Description
The Basilica of Santa Maria Novella is Florence's great Dominican church, on the square of the same name: a facade of white and green marble, a Gothic interior and, inside, chapels frescoed by the greatest painters of the 1400s.
It is one of the city's most important churches, the Dominicans' landmark just as Santa Croce was the Franciscans'. Next to the basilica stands the old convent, now a museum, with cloisters and frescoed halls.
The facade is the work of Leon Battista Alberti: the wealthy merchant Giovanni Rucellai commissioned him to join the existing Gothic part to Renaissance marble. The patron's name runs along the architrave, and in the frieze billowing sails, the Rucellai coat of arms, sweep along. Two astronomical instruments by the friar Ignazio Danti also hang on the facade.
The interior is almost a hundred meters long, with three aisles and bays that narrow toward the altar, making it look even longer. In the middle of the nave hangs Giotto's Crucifix, from around 1290, and a little further on is Masaccio's Trinity: before that perspective, Vasari wrote, the wall seemed to have been punched through.
Behind the high altar is the Tornabuoni Chapel, frescoed by Ghirlandaio with scenes from the lives of the Virgin and Saint John set in the Florence of his day, full of portraits of Florentines. In his workshop at the time, probably, worked a very young Michelangelo.
From the cloister you pass into the convent museum, with the Green Cloister, where Paolo Uccello painted the Stories of Genesis, and the Spanish Chapel, frescoed by Andrea Bonaiuti: among the scenes are hunting dogs, the "domini canes," that is, the Dominican friars.
It all begins in 1219, when twelve friars arrive in Florence from Bologna and are given a little church among the vineyards, outside the walls. In the 1200s they begin a much bigger building, finished only in the mid-1300s and consecrated in 1420.
In 1582 the world went to sleep on October 4 and woke up on October 15, with the introduction of the new calendar. Danti's instruments, hung on the facade, were used to measure how far the old calendar had drifted from the sun.
Don't miss
• Giotto's Crucifix.
• Masaccio's Trinity.
• The Tornabuoni Chapel.
• The Spanish Chapel and the Green Cloister.
Did you know?
• From the pulpit designed by Brunelleschi came the first attack on Galileo's discoveries.
• The Crucifix in the Gondi Chapel is the only known wooden sculpture by Brunelleschi: according to Vasari, his answer to Donatello's, which he found primitive.
It is one of the city's most important churches, the Dominicans' landmark just as Santa Croce was the Franciscans'. Next to the basilica stands the old convent, now a museum, with cloisters and frescoed halls.
The facade is the work of Leon Battista Alberti: the wealthy merchant Giovanni Rucellai commissioned him to join the existing Gothic part to Renaissance marble. The patron's name runs along the architrave, and in the frieze billowing sails, the Rucellai coat of arms, sweep along. Two astronomical instruments by the friar Ignazio Danti also hang on the facade.
The interior is almost a hundred meters long, with three aisles and bays that narrow toward the altar, making it look even longer. In the middle of the nave hangs Giotto's Crucifix, from around 1290, and a little further on is Masaccio's Trinity: before that perspective, Vasari wrote, the wall seemed to have been punched through.
Behind the high altar is the Tornabuoni Chapel, frescoed by Ghirlandaio with scenes from the lives of the Virgin and Saint John set in the Florence of his day, full of portraits of Florentines. In his workshop at the time, probably, worked a very young Michelangelo.
From the cloister you pass into the convent museum, with the Green Cloister, where Paolo Uccello painted the Stories of Genesis, and the Spanish Chapel, frescoed by Andrea Bonaiuti: among the scenes are hunting dogs, the "domini canes," that is, the Dominican friars.
It all begins in 1219, when twelve friars arrive in Florence from Bologna and are given a little church among the vineyards, outside the walls. In the 1200s they begin a much bigger building, finished only in the mid-1300s and consecrated in 1420.
In 1582 the world went to sleep on October 4 and woke up on October 15, with the introduction of the new calendar. Danti's instruments, hung on the facade, were used to measure how far the old calendar had drifted from the sun.
Don't miss
• Giotto's Crucifix.
• Masaccio's Trinity.
• The Tornabuoni Chapel.
• The Spanish Chapel and the Green Cloister.
Did you know?
• From the pulpit designed by Brunelleschi came the first attack on Galileo's discoveries.
• The Crucifix in the Gondi Chapel is the only known wooden sculpture by Brunelleschi: according to Vasari, his answer to Donatello's, which he found primitive.