This book completely revises and corrects the standard interpretations and understanding of Jacopo da Pontomos lost masterpiece, the frescoes in the choir of the church of San Lorenzo at Florence, Italy. Pontormos frescoes in San Lorenzo were the most important cycle of the sixteenth century after Michelangelos Sistine frescoes. They had an enormous impact on artists until their destruction in the eighteenth century, and their interpretation has also had a significant bearing not only on the reception of this artist, but also of late Renaissance art in Florence. Based on careful archival and historical scholarship, this book determines a new date for the inception of the fresco cycle and reconstructs the day by day procedures through which the artist generated his creation. It establishes his working method, and what it produced. It creates a new visual order for the frescoes. It sets them into the artistic and architectural context of the church in which they were created, relating them to a complex liturgical and religious function. It establishes the intentions of the both the Medici and the canons of the church in having Pontormo paint the specific space in the church where he painted, and the specific subjects that were included.

Finally, it reveals the hitherto unsuspected impact Pontormos paintings had on other works of art.--.