Description
The church of Ognissanti faces the square of the same name, in Florence, near the Arno. Born in the 1200s with the Umiliati, it is the church of the Vespucci family and holds works by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Giotto, names that are enough to earn it a place on an itinerary.
Its masterpiece is Botticelli's Saint Augustine. In the open book, the painter hid these words: "Where is Brother Martin? He ran away. And where did he go? He is outside the Porta al Prato." Perhaps to poke fun at a friar who came and went too often.
Botticelli also rests here: his admirers leave him notes in a basket beside the tomb. In the same church was buried the beautiful Simonetta Vespucci, held to be his muse.
Ognissanti was the church of the Vespucci. In a fresco by the young Ghirlandaio the family kneels under the Madonna's mantle, and the boy beside her is said to be Amerigo, the navigator who gave America its name.
Also not to be missed are Giotto's great Painted Cross and, in the refectory, Ghirlandaio's Last Supper. In the early 1300s the church was so rich that it called on Giotto, who around 1310 placed the Maestà on the high altar, today in the Uffizi.
The interior is a single nave 95 meters long, with a deep transept and altars at the sides under pietra serena aedicules. It is among the few large churches in Florence, with the Santissima Annunziata, not to have had a "stylistic" restoration in the 1800s.
The facade is seventeenth-century, by Matteo Nigetti, redone in travertine in 1872. The large cloister has cycles of frescoes by Jacopo Ligozzi with the stories of Saint Francis, painted in the early 1600s.
It all began with the Umiliati, who arrived in Florence in 1239. They were religious who worked wool, and the area, with the little island and the canals of the Arno, was perfect for mills and fulling works. The church was begun in 1251.
Its masterpiece is Botticelli's Saint Augustine. In the open book, the painter hid these words: "Where is Brother Martin? He ran away. And where did he go? He is outside the Porta al Prato." Perhaps to poke fun at a friar who came and went too often.
Botticelli also rests here: his admirers leave him notes in a basket beside the tomb. In the same church was buried the beautiful Simonetta Vespucci, held to be his muse.
Ognissanti was the church of the Vespucci. In a fresco by the young Ghirlandaio the family kneels under the Madonna's mantle, and the boy beside her is said to be Amerigo, the navigator who gave America its name.
Also not to be missed are Giotto's great Painted Cross and, in the refectory, Ghirlandaio's Last Supper. In the early 1300s the church was so rich that it called on Giotto, who around 1310 placed the Maestà on the high altar, today in the Uffizi.
The interior is a single nave 95 meters long, with a deep transept and altars at the sides under pietra serena aedicules. It is among the few large churches in Florence, with the Santissima Annunziata, not to have had a "stylistic" restoration in the 1800s.
The facade is seventeenth-century, by Matteo Nigetti, redone in travertine in 1872. The large cloister has cycles of frescoes by Jacopo Ligozzi with the stories of Saint Francis, painted in the early 1600s.
It all began with the Umiliati, who arrived in Florence in 1239. They were religious who worked wool, and the area, with the little island and the canals of the Arno, was perfect for mills and fulling works. The church was begun in 1251.