Church of Santa Maria del Carmine

Inside the Carmelite church is a family chapel dedicated to Saint Peter. Its walls present episodes from his life one after another: healing the sick, the coin from a fish’s mouth, prison, and release. Wealthy Oltrarno families prayed here for the dead and buried their relatives, while the commissioned decoration reminded townspeople who had paid for this space. In the long scene with Saint Peter enthroned, partially painted figures can be seen: some sections of the frescoes were completed many years later by Filippino Lippi; a venerated icon of Madonna del Popolo stands on the altar.

Felice Brancacci commissioned the decoration of the family chapel when his name opened doors in Florentine councils. A few years later, that same name became the reason the monks ordered the faces of his relatives and supporters removed from the walls.

The Church of Santa Maria del Carmine is a Carmelite church. “Carmine” means Mount Carmel: the mountain in the Holy Land with which the Carmelite Order associates its origins and its veneration of the Virgin Mary. The Brancacci family lived in Oltrarno and had maintained its own chapel here since the end of the fourteenth century. For a wealthy family, such a space served as a place of worship and burial, while its walls reminded townspeople who had paid for it.

Felice traded in silk fabrics, owned land, and took part in governing the Florentine Republic. In fourteen twenty-three, after returning from a commercial mission to Egypt, he entrusted Masolino and the young Masaccio with decorating the chapel with stories of Saint Peter. The chapel had originally been dedicated to Saint Peter: the family considered him its patron saint. That is why, on the walls, Saint Peter heals the sick, pays a tax with a coin from a fish’s mouth, distributes the community’s property, ends up in prison, and leaves it.

Both painters left Florence without completing the work. Soon, the unfinished decoration became caught up in a civic conflict. Brancacci joined a group of noble families that secured the exile of Cosimo Medici, a wealthy banker and the group’s chief rival in the city government. A year later, Cosimo returned, and his opponents themselves found themselves outside Florence. Felice kept in touch with people preparing a coup with the help of the Duke of Milan.

He was ordered to live for ten years in Capodistria—present-day Koper in Slovenia—and to report to Florentine officials every two months. Felice did not comply. He was declared a rebel; his property and his right to return to the city were threatened. He died in exile before fourteen forty-nine and never saw his chapel again.

After his downfall, the Carmelites ordered the removal of images of people connected with the Brancacci family. It is now impossible to identify all the destroyed portraits with certainty. In the long scene The Raising of the Son of Theophilus and Saint Peter Enthroned, Masaccio’s work breaks off at partially painted figures. Researchers allow that some faces were chipped away after the patron’s condemnation; a more cautious explanation remains possible—the artist may have left them unfinished before departing for Rome.

Another decision by the monks is known for certain. In fourteen sixty, they dedicated the chapel to Madonna del Popolo, the Virgin Mary of the People, and placed a venerated thirteenth-century icon on the altar. The name of the disgraced family disappeared from the designation of the space, while the unfinished cycle of Saint Peter remained on the walls.

Only in fourteen eighty-one to fourteen eighty-three did Filippino Lippi complete the damaged and missing parts. One scene now brings together figures created more than half a century apart: Masaccio began the lower sections, and Filippino completed the continuation.

Stories of Saint Peter commissioned by Felice still run across the chapel walls. Madonna del Popolo, brought here after his condemnation, stands on the altar. And the space the monks renamed is once again called the Brancacci Chapel.