Cimabue's Madonna Carried in Procession, Frederic Leighton (1855)
A brightly coloured procession of figures escorts The Rucellai Madonna altarpiece (Uffizi, Florence) through the streets of Florence. The scene is based upon a story from the 'Lives of the Artists' by Giorgio Vasari who wrote, 'this work was an object of so much admiration to the people of that day - they having then never seen anything better - that it was carried in solemn procession, with the sound of trumpets and other festal demonstrations, from the house of Cimabue to the church'.
