Art imitates architecture: the Saint Philip reliquary in Renaissance Florence

34. As Giulia Brunetti has noted (Becherucci and Brunetti, vol. 2, 244-45), Paolo di Giovanni Sogliani's reliquary of Saint Giovanni Gualberto of 1500 may provide a clue as to the original appearance of the Saint Philip reliquary, for the former's aedicule and statuette were inspired by the latter. See also Dora Liscia Bemporad, "Reliquiario di San Giovanni Gualberto," in Argenti fiorentini (Florence: Studio per Edizioni Scelte, 1992), vol. 2, 21-24.

35. The inscription reads: HE SACRATISSIME SANCTORUM RELIQUIE MISSE FUERUNT DE CONSTANTINOPOLI TEMPORE MANUELIS PALTOLOGI [sic] IMPERATORIS CONSTANTINOPOLITANI ANNO MCCCLXXXXIIII ET IN PRESENTE VASCULO POSITE ANNO DOMINI MCCCLXXXXVIII DE MENSE IUNII. The base contains a relic of Saint Pantaleon, a piece of one of the stones that were the instruments of Saint Stephen's martyrdom, various anonymous saints' relics, and a small Byzantine silver plaque decorated with the image of an unknown saint. Becherucci and Brunetti, vol. 2, 242-43.

36. These prophet figures, one of which is missing, are tiny, each measuring not much more than an inch (slightly less than 3 centimeters) in height. See Becherucci and Brunetti, vol. 2, 242.

37. For these works, see Giulia Brunetti, "Ghiberti orafo," in Lorenzo Ghiberti nel suo tempo (Florence: Olschki, 1980), 223-44; and Francesco Caglioti and Davide Gasparotto, "Lorenzo Ghiberti, il 'Sigillo di Nerone' e le origini della placchetta 'antiquaria,'" Prospettiva 85 (1997): 2-38.

38. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), vol. 1, 267-68.

39. Bergstein (as in n. 29), 53-54, 129, has noted the stylistic and iconographic affinities between the two figures.

40. The saint appears with both of these attributes in a 14th-century fresco from Orsanmichele's interior. Zervas (as in n. 27), vol. 1, 525, vol. 2, 240. For the iconography of Saint Philip, see George Kaftal, The Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence: Sansoni, 1952), 841-46.

41. Becherucci and Brunetti, vol. 2, 245.

42. Martin Wackernagel, The World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist, trans. Alison Luchs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 92; and Paatz and Paatz (as in n. 24), vol. 2, 210. See also Becherucci and Brunetti, vol. 2, 244.

43. Becherucci and Brunetti, vol. 2, 11, 245. Brunetti repeated this theory almost twenty years later in her article "Oreficeria del quattrocento in Toscana," Antichita viva 26 (1987): 22.

44. It was accepted by Bergstein (as in n. 29), 54; and Antonio Natali, L'umanesimo di Michelozzo (Florence: Maschietto e Musolino, 1996), 18-21, L'oreficeria nella Firenze, 33-34.

45. Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, "Antonio di Piero del Vagliente," in Allgemeines Lexicon der Bildenden Kunstler (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1908), vol. 2, 7; Becherucci and Brunetti, vol. 2, 243; L'oreficeria nella Firenze, 180; Richard Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 376; and Guidotti (as in n. 6), 381-83.