2. Introduction
• Located in –Florence
• First great basilica in Florence, and is the
city's principal Dominican church.
• The church, the adjoining cloister, and
chapterhouse contain a store of art treasures
and funerary monuments. Especially famous
are frescoes by masters of Gothic and Early
Renaissance
3. History
• Called Novella (New) because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria
delle Vigne.
• The site was assigned to Dominican Order in 1221, they decided to build a new church and an
adjoining cloister. The church was designed by two Dominican friars, Fra Sisto Fiorentino and Fra
Ristoro da Campi , with the completion of the Romanesque-Gothic bell tower and sacristy.
• Rucellai, a local textile merchant commisioned, Leone Battista Alberti who designed the upper
part of the inlaid black and white marble facade of the church .
• Alberti attempted to bring the ideals of humanist architecture, proportion and classically-inspired
detailing, to bear on the design while also creating harmony with the already existing medieval
part of the facade.
• Alberti added - Broad frieze decorated with squares.
- Including the four white-green pilasters
- A round window, crowned by a pediment with the
Dominican solar emblem, and flanked on both sides by enormous
S-curved volutes
- The four columns with Corinthian capitals on the lower part of the facade were also
added. The pediment and the frieze are clearly inspired by the antiquity, but the S-
curved scrolls in the upper part are new and without precedent in antiquity. The
scrolls (or variations of them), found in churches all over Italy, all find their origin
here in the design of this church.
4. Interior Space
• The vast interior is based on a basilica plan –
- Designed as a Latin cross
- Divided into a nave
- Two aisles with stained-glass windows
- A short transept
• The large nave is 100 metres long and gives an impression of austerity.
• There is a trompe l'oeil-effect by which this nave towards the apse seems longer than its actual
length.
• The ceiling in the vault consists pointed arches with the four diagonal buttresses in black and
white.
• The interior also contains corinthian columns that were inspired by the Classical era of Greek and
Roman times.
• The Pulpit, commissioned by the Rucellai family in 1443, was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi and
executed by his adopted child Andrea Calvalcanti. This pulpit has a particular historical significance,
because from this pulpit the first attack came on Galileo Galilei, leading eventually to his
indictment.
6. Various Chapels
• Filippo Strozzi Chapel –
The Filippo Strozzi Chapel is situated on the right side of the main altar. The Strozzi Chapel
was the place where the first tale of the Decamerone by Giovanni Boccaccio began, when
seven ladies decided to leave the town, and flee from the Black Plague to the countryside.
The series of frescoes from Filippino Lippi depict the lives of Philip the Apostle and James the
Apostle, and also paintings depicting the commission being given to him by them.
7. Gondi Chapel
• This chapel, designed by Giuliano da Sangallo, is situated on the left side of the main
altar and dates from the end of the 13th century.
•The back wall, has the famous wooden Crucifix by Brunelleschi, one of his very few
sculptures.
: Stained glass window
8. :Interior : St Philip Driving the Dragon
from the Temple of Hieropolis
:Crucifixion of St Philip
10. Cappella Strozzi di Mantova
• The Cappella Strozzi di Mantova is situated at the end of the left transept. The
frescoes were commissioned by Tommaso Strozzi, an ancestor of Filippo Strozzi,
to Nardo di Cione(1350–1357). The frescoes are inspired by Dante's Divine
Comedy: Last Judgment (on the back wall; including a portrait of Dante), Hell (on
the right wall) and paradise (on the left wall). The main altarpiece of The Redeemer
with the Madonna and Saints was done by his brother Andrea di Cione, better
kwown as Orcagna. The large stained-glass window on the back was made from a
cartoon by the brothers Andrea and Nardo di Cione.
12. Other Chapels -
• Della Pura Chapel
• Rucellai Chapel
• Bardi Chapel
13. : Madonna and child
-Duccio di Buoninsegna
- Della Pura Chapel
14. Architectural Intervention
• In designing this church, Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) takes his cue from a pre-
Gothic medieval design - that of San Miniato al Monte. Following
his Romanesque model, he designs a small, pseudo-Classical, pediment-
capped temple front for the upper part of the facade and supports it with a broad
base of pilaster-enframed arcades that incorporate the six tombs and three
doorways of the extant Gothic building.
• In the organization of these elements, Alberti takes a long step beyond
the Romanesque planners. The height of Santa Maria Novella (to the tip of the
pediment) equals its width, so that the entire facade can be inscribed in a square.
• Throughout the facade, Alberti defines areas and relates them to each other in
terms of proportions that can be expressed in simple numerical ratios (1:1, 1:2,
1:3, 2:3, and so on).
•
In his treatise, Alberti uses considerable space to propound the necessity of such
harmonic relationships for the design of beautiful buildings. Alberti shares this
conviction with Brunelleschi, and it is basically this dependence on mathematics -
a belief in the eternal and universal validity of numerical ratios as the source of
beauty - that distinguishes the work of these two architects from that of their
medieval predecessors.
