Description
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Nativity stands on Via Leone X, a few blocks from the Fortezza da Basso, in Florence. You can spot it from afar by its five onion domes of colored ceramic: a piece of Russia in a neighborhood born between the 19th and 20th centuries.
The exterior is a triumph of decoration: a square base of brick and stone, from which rises a second body crowned by blind arches, the kokoshniks, and by domes with gilded crosses. The floral majolica is by the Cantagalli manufactory of Florence.
On the facade shine three gold mosaics made in Venice: the Mother of God on the pediment over the entrance, and the faces of the apostles Peter and Paul at the sides. The wrought-iron gate around it bears imperial eagles and the Florentine lily.
As in the churches of northern Russia, it has two levels: above, the cooler summer church, below, the winter one, dedicated to St. Nicholas. The move from one to the other, by tradition, takes place during Holy Week.
The interior is covered in paintings, floral motifs and Oriental-style arabesques, in a warm, colorful whole. In front of the altar, the iconostasis in white Carrara and pink Verona marble, with the gilded Royal Doors and the icons of the Savior and the Virgin.
At the entrance, a three-meter-tall carved wooden door, divided into twenty-two reliefs with episodes from sacred history: it was made by Rinaldi Barbetti between 1855 and 1860 and bought by Prince Anatoly Demidov at the National Exhibition of 1861.
The idea of building the church came in 1873 to Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, daughter of Tsar Nicholas I. The Russians in Florence then prayed in the embassy chapel, in a rented room on the Lungarno Vespucci, and the money for a real church was never enough.
The project “in the Muscovite style” by Mikhail Preobrazhensky came about thanks to the “perseverance and tenacity worthy of every praise”, as La Nazione wrote, of the archpriest Vladimir Levitsky. Work began in 1899.
The lower church was consecrated in 1902 and the upper one on November 8, 1903, before a detachment of Russian sailors. Film of the ceremony was shown in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, today's Piazza della Repubblica, and drew the curiosity of the whole city.
The exterior is a triumph of decoration: a square base of brick and stone, from which rises a second body crowned by blind arches, the kokoshniks, and by domes with gilded crosses. The floral majolica is by the Cantagalli manufactory of Florence.
On the facade shine three gold mosaics made in Venice: the Mother of God on the pediment over the entrance, and the faces of the apostles Peter and Paul at the sides. The wrought-iron gate around it bears imperial eagles and the Florentine lily.
As in the churches of northern Russia, it has two levels: above, the cooler summer church, below, the winter one, dedicated to St. Nicholas. The move from one to the other, by tradition, takes place during Holy Week.
The interior is covered in paintings, floral motifs and Oriental-style arabesques, in a warm, colorful whole. In front of the altar, the iconostasis in white Carrara and pink Verona marble, with the gilded Royal Doors and the icons of the Savior and the Virgin.
At the entrance, a three-meter-tall carved wooden door, divided into twenty-two reliefs with episodes from sacred history: it was made by Rinaldi Barbetti between 1855 and 1860 and bought by Prince Anatoly Demidov at the National Exhibition of 1861.
The idea of building the church came in 1873 to Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, daughter of Tsar Nicholas I. The Russians in Florence then prayed in the embassy chapel, in a rented room on the Lungarno Vespucci, and the money for a real church was never enough.
The project “in the Muscovite style” by Mikhail Preobrazhensky came about thanks to the “perseverance and tenacity worthy of every praise”, as La Nazione wrote, of the archpriest Vladimir Levitsky. Work began in 1899.
The lower church was consecrated in 1902 and the upper one on November 8, 1903, before a detachment of Russian sailors. Film of the ceremony was shown in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, today's Piazza della Repubblica, and drew the curiosity of the whole city.