Art sights in Florence
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Cappelle Medicee
Nowhere is Medici conceit expressed so explicitly as in their mausoleum. The soaring and rather overblown main chapel is sumptuously adorned in baroque style with granite, marble and semi-precious stones. From here a corridor leads to the stark Sagrestia Nuova (New Sacristy), Michelangelo’s first architectural work and showcase for three of his most haunting sculptures. Aurora e Crepusculo (Dawn and Dusk) lounges on the sarcophagus of the unpopular Lorenzo Duke of Urbino (1492–1519), to whom Machiavelli dedicated The Prince. Notte e Giorno (Night and Day) marks the spot opposite where a son of Lorenzo il Magnifico is buried. The unfinished tomb of Lorenzo il Magnifico…
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Basilica di Santa Maria Novella
The flesh and bones of this Dominican church, completed in 1346, may be medieval, but the finishing touches include some of the most seminal works of the Renaissance. Leon Battista Alberti’s super-refined facade influenced generations of church architects with its classic motives and balanced geometry. Inside, Masaccio’s fresco Trínita (Trinity, 1427), on the nave’s left flank, is considered the first Renaissance painting, with its distinctly Roman setting and almost perfectly realised, three-dimensional perspective. Note the ominous words of the fresco’s skeleton, which translate as ‘I was as you are, and you will become as I am.’ Its fresco cycles – in particular F…
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Chiesa di San Pancrazio & Museo Marino Marini
As early as the 9th century a church stood here. The shabby-looking version you see today is what remains of the original building from the 14th and 15th centuries. The church, deconsecrated in the 19th century, now houses the Museo Marino Marini. Donated to the city by the Pistoia-born sculptor Marino Marini (1901-80), the collection contains about 200 of the artist's works, including sculptures, portraits and drawings. The overwhelmingly recurring theme appears to be man and horse, or rather man on horse.
The figures are, in some cases, simple-looking chaps in various poses suggesting rapture or extreme frustration; the horses too seem to express a gamut of emotion. At …
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Cenacolo di San Salvi
Dominating the refectory wall in what was once a part of the San Salvi monastery is one of Andrea del Sarto's most extraordinary frescoes (1527). In this scene of the Last Supper, the diners gather at an austere table beneath a grand trompe l'oeil vault. Curiously, the tavern owner and an employee are peering at the proceedings from a window above and behind them.
They watch as Jesus hands Judas (who sits among the apostles and not customarily alone on the other side) a piece of bread to indicate that he is the apostle who will betray him. There is a collection of other works by Andrea del Sarto's contemporaries on show. You are more than likely to have the place to yours…
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Badia Fiorentina
Founded in 979 by the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, the woman who also granted the city its liberty upon her death, the Badia Fiorentina (Florentine Abbey) is among the city’s oldest institutions built just as Florence emerged from the Dark Ages. Except for the Romanesque campanile (bell tower), today’s church is largely a Renaissance construct, with a splendid coffered ceiling and Filippino Lippi’s Apparition of the Virgin to St Bernard to your left as you enter through the small cloister. It is here that Dante watched Beatrice at her prayers in the 1270s. The church is open to visitors three hours a week. Otherwise it is reserved for prayer and meditation.
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Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata
Established in 1250 by the founders of the Servite order and rebuilt by Michelozzo and others in the mid-15th century, this Renaissance church is most remarkable for the post-Renaissance painters who worked here together and helped found the mannerist school. There are frescoes by Andrea del Castagno in the first two chapels on the left of the church, and the frescoes in Michelozzo’s atrium include work by del Sarto as well as Jacopo Pontormo and Il Rosso Fiorentino (the Redhead from Florence). Also look for the fresco by Perugino in the fifth chapel and a mosaic lunette of the Annunciation by Davide Ghirlandaio, Domenico’s little brother, above the main entrance.
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Chiesa di San Barnaba
It is no coincidence that this early-14th-century church lies on the corner of Via Guelfa, as it was built to celebrate a victory by the Florentine Guelphs over a Ghibelline (pro-Holy Roman Empire) army from Arezzo on 11 June 1289, the feast day of St Barnabus, to whose intercession Florence attributed victory. The entrance is topped by a ceramic Madonna col Bambino (Madonna and Child) by Giovanni della Robbia (added in the 16th century).
Bright frescoes adorn part of the left wall as you enter. Used by the local Filipino community, the church is open intermittently.
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Chiesa di Santa Felicità
Possibly founded by Syrian merchants as early as the 2nd century, the current church is largely a Renaissance construction. Its most extraordinary feature is Brunelleschi’s small Cappella Barbadori, which is adorned by frescoes by Jacopo Pontormo (1494–1557) of the Annunciation and a Deposition from the Cross, in garish reds, pinks and oranges. Note also that the Corridoio Vasariano passes right across the facade so the Medici could hear Mass like any good Christians, but without having to mix with the common folk.
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Chiostro dello Scalzo
Painted for a Catholic brotherhood that showed its faith by going barefoot (scalzo), Andrea del Sarto’s monochromatic fresco cycle is ranged around a Renaissance cloister of unlikely elegance, considering the brotherhood’s professions of humility. Completed between 1509 and 1526, the cycle depicts the life of St John the Baptist in 16 scenes – all in shades of grey. The ensemble also reveals del Sarto’s artistic growth as he helped forge the new mannerist style.
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Cenacolo di Sant’Apollonia
Once part of a sprawling Benedictine monastery, this cenacolo harbours arguably the city’s most remarkable Last Supper scene. Painted by Andrea del Castagno in the 1440s, it is one of the first works of its kind to effectively apply Renaissance perspective. It possesses a haunting power with its vivid colours – especially the almost abstract squares of marble painted above the apostles’ heads – as well as the dark, menacing figure of Judas.
reviewed
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Cenacolo del Conservatorio di Fuligno
In 1845 workers in an ex-convent uncovered an extraordinary site – a huge, intact fresco of the Last Supper in a former cenacolo (monk’s refectory). At first attributed to Raphael, it is now generally believed to be the work of Perugino, though completed largely by his students. The dining apostles are set against a sylvan country scene, creating the effect that you’re looking through a window onto the harmonious scene.
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Chiesa e Convento di Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi
The main treat inside this former convent complex is not so much the church as what lies beyond it, a remarkable fresco of the crucifixion of Christ done by Pietro Il Perugino in 1493-96. The beauty and freshness of the colours are all the more amazing because they have never been touched by restorers.
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