began in 1525 with the decoration of its hemispherical dome, a fresco of God the Father surrounded by four patriarchs. The fresco was followed by four circular panels for the pendentives with bust portraits of the evangelists, partly Bronzino's work,1 and by the great altarpiece, variously called Descent from the Cross (or Deposition), Pietà, or Entombment (Fig. 1).2 The final work, datable in 1528, was the fresco of the Annunciation on the window wall. This last, the four tondi, and the altarpiece in its rich period frame are intact. The cupola decoration was lost when the original dome was destroyed to make way for the present shallower vault; nor do we know whether this occurred in the sixteenth or the eighteenth century.3 In fact, no clue to the dome decoration emerged until 1914 when F. M. Clapp cited a drawing at the Uffizi (Fig. 12) as “probably a study for one of the Patriarchs.”4