The buildings now occupied by the Museo del Bigallo in Florence were erected in two fourteenth-century campaigns as the headquarters of the Compagnia di S. Maria della Misericordia, a major lay charitable association, on property across the street from the Baptistry.' Beginning with the residence, primarily used for the company's business affairs, which occupies a piece of land on the Piazza del Duomo sold to the confraternity in 1321-22, the site was expanded thirty years later when the Misericordia acquired the adjacent lot to the east, on the corner of the via dei Calzaiuoli (formerly the corso degli Adimari). On this plot the Misericordia, enriched by testamentary bequests in the wake of the Black Death, built an oratory and loggia (Fig. 1). The oratory, consisting of two groin-vaulted bays, served as a focus for the group's devotional activities, including individual and collective prayer sessions and perhaps the singing of lauds to the Virgin Mary as the company patroness. The loggia, a single vaulted bay open on two sides, functioned as both a symbol of the confraternity's benevolent mission and as the site for one of its principal activities - the uniting of foundlings and orphans with natural or adoptive parents.2 In 1425 the Misericordia was joined to the Compagnia Maggiore di S. Maria del Bigallo, another large charitable institution mainly involved in administering hospitals and hospices in Florence and the surrounding countryside and, although the two societies continued to share the complex after their formal separation in 1489, the Misericordia left the Bigallo in sole possession of the building some thirty-five years later, ultimately settling into its present location nearby in 1576.3

Thanks to Gino Corti's documentary research published in 1964,1 little remains to be discovered in the archives about the commissioning and'chronology of the magnificent chapel at S. Miniato al Monte erected to contain the mortal remains of James of Lusitania, cousin and brother-in-law of Afonso V of Portugal, who died prematurely on 27th August 1459 in Florence, while on his way from Rome to Austria to which he had recently been appointed papal legate by Pope Pius II.

The iconography of Bronzino's Allegory in the National Gallery (Fig.25) has been extensively explored, yet little research has been conducted into the complex process of its creation. The best evidence for this is the full-scale X-radiograph made at the time of the last restoration of the picture in 1958, the implications of which were first discussed by Cecil Gould in his catalogue of the sixteenth-century Italian schools of 1975.' Gould pointed out the 'unusually large number of pentimenti' evident both with the naked eye and in the X- radiograph and rightly concluded that Bronzino 'seems to have had second, and sometimes even third, thoughts about all the major outlines in the picture'.2 The pentiments havebeen little discussed in subsequent literature.3 In the course of updating the National Gallery Schools catalogues, a new technical examination of the Allegory was carried out. This revealed that Bronzino's revisions were still more extensive than had been previously documented, and also that some of them had been misread.4 Two major consequences of the changes emerged. First, it became apparent that Bronzino introduced or modified most of the identifying attributes of the figures in the picture at a late stage. Secondly, although most commentators have focused on the changes made to Venus, our investigation showed that it was the figure of Cupid who was most radically transformed, his new pose considerably intensifying the erotic impact of the picture. Bronzino's revisions therefore not only provide interesting evidence regarding the evolution of the picture's design, but also have important implications for its interpretation.

As one of the most sought-after and prolific painters of his generation, Perugino was highly itinerant, especially active with commissions in Umbria and Tuscany. During much of his long career he kept a permanent studio in Florence where, despite his continual absences from the city, he co-ordinated his various Florentine activities. It has long been known that Perugino rented this workshop from the Ghiberti family, but lack of documentation has kept the particulars of the studio hidden and has engendered a number of misconceptions and inaccuracies concerning it.' The material published in the Appendix below provides a financial accounting of the studio rental, underscores Perugino's professional relationship with the Ghiberti family, and reveals significant names that can now be associated with Perugino's Florentine activities.

In 1961 Juergen Schulz published in this Magazine a reconstruction of Vasari's only documented ceiling painted in Venice, that of Palazzo Corner-Spinelli at S. Polo, executed for Giovanni Corner in 1542.'

The Man of Sorrows, or Imago pietatis, is the quintessential devotional image of the later Middle Ages. The close-up view that it presents of the head and torso of Christ after his removal from the cross invites the devotee to enter into contemplation of fundamental tenets of the Christian religion. Over the years the Man of Sorrows has been studied as an exemplar of the development from Reprasentationsbild to Andachtsbild,l as an embodiment of the late-medieval move 'from icon to narrative',2 and as a case-study of the appropriation of Byzantine forms, divorced from their original liturgical significance, into the devotional repertoire of the medieval West.3