Description

Santa Maria Novella was begun in 1246 and completed in 1360. The facade's lower half was done in a Tuscan Romanesque style by Fra' Jacopo Talenti, but the upper half was added by the great Renaissance architectural theorist Leon Batista Alberti.

He managed to stamp it firmly with his exacting Neoclassical ideals while still managing to meld it seemelssly to the Romanesque bottom half.

Note in particular Alberti's innovation of using large, curved triangular spaces decorated with oversized scrolls to bridge the gaps from the high roof of the central nave to the lower roofs of the side aislex.

The Gothic ornates the interiors which in the past accomodated the masses who came to hear the Word of God as delivered by the Dominicans. The only problem was that the vast majority of the worshippers couldn't understand those all-important words, since the mass was entirely in Latin.

In the left aisle near the main entrance is Masaccio's Trinity fresco. This was the first painting in the history of art to use perfect linear mathematical perspective. Near the Trintiy is a 15th-century pulpit designed by Brunelleschi, most famous for being the spot from which Galileo was denounced for his heretical theory that the Earth revolved around the sun.

In the Cappella Maggiore (Main Chapel) Domenico Ghirlandaio created a fresco cycle supposedly depicting the Lives of the Virgin and St. John the Baptist. In point of fact, what we see is a dazzling illustration of what life was like and how people dressed during the golden days of Renaissance Florence.

To the left of the Cappella Maggiore is the Cappella Gondi and a 15th-century crucifix by Brunelleschi, his only work in wood. At the end of your visit just exit the church and turn right to visit the "Museum of Santa Maria Novella," which is composed of the frescoed cloisters and chapels of the attached convent.

We highly suggest to take a look at the Chiostro Verde (Green Cloister). It took its name from the prevalent green tinge of Paolo Uccello's 15th-century fresco cycle depicting scenes from the story of Noah and the Flood. Ironically, these frescoces were themselves heavily damaged in the 1966 Arno flood…