This is the church of Santa Trinita in Florence, and below is the Sassetti chapel. Francesco Sassetti (1421 – 1490) was a wealthy Florentine Banker, an associate of the Medicis. The family had a chapel in Santa Maria Novella, but there was a problem: As his name suggests, Francesco Sassetti’s patron saint was St Francis. Santa Maria Novella was a Dominican church, and the Dominicans and the Franciscans did not always get on. Sassetti’s idea of decorating his chapel with images of the life of Francis was not going to happen.
  In 1478 he acquired the chapel in Santa Trinita as a burial place for himself and his wife. Domenico Ghirlandaio started work on the frescoes in 1483.
  We will look at the frescoes of Francis in the chapel; in some respects, we will discover that they are more to do with Sassetti and his family than St Francis.