Santa Croce (Florence)
| Basilica di Santa Croce Basilica minor |
|
|---|---|
 Santa Croce Basilica |
|
| Data | |
| place |
 Florence
|
| builder | Arnolfo di Cambio (architect) |
| Construction year | 1443 |
| Coordinates | 43 ° 46 '7 " N , 11 ° 15' 44" E |
Santa Croce is a Franciscan church in Florence.
According to legend, the foundation stone was laid in 1294 by St. Francis of Assisi himself.
Santa Croce is also known as the "Pantheon of Florence ". However, this is not due to their architecture , but to the fact that the tombs of Machiavelli , Michelangelo , Galileo Galilei and Gioachino Rossini as well as memorials for many other famous Italians such as Guglielmo Marconi are located here. Incidentally, the structure of the church is characterized by the classic simplicity of Franciscan church buildings, which here, however, is increased to monumental, and equipped with frescoes by Giotto , Taddeo Gaddi and other masters.
Building history
According to an inscription, the laying of the foundation stone is said to have taken place on May 3, 1295, some historians suspect the year 1294. The design came from the architect Arnolfo di Cambio , who also designed the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore . The construction work on the choir and the transept lasted up to the year 1300. Around the year 1385 the church was completed except for the facade . Brunelleschi designed the Cappella dei Pazzi on the cloister south of the church, which the Pazzi family had built in 1430 but which was never completed.
In the 16th century, the construction of a campanile based on the designs of Francesco da Sangallo began. The tower was never completed, its remains were demolished in 1854. Nicola Matas did not finish work on the facades until 1863.
In 1933 the church received from Pope Pius XI. the title of a minor basilica .
Furnishing
In the church there are numerous masterpieces by Italian painters from the 14th century. So one finds z. B. a crucifix that Cimabue designed at the end of the 13th century. This crucifix was damaged by the flood in Florence in 1966 . and despite the restoration, the face of Christ is completely blurred. In 1317 Giotto was responsible for the composition and execution of the frescoes in the Peruzzi Chapel (scenes from the life of the Evangelists John and John the Baptist ) and in the Bardi Chapel (scenes from the life of St. Francis). Taddeo Gaddi designed the scenes from the life of Mary in the Baroncellikapelle . In the Castellani chapel there are frescoes by Agnolo Gaddi , son of Taddeo Gaddi, and by Gherardo Starnina , painted at the end of the 14th century. Donatello created a crucifix and an annunciation for the Cavalcanti family in 1425 .
Building description
Santa Croce is the largest and one of the most important Franciscan churches in Italy. In contrast to the Cistercians , who chose lonely valley locations for their monasteries, the Franciscans, like other mendicant orders , preferred a location on the edge of the respective city. They did not want to contemplate religious immersion, but to act within the population. That is why the churches of the mendicant orders often reached a considerable size. To be buried in them was seen by many as a guarantee of redemption from sins, as the monks prayed for them here. Wealthy families often donated large chapels and had them lavishly decorated.
Together with the cathedral and Santa Maria Novella , the church of the Dominican Order in Florence, Santa Croce forms the magnificent triad of Gothic sacred architecture in Florence, which - compared to the Gothic in France - is characterized by a different spatial concept: wide arcade openings to the aisles, Above it a low light path zone , which in Santa Croce is not closed off by a stone vault, but - more citing the style ideal of Franciscan simplicity than it corresponds to - by an open rafter roof. The continuous, strong console cornice emphasizes the impression of storage, although the clear height of the central nave at 34.5 meters is greater than that of Notre-Dame in Paris and almost as large as that of Chartres and Reims .
A transept adjoins the narrow three-aisled nave and immediately afterwards the narrow choir, which is each accompanied by five rectangular side chapels, which represent the jewels of the church, as they are largely painted with frescoes.
Santa Croce is the Florentine church richest in works of art. On the walls of the aisles are various tombs of great Florentines, such as those of Niccolò Machiavelli , Michelangelo , Galileo Galilei , Gioachino Rossini and a cenotaph for Dante Alighieri .
Cenotaph for Dante, † 1321
Machiavelli's tomb, † 1527
Michelangelo's grave, † 1564
Galileo's grave, † 1642
Rossini's grave, † 1868
Baroncelli Chapel and the Castellani Chapel
On the walls of the choir chapels is one of the most important fresco cycles of Italian medieval painting. The chapels include the main chapel and the ten or more side chapels, which are much lower. The larger chapels in the right transept include the Baroncelli Chapel and the Castellani Chapel. The frescoes are by Taddeo Gaddi from the years 1332-1338 and depict scenes from the life of Mary. Gaddi was Giotto's closest successor. These frescoes were created during Giotto's lifetime.
Noteworthy is u. a. one of the upper scenes, which shows one of the first night pictures in art history in the Annunciation to the Shepherds. You can see why the time of the early 14th century, i.e. the time of Giotto, is called the Protenaissance . In the upper and lower scenes, which show parts of a church building, it is significant that the people between the columns form a common act, i.e. cannot be separated from the columns. Here there is a correspondence to the architecture, which at that time was already trying to create the impression of a unified space and did not emphasize this clear division into a central nave and the side aisles like the northern European Gothic.
Bardi and the Peruzzi Chapel
The two chapels are directly to the right of the main chapel. Both families owned large banks in Florence and were able to finance such expensive chapels.
Giotto's frescoes in the Peruzzi Chapel depict scenes from the lives of St. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist .
The frescoes in the Bardi Chapel depict the life of St. Francis, who founded the order. They come from Giotto and his school from the years 1315-20. They were only rediscovered in 1852. At the time of the baroque they were whitewashed and covered with tombs. In 1852 it was restored, albeit so radically that missing parts were also added. These were removed during a recent restoration in 1958, but with the consequence that the whole thing now looks very unfinished.
The time these frescoes were created is the time in which Umberto Eco's novel " The Name of the Rose " is set in 1327. A monk's head was therefore taken from this chapel for the German book design.
Pazzi Chapel
organ
The organ was built by the organ builder Giovanni Tamburini . The instrument has 96 registers on four manuals and a pedal . The actions are electric.
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Incidents
On October 19, 2017 , a Spanish tourist was killed by a falling stone, about 15 by 15 centimeters in size. The stone had loosened from the ceiling of the church at a height of about 20 meters and fell directly on the tourist's head. The church was then closed, but has been open to visitors again since November 2017 at the latest.
literature
in alphabetical order by authors / editors
- August Rave: Christiformitas. Studies on the Franciscan iconography of the Florentine Trecento using the example of the former cycle of sacristy cabinets by Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce (= manuscripts for art history in the Werner publishing company 2). Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1984, ISBN 978-3-88462-901-7
- Gosbert Schüssler: A provocative image of the Passion: Donatello's crucifix by S. Croce. In: Karl Möseneder (Ed.): Dispute about images. From Byzantium to Duchamp. Reimer, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-496-01169-6 , pp. 49-72.
- Rolf Toman (ed.): The art of the Italian Renaissance. Architecture - sculpture - painting - drawing. Könemann, Cologne 1994. ISBN 3-89508-054-3
- Manfred Wundram : Art Guide Florence . Reclam, Stuttgart 1993. ISBN 3-15-010385-1 , pp. 165-184.
- Klaus Zimmermanns: Florence. A European center of art. History, monuments, collections . DuMont, Cologne 1984. ISBN 3-7701-1441-8 . 6th edition: 1990.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Toman, p. 85
- ↑ More information (in Italian) about the organ
- ↑ Florence: Stone falls from the church ceiling and kills tourist . In: Spiegel Online . October 19, 2017 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 19, 2017]).
- ↑ The Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence . ( florenz-toskana.de [accessed on August 13, 2018]).
- ^ Visiting the complex of Santa Croce . ( santacroceopera.it [accessed August 10, 2018]).
