The Healing of the Cripple at the Pool of Bethesda

The new church type, developed in the Baroque period, offered large format vertical picture surfaces on the inner fa�ade and on the dividing wall between the nave and the choir, which were used both for oil paintings and for frescoes. It was not as easy to see the pictures on the inner fa�ade because of the light from the windows, yet it was costumary to incorporate these surfaces into the iconographic program. The most magnificent solutions for this space were found in Naples, an example being Lanfranco’s The Healing of the Cripple at the Pool of Bethesda on the entrance wall of the church of Santi Apostoli. This fresco was executed in collaboration with the quadratura painter Viviano Codazzi.