The Way Of Salvation Fresco Analysis

The Way of Salvation fresco was painted by Andrea diBonauto do Firenze, an Italian artist, on the east wall of the Cappellone degli Spagnoli (Spanish Chapel) in the Chiostro Verde (Green Cloister) of the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. However, the Spanish Chapel only became so in 1566, when the Dominicans handed it over to the Spanish community as a place for them to worship. Originally, it was the chapterhouse “in the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria Novella”, erected in 1350. The fresco, part of a series of frescoes, was painted in 1366-67, commissioned by the patron of the chapel, Buonamico di Lapo Guidalotti, as decorations for his funerary chapel.

One of the executors whom Guidalotti named was Fra Jacopo Passavanti. Passavanti

In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. 7The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. 8Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “ ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.” 9Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, Rev 4:6-9 NIV
Rev 4:6-9 NIV
• Angels
• Faithful being let into the gate by st peter
 People leading you astray
• Women are dancing
• Hounds are trying to keep heretics and deceptions away
 Dominicans the guardians of the mechanisms
• Among the images on the east wall is that of st. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican philosopher whose canonization occurred thirty-two years before the chapter-hall's completion Hoover, “The Spanish Chapel of Santa Maria Novella”, 7
• On the right side of the picture St Dominic is preaching, St Thomas Aquino debating the heretics, Martyr St. Peter signalling the dogs (symbolizing the Dominican friars, "Domini canes") to tear the heretics to pieces. "The Spanish Chapel (or Cappellone degli Spagnoli)," Art of Tuscany, accessed 30 March 2015,