Description
The church of Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, on Borgo Pinti, is a Renaissance and Baroque complex hidden behind a sober façade. It has an elegant portico by Giuliano da Sangallo, a Baroque main chapel glittering with marble and, in the former convent, a Crucifixion by Perugino.
In 1887 a young French girl came to Florence with her parents to pray at the saint's tomb. She was Thérèse of Lisieux, too young to enter a convent, on her way to Rome to ask the pope for a dispensation. A plaque and a statue remember her.
The tomb was that of Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, a mystic Carmelite who died in 1607. Her sisters had moved here in 1629, bringing her remains with them. The history of the place began much earlier, though, in the 1200s, with a house for “repentant” women, which may have given Borgo Pinti its name.
Sangallo's portico comes before the church, with Ionic columns and capitals copied from an ancient one found at Fiesole. It recalls Brunelleschi's arches in the nearby Pazzi Chapel, and it was completed on one side only after the flood of 1966, with the help of the French.
Inside, the church has a single nave, white, with six chapels on each side and the pietra serena lines of Brunelleschi's taste. Don't miss the main chapel, built from 1677 to 1685 as a mausoleum for the saint's relics: polychrome marble, bronze, gilding, statues and frescoes, almost a theater of Florentine Baroque.
In the dome, Pier Dandini painted an illusionistic sky with the saint and all the Florentine saints.
In the chapter house of the former convent is Perugino's Crucifixion, from 1494–1496: Christ on the cross adored by the penitent Magdalene, in a suspended, silent Umbrian landscape. You visit it by entering through the Michelangiolo high school, on certain days.
The church was once full of altarpieces by Botticelli, Perugino and Ghirlandaio, later scattered: Ghirlandaio's Visitation ended up in the Louvre with the Napoleonic confiscations. After the saint's canonization, in 1669, came the Baroque, with the vault frescoes and the stories of her life.
In 1887 a young French girl came to Florence with her parents to pray at the saint's tomb. She was Thérèse of Lisieux, too young to enter a convent, on her way to Rome to ask the pope for a dispensation. A plaque and a statue remember her.
The tomb was that of Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, a mystic Carmelite who died in 1607. Her sisters had moved here in 1629, bringing her remains with them. The history of the place began much earlier, though, in the 1200s, with a house for “repentant” women, which may have given Borgo Pinti its name.
Sangallo's portico comes before the church, with Ionic columns and capitals copied from an ancient one found at Fiesole. It recalls Brunelleschi's arches in the nearby Pazzi Chapel, and it was completed on one side only after the flood of 1966, with the help of the French.
Inside, the church has a single nave, white, with six chapels on each side and the pietra serena lines of Brunelleschi's taste. Don't miss the main chapel, built from 1677 to 1685 as a mausoleum for the saint's relics: polychrome marble, bronze, gilding, statues and frescoes, almost a theater of Florentine Baroque.
In the dome, Pier Dandini painted an illusionistic sky with the saint and all the Florentine saints.
In the chapter house of the former convent is Perugino's Crucifixion, from 1494–1496: Christ on the cross adored by the penitent Magdalene, in a suspended, silent Umbrian landscape. You visit it by entering through the Michelangiolo high school, on certain days.
The church was once full of altarpieces by Botticelli, Perugino and Ghirlandaio, later scattered: Ghirlandaio's Visitation ended up in the Louvre with the Napoleonic confiscations. After the saint's canonization, in 1669, came the Baroque, with the vault frescoes and the stories of her life.