Author: Sebastiano Mazzoni
Dating: 1669
Century: 17th
Technique: Oil on canvas
Location: Central nave, fifth left arch (in the plan No. 20)
The artwork depicts a crucial moment in the history of the Order, when the Virgin Mary appeared in a dream to Pope Honorius III, inviting him to approve the Rule of the Carmelites.
On the bottom right, the artist depicts the sleeping pope; a wide band of light runs diagonally from top to bottom on the canvas: a group of angels revolves in full light around a vertical element; enlarged at the top is the group of the Madonna and the accompanying angels. The imagination and liveliness of colors abound in this painting, in which the miraculous episode was supposed to convey a respectful solemnity that the artist managed to maintain while immersing the narrative in a dynamic play of light and shadow, in that nocturnal atmosphere where the angels gracefully and energetically hover.
Mazzoni, born in Florence in 1615, moved to Venice at a young age, where he entered the circle of the major painters of the time.
