Cappella dei Conti Guidi (Cappella Rilliana)

The Chapel of the Conti Guidi in Poppi Castle preserves a cycle of fourteenth-century frescoes attributed to Taddeo Gaddi. Painted for the ruling family, the scenes depict episodes from the lives of the Virgin, Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist.

Why it matters

The chapel is an unusually complete frescoed interior preserved in its original setting. Vasari attributed the cycle to Taddeo Gaddi, and its style supports a date in the third decade of the fourteenth century. It records the devotional programme of the Guidi family within their castle.

What to notice

Six scenes cover three walls beneath a cross vault supported by stone corbels. The western wall depicts the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the Dormition of the Virgin. The northern wall shows episodes from the life of John the Baptist; the southern wall presents the Resurrection of Drusiana and the Assumption of John the Evangelist. A starry sky and roundels of the four Evangelists decorate the vault.

Context and history

The chapel belongs to the castle's rebuilding in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Its eastern wall and a polyptych were damaged by a German shell during the Second World War. A later band of fifteenth-century saints survives below the earlier cycle.