The Madonna and Child
Among the later works of the artist is the altarpiece with the Madonna and Child between St. Stephen and St. John the Baptist, adorned with a handsome gilt frame with festoons, painted in 1502-3 by Filippino for the Audience Room of the City Hall.

The work, now part of the exhibition The Treasures of the City, is characterized by a dramatic atmosphere of suspense, and by a dark, stormy light that accentuates the shadows of the diaphanous, bloodless figures; the landscape with its ruins seems to share the climate of dramatic religious frenzy exemplified by Savonarola – firmly rooted in Prato at the time – that emanates from the painting. In the Latin inscription underneath, exhorting the Rectors of the City to be just and to help the poor, the sensitive artist again seems to express his desire to silence the malicious rumors surrounding his birth by leaving a good memory of his life, born in Prato an honest, blameless man: hic natus iustus.back >>