Totila before Saint Benedict

These four panels were commissioned in the 1460s by the Alessandri family in Florence in order to update a Gothic-style altarpiece painted 150 years earlier in the church of San Pier Maggiore. In them, the fifth-century bishop of Florence resuscitates a dead child on the square in front of San Pier Maggiore; the magician Simon Magus crashes to the ground at the feet of Emperor Nero when Saint Peter commands the demons who suspended him in midair to let him go; Saint Paul falls from his horse at the apparition of Christ; and Totila, king of the Goths, asks the blessing of Saint Benedict. From his work with Fra Angelico and the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, Gozzoli evolved a style of great charm and narrative engagement.