TABERNACLE
mosaic work of polychrome marble
A sumptuous example of an furnishing that certainly comes from a quite important house of worship, this tabernacle formed as a ‘small temple’ consists of three parts: the lower one has the small original door, still complete with key, that gave access to the consecrated host, surmounted by a broken pediment and framed by precious polychrome inlays. The sides of the rounded front are enlivened by marble pilaster strips that terminate in corbels. The latter support a shaped architrave, interrupted in the centre by a frieze in damasked breccia.
Above the main body which has just been described we find an elegant half-spherical calotte decorated by scrolls and centred by an oculus in the Buontalenti style. The whole is concluded by a polygonal element which originally supported the cross.
A specimen that was certainly made by the same workshop, with very slight variations and featuring the same marble types, was made around 1654 for the altar of our Lady of the Assumption subject to the patronage of Badii-Cioli in the left transept of the Florentine church of Santa Felicita, where it is still found.
Florence, middle of the 17th century
cm 113×73
