Cosimo Gamberucci, Attr. To Virgine And The Child (after Andrea Del Sarto)

COSIMO GAMBERUCCI, attrib. to
MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ST.JOHN THE BAPTIST (AFTER ANDREA DEL SARTO)

COSIMO GAMBERUCCI, attributed to
Firenze 1562 – 1621 Firenze
Oil on canvas
107 x 82 cm / 42.1 x 32.3 inches, with frame 125 x 101 cm / 49.2 x 39.8 inches

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Spain;

A REPUBLICAN ICONOGRAPHY REIMAGINED IN EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FLORENCE

At first glance, this image of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child and the young Saint John the Baptist evokes the softness and serenity typical of devotional scenes in early 17th-century Florence. But at its core lies a political message of radical clarity — one that shook the very foundations of Medici rule.

The striking motif of Saint John offering the terrestrial globe to Christ — symbol of temporal power — was no innocent religious allegory. It was a bold act of visual subversion, rooted in the brief but fervent years of the Florentine Republic (1527–1530), when the Medici were exiled and the city, inspired by both classical republicanism and the teachings of Girolamo Savonarola, declared Christ alone as its king: Rex Populi Fiorentini. On February 9, 1528, this "election" of Christ was made official, and an inscription to that effect was mounted above the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio.

It was within this revolutionary moment that Andrea del Sarto, celebrated by Vasari as “the faultless painter,” created what would become one of his most ideologically charged masterpieces: The Holy Family with the Young Saint John the Baptist, commissioned by Giovanni Borgherini — a committed Republican and son-in-law of Niccolò Capponi, gonfaloniere and de facto leader of the Republic. The work's clear political message, paired with its sublime harmony of composition and expression, cemented its place as one of the most admired and copied images of its time. Today, the original resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The present painting, attributed by Professor Roberto Ciabattoni to Cosimo Gamberucci, is far more than a pious quotation. Executed in Florence likely in the early 1600s, it reflects not only a deep reverence for Andrea’s model, but also an enduring devotion to the ideals it embodied. Nearly a century after the fall of the Republic, the painting testifies to the lasting power of its vision.

Cosimo Gamberucci, a Florentine born in 1562, trained under Santi di Tito and was known for his exceptional draftsmanship — so much so that several of his drawings were long attributed to his master. A respected member of the Accademia del Disegno, Gamberucci was active in major commissions throughout Tuscany, his work blending Andrea del Sarto’s compositional clarity with a theatricality and emotional resonance more typical of the early Baroque.

In this painting, we see a faithful reimagining of Andrea's structure: the Virgin tenderly watches over her son; Joseph, barely discernible, recedes into shadow; and John the Baptist, solemn and deliberate, presents the globe — not as a gift of the world, but as a symbol of Florence’s allegiance to its true sovereign: Christ.

This painting, then, is not merely an act of homage. It is an echo — proud, enduring, and eloquent — of a moment in history when Florence dared to crown a king not of blood, but of spirit.