On the night of 11 July, 1501, one Antonio Rinaldeschi staggered out of Osteria Fico, one of Florence’s notorious dives (which used to stand in Piazza Sant’Elisabetta, near the Duomo), having lost his cloak, literally, at cards. He noticed a fresco of the Annunciation on the wall of the ancient church of Santa Maria degli Alberighi, cursed the Virgin for his bad luck, picked up a lump of dung from the cobbles and lobbed it. The dung hit the Virgin smack in the face. Rinaldeschi had no luck at all that night: he was seen, reported to the Eight (Florence’s police), and hunted down. Almost lynched on his way to prison, he was tried for sacrilege and summarily hung from a window of the Bargello after repenting of his crime. The dung, meanwhile, had – so people said – been transformed into the shape of a rose on the Virgin’s cheek.
Walk up Via del Corso, past fashion boutiques, shoe shops and bakeries, and you’ll find the baroque facade of Santa Maria de’ Ricci, built by the Ricci family to put things right after the sacrilege. The Annunciation, chiselled off the wall (the old church was demolished in the 1700s), sits above the altar, rather cowed by its huge rococo frame. Close by, Antonio’s crime and comeuppance are shown on a painted panel. Squint at the faded, damaged fresco, free your imagination and you might just see the rose on the Virgin’s cheek. Rinaldeschi’s story shines a slightly queasy light on the real Renaissance city, about life among the prostitutes, gamblers and drunks. But there’s redemption as well. The world of the people going about their business in the background of those great masterpieces of Renaissance painting, still whispering, faintly, from a relic of pigment and plaster.
• Philip Kazan’s latest novel, The Painter of Souls, is out now (Orion, £13.99). To buy a copy for £11.19, including UK p&p, go to bookshop.theguardian.com
