Description
The church of San Salvatore al Monte stands on the hill behind Piazzale Michelangelo, the Monte alle Croci, just below San Miniato. It is a single-nave Franciscan church, simple and austere, among the cypresses.
The facade is almost bare: light plaster, a portal and windows with pediments. Il Cronaca, the architect who rebuilt the church between 1499 and 1504, alternated round and triangular pediments along the whole nave: an idea later taken up by Vasari at the Uffizi.
Inside, the effect is one of elegant sobriety: the light plaster sets off the Doric pilasters of pietraforte, and the roof is timber-trussed. Five chapels open on each side of the nave, and old funerary slabs remain in the floor.
In the second chapel on the left stands the Deposition in polychrome glazed terracotta by Giovanni della Robbia. On the high altar is a wooden Crucifix by a master close to Andrea Ferrucci, and the stained-glass windows are attributed to Perugino.
To the right of the presbytery opens the Nerli Chapel, with a barrel vault and a 16th-century panel of the Madonna enthroned with saints and angels. Next to it, the monument to Marcello Adriani, from 1526.
Michelangelo was very fond of this area and of this church, which he called “my beautiful country girl”.
A story worthy of a novel is tied to it. On the night of April 8, 1498, the bell of San Marco had dared to ring to warn of Savonarola's arrest. Tanai Nerli, his enemy, had it carried in procession to San Salvatore, whipping it all along the way.
It has not rung since. In the 20th century it ended up in the courtyard of the Museo di Firenze just as it was, and only in the 2000s did it return to the Museo di San Marco. Adriani, in the neighboring chapel, signed Savonarola's very death sentence.
The convent was a place of retreat: Saint Bernardino of Siena also lived here, and two centuries later Saint Leonard of Port Maurice set out from here to spread the Way of the Cross, which gives Monte alle Croci its name.
In 1665 the friars moved to Ognissanti, taking with them many furnishings, including the habit of Saint Francis.
The facade is almost bare: light plaster, a portal and windows with pediments. Il Cronaca, the architect who rebuilt the church between 1499 and 1504, alternated round and triangular pediments along the whole nave: an idea later taken up by Vasari at the Uffizi.
Inside, the effect is one of elegant sobriety: the light plaster sets off the Doric pilasters of pietraforte, and the roof is timber-trussed. Five chapels open on each side of the nave, and old funerary slabs remain in the floor.
In the second chapel on the left stands the Deposition in polychrome glazed terracotta by Giovanni della Robbia. On the high altar is a wooden Crucifix by a master close to Andrea Ferrucci, and the stained-glass windows are attributed to Perugino.
To the right of the presbytery opens the Nerli Chapel, with a barrel vault and a 16th-century panel of the Madonna enthroned with saints and angels. Next to it, the monument to Marcello Adriani, from 1526.
Michelangelo was very fond of this area and of this church, which he called “my beautiful country girl”.
A story worthy of a novel is tied to it. On the night of April 8, 1498, the bell of San Marco had dared to ring to warn of Savonarola's arrest. Tanai Nerli, his enemy, had it carried in procession to San Salvatore, whipping it all along the way.
It has not rung since. In the 20th century it ended up in the courtyard of the Museo di Firenze just as it was, and only in the 2000s did it return to the Museo di San Marco. Adriani, in the neighboring chapel, signed Savonarola's very death sentence.
The convent was a place of retreat: Saint Bernardino of Siena also lived here, and two centuries later Saint Leonard of Port Maurice set out from here to spread the Way of the Cross, which gives Monte alle Croci its name.
In 1665 the friars moved to Ognissanti, taking with them many furnishings, including the habit of Saint Francis.