SM Novella, 2022

SM Novella is my favorite church in Florence. Yes, the Duomo is great for architectural and other reasons, and San Croce has all the monuments, etc. But SM Novella has a sweep and variety of Renaissance art that none of the others has. It was only three blocks from our apartment, but we put it off to the end, wanting to leave on another high point. We were not disappointed. All the same great stuff was there, which you can see in the following:

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/06/santa-maria-novella.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/10/santa-maria-novella-2013.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/10/spanish-chapel-2013.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2017/11/florence-santa-maria-novella-church.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2019/04/santa-maria-novella-again.html.

But, like the Brancacci, there was something new and special. As we walked through the nave, we noticed that some of the huge 18th century paintings were on gigantic hinges and had been swung open to reveal frescoes--much older frescoes--that had been covered over for centuries. Most of these have been discovered only in recent years. I'll just post pix of a few of these wonders. The SM Novella has some other older works, those by Ucello, for example, but "discovering" these hidden frescoes was a special treat. They're shown only on the first Sunday of the month. 

OK, we have to do the obligatory nave shot

And the altar and Ghirlandaio's magnificent chancel

Back up the nave, the big oil painting has opened
to reveal...

The Theban Legion, attributed to Bruno di Giovanni, early 14th

Discovered, 2008

And, across the nave

St. Thomas Aquinas Teaching, attributed to the
Master of St. Cecelia

Discovered, 2018

And...

Saints Barbara, Catherine Martyr, and George,
attributed to Bruno di Giovanni, earlier 15th

Discovered, 2011

And, finally...

Archangel Raphael and Tobias between St. Rocco
and St. Augustine, by Francesco Botticini, later
15th

Discovered, 2004

We exited via the huge old refectory, which we'd never seen before,
wondering what marvels hide behind the plaster of its walls

Florida State University/Florence Campus

In the spring of 1968, we were undergraduates at Florida State University, and we were presented with an opportunity to spend a quarter/trimester abroad in Florence. Even then, we had a bit of the travel bug. FSU had had an international program in Florence from the mid-60s, and FSU students had contributed much in the rescue and restoration of its cultural treasures after the great Arno flood of 1966. In 1968, due to a calendar change, the program opened to students who were not studying Italian, we applied, and were sorely tempted, right up to the deadline for accepting our offers of admission.

But we didn't. Instead, we got married that summer, deciding to do all our future travels together. Our honeymoon was our first road trip. We wouldn't get to Florence until 1979, doing our first long European tour. 

So imagine our pleasure, as we were walking down the Via dei Neri after our final bifstecca Fiorentina on this campaign, finding the FSU/Florence palazzo/campus. The security folks understood "alumni" readily enough and let us inside for a few pix and lots of old memories.

From the Tallahassee Democrat, no doubt, mid-60s

The flood, 1966

Honoring the FSU students and faculty
who worked to save Florence

50-some years later

Us, there

SM Novella Perfume Pharmacy: Not Your Neighborhood CVS

We visited the SM Novella Perfume Pharmacy in 2011, but the place warrants a few new pix for its beauty, uniqueness, and relative antiquity. The Dominican friars of SM Novella have been selling these wares since 1381 (or 1221?). The place is famous world-wide, and it is not unusual to see someone buying hundreds of euros' worth of perfume. It was two blocks from our apartment, and we passed by it every day we were in Florence.

Entry...always a crowd

Main showroom

Archives

One of the sales rooms is the former sacristy of
the chapel of San Niccolo; frescoed top to bottom
in the late 14th century by Mariotto di Nardo di
Cione; Passion scenes

Brancacci Chapel, 2022

Ground zero for Renaissance art and art history buffs, along with the Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel in Padua. We visited the Brancacci Chapel in 2011, 2013, and 2017. But this was a most special visit, for reasons explained below. The best pix, for reasons explained below, are in the preceding years.

In the age of COVID revenge tourism, everything requires a reservation, a timed entry. Vicki had dutifully made ours for April 30th, 11AM. She thought. When we were in line, however, it was noticed our reservations were for May 30th. Alas! But an understanding and charitable official told us, however, to wait a few minutes, and if there were cancellations or no-shows, she would let us in. Indeed, we got in at 11:45. Blessed be this lady. First of two miracles that day.

Second miracle. I had failed to notice from the website that the whole of the Chapel was in scaffolding--investigations and restorations going on--but that the visits were continuing, in extremely limited numbers. (How we got the May 30th reservations is a mystery since, when we checked later that day, there were no availabilities left the whole summer!) In any case, we got in, with 8 other people. We hardly knew what to expect. Yes, there was scaffolding, as neat and clean and carefully constructed as I've ever seen. But the wonder of it all was that the scaffolding took you high up into the chapel, eye-to-eye with the more famous upper registers of the frescoes: looking at the paintings as the painter would have seen them, something no one ever gets to do except in these exceptional circumstances. Miraculous!

As I said the better pix from the Branacci are from my 2011, 2013, and 2017 posts, but I'll include a few below, just to give a flavor of the experience. Our most memorable visit to a most memorable place!

The scaffolding was there, but, being so close to
the paintings, you could look right past it

San Marco Museum

We visited San Marco in 2011 and 2013 and decided 2022 might be a good year to return. We'd just seen Fra (Beato) Angelica's tomb at the church of SM Sopra Minerva in Rome, plus many of his works at the Uffizi.

The religious complex of San Marco is known for many things...the interest and generosity of Cosimo Medici (the Patriarch) in rebuilding and upgrading it, the (arguably) first public library contained therein, the many, many frescoes and paintings by Fra Angelica, the burial site of Pico della Miradola, (arguably) the intellectual father of Humanism, another of Ghirlandaio's Last Suppers, and last, and least, the shrine of the demagogue priest Savanarola's take-over of Florence in the 1490s. The previous posts do the place some justice, but there are always a few new things, or things seen in new ways, and maybe a correction or two.... 

It's a huge place, earlier 15th century, funded by Cosimo and
designed by his personal architect, Michelozzi

The four interior walls of the cloister are decorated with these
beautiful frescoes, by Fra Angelica, Fra Bartolomeo, and others;
this one by Fra Angelica, two Dominicans welcoming Jesus as
a pilgrim; it's all about Dominicans, you see...

Fra Angelica's San Marcos altarpiece...he was adept at both the
International Gothic as well as the beauteous frescoes emerging
in the via moderna; as the blurb below suggests, while this is an
old-style sacred conversation, it is amply informed by Brunelleschi's
theories of perspective and by van Eyck's realism...

[click to enlarge] except Fra Angelica and his peers knew little
of oil painting, which van Eyck had pioneered and mastered a
generation before

Anyhow, Fra Angelica was also pretty adept at the lurid 

Last Judgment genre too

We of course never look at anything but the Hell
side, since it is always the more interesting

Apparently they feed you in Hell; maybe punishment for those
guilty of the sin of selective eating disorder?

Eat and be eaten 

But mostly he did the pretty stuff

"Wheel! Of! Ezekiel!" (Ezekiel 10:9-10, for those of you keeping
score at home)

Madonna et bambina?

True confession time: we're in the gift shop now, formerly a 
refectory, and I am not recognizing this Last Supper as one of
Ghirlandaio's; frankly, it is so colorful...re-done, I guess...that it
almost looks fresh; the only identifying signage said it was a
"photographic reproduction," whatever that could mean; every
site I've visited on the web identifies it as one of Ghirlandaio's
three Florence Last Suppers; I should have noted that the
composition is exactly like the one at the Ognissanti (except for
the cat); I still prefer the one at the Ognissanti...it is set in a
real refectory, it looks like it's been there for 500+ years, and
there's the synopia of it on the adjacent wall

Going upstairs where the monks' cells are...an Annunciation that
is one of Fra Angelica's biggest hits

Actual Tree of Jesse; not the figurative one that some people prefer

The library...see the description below...

Among several displays...books, hymnals, writing, copying, and
printing apparati

Must preserve the books, can't sell them, must permit the public
to have access to them...yes, maybe the first modern public library

Since we were here last, they've really upgraded the Savanarola
shrine; here, part of his cell (he was the head monk)

Among the relics

Said to be his cloak...note the gold trim; apparently he still has
some fans...

Spare parts and helpful model; great place...