Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze, St. Peter Falters on the Sea

1366-67, Fresco, Chapter House ("The Spanish Chapel"), Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence

This is my title for the upper image of a pair on the right wall of the chapter house. It presents the episode in Matthew 14:24-32 in which Peter starts to walk on water toward Jesus but "seeing the wind strong, he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out, saying: Lord, save me." Jesus does in the lower right corner of the image, while the eleven other apostles watch from their boat. The artist had placed a fisherman in the lower left corner either as a visual balance for the scene on the right or to emphasize that the green expanse before him is water.

One might suggest that this turn of events is a comment on how the "church militant" of the lower image is similarly dependent on Christ, but that can be no more than a conjecture.

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Photographed at the site by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.