Santa Croce, 2013

Our last big stop in Florence was Santa Croce, about which we blogged in 2011 at http://roadeveron.blogspot.it/2011/06/san-croce.html. Here are just a few additional items.

Santa Croce from the Duomo

A better shot of the 14th century Donatello
Crucifixion that scared people

Yes, Santa Croce is the one that is sort of the national
pantheon of heroes...

Stern view, beautifully-painted timbered roof;
note the cat-walk that goes all the way around

Bardi Chapel, Giotto, early 14th

Agnolo Gaddi's late 14th frescoes of The Finding of the True
Cross are still being worked on, but promise to be brilliant
when done

Correction department, again: a Donatello
Annunciation; not Donatellos tomb

In the Brunellechi-designed Pazzi Chapel; more harmony,
geometry, pietra serena, etc.

Some of the ceiling, including della Robbias of the Evangelists

And what remains, after the 1966 floods, of Santa Croce's
July 4, 1442, skies...

Double-decker cloister, designed by
Brunelleschi

In the refectory, Taddeo Gaddi's Last Supper and Crucifixion
Tree

Spanish Chapel, 2013

In 2011, I incorporated a number of pix from the Spanish Chapel in the Santa Maria Novella post, http://roadeveron.blogspot.it/2011/06/santa-maria-novella.html. Understandably, since the chapel is a side-bar, off the cloister, from the main church. It's where the Spanish courtiers gathered. Anyhow, the frescoes covering its walls and ceiling are by Andrea di Bonauti, done between 1365-1370, and they are some of the most striking and complex of all, celebrating, mostly, the Dominicans. Here are a few in addition to what I posted in 2011.

First, possibly, a correction of something I posted in 2011:
starting at the left, the guy in the brown cloak is Cimabue,
Giotto's teacher; Giotto is next to him, in profile, in the green
hood; further right, in purple, holding a book, Boccaccio;
above him, in white hood, is Petrarch; further right of him,
in white cap, is Dante; yes, this will be on the quiz

The Florence Duomo...but wait...this representation has
flying buttresses...it was painted from a model of what the
under-construction church would look like; as observed
elsewhere, though they have their share of Gothic churches,
the Florentines thought flying buttresses unsightly and
avoided them

From the opposite wall, which is all about
St. Thomas stomping on infidels, heretics,
et al., here is Aristotle, representing philosophy

And from the ceiling, St. Lunkerus, patron saint of  fly fisherman

After Santa Maria Novella, we did our obligatory visit to the
market

And, on the way to Santa Croce, stopped by
the Orsanmichelle; here, Donatello's St. Mark
(or possibly St. Matthew, St. Luke, or St.
John; or possibly someone else)

Santa Maria Novella, 2013

We visited Santa Maria Novella in 2011. Our post from then is http://roadeveron.blogspot.it/2011/06/santa-maria-novella.html. It remains one of our favorites, primarily for its Spanish Chapel (next post and 2011), its great Ghirlandaio frescoes, and the Masaccio Trinity.

Santa Maria Novella from the Duomo

Facade; and here perhaps is the place to observe that Italians,
we have read, and seen, do not consider the exterior of their
buildings to be a part of the building, per se, but rather of the
urban environment; hence, so many cases where outside
there is nothing but faded plaster falling off the walls, but
inside, perhaps a courtyard, simply exquisite beauty...the
churches are pretty much all like that

The great altar and a peek at the Ghirlandaio-
frescoed main chapel

Pisano Madonna and Child; next generation
after Donatello

One of the big Ghirlandaio walls; life of St. Mary

Other side, life of St. John the Baptist; both picture Florentine
high society as it was in the 1480s, with numerous personages
identified by historians

And there's the artist himself

He also designed the stained glass windows in the chapel

View from bridge to stern...huge Dominican preaching
church

Della Robbia basin

In the sacristy, closets by California Closets...

"Traditionally" attributed to Michaelangelo 

View from stern

Detail, painted vaulting

And, finally, too important not to post again:
Masaccio's Trinity, the beginning, some
would say, of the Renaissance in art

Ognissanti

The All Saints church, near the Arno, just beyond the 2nd bridge downstream from the Ponte Vecchio, is one of the important churches we had not seen before. The more we learned about it, the more important it became to us. It took us three visits to see everything of interest.

Ognissanti, 13th century

Pretty Baroque nowadays; but it's not really the church you come to see

"Amerigo, the beautiful..." You see, the Ognissanti was the parish church of the
Vespucci family; that's Amerigo there just left of Mary; he was on a mission for
the Medicis, to check out the claims of the Genovan Cristoforo Colombo; he took
two separate cruises on said mission and came to the conclusion that Columbus
had not reached Asia nor the Indies but a whole new hitherto undiscovered
continent; actually two; in one of the better PR moves in history, Amerigo had
two continents named after him; the leading mapmakers of the day, it so happened,
were Florentines, so of course they promoted the local boy; and the rest is history

Simonetta Vespucci was the great beauty of her age, captivating her Vespucci
husband Marco, possibly Lorenzo the Magnificent's brother, Giuliano, and
most certainly the great painter of the age, Botticelli; she is Venus, Spring, the
Madonna, Eve and who knows what else among the works Botticelli pitched
into the Bonfires of the Vanities; she died quite young, 22; 34 years later
Botticelli asked to be buried at her feet in the chapel 

Thus

And thus

The day's love letters to Botticelli; the church also holds his
St. Augustine in His Study, but it was on loan for an exhibition
in Brazil

In the Ognissanti's refectory is Ghirlandaio's Last Supper, possibly the first of
this style of Last Supper; Ghirlandaio was Michaelangelo's first teacher

Incredibly, the sinopia for the fresco is on the adjacent wall, and one can study the
changes that occurred between design and realization

Detail; not Ghirlandaio's most famous work, but one of them

"Jeez, lame white wine, again!"

The cloister is filled with frescoes, including this one with bold new ideas about
tights for guys

Bargello, 2013

Inside the courtyard of the great fortress of the Bargello;
originally city hall, then the sheriff's office, then the jail,
it's now home to one of the great collections of Renaissance
sculpture and many of the assorted Medici treasures

A Giambologna 2fer: Mercury and Bacchus

Michaelangelo's unfinished Brutus

Michaelangelo's Tondo Pitti

Donatello's very early David

And his mature David, the first big bronze done since
antiquity; no, I don't think it's better than Michaelangelo's,
just far more interesting

Donatello's St. George, formerly at the Orsanmichelle

In 2011, I think we focused just on the Renaissance sculpture, missing much of the
rest of an incredible museum, here, in the Muslim room...one of Florence's major
trading partners was Ottoman Turkey

Perhaps the biggest and best Muslim lamp we have yet seen
...all glass, 15th century

Smaller metal sculpture

Now in the Mary Magdalene chapel with...

Its fresco of Dante, closer up than in 2011

And this small crucifix attributed to
Michaelangelo

In the ivory and such room, reputedly one of the West's largest collections

From Scandinavia...a knight from a Lewis Island chess set?
we wondered

Porcelains room...and much more

Just about every room is adorned with several della Robbias...
here's a large one in the della Robbia room

And not least, the Medici bronze bird collection, from one of the country villas,
done by Giambologna