Have you noticed something new on the gates of the Nidiaci garden?
It is the copy of a fresco from the Brancacci Chapel (just around the corner from our garden) called The Distribution of Alms and Death of Ananias.
As a social historian, he caught onto something art historians had failed to see: the fresco represents the houses of our district, where the bakers of San Frediano, associated in the Confraternity of Saint Agnes of the Carmine church and led by their captain, distributed bread – stamped with the seal of the Company – to the needy: here represented by a mother with a child. A woman who, rightly enough, has anything but a humble expression on her face.
At Saint Peter’s feet, the prone body is that of Ananias who – when the first Christians decided to share what they owned – decided to keep his money for himself.
