The two panels were destined to the ciborium of the altar in the Chapel of the Princes. Designed by the refined Medici court painter Bernardino Poccetti, they were made around 1608. The panels portray verdant Tuscan hills, expression of the new naturalistic tendency of the seventeenth-century painting. Hard semi-precious stones have been accurately chosen: the various yellow and green hues of Sicilian jasper perfectly reproduce the ochre ground of Tuscany, while the streaks in Persian lapislazzuli evocate distant clouds and mountains. Painters and artisans in charge of the realization of the stone inlays for the altar used to stay for several months at the quarries in order to âexamine the stonesâ marks and streaksâ, so as to find the most suitable hard semi-precious stones whose natural design and colors anticipated the future composition.
