Piazza Santa Trinita in Florence is dominated by the church of Santa Trinita, from which it takes its name. Until 1911 it was indicated as part of Via Tornabuoni, which crosses it, and it was only on that occasion that, thanks to the request of the Marquis Filippo Corsini, the square assumed its current name.
Once an isolated area outside the second circle of walls, after the
foundation of the church and convent of the Vallombrosans (11th century)
it was later included in the circle of 1172-75. With the construction of
the bridge in 1252 it became an important crossroads for the expanding
city.
The church of Santa Trinita
is one of the most important basilicas in the city, having belonged to
the Vallombrosan order for 8 centuries. Inside, in a structure with a
predominantly Gothic layout and appearance, thanks also to the
twentieth-century restorations, there are some absolute masterpieces
such as the Sassetti Chapel, frescoed by Domenico Ghirlandaio and the
Bartolini Salimbeni Chapel, frescoed by Lorenzo Monaco.
From the
end of the fourteenth century, around noble palaces began to rise on
this square, with the particularity of having today, side by side, as in
the illustrations of an architectural history manual, three important
palaces with the typical characteristics of the patrician residential
style of three contiguous centuries:
The austere fourteenth-century
Palazzo Spini Feroni, now home to the
Ferragamo maison and the museum of the same name;
The
sixteenth-century Palazzo Buondelmonti,
a typical Florentine Renaissance palace;
The sixteenth-century
Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, a
masterpiece by Baccio d'Agnolo in the Mannerist style.
Palazzo Minerbetti
At
the center of the square stands the Column of
Justice, a mighty column in oriental granite (porphyry) from the
Baths of Caracalla, the last remaining intact among the ruins of that
bath complex, donated by Pope Pius IV (de' Medici, but of a Lombard
branch of the family) in 1565 to Cosimo I, the first Grand Duke of the
city. In fact, it was precisely at that point that he had learned the
news of the victory at Marciano over the rebel Pietro Strozzi. In 1581
the statue of Justice was added to the top, by Francesco del Tadda,
hence the current name. The statue's bronze cloak was originally not
intended. It was applied by the artist only when the statue was
finished, to mask a defect in the proportions of the shoulders, which
are very small compared to the body.
In the same years
Bartolommeo Ammannati was commissioned to rebuild the bridge to
celebrate the victory over Siena.
In fact it would be in Via
Tornabuoni, however the Gianfigliazzi Tower stands adjacent to the
church. Nearby there is also Palazzo Corsini, on the homonymous Lungarno
Corsini.
Ball games were usually held in the square and in the stretch of Via Tornabuoni up to Palazzo Strozzi. This was something of an ancestor of racketless tennis or volleyball, and has been documented since the time of the Medicis who attended it regularly. The rules provided that a leather ball that had to be hit with a clenched fist on the fly, initially with bare hands, then with the arm inserted into a hollow wooden cylinder (the so-called game of ball with bracelet), which protected the hand and the limb, but made the blows harder and more dangerous. In fact, it was not uncommon for the ball to hit the public, sometimes injuring someone, or end up in some shop near the playing field. To limit these accidents during the eighteenth century the playing field was moved outside the walls, near Porta Pinti, then in the following century in the Parco delle Cascine, where a special spheristerium was built. Today the game is sometimes performed, even if the heavy wooden bracelet is no longer used, replaced by a tambourine.
Throughout the Florentine area, toponyms containing the word trinity
are pronounced sdruccioli, therefore the church is called Santa Trìnita
and not Santa Trinità .
In Piazza Santa Trinita on 1 May 1300, the day
of Calendimaggio, the fight broke out between Cerchi and Donati, also
mentioned by Dante, which marked the beginning of civil strife in
Florence, between black and white Guelphs.