Termed ‘the Spanish Chapel’ because of its use in the sixteenth century by the Spanish merchant community, the chapter house of Santa Maria Novella served as a multifunctional space. The Dominican friars utilized this central room as a place to gather, deliver justice, and convene council, and its architectural structure stemmed from its multipurpose nature.
As revealed by an important letter from Humbert of Romans, the leader of the Dominican Order from 1254-1263, the chapter house was expected to be placed in every institution’s cloister. The Dominicans at Santa Maria Novella followed this convention closely, constructing their chapter house to face out onto the Chiostro Verde (the Green Cloisters) at the heart of the building complex.
Ornamented with black, white, and green marble inlay, the chapter house façade opens out to a slightly wider cloister walk on the north side of the Chiostro Verde. As indicated by other chapter houses within the Roman province (to which Santa Maria Novella belonged), Dominicans tended to favor a symmetrical façade with a doorway flanked by two ornamented, low-silled windows, a convention shared with multiple religious orders. The windows contain white marble tracery and originally opened to the outside; the iron grilles and glass currently in place were only added in later centuries. The low, open windows permitted light to shine into the interior and granted those gathered outside in the cloister access to the happenings within.
Multiple liturgical and administrative proceedings occurred there on a daily basis. These activities included readings from the legislation, gospels, or martyrology, as well as prayers for benefactors and the chapter of faults, a ritual in which the friars publicly confessed their sins. Additionally, the space could host sermons preached to the friars, the reception and profession of novices, as well as the annual liturgical ceremonies performed on days such as Holy Thursday and Good Friday.
In addition to the many functions outlined above, the chapter house also served as the burial chapel of Buonamico di Lapo Guidalotti (d. 1355), who funded the construction of several bays of the Chiostro Verde as well as the construction of the chapter house. Within the chapter house, the Guidalotti family arms flank reliefs of the *Visions of St. Dominic* and the *Martyrdom of St. Peter of Verona*, two focal Dominican images. These signs of family patronage elevate the Guidalotti alongside major Dominican figures and co-opt the space as a lay funerary chapel, further complicating its visual messaging.
In addition to altering the function and use of the chapter house, Guidalotti also altered its physical design. The chapter house leads into a smaller chapel, an inclusion atypical of Dominican architecture at the time. Dedicated to the *Corpus Christi*, this small chapel served as the center point of Guidalotti’s lavish commemorative requirements in his will of 1355. He left 2,000 gold florins to fund a daily mass at the chapel altar and mandated that ten friars perform a daily recitation of the hours. In the end, the expense of Guidalotti’s requests outpaced the funds he left behind, and the 325 florins set aside to paint the walls of the chapter house and chapel also proved inadequate. Thus, for about a decade the chapter house decorations fell to the wayside. A later prior, Zanobi Guasconi, had to secure this funding and employed Andrea di Bonaiuto in 1365 to execute the fresco cycle that currently adorns the chapter house’s walls.
Bibliography:
Cannon, Joanna.
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013, 187.
Gardner, Julian.
. Aldershot, Hampshire, Great Britain: Variorum, 1993, 112.
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Location of Annotation: 28.57, 46.92, -0.93
Camera Location: 31.015, 58.846, -1.118
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Annotation block name: The
Perhaps the centerpiece of Andrea di Bonaiuto’s Spanish Chapel fresco cycle is the
Via Veritatis, or “true way,” so termed by the American art historian Millard Meiss. This fresco, also called the
Church Militant, covers the east wall of the chapterhouse and faces the image of the
Triumph of St. Thomas (or
St. Thomas Enthroned), with the images of the
Crucifixion and
Scenes from the Life of St. Peter Martyr in between them on the north and south walls.
Though the
Via Veritatis makes up only a part of the mural cycle’s overall effect, its detailed symbolism provides a window into medieval Dominican identity. The image outlines the Dominican mission within the larger Church hierarchy and emphasizes the order’s role to provide spiritual guidance to the masses and to combat heresy. In the top portion of the fresco, representing the Heavenly realm, Christ appears as described in the Book of
Revelation, holding a book and a key. Below him, a sacrificial lamb sits atop an open book that rests on a throne. Four six-winged creatures, each a symbol of one of the four gospel writers, flank the throne, their bodies covered with all-seeing eyes. A heavenly host surrounds Christ to either side, and the Virgin Mary stands to his right holding white lilies.
Below the Celestial court stands the Gate of Paradise, guarded by St. Peter, who holds his familiar iconographic attribute of the keys he needs as gatekeeper of Heaven. Those whom Peter has allowed to enter Paradise include various saints, particularly the major Dominican figures of Thomas Aquinas, Peter Martyr, and Dominic. All of the saints within this realm gaze towards Christ, their sightlines pulling the viewer upward to look upon the Celestial Court and the Heavenly throne within it at the top of the composition.
Moving down, the fresco’s main portion has been divided roughly in half: the left side illustrates the composition and potency of the Universal Church, while the right depicts the primary mission of the Dominican Order. A fantastical image of Florence’s cathedral, identifiable by its distinct dome that had not yet been designed in 1367, dominates the former. In all likelihood, Andrea di Bonaiuto used some kind of imagined model of the building as its basis, as Brunelleschi’s famous dome would not be initiated for another fifty years, well into fifteenth century. However, it does serve as a reminder of Andrea’s role on the Florentine committee that was charged with the task of figuring out how to cover the cathedral’s crossing in the mid-1360s.
Andrea places the major representatives of both church and state institutions in front of the cathedral. The pope sits at the center of the group, joined on his left by a cardinal, bishop, and monastic representatives, while to his right appear the Holy Roman Emperor, a king, and other secular authorities. Sheep appear below the pope and emperor, calling upon the image of Christ as the Good Shepherd and the Dominicans’ calling to tend the flock. Andrea depicts a troop of black and white dogs driving several brown wolves away from the sheep towards the fresco’s right side. Interestingly, the brown of the wolves’ coats perhaps refers to the habits of the rival Franciscan order, a not-so-subtle statement regarding the intense rivalry between the two mendicant groups in Florence. The dogs’ black and white fur mirrors the black and white robes of the Dominicans and coyly alludes to their reputation as the
Domini Cani, or “hounds of the Lord.”
The scene to the far right revolves around the mission of Dominicans as preachers of Orthodoxy. While Dominic spurs the dogs on against the wolves with his staff, St. Peter Martyr and Thomas Aquinas confront nonbelievers and heretics alike through both the spoken and written word. Their unbelieving audience reacts to their testimony in various ways; some convert, others contemplate what they have heard, and a final few cover their ears so as not to hear, demonstrating the willful ignorance of those who refuse to accept Christianity.
Directly above this depiction of the spiritual war against heresy appears a coded reference to the Dominican pastoral role within Florence and Christendom at large. Placed literally in the center of the composition, Dominic gestures upwards towards the zone of Paradise while another friar blesses an old man kneeling before him. To the right of this scene, four figures sit on a bench within a grove or orchard while children and maidens frolic, dance, and consume fruit in what might represent a process of spiritual purgation for the afterlife (however, the scene has also been interpreted as a reference to man’s carnal lusts and the pleasures of the body). Could this be an allegorical representation of Purgatory, a zone where humans prepare themselves to enter Paradise? Or do we instead see an image that warns viewers of the consequences of submitting to earthly temptation? Of all the images within the
Via Veritatis, and indeed within the entire Spanish Chapel, this perplexing scene continues to challenge the historians who attempt to decipher it. As such, it is one of the most important and controversial images of the entire Florentine Trecento.
Bibliography:
Gardner, Julian.
Patrons, Painters, and Saints : Studies in Medieval Italian Painting. Aldershot, Hampshire, Great Britain: Variorum, 1993, 110.
Polzer, Joseph. "Andrea Di Bonaiuto's Via Veritatis and Dominican Thought in Late Medieval Italy." The Art Bulletin 77, no. 2 (1995): 263-89.
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Annotation block name: Frescoes of the Green Cloister
Annotation Details:
Although the architectural construction of the Green Cloister was completed by ca. 1359, the interior frescoes of the walkways were not completed until the mid-Quattrocento by a multitude of artists. While many of these artists – such as Paolo Uccello – were criticized for their compositional choices, their attention to detail and perspective earned them the grudging praise of later writers. Although the architectural design of the Green Cloister emphasizes simplicity and essentials, the frescoes demonstrate the painters’ abilities to depict complex scenes in fairly legible ways.
The northern arcades – the oldest part of the Cloister – contain a fresco dedicated to Dominican history and attributed to Stefano di Giovanni, a Sienese painter, along with a second image of the
Tree of the Dominican Order, both of which were part of the first church. Since these frescoes were exposed to the rain prior to the construction of the cloister, the paintings are faded and extensively damaged. While the northern wall showcased historical paintings of S. Maria Novella, the eastern, southern, and western walls bear scenes from the Old Testament. These frescoes, attributed to Dello Delli, Paolo Uccello, and various other painters of the early 1400s, implemented varying shades of terra verde (an earth tone of green), thus giving the structure its namesake of the Green Cloister.
Although many of the twenty frescoes produced by Delli in the southern and western walls (including a lost figure of St. Dominic portrayed on a lunette above the Spanish Chapel) have faded, the fresco roundels of famous saints and doctors, as well as many of Uccello’s frescoes, can still be seen today. These frescoes include the
Creation of Man,
The Expulsion of Adam and Eve,
Death of Abel,
Scenes from the Life of Abraham,
Loading of the Animals onto Noah’s Ark,
The Deluge, and the
Sacrifice of Noah. Uccello’s most famous work,
The Deluge, painted sometime in the 1430s or 1440s, reveals Uccello’s extensive knowledge of perspective, foreshortening, and volumetric representations.
Beneath
The Deluge and last in the series, Uccello's
Sacrifice of Noah employs the technique of foreshortening in the figure of God descending down from the head of the spectator. The use of foreshortening was innovative at this time and creates the impression that God is extending out of the fresco. Vasari indicates that the lower right figure represents Shem and is based on Dello Delli’s work.
Bibliography:
Brown, J. Wood.
The Dominican Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence: A Historical, Architectural, and Artistic Study. Otto Schulze & Co., 1902.
Károly, Karl.
A Guide to the Paintings of Florence. George Bell & Sons, 1893.
Mather, Frank Jewett.
A History of Italian Painting. Henry Holt & Co., 1923.
Zirpolo, Lilian. “Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria Novella, Florence (Green Cloister).”
The A to Z of Renaissance Art. The Scarecrow Press, 2009, p. 95.
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Location of Annotation: -13.31, 30.08, 3.75
Camera Location: 0.444, 61.702, 1.084
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Annotation block name: The Green Cloister
Annotation Details:
The Green Cloister, Bell Tower, Strozzi Chapel, and Spanish Chapel became hallmarks of Santa Maria Novella’s architectural and artistic design during the Trecento. Shortly after the Black Death desecrated the Florentine population in 1348, Mico Guidalotta secured the area that abutted the west side of the church for the construction of the Chapterhouse and the Green Cloister. The friars then secured donations from the Da Castiglione and Lucalberti families, who had traditionally served as treasurers of Florence; their funding of the Cloister’s construction perhaps demonstrates the laity’s increasing religious anxiety over accumulated wealth in the wake of the Plague. With land and finances secured in 1350, construction began later that year under the direction of the Master of Works, Fra Jacopo Talenti da Nipazzano.
The architectural design spoke to an Italian Gothic style and was completed by ca. 1359. On the arches that supported the arcades, Jacopo used alternating green and white marble decorated with precise line work. This echoed the early façade of the church, as well as the Baptistery, S. Salvatore, and S. Miniato al Monte, all designed and built in the eleventh century. Within the interior of the arcades, Jacopo further demonstrated his Gothic influences with rib vaults and elaborate portals and windows typical of this style. However, Jacopo showed some restraint by employing classical arches supported on Corinthian columns rather than the pointed arches typical of the Gothic style. Jacopo’s most striking decision was to reduce the number of decorative elements and diminish the scope of architectural embellishments in the space, which resulted in simplified design that focused on geometry rather than flair. While this was typical of the Italian Gothic style, this choice allowed future painters – Paolo Uccello chief among them – to paint the interior walls of the Green Cloister with elaborate frescoes celebrating Dominican and church history. Completed almost 100 years after the start of construction, the Cloister’s designs echo the themes found in the interior decorations and demonstrate the sustained wealth and cultural influence of the Dominicans during this period.
Bibliography
Brown, J. Wood.
The Dominican Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence: A Historical, Architectural, and Artistic Study. Otto Schulze & Co., 1902.
Károly, Karl.
A Guide to the Paintings of Florence. George Bell & Sons, 1893.
Zirpolo, Lilian. “Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria Novella, Florence (Green Cloister).”
The A to Z of Renaissance Art. The Scarecrow Press, 2009, p. 95.
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Location of Annotation: 0.54, 50.13, -1.53
Camera Location: 12.402, 62.841, 4.083
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Annotation block name: The Deluge
Annotation Details:
Painted in the Green Cloister from 1447-8, Paolo Uccello's The Deluge has garnered both criticism and praise throughout its history. Although the Green Cloister painters pioneered cutting-edge techniques in fresco painting, Uccello's zealous pursuit of what he called "O! thou dear perspective!" was criticized by contemporaries and scholars. While The Deluge follows orthogonal lines flawlessly, Giorgio Vasari criticized the perspective in the sixteenth century. He noted the perspective compressed the overall composition, which in turn forces the viewer to take in each figure individually rather than understand the scene in its entirety. Despite this issue, Uccello's attention to the smallest detail of the human form and mastery of foreshortening proved vital for the development of Florentine fresco painting, and the importance of his works in the Green Cloister cannot be overstated in the greater context of fifteenth-century art.
More recently, The Deluge has become associated with modernity. The fresco’s usage of the disjunction between individual details and overall composition creates deeper meaning. Within The Deluge, Uccello portrays the various responses to a crisis vividly. While some of the figures retain a calm, peaceful repose, the grotesque twisting of other figures portrays the bestial nature of the human condition. Uccello’s decision to portray human bodies devoid of color sacrifices accuracy for compositional unity. The heavy use of white drawn across the field helps viewers connect the independent parts of the picture but wrests the life out of the characters who struggle to survive the storm. While the erosion of color suggests the moral and physical impoverishment of the human figures, the use of white also creates the impression that these figures emerge into a space, rather than out from it.
The figures’ clothing appears caught, a physical snag representing a greater temporal one. One side depicts the period of the prehistoric flood, while the other portrays the first appearance of the Black Death which wiped out half of Florence’s population in 1348. At the time, it was not uncommon to portray Biblical figures in contemporary costumes. Uccello's choice to use Florentine clothing in this scene from Genesis creates clear parallels between the flood and the plague that any local viewer would have recognized immediately. The individual responses of Uccello’s figures to the terror of the flood scene echoes the intense trauma experienced exactly one hundred years earlier, by the ancestors of the very people who would have been his painting’s original audience.
Bibliography:
Karoly, Karl. A Guide to the Paintings of Florence. London, George Bell & Sons, 1893.
Mather, Frank Jewett. A History of Italian Painting. New York, Henry Holt & Company, 1923.
Schefer, Jean Louis. The Deluge, The Plague Paolo Uccello. Translated by Tom Conley, The University of Michigan Press, 1995.
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