Arnolfo di Cambio and workshop, Pope Boniface VIII and two prophets

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Information
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Author
Arnolfo di Cambio and workshop
Date
1296-1310
Collocation
Sala del Paradiso
Original location
Cathedral, medieval facade
Material
White marble
Technique
Sculpture

Marble statues depicting Pope Boniface VIII in the chair and two Prophets (one headless and the other with a reused ancient head), created by Arnolfo di Cambio and collaborators for the façade of the Cathedral between the end of the thirteenth century and the first years of the fourteenth century. When the façade was dismantled in 1587, the sculptures were dispersed: the two prophets were instead found in a private Florentine garden in the first half of the twentieth century, while Boniface VIII was purchased from an antiques dealer by a distant descendant of the pontiff and donated in 1893 at the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore. This statue, 2.80 meters high excluding the base, of pharaonic hieraticity, was created using three large blocks of marble plus other smaller slabs. Arnolfo only created the head, leaving the modeling of the lower part to his collaborators. The depicted pontiff was linked to the Florentine Church through Francesco Monaldeschi, bishop of Florence at the start of the new cathedral, for whose construction Boniface had donated 3,000 florins. This explains the presence of his effigy together with those of saints and prophets in an aedicule in the upper part of the medieval façade.

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Sala del Paradiso