The basilica of Santa Trìnita is one of the most important basilicas in the historical and artistic evolution of the city of Florence; according to Florentine usage, which reflects the Latin pronunciation in the nominative, it has the characteristic slippery pronunciation (Trìnita). It overlooks the homonymous Piazza Santa Trinita and also gives its name to the nearby Santa Trinita bridge. It has the dignity of a minor basilica.
Santa Maria dello Spasimo
On the site of the church there was an
ancient church dedicated to Santa Maria dello Spasimo, of the
Vallombrosans, already documented in 1077. It was located outside the
Matilda walls, it was later included in 1172-75. It was a very sober
Romanesque building, reflecting the austerity of the order. Some traces
of that primitive construction remain on the counter-façade, the
underground crypt (green marble columns, which in ancient times stood on
white marble bases) and some inscriptions and tombstones. Traces of the
ancient floor of the presbytery are also known, which was decorated with
a mosaic of black and white tiles, with drawings of fantastic animals.
The gothic church
Between 1250 and 1258 expansion works were
started in the Gothic style on a project that some attribute to Nicola
Pisano or, more probably, to Neri di Fioravanti. It was one of the first
Gothic churches in Florence, preceded only by the basilica of Santa
Maria Novella, whose works began in 1242. The works continued diligently
between 1300 and 1330, with an abrupt interruption due to the plague of
1348. They were resumed from about 1365 to 1405.
Gradually the
church was enlarged and embellished. In the first half of the fourteenth
century it obtained the title of abbey. The prestige of the
Vallombrosans was also reflected in the large quantity of works of art
that converged, such as the monumental Maestà by Cimabue, now in the
Uffizi. In that period the side chapels were added, and the whole church
was covered with frescoes, largely destroyed in the subsequent
alterations.
The late sixteenth century
At the end of the
sixteenth century, as part of the renovations following the
Counter-Reformation that the Medici grand dukes had promoted in the
Florentine churches, the Vallombrosans asked Bernardo Buontalenti to
renovate the presbytery of the church of Santa Trinita and to rebuild
the convent. The complex thus assumed a sober and at the same time
imposing style. Buontalenti, dismantling the monks' choir, thus created
the artificial monumental altar and with the original staircase (1574),
preserved today in the church of Santo Stefano al Ponte.
The
façade, also by Buontalenti (1593-1594), with sculptures by Giovanni
Caccini dates back to that same period.
In the same years the
chapel of the Relics of San Giovanni Gualberto was erected in the left
transept, designed by Caccini with frescoes by Domenico Cresti known as
il Passignano. Further renovations in the chapels were carried out by
Gherardo Silvani, Ludovico Cigoli and others.
In 1584 Alfonso
Parigi the Elder built the cloister of the convent based on designs by
Bernardo Buontalenti. Almost all the side chapels were remodeled in the
seventeenth century, with new decorations that almost disappeared after
the nineteenth-century restorations.
The nineteenth-century
restorations
During the French occupation, Vivant Denon identified
the Virgin and Child with two saints painted by Mariotto Albertinelli,
formerly housed in the church of SS.ma Trinita, among the works object
of Napoleonic looting to be sent to France where it is still found
today. On the occasion of the 19th-century restorations, the Gothic
aspect was restored, even at the cost of invasive and disfiguring
interventions, such as the removal of the Buontalenti altar. On that
occasion, some works taken from the now deconsecrated church of San
Pancrazio were also placed in Santa Trinita: among these, the large
detached fresco with San Giovanni Gualberto enthroned, Vallombrosan
saints and blesseds, by Neri di Bicci (1455), and the Tomb of Benozzo
Federighi by Luca della Robbia, now in the left transept, which however
lost its original base during its movements.
The 20th century
The church was damaged by the 1966 flood, after which a cycle of
restorations began which removed the 19th-century fakes and affected all
the frescoes in the chapels.
The facade of Santa Trinita by Buontalenti is a typical work of
Florentine late Mannerism, characterized by a symmetrical geometric
design with traditional elements but arranged in original variations.
The double order of pilasters punctuate the prospectus dividing it into
three zones. The body of the central nave is masked by a pediment with a
pediment and a round window. The stone frames of the doors and of the
central high relief of the Trinity recall the movements of fabrics and
scrolls. The court architect of Cosimo I did not concern himself with
the real shape of the church, rather taking an interest in creating a
harmonious prospectus in the square: this can be deduced from the
vertical cut of the facade which does not cover the two lateral bands,
covered by a simple pointed ashlar diamond on the left and plaster on
the right, or from the circular window that does not coincide with the
opening that gives light inside. The statue of Sant'Alessio, as well as
the relief of the Trinity, are the work of Giovanni Battista Caccini
(1594), while the wooden doors date back to 1640.
The interior
has a T shape (croce commissa), as typical of the churches of the
monastic orders of the time, with a square apse illuminated by a long
mullioned window.
It expands over three naves divided by thin
rectangular pillars on pointed arches and cross vaults. The pillars of
the central nave diverge slightly as they approach the transept,
creating an optical effect of approach, probably not accidental but
intentional, given that the heights of the arches also undergo a similar
increase.
The chapels are arranged along the naves and on the
head side of the transept: five on each side and four on either side of
the main chapel, to which must be added the small chapel of San Giovanni
Gualberto at the head of the right transept, and the sacristy in the
left transept, formerly the Strozzi Chapel.
The Romanesque counter-façade houses various adjoining fragments,
including a fresco of the Trinity from the early 15th century, the
tombstone of the abbots of San Pancrazio (14th century), from the
deconsecrated church, and, on the left, the tombstone of Giovanni di
Antonio Amati , attributed to Antonio del Pollaiolo. A Crucifix in the
sky is all that remains of a scene with the Stigmata of St. Francis by
Paolo Uccello.
The two marble stoups placed in correspondence
with the first two pillars were designed by Battista Lorenzi between
1581 and 1583.
Chapels of the right aisle
In the right aisle,
the first chapel you meet, enclosed by a grate, is the Gianfigliazzi
Chapel, named after the family that owned numerous properties between
via Tornabuoni and Lungarno Corsini. The current appearance of the
chapel dates back to the intervention of Gherardo Silvani around 1630,
but a frescoed sky remains in the vaults attributed to Cenni di
Francesco (1400-1415), of which also remain the figures of St. Benedict
penitent in the arch, the eight busts of Apostles under the arch and, in
a niche on the right, the Communion of Santa Maria Egiziaca, whose
detached sinopia is displayed on the opposite wall. On the altar is the
fourteenth-century wooden Crucifix of Providence, still the object of
popular devotion today.
This is followed by the Davizzi Chapel,
by Matteo Nigetti, restructured around 1640-1642. The decoration is
soberly Baroque and on the altar is the altarpiece of the Preaching of
St. John the Baptist, a late work by Francesco Curradi signed and dated
1649.
The Cialli-Sernigi Chapel houses on the altar the panel
with a gold background with a predella of the Madonna enthroned with
Child and four saints by Neri di Bicci (around 1466). On the right wall
is the fragmentary fresco of the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of
Alexandria among saints by Spinello Aretino (1390-1395), marked by the
hammering that preceded the whitewashing (covering with white plaster).
On the opposite wall is the sinopia. The fresco comes from the adjoining
chapel and was discovered under the frescoes by Lorenzo Monaco.
Next to it is the Bartolini Salimbeni Chapel, closed by the original
gate of around 1420, perhaps the work of Manfredi di Franco da Pistoia.
The chapel is famous for the valuable cycle of frescoes by Lorenzo
Monaco with the Stories of the Virgin, executed between 1420 and 1425,
covering the precedents of Spinello Aretino. It is the only chapel that
was spared from sixteenth-seventeenth-century alterations and was
restored with works completed in 2004. The altar preserves an altarpiece
by the same author which depicts the Annunciation.
The fifth and
final chapel is open to both the nave and the transept, like the
corresponding chapel on the other side. Known as the Ardinghelli Chapel,
it has fresco decorations on the outside above the arch on the nave and
in a lunette inside (Imago pietatis) by Giovanni Toscani (1423-1424).
The altar has a complex classical decoration and was built in 1552 using
decorated marbles from 1505-1513 by Benedetto da Rovezzano. The
altarpiece that is housed in the center is a Resurrection of Christ and
saints by Maso da San Friano (1582).
The first chapel on the left, known as the Strozzi Chapel, was
restructured by Giovan Battista Caccini in 1603, who also sculpted the
statues of Meekness and Peace on the sides of the altar (1603-1609). The
central altarpiece is an Annunciation by Jacopo Chimenti, while the
vault with Paradise is the work of Bernardino Poccetti. On the walls are
the canvases of the Death of Saint Alexis by Cosimo Gamberucci (about
1605, left) and the Martyrdom of Saint Lucia by Pompeo Caccini (1609,
right).
This is followed by the Bombeni Chapel, built by Matteo
Nigetti in 1629-1635. At the altar is the Mystical Marriage of Saint
Catherine of Siena and saints by Antonio del Ceraiolo (1515-1520) and to
the sides the paintings of Saint Jerome penitent by Ridolfo del
Ghirlandaio (about 1525) and the Annunciation by Michele Tosini (1525
around), the latter two coming from San Girolamo alla Costa.
The
third chapel belonged to the Davanzatis and retains fragmentary traces
of the frescoes painted between 1340 and 1350 with Stories of Saint
Catherine by a follower of Maso di Banco. Two monochrome angels can be
referred to the workshop of Giovanni da Ponte (after 1444). The altar is
decorated with the panel of the Coronation of the Virgin and twelve
saints by Bicci di Lorenzo, commissioned after 1430. Finally, on the
left wall is the tomb of Giuliano Davanzati, who died in 1444, made up
of a Roman sarcophagus of the Good Shepherd of 3rd century AD and from
the lid with the recumbent figure of the deceased attributed to Bernardo
Rossellino.
The Compagni Chapel follows, dominated by the large
fresco detached on the central wall depicting a large lunette with San
Giovanni Gualberto enthroned among saints and blessed Vallombrosans by
Neri di Bicci (1455), from the cloister of San Pancrazio. By the same
author is the panel of the Annunciation with the expulsion of the
ancestors on the right wall (after 1475), which contains a perspective
error due to the architecture being too small for the figures they
contain. By his grandfather Lorenzo di Bicci is instead the fresco on
the external arch with San Giovanni Gualberto pardoning his brother's
killer, from around 1430-1435. A small plaque on the left wall reminds
us that the chronicler Dino Compagni was buried here in 1323. In fact,
in ancient times the Compagni had their own houses nearby, on the
Lungarno Corsini.
The fifth chapel, the Spini Chapel, is open on
two sides like its counterpart in the right aisle. The wooden Magdalene
by Desiderio da Settignano (about 1450) was moved here in the late 19th
century from an altarpiece by the Cerbini family, placed on the
counter-façade between the main door and the left , finished in 1499 by
Giovanni d'Andrea, a pupil of Verrocchio, which perhaps reflects a
memory of the lost Maddalena by Brunelleschi. In the chapel there is
also a fresco of a bishop saint attributed to Alesso Baldovinetti (about
1470).
The right transept has access to via del Parione at the top (with an
external fifteenth-century portal), preceded by a vestibule where there
are six niche tombs with pointed arches, on one of which there is a
relief of Christ in pieta from the second half from the fourteenth
century, from the school of Andrea Pisano.
The Strozzi Chapel,
named after the powerful Florentine family, was designed by Lorenzo
Ghiberti (1418-1423) and corresponds to the current sacristy. It is
accessed both from a passage behind the Maggiore chapel and from a
fifteenth-century portal on the nave. Composed of three bays arranged in
an "L" shape, the high altar is decorated with the marble Pietà by
Vittorio Barbieri, signed and dated 1743 and freely inspired by
Michelangelo's Vatican Pietà. On the wall is the canvas of the
Exaltation of Santa Monica by Alessandro Gherardini (1697, while on the
left, under an open arch in the wall that divides the two rooms of the
sacristy, the tomb of Onofrio Strozzi, father of Palla Strozzi, which is
attributed to Pietro Lamberti or to Michelozzo (about 1418-1425), with
floral decorations in the soffit attributed to Gentile da Fabriano Other
works in the sacristy are by Luca della Robbia, Francesco di Simone
Ferrucci, Puccio Capanna, Niccolò di Tommaso and Pietro Torrigiani. he
found the splendid altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da
Fabriano, now in the Uffizi, dated 1423, as well as the Deposition by
Angelico begun by Lorenzo Monaco, now in the San Marco Museum.
Returning to the church you arrive at the Sassetti Chapel, which
preserves Domenico Ghirlandaio's masterpiece, the frescoes with Stories
of St. Francis painted on commission by Francesco Sassetti between about
1483 and 1486. The cycle is exemplary of the taste of the last decades
of the fifteenth century, when the rich Florentine bourgeoisie loved to
be portrayed in sacred scenes. The representation of fifteenth-century
Florentine society is therefore interesting, as well as the unpublished
large scenographic openings of the frescoes, and the interest in the
Flemish-inspired portrait. There are numerous portraits of people from
the time: Francesco Sassetti and his wife are depicted as donors to the
chapel in the scene of the miracle set in Piazza Santa Trinita (among
other things, the painting is a very precious testimony of how this area
looked at the time), while in the panel of San Francesco receiving the
Franciscan order from Pope Honorius III (scene set in Piazza della
Signoria) appears Sassetti who was then managing the Banco Medici,
together with his son Teodoro, Lorenzo the Magnificent and Luigi Pulci.
Also present are the sons of the Magnificent who climb the stairs led by
the humanist Agnolo Poliziano. The altarpiece is also by Ghirlandaio and
depicts the Adoration of the Shepherds (about 1485), with faithful
quotations from the Portinari Triptych by Hugo van der Goes. The first
shepherd is believed to have been painted as a self-portrait of the
author. The tombs of Francesco Sassetti and his wife Nera Corsi are the
work of Giuliano da Sangallo, framed by monochrome frescoes. In the
vault of the chapel there are four Sibyls, while outside, high above the
arch, there is the Sibilla Tiburtina announcing the birth of the
Redeemer to Augustus and a Statue of David painted on top of the pillar,
also works by Ghirlandaio, although in less good condition due to the
whitewashing they underwent in ancient times.
On the pillar that
separates the Sassetti Chapel from the following Doni Chapel is a fresco
of the Annunciation by a Florentine painter of the fifteenth century.
The Doni Chapel was restructured by Ludovico Cigoli between 1559 and
1613 and is closed by a grate. Outside, above the arch, there is a
fresco of Christ in Glory attributed to Giovanni da Ponte (1429-1430).
Inside it houses on the altar a wooden Crucifix perhaps from the
mid-14th century that belonged to the Compagnia di San Benedetto Bianco,
heavily repainted over the centuries. On the right, on the wall, is the
Madonna dello Spasimo, a panel from the last decade of the fifteenth
century by Bernardo di Stefano Rosselli.
The Cappella Maggiore was formerly decorated with a cycle of frescoes
by Alesso Baldovinetti between 1471 and 1497 with Stories from the Old
Testament, which was almost entirely destroyed during the choir
modernization works of 1760-1761. Four Patriarchs remain in the segments
of the vault, very damaged, and two scenes in the lunettes with the
Sacrifice of Isaac and Moses receiving the tables of the law, painted
dry.
The altar is the result of the union of several pieces of
various origins, including the frontal with the Trinity attributed to
Agostino di Duccio and the small pillars from the workshop of Desiderio
da Settignano. The triptych of the Trinity by Mariotto di Nardo (1416)
was commissioned by Niccolò Davanzati and comes from the deposits of the
Galleria dell'Accademia.
The first chapel to the left of the altar, the Usimbardi Chapel, was
rebuilt by Ludovico Cigoli probably before 1628. The vault is decorated
with contemporary frescoes by Fabrizio Boschi and Matteo Rosselli. The
marble decoration includes the canvases with the Delivery of the Keys of
Empoli (about 1607) and St. Peter on the waters begun by Cristofano
Allori and finished after his death by Zanobi Rosi in 1621. At the altar
the frontal carved with the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo is the work of
Tiziano Aspetti, while the Crucifix is by Felice Palma, who also
sculpted the funerary monuments on the side walls. Above the external
arch there are frescoes by Giovanni da Ponte dating back to 1430-1434.
This is followed by the Scali Chapel, which on the outside is
decorated with frescoes with San Bartolomeo and medallions of saints.
Inside there are fragmentary frescoes by Giovanni da Ponte and Smeraldo
di Giovanni datable to 1434: in the vault the Evangelists and on the
side walls the Skinning and Beheading of San Bartolomeo. Here is also
one of Luca della Robbia's masterpieces, the marble and polychrome
majolica tomb of the bishop of Fiesole Benozzo Federighi, who died in
1450, from San Pancrazio. The monument dates back to 1454 and consists
of the recumbent figure of the deceased against the background of a
relief of Christ between the Madonna and Saint John; all around there is
a polychrome terracotta band glazed with floral elements.
At the
head of the transept is the small Chapel of the relics of San Giovanni
Gualberto, designed at the end of the sixteenth century by Giovanni
Caccini and frescoed by Passignano (1593-1594), with scenes related to
the translation of the saint's body and the veneration of his relics.
The bell tower has no foundations of its own, leaning on a side wall of the church; there is no way to reach it from the religious building, but you have to go up to the roof and from there continue along a narrow passage and a ladder. Note, set in the bell tower, a terracotta Madonna and Child.
Along via del Parione, in continuity with the right side of the
church, the former convent building develops, today occupied by the
Faculty of Education of the University of Florence and others. Number 7
leads to the cloister, the work of Alfonso Parigi the Elder based on
designs by Bernardo Buontalenti, built between 1584 and 1593. It is
porticoed on four sides and raised above the street level; the round
arches of the cross vaults rest on massive columns with Doric capitals;
the impost plane is marked by a string course frame, which underlines a
series of architraved windows; in the center is a well surrounded by
flower beds.
In the former refectory, now occupied by the Faculty
Library, there are frescoes by Giovanni da San Giovanni, Nicodemo
Ferrucci and Jacopo Confortini, depicting the Madonna in glory welcomed
by the Trinity and, in the lunettes, Scenes from evangelical boarding
schools, datable to 1630- 1632.
Cimabue, Maestà di Santa Trinita, now in the Uffizi