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

San Marcos, 2013

The next day was San Marcos, the Bargello, and a bit of the Ognissanti, all separate posts. The San Marcos monastery was financed by Cosimo Medici, who sometimes retreated there, but is famous mostly for the works of the 15th century Fra Angelico, Fra Bartolomeo, and as the headquarters of the late 15th century demogogue Savanarola. We visited San Marcos in 2011, and our post from then is at http://roadeveron.blogspot.it/2011/06/san-marcos.html. Here are a few additional pix.

Interior of the San Marcos church; rather completely updated
since 1406

Fra Angelico was one of those transitional
artists, schooled in International Gothic,
tempura on panel, lots of gold leaf, pointy
things, static things...

And working for employers who expected it

But adept at fresco and the via moderna

Thus

And thus (all these in monks' cells)

And, out in the hall, the most famous of them

By a later artist, Bonfire of Savanarola; hanging in what is
thought to have been Savanarola's cell

San Lorenzo, 2013

We got a late start Friday and saw but one sight, the church of San Lorenzo, which was the Medicis' parish church. Actually it's three sights, although all under the same roof (so to speak; actually there are perhaps a dozen different buildings), but you pay three different admissions, one for the church, one for the tombs (New Sacristy), and one for the Medici libraries. We did all this in 2011: http://roadeveron.blogspot.it/2011/06/medici-tombs-palazzo-medici-riccardi.html, and http://roadeveron.blogspot.it/2011/06/return-to-san-lorenzo.html. But Vicki is a big Michaelangelo fan and the church has several items of note, so we went back again. There is a pretty strictly enforced no fotos policy--actually, more guards per square foot, I'd imagine, than the Uffizi. But I was undeterred this time.

In the Michaelangelo-designed and -decorated New Sacristy: Night and Day or was it
Day and Night? "Night and Day, you are the one, only you 'neath the moon or under
the sun..."

Dawn and Dusk

Madonna and Child 

Inside the great pietra serena church, designed by Brunelleschi even as he was
doing the Duomo; passion for geometry, balance, classicism, distaste for Gothic,
then in its flamboyant stage

Donatello panels, originally for the altar, now adorning this and an adjacent pulpit

In a side room off the Brunelleschi-designed and Donatello- adorned Old Sacristy...
this curious view of the heavens...a view from Florence on July 4, 1442...matched
by a nearly identical structure in the Brunelleschi-designed and Donatello-adorned
sacristy at Santa Croce...same date, which no one yet has figured out...

As is well known, San Lorenzo never got a facade, despite Lorenzo's (the Magnificent,
not the saint) desire to have one and Michaelangelo's design; Lorenzo died and
Michaelangelo got put onto other tasks...

We'd been in Florence four days already and could stand it no more...we had to have
our bifstecca fiorentino; here it is, or what's left of the original kilogram of delight,
from our favorite of favorites, the Antico Ristoro de Cambi