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The author suggests an attribution for two largely unknown Baroque sculptures inside the Church of St. Peter and Paul at Potsdam. The crucifixus, which has so far not been attributed to an artist, is shown to exhibit parallels to a 1716 work by Paul Egell. It remains unclear, however, whether the Potsdam crucifixus was also created by Egell himself or by Johann Peter Benckert, who congenially completed it in 1763 with a statue of the kneeling Maria Magdalena. The appealing depiction of the saint as an elegant sinner and penitent offers believers various possibilities for identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circa 1515-1520, Josse van Cleve painted a St Jerome in the Wilderness (Muskegon Museum of Art) in which the saint is shown kneeling before an exemplar of the Aracoeli Madonna. Somewhat later, a follower of Barent van Orley introduced a version of the Madonna del Popolo into a representation of the Procession of Pope Gregory the Great (Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux- Arts). This phenomenon of displaying Byzantine icons in Flemish religious pictures must be investigated in the context of a new pursuit of historical authenticity during the period, something typical of the Italian Renaissance. It also served to legitimize devotion to the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary, a cult recently established in the Netherlands that relied strongly on 'true portraits', believed to have been painted by Saint Luke. Josse van Cleve's Muskegon panel may have been ordered by a member of the Antwerp Confraternity of the Seven Sorrows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the practice of wealthy families to endow private chapels and altars at the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, Italy. Focusing on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in particular, the author provides an extensive description of various chapels and the religious themes and figures to whom they were dedicated. These decorations included christological motifs, the cult of the Virgin Mary, and the veneration of early Christian and medieval saints.

The article examines four paintings created by Italian artist Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, also known as Il Guercino, which he kept in his own private residence. The author notes similarities in the paintings, which all depict Christian saints alone in the wilderness. The saints depicted are Mary Magdalene, St. Jerome, St. John the Baptist, and St. Paul the Hermit. The author emphasizes Guercino's decision to portray these saints in solitude with identical scenery. The influence of the artist's old age on his decision to execute the paintings is explained.

The article discusses one of the oldest images of the Virgin Mary in Rome, Italy, a painting variously dated to the sixth and ninth centuries and titled the "Madonna della Clemenza." The work is housed in the Cappella Altemps in the basilica of Santa Maria in the Trastevere area of Rome. Various texts are cited which mention the work, around which a medieval cult seems to have developed. The design and construction of a chapel containing the painting is described, as well as a number of religious icons and figures surrounding the work.