Description
The church of Santi Michele e Gaetano, known to Florentines simply as San Gaetano, is the largest and most complete Baroque building in Florence. It closes off Via de' Tornabuoni onto Piazza Antinori: in a city of Renaissance churches, it is the most theatrical of all.
The facade, in tawny pietraforte stone with white marble statues, rises above a wide flight of steps in the Roman manner. Three portals suggest three aisles that aren't there inside, and high above, Cardinal Carlo de' Medici's name runs across in huge letters.
The interior has remained intact: a single nave, six side chapels and a play of colors between the gray pietra serena, the white of the stucco and the polychrome marbles. Light comes in from the tall windows above and leaves the chapels in half-shadow.
Along the nave runs the cycle of the Apostles and Evangelists: larger-than-life marble statues, each with one or two reliefs of their life beneath. It is one of the most important sculpture cycles of 17th-century Florence.
At the far end, the high altar is a combination of fine marbles, from lapis lazuli to Siena yellow, beneath a silver ciborium. In the choir behind it hangs the great bronze Crucifix by Francesco Susini.
Among the chapels, the Franceschi stands out, with the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence by Pietro da Cortona: sumptuous colors, light pouring down from above, a Roman breadth that the other canvases, of the Florentine school, don't have.
Behind all this splendor lies a contest of prestige. The families close to the court were turning Via Tornabuoni into one of the most lavish districts in Florence, and they wanted the most beautiful Baroque church as well. Building and decorating it took a century, from 1604 to 1701.
The church of San Michele, documented since 1055, had passed in 1592 to the Theatines, a Counter-Reformation order, who rebuilt it from scratch. The bill was paid by Grand Duchess Christine of Lorraine, her son Cardinal Carlo and the Antinori family, who lived right across the square.
Susini's Crucifix hides an artistic heresy. It shows Christ still alive, without the wound in his side: an iconography that Paul IV, co-founder of the Theatines, had forbidden. A century later, apparently, no one remembered anymore.
Don't miss
• The facade.
• The Apostles and Evangelists.
• The high altar.
• Susini's Crucifix.
• The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence.
Did you know?
• Saint Cajetan entered the church's name only in 1671, when he was proclaimed a saint.
• Beneath the altar lie the relics of the saints Marius and Maria, brought from the Catacombs of St. Callixtus in 1615.
The facade, in tawny pietraforte stone with white marble statues, rises above a wide flight of steps in the Roman manner. Three portals suggest three aisles that aren't there inside, and high above, Cardinal Carlo de' Medici's name runs across in huge letters.
The interior has remained intact: a single nave, six side chapels and a play of colors between the gray pietra serena, the white of the stucco and the polychrome marbles. Light comes in from the tall windows above and leaves the chapels in half-shadow.
Along the nave runs the cycle of the Apostles and Evangelists: larger-than-life marble statues, each with one or two reliefs of their life beneath. It is one of the most important sculpture cycles of 17th-century Florence.
At the far end, the high altar is a combination of fine marbles, from lapis lazuli to Siena yellow, beneath a silver ciborium. In the choir behind it hangs the great bronze Crucifix by Francesco Susini.
Among the chapels, the Franceschi stands out, with the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence by Pietro da Cortona: sumptuous colors, light pouring down from above, a Roman breadth that the other canvases, of the Florentine school, don't have.
Behind all this splendor lies a contest of prestige. The families close to the court were turning Via Tornabuoni into one of the most lavish districts in Florence, and they wanted the most beautiful Baroque church as well. Building and decorating it took a century, from 1604 to 1701.
The church of San Michele, documented since 1055, had passed in 1592 to the Theatines, a Counter-Reformation order, who rebuilt it from scratch. The bill was paid by Grand Duchess Christine of Lorraine, her son Cardinal Carlo and the Antinori family, who lived right across the square.
Susini's Crucifix hides an artistic heresy. It shows Christ still alive, without the wound in his side: an iconography that Paul IV, co-founder of the Theatines, had forbidden. A century later, apparently, no one remembered anymore.
Don't miss
• The facade.
• The Apostles and Evangelists.
• The high altar.
• Susini's Crucifix.
• The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence.
Did you know?
• Saint Cajetan entered the church's name only in 1671, when he was proclaimed a saint.
• Beneath the altar lie the relics of the saints Marius and Maria, brought from the Catacombs of St. Callixtus in 1615.