Mobilizing Visitors: Political Persuasion and the Somaesthetics of Belonging in the Chapel of the Magi

Abstract

Chapter Two provides a thick reading of the set up and action of somaesthetic experience in the Chapel of the Magi, constructed by Michelozzo inside Palazzo Medici and lavishly decorated by Benozzo Gozzoli and Fra Filippo Lippi in the 1450s. Linking the mindful movements of viewers in the room to contemporary rituals of Epiphany, the analysis recasts the chapel as a virtual Florence that was practiced by the visitor in a time-based experience. By reconstructing the ways in which theater and ritual were enfolded into the artistic program and the process of viewing itself, the chapter recovers the somaesthetic co-involvement of the visitor in the processional drama of the room and demonstrates how somaesthetic experience is a critical key to understanding the style and content of the chapel within its dynamic political dimensions.