The Pepoli chapels in the church of San Domenico in Bologna: History and Art in a unaccomplished familiar mausoleum

Abstract

This essay focuses on the reconstruction of the historical and artistic vicissitudes of the Pepoli chapels in the church of San Domenico in Bologna, using archival and chronicle sources, and comparing sculptural and painting decorations.

In the first part Ilaria Negretti investigates the Pepoli family’s commission, highlighting the construction and changes of their six chapels and of the family mausoleum from the age of Taddeo Pepoli (1337) to the damnatio memoriae - due to the unsuccessful policy of Taddeo’s sons, Giovanni and Giacomo -, till the rehabilitation of the family’s memory obtained by Guido Pepoli and his heirs in 1551.

In the second part Paolo Cova focuses on the style of the fresco decoration of the San Michele Chapel commissioned by the Pepoli family, representing saint Thomas Aquinas and saint Antony the Great. Technical and stylistic features of these frescoes, in combination with historical events and documentary sources, allow to refer the frescoes to Jacopo Benintendi called ‘Il Biondo’ (the father of Cristoforo Benintendi), active from 1347 to 1350, and to identify the patronage of the Pepoli family. The presence of this painter together with foreign artists working at the reliefs of Taddeo’s Tomb at the same time, proves that the Pepoli’s aim was to transform the left transept of the church into a proper family mausoleum.