The metropolitan cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, commonly
known as the cathedral of Florence, is the main Florentine church,
symbol of the city and one of the most famous in Italy; when it was
completed, in the fifteenth century, it was the largest church in
the world, and can still boast the absolute primacy of the largest
masonry dome today. It stands on the foundations of the ancient
cathedral of Florence, the church of Santa Reparata, in a point of
the city that has hosted religious buildings since Roman times.
The construction of the Cathedral, ordered by the Florentine
Signoria, began in 1296 and ended from a structural point of view
only in 1436. The initial works were entrusted to the architect
Arnolfo di Cambio and then interrupted and resumed numerous times
over the decades (by Giotto , Francesco Talenti and Giovanni di Lapo
Ghini). The completion of Brunelleschi's dome was followed by the
dedication by Pope Eugene IV on 24 March 1436. The dedication to
Santa Maria del Fiore took place during construction, in 1412.
The plan of the Cathedral is composed of a three-aisled basilica
body welded to an enormous triconch rotunda which supports
Brunelleschi's immense dome, the largest masonry dome ever built.
Inside you can see the largest surface ever decorated with frescoes:
3600 m², executed between 1572-1579 by Giorgio Vasari and Federico
Zuccari. At the base of the marble lantern, there is a panoramic
terrace overlooking the city 91 meters above the ground. The facade
of the Cathedral in polychrome marble is from the modern era, in
fact it dates back to 1887 by Emilio de Fabris, and is an important
example of neo-Gothic style in Italy.
It is the cathedral of
the archdiocese of Florence and can hold up to thirty thousand
people; it has the dignity of a minor basilica and is an Italian
national monument.
The religious center of Florence in the early Middle Ages was
anything but barycentric, having developed in the north-east corner of
the ancient Roman circle. As typical of the early Christian era, the
churches had in fact been built, also in Florentia, close to the walls
and only in the following centuries were they incorporated into the
city. The first Florentine cathedral was San Lorenzo, from the 4th
century, and later, perhaps in the 7th century, the title passed to
Santa Reparata, the primitive church located under the cathedral and
which at the time was still outside the walls. In Carolingian times the
square was a mixture of civil and religious power, with the margrave's
residence next to the bishop's seat (more or less under the Archbishop's
palace) and the cathedral. In 1078 Matilde di Canossa promoted the
construction of the ancient circle (as Dante called it), also
incorporating Santa Reparata and the primitive form of the Baptistery of
San Giovanni, dating back to the 4th or 5th century.
At the end
of the thirteenth century the Platea episcopalis, the Florentine
episcopal complex, presented completely different spatial relationships.
Piazza San Giovanni was little more than a clearing between the Bishop's
palace and the Baptistery of San Giovanni, then the real fulcrum of the
complex, which had just been completed with its attic and octagonal
pyramid marble roof. To the east, close to what was later called Porta
del Paradiso, was the portico of the church of Santa Reparata, which had
a real harmonic choir equipped with two bell towers at the eastern end.
To the north-east also stood the ancient church of San Michele
Visdomini, later moved further north, which was located on the same axis
as the Duomo-Baptistery, and the more ancient Florentine "Spedale"; to
the south stood the houses of the Canons, organized around a central
cloister. As was normal at the time, the religious space also performed
civic functions, such as the appointment of knights, popular assemblies,
the reading of messages from the authorities, the consecration of
prisoners of war to the Baptist, etc.
Between the end of the
thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century Florence
experienced a peak of political and cultural flowering, which culminated
in vast urban projects, such as the creation of a new civic pole linked
to political power, later called piazza della Signoria, the expansion of
the city walls (1284-1333) and the construction of a new cathedral, of
sufficient size and importance compared to the new city context. In
fact, Santa Reparata, although ancient and venerable, was no longer
suitable for the rapidly expanding, rich and powerful city, which had
just settled its accounts with its rival Siena (Battle of Colle Val
d'Elsa, 1269) and imposed, albeit with difficulty, its hegemony in the
chaotic Tuscan chessboard. Santa Reparata was described by Villani as
"very large in shape and small in comparison with such a large city" and
in the documents of the municipality as "Decadent due to extreme age".
In 1294, after having tried to enlarge and consolidate Santa Reparata,
the city government finally decided on the complete reconstruction of
the church, with dimensions such as to eclipse the cathedrals of the
opposing cities, including Pisa and Siena in primis. A particular
emphasis was therefore placed on the wealth of the factory, in order to
represent the icon of the city's power.
The new construction site was entrusted to Arnolfo di Cambio, the
architect of the new walls, already engaged in a vast unified program of
renewal of the religious and civil buildings of the city (he had
probably worked on the vast basilica of Santa Croce and at the same time
directed the construction of the Palazzo della Signoria). Cardinal
Pietro Valeriano Duraguerra, legate of Pope Boniface VIII, solemnly laid
the foundation stone of the new basilica on the feast of the Nativity of
the Madonna of 1296 (8 September). Villani recounts that it was
dedicated to the Madonna "of the flower"; the mosaic on the
counter-façade depicting the Coronation of Mary and the sculptural cycle
by Arnolfo di Cambio on the external façade, with the Stories of the
Virgin, would lead us to believe that following the example of the
French Gothic cathedrals, the new Cathedral had been dedicated to Mary,
but documents from the Opera Archive show that the old title of Santa
Reparata was used officially until the fifteenth century and even the
citizens continued to call it by the old title at least until 1412, when
a decree of the Signoria imposed the obligation of the new denomination.
The meaning of the "flower" is ambiguous: perhaps it is a reference to
the lily of the Angel's Annunciation to the Madonna, perhaps to the coat
of arms of Florence or to the very origin of the Latin name of the city
"Fiorenza". If the dedication to Maria "del Fiore" was after the
beginning of the construction site, one might think of a quotation from
verses 7-9 of Canto XXXIII of the third Cantica (Paradiso) of the Divine
Comedy by Dante Alighieri (c. 1321): " Love rekindled in your womb, /
through whose heat in eternal peace / this flower germinated". The
flower would therefore be a reference to the rose of the blessed or to
the Savior.
The works began with the excavation of the
foundations, then with the elevation of the walls of the lateral naves;
this was how we proceeded to leave the church of Santa Reparata able to
function as a cathedral for as long as possible. Both the question of
the real existence of a project by Arnolfo di Cambio and its visibility
in today's structure are still under discussion: in the light of the few
and incomplete excavations carried out, it is not possible to give a
definite answer, but overall it is undeniable that some features of the
current cathedral appear strongly Arnolfian even if they were executed
by other master builders, therefore the existence of an original project
is probable.
There is a particularly early representation of the
project for the new cathedral in the fresco of the Triumphant Church by
Andrea di Bonaiuto in the Spanish Chapel in Santa Maria Novella; the
building, already equipped with a dome and with apses, perhaps reflects
the wooden model presented by Arnolfo. However, there are perplexities:
the bell tower, too similar to the one actually built, is more
traditionally "moved" to the apse area; the dome, although Gothic in its
ornamentation, is a traditional hemispherical dome, without a drum;
perhaps it reflects, rather than Arnolfo's model, the one presented to
the Opera by the same author of the fresco.
Arnolfo therefore
must have already thought of a church with a large dome, inspired by the
Roman model of Santa Maria della Rotonda (the Pantheon), and with the
intention of exceeding the dimensions of the Baptistery. Despite some
uncertainty from critics, excavations have confirmed that the first
foundations that can be attributed to Santa Maria del Fiore are located
under the current facade (the so-called wall 100) and under the side
walls, then extending south of the facade. Thus the hypothesis is
confirmed that Arnolfo had designed a church as wide as the current one,
albeit with the axis rotated a few degrees further south, and equipped
with an isolated bell tower to the south of the facade. The façade of
Santa Reparata appeared enlarged by about ten meters and incorporated
some canons' houses on the right and the ancient bell tower on the left,
which was only completely demolished in 1356. The thinness of these
foundations makes it probable that the projected height is much lower
than the one then reached. The façade was started immediately, although
according to practice it was an element generally postponed compared to
the construction of other parts of the church, because with the
demolition of the first span of Santa Reparata, decided to leave more
space for the Baptistery, it became necessary to close the ancient
church in order to guarantee its temporary use as long as possible.
Even the large protruding balcony, despite having been physically
executed by Francesco Talenti, is an indication of a typically Arnolfo
character. Critics compare it to the cornice of Santa Croce
(traditionally attributed to it) and to that of other similar works such
as the Cathedral of Orvieto and that of Siena. In particular, Angiola
Maria Romanini underlined how the cornice-gallery is an inevitable
constant [...] in all Arnolfi architecture.
On the death of
Arnolfo (1302), contemporary with that of other promoters of the
building site, such as Bishop Monaldeschi and Cardinal Matteo
d'Acquasparta, papal legate, the works slowed down and were subsequently
suspended for about 30 years.
After the death of Arnolfo di Cambio the works stopped indefinitely.
In 1330 the discovery under Santa Reparata of the relics of the revered
bishop of Florence, San Zanobi, gave new impetus to the construction.
The Arte della Lana, which had been given the task of supervising the
construction, in 1334 entrusted the direction of the works to Giotto,
assisted by Andrea Pisano. Giotto concentrated on the bell tower for
which he provided a project (a drawing preserved in the Opera del Duomo
in Siena is probably a reflection of this; the iconographic program of
the reliefs on the bases is also at least in part his) and managed to
start construction, but he died after only 3 years in 1337. Andrea
Pisano continued the work, also especially on the bell tower, but he
died with the arrival of the black plague in 1348 and the work was
blocked again.
He didn't wait long to resume work and already in
1349 the project passed to Francesco Talenti, to whom we owe the
completion of the bell tower and, from 1356, the resumption of work on
the basilica. A year earlier the Opera had asked the architect for a
model to see «how the back chapels should be erected», and it is to that
date that the enlargement of Arnolfo's project is attributed: without
modifying the width of the nave, already part sketched, the number of
spans was reduced, making them almost square in plan, in place of the
traditional rectangular spans of Gothic matrix, therefore now larger and
higher. Talenti completed the first three by 1364, before being resigned
from the works, due to criticisms, debates and threats with the Operai
(the managers of the Opera del Duomo), who proposed to fine him to force
him to be more present on the construction site .
In 1364 a
commission in which Neri di Fioravante, Benci di Cione Dami and Andrea
di Cione, Taddeo Gaddi and Andrea di Bonaiuto participated, among
others, approved the definitive project of the apse area, increasing the
diameter of the dome from 36 to 41 meters and foreseeing the drum with
big eyes, on the proposal of Giovanni di Lapo Ghini. The latter obtained
the role of construction manager after Talenti and the construction of
almost the entire structure of the naves is referred to him.
However, Talenti was recalled as master builder in 1370, by which time
even the shape and size of the apses had been decided. The naves were
completed with the covering of the central one in 1378 and of the side
ones in 1380. By 1421 the grandstands and the drum were completed; only
the dome remained to be built.
A
large cavity 43 meters wide and placed on a drum at a height of about 60
meters remained in the cathedral, for the covering of which no one,
until then, had yet posed the problem of finding a concrete solution,
although for the entire second half of the fourteenth century a
passionate debate had developed.
In 1418 a public competition was
held for the design of the dome, or even just machines capable of
lifting weights to heights never before reached by a vaulted building,
in which numerous competitors took part. The competition, generally
considered to be the start of work on the dome, had no official winner:
the substantial prize up for grabs was in fact not awarded. However, two
emerging artists who had already clashed in the competition for the
north door of the baptistery of 1401 came to light: Filippo Brunelleschi
and Lorenzo Ghiberti. Archive traces report how Brunelleschi prepared a
model and made a general test for the construction of the dome without
ribs in the church of San Jacopo Soprarno. It was therefore established
that the dome should begin to be built up to a height of thirty arms and
then decide how to continue, based on the behavior of the walls. The
height indicated was not accidental, but was the one at which the bricks
should have been laid at such an angle (with respect to the horizontal)
that they could not be held in place by the slow-setting mortars known
by masons of the time (the Roman technique of "pozzolana" was no longer
in use) with consequent risk of collapse.
Brunelleschi adopted a
highly innovative solution, arranging a double self-supporting shell
during construction, without resorting to the traditional rib. After
getting rid of his rival with a stratagem, Brunelleschi had the free
field to take care of the grandiose project, gradually solving all the
difficulties that this entailed: from the construction of cranes and
pulleys, to the preparation of reinforcements, from the organization of
the construction site to the external decoration , which was solved with
the creation of the suggestive 8 marble ribs.
The internal dome
appears enormously thick (two and a half meters at the base), while the
external one is thinner (less than one metre), with the sole function of
protecting the internal dome from the rain and making it appear,
according to the words of the architect, more magnificent and swelling
on the outside. The arrangement of the bricks in a herringbone pattern
served above all to create a handhold for the rows of bricks in order to
prevent them from slipping until the mortar set. Due to the complexity
of the undertaking and the extraordinary result obtained, the
construction of the dome is considered the first great achievement of
Renaissance architecture.
To create the lantern, a new competition was announced, won again by
Brunelleschi, with a project based on the octagonal shape that
reconnects with the columns and arches to the lines of the white ribs of
the dome. The construction of the lantern began in 1446, a few months
before the architect's death. After a long period of stalemate, during
which numerous modifications were also proposed, it was definitively
finished by Michelozzo in 1461. In 1468, a large golden sphere by
Verrocchio was placed on top of the cone-shaped roof. The cross was then
applied three years later.
The sphere fell in 1492 and again
during a storm on the night of 17 July 1600. A white marble disc on the
back of Piazza del Duomo still remembers the point where the sphere
stopped, which was replaced with the larger one which can still be
admired today (replaced in 1602).
The decoration with the
gallery, visible only on the south-east corner, was designed between
1502 and 1515 by Baccio d'Agnolo and Antonio da Sangallo the Elder.
Before making the other seven segments, Michelangelo was asked for an
opinion, who was in Florence at the time. However, the master
disapproved the project, declaring that it made the dome look like "a
cage for crickets", and in fact it was no longer continued, leaving
those walls still unfinished.
Dedication and other historical
events
The works ended in 1436 and the church was solemnly dedicated
by Pope Eugene IV on March 25, the Florentine New Year's Eve. From that
moment the church was used continuously for the most important
Florentine celebrations, as a place of assembly as well as worship. Here
the public readings of the Divine Comedy were held and here the Council
of Florence of 1438-1439 took place, brought to Florence by Cosimo the
Elder by all means, which sanctioned the reunification between the Latin
church, represented by Pope Eugene IV, and that Byzantine, represented
by the Emperor John VIII Palaeologus and the patriarch Joseph.
In
1441 Leon Battista Alberti, taking advantage of the presence in the city
of the papal court of Eugene IV and many scholars, held the Certame
Coronario in defense of vernacular literature. The most tragic moment in
the history of the Cathedral occurred with the Pazzi Conspiracy, when it
was the scene of the brutal assassination of Giuliano de' Medici and the
wounding of his older brother Lorenzo, the future "Magnifico". On April
26, 1478, assassins positioned themselves during mass to hit the
offspring of the Medici family, on behalf of the Pazzi family supported
by Pope Sixtus IV and his nephew Girolamo Riario, all interested in
blocking the Medici hegemony. However, Giovan Battista da Montesecco,
who was supposed to kill Lorenzo, refused to act in a consecrated place
and was replaced by a less experienced assassin. While Giuliano fell
under the numerous stab wounds, Lorenzo managed to escape into the
sacristy by barricading himself inside. The Florentine population, in
favor of the Medici, therefore raged against the assassins and their
sponsors. In very dramatic days, the angry mob lynched and summarily
hanged most of those responsible.
Furthermore, starting from
1491, Girolamo Savonarola, a friar of the convent of San Marco,
delivered his famous sermons in Santa Maria del Fiore, marked by
absolute moral rigor and inspired by great religious fervor, during
which he expressed all his disgust for the decadence of customs, for the
reborn paganism and for the brazen ostentation of wealth.
Santa Maria del Fiore is striking for its monumental size and for its
appearance as a unitary monument, especially on the outside, thanks to
the use of the same materials: white Carrara marble, green from Prato,
red from Maremma and terracotta tiles. On closer inspection, each of the
parts reveals considerable stylistic differences, due to the very long
time span of execution, from foundation to completion in the 19th
century.
Main dimensions of the cathedral
External length
approx. 166 m
Height of the vaults about 45 m
Internal height of
the dome 90 m
External height of the dome including the cross on the
lantern 116.5 m
Height of the lantern 21 m
External width of the
aisles about 43 m
Outer width of the dome drum 54.8m
Internal
major diagonal of the dome 45.50 m
External width of the transept
about 95 m
Surface area of the building (excluding the crypt of Santa
Reparata) 8,300 m²
Number of steps to climb the dome 463
The facade of the cathedral had remained unfinished, being present
only the partial decorative construction dating back to Arnolfo di
Cambio. Already in 1491 Lorenzo the Magnificent had promoted a
competition for the completion, but it was not implemented. In 1587,
under Francesco I de' Medici, the existing decorative part was destroyed
on the proposal of Bernardo Buontalenti, who put forward his own more
"modern" project, which was never built. In the following centuries, the
cathedral was equipped with ephemeral facades on the occasion of
important celebrations, and it was only in 1871 that, after an
international competition, lively discussions and bitter debates, the
construction of a real facade began, based on a project by Emilio De
Fabris which at his death was continued by Luigi del Moro until the
conclusion of the works in 1887.
The iconographic theme of the
decoration takes up both the Marian cycle of the ancient Arnolfo facade
and that of the bell tower with the theme of Christianity as the engine
of the world. In the niches of the buttresses are, from the left, the
statues of Cardinal Valeriani, of Bishop Agostino Tinacci, of Pope
Eugene IV who dedicated the church in 1436 and of Sant'Antonino
Pierozzi, bishop of Florence. In the tympanum of the central cusp the
Glory of Mary by Augusto Passaglia and in the gallery the Madonna with
Child and the Twelve Apostles. At the base of the crowning, beyond the
rose window, the panels with the busts of the great artists of the past
and in the center of the tympanum a tondo with the Eternal Father, also
by Passaglia.
The three large bronze doors by Augusto Passaglia
(the largest in the center and the left lateral one) and by Giuseppe
Cassioli (the one on the right) date back to the period from 1899 to
1903 and are decorated with scenes from the life of the Madonna.
Cassioli's work in particular was very painful: having suffered
harassment, misfortune and misery over the long years of work, in
leaving us his self-portrait in one of the heads of the right door, he
wanted to depict himself with a snake around his neck in the act of
suffocating him.
The mosaic lunettes above the doors were
designed by Nicolò Barabino and depict: Charity among the founders of
Florentine philanthropic institutions (left), Christ enthroned with Mary
and Saint John the Baptist (centre) and Florentine craftsmen, merchants
and humanists pay homage to the Virgin (right). In the pediment on the
central portal there is a bas-relief by Tito Sarrocchi with Mary
enthroned with a scepter of flowers; the crowning is gabled and consists
of a gallery with a pierced balustrade.
The walls are covered on the outside with a sumptuous decoration in
polychrome marbles from Campiglia, then Carrara (white marble), Prato
(green serpentine), Siena and Monsummano (red). The marble bands resumed
both the decoration of the Baptistery and that of the bell tower.
The southern side (to the right of the facade, bell tower side), was
the first to be raised, up to the first two spans. Here a plaque recalls
the foundation in 1296. The windows of the first bay, identical to the
corresponding ones on the northern side, are three, blinded, with ornate
pediments surmounted by aedicules with statues, some of which are casts
of the originals. Each corresponds to the three bays originally foreseen
in Arnolfo's project, rectangular in shape, which would have given rise
to a greater crowding of pillars and therefore a more Gothic appearance.
Under the second of these windows, in correspondence with a relief with
the Annunciation, is the date 1310, shortly before Arnolfo's death. The
second bay shows another window and a first portal called "Door of the
bell tower": in the lunette it has a Madonna and Child and in the
tympanum of the cusp a Blessing Christ, works from the circle of Andrea
Pisano. Above the newsstands the statues of the announcing angel and the
announced virgin are attributed to Niccolò di Luca Spinelli. In the next
two bays, between mighty buttresses, there is a single mullioned window,
which dates back to after 1357 and shows the more relaxed rhythms of
Florentine Gothic. Next is the Porta dei Canonici, close to the junction
of the grandstand, in flowery Gothic style with fine marble carvings by
Lorenzo di Giovanni d'Ambrogio and Piero di Giovanni Tedesco; the
lunette (Madonna with child, 1396) is attributed to Niccolò di Pietro
Lamberti or Lorenzo di Niccolò, while the angels are by Lamberti
(1401-1403).
The upper windows of the central nave are instead
circular eyes, a feature dictated by the desire to avoid raising the
nave too much and still ensure good lighting. The circular openings were
also less problematic from a structural point of view. Static needs made
it essential to use flying buttresses to unload part of the weight of
the vaults of the central nave onto the external walls. These
expedients, perhaps already foreseen by Arnolfo (they are found, clearly
visible, in the painting by Andrea da Bonaiuto), really shouldn't have
gone down well to the Florentines, who in the end decided to hide them
by raising the side walls with an attic with green stone rectangles just
squared in white: the solution combined the desire to imitate the attic
of the Baptistery with a dark coloring that made the expedient less
evident.
This attic is generally (erroneously) indicated as proof
of the fact that the external walls were begun according to an Arnolfo
project and then raised by Talenti. The definitive proof of the falsity
of this assumption was given by the discovery that the dense pilasters
that characterize the wall of the lateral naves starting from the west
were initially foreseen also for the main nave (they are still visible
in the attics) which we know was designed and partly erected from
Talents.
The northern flank has the same character as the southern one. In the
bays of Arnolfo opens the Porta di Balla or dei Cornacchini, from around
1350-1360, which takes its name from an ancient city gate in the early
medieval walls. Two column-bearing lions support twisted columns,
culminating in pinnacles on which there are two statuettes of angels. In
the lunette a Madonna and Child (1359-1360) which, restored in 2022,
revealed ample traces of surviving polychromy. A popular legend has it
that in the early fifteenth century, a certain Anselmo, who lived in via
del Cocomero (today via Ricasoli), right in front of the houses of the
Cornacchini family, dreamed of being torn to pieces by the lion which,
strangeness of the dream, was precisely that of the brings. However,
when, almost in defiance of the harmless decorative beast, he tried to
put his hand in her mouth, a scorpion nestled there stung his finger,
killing him within twenty-four hours.
In correspondence with via
dei Servi opens the famous Porta della Mandorla, so called due to the
element contained in the Gothic cusp with the high relief of the
Assumption, by Nanni di Banco (1414-1421). The last to be executed shows
a still Gothic setting, referable to the first construction phase
(1391-1397), shows reliefs by Giovanni d'Ambrogio, Jacopo di Piero
Guidi, Piero di Giovanni Tedesco and Niccolò di Pietro Lamberti
(archivolt), to whom Antonio and Nanni di Banco then joined in
1406-1408. Famous is the small figure of Hercules carved in the jamb,
attributed to Nanni di Banco and among the first documented classicist
revivals in Florence. On the pinnacles there were two Prophets by
Donatello and Nanni di Banco now in the Museo dell'Opera. The lunette
with the mosaic of the Annunciation is by David Ghirlandaio (1491).
The apse area of the cathedral is made up of the octagonal dome and
the three apses.
The three apses, or tribunes, are arranged along
the cardinal points, prismatic with semi-domes with suggestive
buttresses in the shape of flying buttresses set on the dividing walls
of the tribunes themselves. The elegant windows on the south and east
sides are attributed to Lorenzo Ghiberti. Further up, in correspondence
with the sacristies and the access stairs to the dome, are the "tribune
morte", with a semicircular plan, designed by Brunelleschi. Above them
runs a continuous gallery on corbels with a quatrefoil pierced parapet.
Gargoyles in the shape of zoomorphic heads protrude below it.
Michelangelo's David was originally sculpted for one of the buttresses
of the north gallery, but once completed it was placed in the Piazza dei
Priori so that it was more easily visible; other statues should have
decorated the entire apse area.
The cathedral is built on the model of the basilica, but is not
equipped with the traditional axial apses, but the naves are inserted at
the eastern end in a triconch rotunda, with a trefoil-like effect on the
plan. The body of the basilica has three naves, divided by large
composite pillars, from whose bases the architectural elements unravel
and culminate in the ogival vaults. The dimensions are enormous: 153
meters long and 38 meters wide. The north and south apses of the
triconch are 90 meters apart. The height of the impost of the vaults in
the nave is 23 metres, at the top of the extrados of the vaults it is
approximately 45 meters and the height difference from the floor to the
top of the internal dome is approximately 90 metres.
The rather
simple and austere interior gives a strong impression of airborne
emptiness. The immense Florentine spans (just three meters lower than
the vaults of Beauvais Cathedral, the highest in French Gothic) had to
cover an immense space with very few supports. The nave was, therefore,
designed as a room in which the voids prevailed over the notable
architectural structures. The rhythm of the supports was decidedly
different from the "stone forest" typical of Gothic beyond the Alps, or
of churches faithful to that model, such as the Milan Cathedral. There
is no precedent in size and structure that can be cited as antecedent to
this project.
An internal gallery on corbels runs along the
entire perimeter of the church, at the height of the cross vault. The
polychrome marble floor was designed by Baccio d'Agnolo and continued,
from 1526 to 1560, by his son Giuliano, by Francesco da Sangallo and
other masters (1520-1526). During the restoration work carried out
following the 1966 flood, it was discovered that some marble taken from
the unfinished facade, demolished in those years, had been used upside
down in the floor.
The complex of stained glass windows, due to
its antiquity, number, quality and size of the windows, is the richest
in Italy, with as many as 44 windows compared to 55 windows: apart from
the four lateral mullioned windows, datable to the end of the fourteenth
century, the rest of the stained glass windows was built for the most
part between 1434 and 1455 with the predominance of Lorenzo Ghiberti as
supplier of the drawings. The mullioned windows of the nave and transept
portray Saints and characters from the Old and New Testaments, while the
large circular eyes on the drum represent Marian scenes. The main
Renaissance artists of the time designed the cartoons for these windows,
including Donatello (the Coronation of the Virgin, the only one visible
from the nave), Lorenzo Ghiberti (Assumption of the Virgin on the
facade, San Lorenzo enthroned between four angels, Santo Stefano in
throne between four angels, Ascension, Prayer in the Garden,
Presentation in the Temple), Paolo Uccello (Nativity and Resurrection)
and Andrea del Castagno (Deposition). Above the central door, in the
lunette, a mosaic probably transferred here from a previous location,
depicts Christ crowning Mary attributed to the legendary painter Gaddo
Gaddi (late 13th - early 14th century). The west tambour window, visible
only from the altar and end of the transept, is the only one left
unstoried.
The internal decoration of the Cathedral, already
altered during the Counter-Reformation and in 1688, when the choir
stalls of Luca della Robbia and Donatello were dismantled, was greatly
lightened during the purist restoration of 1842, when most of the traces
of the past were removed, today mostly in the nearby Museo dell'Opera
del Duomo.
At the center of the counter-façade, the Italian clock has heads of
evangelists, frescoed in the corners by Paolo Uccello (1443). The clock,
of liturgical use, is one of the last functioning that uses the
so-called hora italica, a day divided into 24 "hours" of variable
duration according to the seasons, which begins with the sound of
vespers, in use until the eighteenth century. The portraits of the
evangelists are not identifiable with the traditional aid of symbolic
animals, but through the physiognomic traits that recall the symbolic
animal (or, in Matthew's case, the angel).
In the lunette of the
central portal is the mosaic of the Coronation of the Virgin, attributed
to Gaddo Gaddi. On the sides of the portal archaizing-style angels
perhaps painted by Santi di Tito at the end of the sixteenth century. To
the right of the central portal is the tomb of Bishop Antonio d'Orso
(1343) of Tino di Camaino. The adjacent pillar has a panel with a gold
background with Saint Catherine of Alexandria and a devotee referable to
the school of Bernardo Daddi (about 1340).
Some works of the cathedral reflect its public function, with
monuments dedicated to illustrious men and military commanders of
Florence. In the fifteenth century, in fact, the Florentine chancellor
Coluccio Salutati contemplated the project of transforming it into a
sort of Pantheon of illustrious Florentines, with celebratory works of
art. The following essentially date back to that decorative program:
Dante with the Divine Comedy by Domenico di Michelino on cartoon by
Alesso Baldovinetti (1465), also interesting for the city view showing
the dome with the still unfinished cladding and a view of the city gates
before the demolition of the avant-corps and the cutting of the first
and second plan following the advent of artillery.
Detached frescoes
of the leaders, on the left wall, depicting the monuments to two heroic
figures in triumphant mount. Both present an uncertain perspective, with
two different vanishing points for the pedestal and the equestrian
statue, and furthermore, the horses could not actually stand as they
have both legs raised to the same side. The tear was done in the 19th
century.
Equestrian monument of John Hawkwood (Giovanni Acuto) by
Paolo Uccello (1436), painted in duotone with green earth.
Equestrian
monument of Niccolò da Tolentino by Andrea del Castagno (1456), in
pendant with the previous one, designed in imitation of marble.
Later are instead the busts, made in the fifteenth and nineteenth
centuries.
Busts in the left aisle:
Bust of Emilio de Fabris, by
Vincenzo Consani (1887)
Bust of Antonio Squarcialupi (famous
cathedral organist), by Benedetto da Maiano with epigraph attributed to
Agnolo Poliziano (1490)
Bust of Arnolfo di Cambio, by Aristodemo
Costoli (1843)
Busts in the right aisle:
Bust of Giotto, by
Benedetto da Maiano with epigraph by Agnolo Poliziano (1490)
Bust of
Brunelleschi, by Buggiano (1446)
Bust of Marsilio Ficino (19th
century)
In the first bay on the right, within a large
sixteenth-century aedicule which masks the ancient opening towards the
bell tower, is the statue of the prophet Isaiah, by Nanni di Banco. It
was originally intended for a buttress of the northern stand. On the
first pillar on the right, the stoup of the Tuscan school dates back to
the 14th century: the angel and basin are now copies (the originals are
in the Opera del Duomo museum). The nearby cuspidate table with
Sant'Antonino is by Poppi with a nineteenth-century predella by Antonio
Marini. On the left instead is the statue of Giosuè (1415) already on
the facade, started by Donatello (for the head, which presumably
portrays Poggio Bracciolini), carried on by Nanni di Bartolo and
completed by Bernardo Ciuffagni. On the nearby pillar St Zenobius
trampling on Pride and Cruelty with predella, by Giovanni del Biondo.
On the right, in the second span, is the entrance to the excavations
of Santa Reparata and a panel of San Bartolomeo enthroned by Jacopo di
Rossello Franchi, within a sixteenth-century frame.
The windows
of the third bay on the right and on the left are part of the ancient
group and were designed by Agnolo Gaddi in 1394. In the aedicule the
statue of Isaiah is by Bernardo Ciuffagni (1427), originally sculpted
for the bell tower. On the sides there are detached frescoes with the
sepulchral monuments painted by Fra' Luigi Marsili (1439) and by Bishop
Pietro Corsini (1422): they were painted by Bicci di Lorenzo. In the
left aisle the statue of King David by Bernardo Ciuffagni, formerly on
the ancient façade (1434).
The fourth bay also has a stained
glass window with Saints by Agnolo Gaddi[14]. On the right side is the
cuspidate table with Saints Cosma and Damiano by Bicci di Lorenzo.
The space with very large volumes below the dome is set within an
octagon which then radiates into the three grandstands, at the
intersection of which are the two sacristies. The neo-Gothic arches that
open above the doors of the sacristies were added by Gaetano Baccani in
1842, to contain the organs and the new, simple choir stalls. In the
pillars that support the dome there are a series of niches, in which
there is a series of sixteenth-century statues of the Apostles. This
series was supposed to be sculpted by Michelangelo but, after having
triumphed with the feat of David, the artist only had time to rough out
a Saint Matthew (today in the Galleria dell'Accademia) before being
called to Rome by Julius II. After waiting in vain for the commission to
resume, the Operai del Duomo finally entrusted the cycle to other
artists. From the right in an anti-clockwise direction, one encounters
San Matteo by Vincenzo de' Rossi, San Filippo and San Giacomo Minore by
Giovanni Bandini, San Giovanni by Benedetto da Rovezzano, San Pietro by
Baccio Bandinelli, Sant'Andrea by Andrea Ferrucci, San Tommaso del de'
Rossi, and San Giacomo Maggiore by Jacopo Sansovino.
The choir
was built to a design by Baccio Bandinelli and Giuliano di Baccio
d'Agnolo between 1547 and 1572 in place of one built in 1520 by Nanni
Unghero and Domenico di Francesco Baccelli, which in turn replaced an
older one by Filippo Brunelleschi and dates back to 1437-1439, and over
the centuries the choir has been the subject of various modifications
and alterations that have led to its current conformation, the last of
which dates back to the mid-19th century, when based on a project by
Baccani the articulated architecture of the enclosure, in Carrara marble
and Medici breccia, was demolished, of which only the pedestal remains,
decorated with bas-reliefs depicting Apostles, Prophets and Saints
mainly by Giovanni Bandini (1563-1564). Inside the choir are the
sixteenth-century wooden stalls formerly reserved for the canons, and
the presbytery; the latter is raised a few steps above the floor of the
nave and houses the main altar in the center (placed in 1973 following
the liturgical adaptation), with a table resting on four pairs of marble
amphorae; behind it, the 15th-century wooden chair and the 16th-century
reredos, surmounted by a polychrome wooden crucifix by Benedetto da
Maiano (around 1495). The modern ambo (2015) is the work of Etsurō
Sotoo, while the candelabrum of the Paschal candle, with a marble base
and wooden shaft, dates back to 1477.
Each of the grandstands has five side chapels arranged in a radial
pattern, illuminated by tall mullioned windows with fifteenth-century
stained glass windows mostly attributable to Ghiberti's design. Under
the windows many chapels have figures of saints attributed to Bicci di
Lorenzo (1440), except in the chapels of the central tribune which are
instead a modern work by Arturo Viligiardi. The painted tabernacles can
be referred to the manner of Paolo Schiavo.
The central
grandstand, also called San Zanobi, has the chapel in the center where
the relics of the Florentine saint and bishop are kept. Its bronze ark
is by Lorenzo Ghiberti (completed 1442). The central compartment depicts
the miracle of the resurrection of a child, which took place in the city
in Borgo Albizi where a plaque on the so-called Palazzo dei Visacci
still commemorates the episode; the epigraph on the back (not visible)
was dictated by the humanist Leonardo Bruni. The painting above is a
Last Supper by Giovanni Balducci, while the glass paste mosaic of the
Bust of San Zenobi, once here, is in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. To
this singular work, fruit of the ephemeral revival of the mosaic
sponsored by Lorenzo the Magnificent, when it was imagined to cover the
inside of the dome with it, the mosaic decorations and glass paste
globes encrusting the ribs of the vault of the chapel of Monte di
Giovanni di Miniato and date back to around 1490. The candle holder
angels in glazed polychrome terracotta are by Luca della Robbia (1448).
Below the chapel of San Zanobi there is a crypt, with a quadrangular
plan, which houses the burials of some archbishops of Florence
(including Silvano Piovanelli and Ermenegildo Florit), the sarcophagi of
San Podio and of Saints Andrea and Maurizio, the relics of Saints Eugene
and Crescentius, and the ancient urn which housed the mortal remains of
Saint Zenobius.
In the right tribune, called della Santissima
Concezione, the central chapel stands out, with an altar by Michelozzo.
The left tribune, called Santa Croce, contains in the floor the
solar gnomon by Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli from around 1450, updated
with a bronze line graduated by Leonardo Ximenes in 1755: here every 21
June the observation of the solstice takes place. summer. In the second
chapel on the right, dedicated to the Madonna della Neve, the two-faced
Polyptych of Santa Reparata by Giotto and his assistants; in the third a
marble altar by Buggiano with a bronze grille by Michelozzo; Cardinal
Elia dalla Costa is buried under the altar of the fourth chapel and in
the fifth chapel there is a Saint Joseph on a panel by Lorenzo di Credi.
The door of the sacristy on the right, known as dei Canonici or
Vecchia, has a lunette with the Ascension by Luca della Robbia (about
1450) and inside a washbasin by Buggiano and Pagno di Lapo (1445); on
the walls some panels including the Redeemer (1404) and the Saints and
Doctors of the Church, both by Mariotto di Nardo, three Evangelists by
Lorenzo di Bicci, the Archangel Raphael and Tobiolo by Francesco
Botticini, the Archangel Michael by Lorenzo di Credi ( 1523).
Inside the sacristy of the Messe, or dei Servi, wooden inlays with a
strong perspective and illusionistic value were designed, on the front
side, by Alesso Baldovinetti, Maso Finiguerra and Antonio del Pollaiolo
and implemented by Giuliano and Benedetto da Maiano. They are among the
first manifestations of this technique in Italy, linked to studies on
perspective. The decoration is imported on two registers crowned by a
frieze of cherubs and sculpted festoons in the round. In the central
panel we see Saint Zenobius and his disciples Eugene and Crescentius,
among characters and facts from the Old Testament. The marble washbasin,
with two putti seated on a wineskin, is by Buggiano and is a twin to the
one in the sacristy of the Canons. The other, with the head of an angel,
is by Mino da Fiesole. It is in this sacristy that Lorenzo the
Magnificent escaped from the Pazzi conspiracy on 26 April 1478. The
twelve bronze panels of the door knockers of this sacristy, in
compartments with the Madonna and Child, Saint John, the Evangelists and
Doctors of the Church among angels , were made by Luca della Robbia
(with the collaboration of Michelozzo and Maso di Bartolomeo), also
author of the polychrome terracotta lunette with the Resurrection
(1444).
Initially the dome should have been decorated with golden mosaics, to
reflect the light coming from the windows of the drum as much as
possible, as suggested by Brunelleschi. His death put this costly
project on hold and the interior was simply plastered white.
The
Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici chose the theme of the Last Judgment to
fresco the enormous dome, and entrusted the task to Giorgio Vasari,
assisted by Don Vincenzo Borghini for the choice of the iconographic
theme. The contents to follow were those that emerged from the Council
of Trent, which had revised medieval Catholic doctrine by ordering it in
a clear arrangement. The dome is thus divided into six registers and 8
segments. Each segment includes, from top to bottom, starting from the
fake central lantern surrounded by the 24 elders of the Apocalypse
(three in each segment), four scenes:
an angelic choir with
instruments from the Passion (second register);
a category of saints
and elect (third register);
a triad of personifications, depicting a
gift of the Holy Spirit, the seven virtues, and the seven beatitudes;
a region of Hell dominated by a cardinal sin.
On the east
segment, the one facing the central nave, the four registers become
three to make room for the great Christ in Glory between the Madonna and
Saint John who rests on the three Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope and
Charity) followed below by allegorical figures of the Time (character
with the hourglass, and two children representing nature and the
seasons) and the Triumphant Church.
However, on 27 June 1574
Vasari died, after having completed only a third of the work and only
had time to draw the circle of the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse
closest to the lantern. The works, which lasted from 1572 to 1579, were
then undertaken by Federico Zuccari and collaborators, such as Domenico
Cresti. The majestic figure of Christ, visible from inside the church,
is counterpointed by the infernal scene with Satan on the opposite
surface; other portions represent Choir of angels, Christ, Mary and the
saints, the Virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Beatitudes; in
the lower part, Hell and the seven deadly sins. Zuccari abandoned
Vasari's "a fresco" painting to work with the "a secco" method (simpler
but more easily perishable) and changed the physical types of the
characters, the costumes, the stylistic language and the pictorial
range. In the Eletti he depicted a lively gallery of contemporary
characters: the Medici patrons, the Emperor, the King of France, Vasari,
Borghini, Giambologna and other artists, and even himself and many of
his relatives and friends; he also puts his signature with the date.
These frescoes, if seen up close during the ascent to the dome, show
the perspective and color deformations used to optimize the view from
below. The technique used is mixed: fresco for Vasari, dry techniques
for Zuccari, who executed his masterpiece here.
Inside the dome
there are two rounds of galleries, in addition to the one that runs
through the stands, coming from the nave.
In the cathedral, there is the Mascioni organ opus 805. It was built
starting from 1961 and expanded several times until it reached its
current characteristics.
The organ has electronic transmission
and has 7551 pipes for a total of 128 registers. The instrument is made
up of several bodies, distributed as follows within the church:
the
open movable positive (first manual) is generally placed on the left
side of the octagon;
the open choral positive (first manual) is
located inside the enclosure of the presbytery, on the right, and has no
display;
the Grand'Organo (second manual) is located on the left
choir;
the Espressivo (third manual) is located on the choir loft on
the right;
the organ of the chapel (fourth manual) consists of the
organ of the chapel of San Jacopo MAggiore, in the left gallery, which
is made up of two sections, one open and one expressive;
the Echo
(fifth manual) consists of the organ of the chapel of San Matteo, in the
right-hand gallery, which is made up of two sections, one open and one
expressive;
the Pedal is distributed among the various bodies.
The organ has four consoles, all independent and movable: one with
five manuals, located outside the choir, and one with four manuals,
located near the open choral positive body, which control all the
bodies; one for three in the chapel of San Jacopo Maggiore; one by two
in the chapel of Saints Simon and Judas.
In the cathedral there
is also a positive chest organ built by Nicola positive Puccini in 2012
(opera 031), with 5 registers.
Masters Daniele Dori and David
Jackson are currently titular organists of the cathedral.
Difficult excavation work was carried out under the cathedral between 1965 and 1974. The underground area of the cathedral was used for the burial of Florentine bishops for centuries. The archaeological history of this area has recently been reconstructed, from the remains of Roman houses, to an early Christian pavement, up to the ruins of the old cathedral of Santa Reparata. The excavations are accessed by a staircase in the left aisle where, near the entrance, is the tomb of Filippo Brunelleschi, proof of the great esteem of the Florentines for the great architect of the dome.
Brunelleschi's dome also houses an astronomical instrument for
studying the sun, represented by the large gnomon created by Paolo
Toscanelli and restored by Leonardo Ximenes. More than a real gnomon,
understood as a rod that projects a shadow on an illuminated area, it is
a gnomonic hole present on the lantern at a height of 90 meters, which
projects the sun onto a shaded surface, in this case the floor of the
cathedral.
An instrument of this kind also existed in the
Baptistery of San Giovanni already around the year 1000 (the hole was
then closed), but in 1475 the astronomer Toscanelli took advantage of
the completion of the dome to install a bronze plate with a circular
hole of about 4 centimeters in diameter, which gave an optimal image of
the star. In fact, by studying the relationship between the height and
diameter of the hole, a real pinhole solar image was obtained, capable
of showing sunspots or the progress of eclipses in progress, or the rare
passage of Venus between the sun and the earth. The most important use
of the gnomon at the time of its creation was to establish the exact
solstice, i.e. the maximum height of the sun in the sky at noon during
the year and, therefore, the duration of the year itself, observations
which together lead to other analogous surveys, such as that of 1510
remembered by a marble disk in the floor of the Della Croce chapel in
the right apse of the cathedral, to convince Pope Gregory XIII about the
need to reform the calendar, aligning the solar date with the official
one and creating the Gregorian calendar (1582).
In the following
centuries, the instrument was also able to be used for more ambitious
investigations, such as the one promoted by the astronomer of the grand
ducal court Leonardo Ximenes in 1754, who set out to study whether the
inclination of the earth's axis varied over time, a matter much debated
by astronomers of the time. His observations, compared with those of
1510, were encouraging and, repeated for several years, allowed him to
calculate a value of the earth's oscillation congruent with today's. It
was he who traced the bronze meridian line on the floor of the same
chapel where Toscanelli's disk is located. A few decades later, however,
the gnomon of Santa Maria del Fiore became obsolete both due to the
discovery of new instruments that allowed more precise observations,
with a footprint reduced to a few meters, and because it was realized
that the measurements were influenced by the small movements of the dome
due to the outside temperature.
The re-enactment of these
observations has a purely historical and spectacular nature, and takes
place every year on 21 June at 12.00 solar time (1.00 pm from when
summer time comes into effect).
Over time, many companies or brotherhoods met in the large church and its annexes (especially in the basement). Among the most important was the Compagnia di San Zanobi.
The current locations are in brackets
Arnolfo di Cambio
Statue
of Boniface VIII, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo in Florence)
Madonna
with glass eyes, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo in Florence)
Madonna
of the Nativity, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo in Florence)
Dormitio
Virginis, (Bode-Museum of Berlin)
Donatello
Marble David,
(Bargello)
Bearded prophet, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo in
Florence)
Thoughtful Prophet, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo in
Florence)
Prophet, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo in Florence)
Sacrifice of Isaac, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo in Florence)
Cantoria, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo in Florence)
Candle holder
putti, (Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris)
Jeremiah, (Museum of the
Opera del Duomo in Florence)
St. John the Evangelist, (Museum of the
Opera del Duomo in Florence)
Zuccone, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo
in Florence)
Nanni di Banco
Prophet, (Museum of the Opera del
Duomo in Florence)
San Luca, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo in
Florence)
Luca della Robbia, Cantoria, (Museum of the Opera del Duomo
in Florence)
Baccio Bandinelli, Adam and Eve, (Bargello Museum)
Michelangelo, Pietà from the Opera del Duomo, (Museum of the Opera del
Duomo in Florence)