The Northern Origin of Nicolas Froment's Resurrection of Lazarus Altarpiece in the Uffizi Gallery

Abstract

The earliest document known for Nicolas Froment's Resurrection of Lazarus (Fig. 1), other than the artist's signature and the date 18 May 1461 inscribed on the triptych's exterior wing frames,1 is a sixteenth-century chronicle of S. Francesco al Bosco. S. Francesco is the Minorite monastery formerly in the Mugello from which the altarpiece was brought in the eighteenth century to the Galleria dall'Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.2 Fra P. Giuliano Ughi della Cavalleria (1483–1569), prior of S. Francesco, wrote that the work had been given to the monastery by Cosimo de' Medici il Vecchio (d. 1464) after he had received it from “a papal legate who came from Flanders.”3 Up to now, little scholarly use has been made of this provenance, which places the altarpiece in Italy within three years after its completion.4 A major obstacle has been the lack of information available on Froment's life prior to 24 June 1465, when, as an inhabitant of the Languedocan village of Uzes near Avignon, he witnessed four notar...