Ognissanti (Florence)
San Salvatore di Ognissanti or shorter Ognissanti is a Franciscan church in Florence in Italy . It was founded by the religious community of Humiliates and is dedicated to the Savior and all known (and unknown) saints and martyrs .
history
The church was part of a monastery that was founded in 1251 by humiliates who had come to Florence from Alessandria in Lombardy in 1239 . This lay order , open to men and women, was committed to poverty and manual labor. They mainly made products from wool and glass. In Tuscany they first settled 3 km northwest of Florence (near San Donato in Polverosa in today's Novoli district). The subsequent move to the immediate outskirts of the city had mainly practical reasons: Here the small Mugnone river flowed into the Arno , which enabled the water mills required for work to be operated and also supplied the water required for dyeing the fabrics. In order to be able to make even better use of the hydropower, the members of the order built the weir Pescaia di Santa Rosa and a network of canals. The construction of houses for the workers created a small quarter around the monastery complex. This had consequences for the influence of the humiliates in the city. Already at the end of the 13th century they were offered positions in the city administration. Rich families in the area made donations to the monastery.
In the 16th century the influence of the humiliates waned (not least because silk was increasingly displacing wool), and the Franciscans took over the church and monastery at Cosimo I's instigation in 1571 , as their original monastery was in 1529 during the siege by Charles V's troops . had been badly damaged. They transferred important relics from their previous seat on Monte alle Croci (on a hill south of the Arno, the church of San Salvatore al Monte still stands there today ) to their new monastery, including a robe of St. Francis , and built the two cloisters , which they had frescoed by Jacopo Ligozzi and Giovanni da San Giovanni depicting the life of St. Francis. From 1602 portraits of important members of the order were also attached.
After a first closure in 1810, the monastery was finally dissolved in 1866. The premises have been used as a police station since 1923. The cloisters, the chapter house and the refectory are a museum. A small Franciscan community is living there again today.
Building description
The church was completed between 1251 and 1260. With the donations mentioned, the humiliates were able to furnish their initially very simple church with large works of art. The large-format Madonna and Child by Giotto (now in the Uffizi ) originally adorned the high altar of this church. Restoration work on a crucifix in the left transept led to the realization that this work can also be attributed to Giotto. In the sacristy hangs a crucifixion fresco by Taddeo Gaddi , painted between 1355 and 1360.
In the church there are frescoes from 1480 by Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio . The important pictures, which were originally next to each other at the beginning of the apse, now hang opposite each other in the main nave and depict the Saints Augustine and Jerome , who both lived at the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century, in their study of the site, they were slightly damaged in the peripheral areas. The two pictures show clear differences.
Botticelli's Augustine is about to write something, but appears distant. His gaze is directed into the far distance, and the hand held on his chest seems to indicate that he is receiving a vision . This is related to the clock that is visible in the back of Augustine. Their pointer is between XXIIII (= 14) and I (= 1). The 14th hour marks the time of sunset; this alludes to a specific event in the life of Augustine. He reports that one evening at sunset he pondered the happiness of the saints and made a plan to write these thoughts to Jerome. Then Hieronymus appeared to him in a vision and told him that this happiness cannot be described, but only experienced. Augustine later learns that Hieronymus died at this point in time.
Some details are also noteworthy: the coat of arms of the commissioning family Vespucci is emblazoned on the lintel above the saint; on the table behind the lectern is an elaborately decorated miter - a reference to Augustine's bishopric in the North African hippo . In the open book on the shelf behind Augustine, most of the words are illegible except for a few sentences in which Botticelli makes fun of a runaway monk.
The Hieronymus picture by Ghirlandaio shows clear influences of the old Dutch painting , especially the picture of the same name by Jan van Eyck , which was then owned by the Medici family ruling Florence . Like this, Ghirlandaio presents a wealth of details that allow insights into the reality of life at that time (glasses, scissors, extinguishing powder). The date of the picture is made possible by the year engraved in Roman numerals on the desk . In addition to numerous vessels and boxes, one can also discover Jerome's cardinal hat , a sign of his high ecclesiastical office , on the shelf . Hieronymus' gaze is directed directly at the viewer; the legible Hebrew, Greek and Latin characters indicate that the saint is currently working on the Vulgate (translation of the Bible into Latin).
Botticelli, whose birthplace and studio were in the district around the church, is buried here near Simonetta Vespucci , whom he admired . (A round stone with his real name Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi in a chapel in the right transept marks his grave.) This young Florentine woman, in the opinion of numerous experts and others, had given him to him. a. in his pictures The Birth of Venus and Primavera stood as a model. Caroline Bonaparte , Napoleon's youngest sister , is also buried in the church . As the wife of Joachim Murat , she was Queen of the Kingdom of Naples for seven years .
Another fresco by Ghirlandaio from 1472 hangs in the Vespucci Chapel in the church: It depicts the Madonna della Misericordia ( Madonna of the protective cloak ) protecting the members of the Vespucci family. This gesture goes back to the legal custom, especially widespread in Northern Europe in the Middle Ages , according to which nobles could grant asylum to persecuted people by covering them with their cloaks. In Ghirlandaio's picture, Mary is standing on a pedestal, the inscription of which says that the world is filled with the mercy of God. The eponymous America explorer Amerigo Vespucci as a child is among the family members shown, separated by sex (left behind Maria ). His grandfather of the same name is buried here.
Around 1627 the church was almost completely rebuilt in the Baroque style by the master builder Bartolomeo Pettirossi , making it one of the first examples of this style in the otherwise Renaissance city of Florence. During this work the apse was also renewed. A new high altar was erected here, which was decorated with Pietra dura mosaics, which were very much appreciated in Florence at the time . The illusionistic painting of the vault did not take place until 1770.
In the facade , built in 1637 according to plans by Matteo Nigetti , a terracotta relief ( Coronation of Mary ) catches the eye above the portal emphasized by two columns , which was long considered the work of the della Robbia family of artists , but is now ascribed to Benedetto Buglioni . The two floors covered by a gable are structured by flat pilasters that show the reverse of the classical column order ( Corinthian on the ground floor , Ionic on the floor above , Doric capitals on the gable ). They flank windows and niches decorated with sculptural jewelry, for which statues were originally intended.
To the right of the facade rises a narrow campanile from the 13th and 14th centuries; on the other side of the church is the entrance to the cloister.
The last supper
In addition to the pictures in the church, Ghirlandaio frescoed a representation of the Last Supper on the back wall of the refectory , which is located between the two cloisters, in 1480 (the preliminary drawing has been preserved on the left wall in the same room), which is probably the picture of the same name Leonardo da Vincis in Milan. Ghirlandaio's work marks a further step on the way to abolishing the boundary between real and pictorial space. The painted room of the Lord's Supper seems to be a continuation of the viewer's room. The actual vaults of the refectory are continued in the picture, the center console applies equally to the real and the painted architecture.
The natural life size of the figures supports the viewer's ability to identify with the figures. In the background, the wall appears to open into the monastery garden, in which plants and birds are painted with as much attention to detail as the peacock on the right narrow wall. How enthusiastic his contemporaries were with this work is shown by the fact that two years later Ghirlandaio was commissioned with a repetition for the refectory of San Marco .
gallery
Giotto: crucifix
Gaddi: Crucifixion
Remarks
- ↑ The whole district takes its name from the church.
- ^ Rolf Toman (ed.), The Art of the Italian Renaissance, Cologne 1994, p. 278.
- ^ Rolf C. Wirtz, Florenz, Cologne 1999, p. 260.
- ↑ Rolf C. Wirtz, ibid., P. 263.
- ↑ When America explored a bay in Brazil today on one of his expeditions, he called it San Salvatore di Ognissanti , in Portuguese San Salvador de Todos os Santos : This could be the origin of the present name of the city Salvador and the bay Bahia de Todos os Santos be . According to other sources, however, the naming of the bay and city does not go back to the Florentine family church of the Vespuccis, but to the day of discovery on November 1st ( All Saints' Day ).
- ↑ Description from http://www.florentinermuseen.com/musei/ognissanti_refektorium.html
literature
- Antonio Paolucci (ed.): Churches in Florence. Hirmer, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7774-9960-9 .
Web links
Coordinates: 43 ° 46 ′ 21.2 " N , 11 ° 14 ′ 45.5" E