Santa Croce

Ciao amici!

Our second art history field trip during orientation was to Santa Croce to study the Italian Gothic style.  Compared to Romanesque churches (like San Miniato), Gothic churches are taller and are less dark inside.  The height of the church is representative of the desire to be closer to God (ie the church is reaching up to heaven) and the relative abundance of light in Gothic churches is because God is light.  When we think of Gothic churches, we usually think of grand churches such as Notre-Dame de Chartres in France:

Notre-Dame de Chartres, France.  www.wikipedia.com

Italian Gothic churches however, look quite different.  The Gothic style originated in Northern Europe and due to a history of Northern invaders it had a slightly negative connotation, so they changed it up a bit to make it more Italian.  This is Santa Croce:

Santa Croce, Florence.  www.wikipedia.com

It looks nothing like Chartres.  You can see that the Italian Gothic retains the heaviness/solidness of the Romanesque churches and it is more horizontal than Chartres.  Before we go inside I will point out one more difference between the Romanesque and Gothic styles: the arches.  Romanesque churches have a round, roman-style arch which is called arco a tutto sesto in Italian.  Gothic churches (Italian or otherwise) have an arch which ends in a point and is called arco a sesto acuto in Italian.

www.laterzalibropiuinternet.it

Inside Santa Croce

See how much more light there is?  There are also stained glass windows which you won't find in a Romanesque church and instead of mosaics there are lots of frescoes.  To enter Santa Croce we had to pay a small fee and wait in line as it is very popular among tourists for several reasons.  The two main reasons are: a. many famous people are buried here and b. the paintings of Giotto.  Let's check out the tombs first!

Michelangelo's tomb

Galileo's tomb

Back in the day, it was possible to be buried in Santa Croce if you were of a certain status so yes, these are actual tombs.  There are several other famous Italians buried here, including Machiavelli, and many more funerary monuments to people they wished to honor but aren't actually buried here.  The most famous of these is Dante, author of the Divine Comedy.  Dante was exiled from Florence in 1302 and is buried in the city of Ravenna, where he died. Florence came to deeply regret having exiled him and since then they have tried to honor his memory in every way possible all over the city.  In Santa Croce, they built this funerary monument:

Dante's funerary monument

Giotto's Paintings

Giotto was very influential in the transition between Byzantine-style paintings and a more realistic, humanistic style.  Byzantine paintings are very flat and two-dimensional, with no sense of movement.  Giotto (1266 – 1337) created his art from observing real life so his paintings have a greater sense of depth and movement.  During the Renaissance, this style will be more fully developed but Giotto is generally regarded as the first to have explored the three-dimensionality of figures.

Only parts of the frescoes remain

another capella by Giotto

How many arches "a sesto acuto" can you find? ;)

Note the attention to depth and perspective...

That's it for now!  If you've made it this far, congratulations!  That was a lot of information but there was just so much to share about Santa Croce.  This will be the final post from my orientation art history class.  The last church we visited for this class was San Lorenzo which is a great example of Renaissance architecture but unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside.  It is a really neat church and probably one of my favorites so you should definitely click on the links and check it out. ;)

A dopo!

San Miniato al Monte

Buongiorno!

I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments on my blog, thank you!!  And I will certainly talk more about the food (and later I'll do a post about music too, Melanie ;) ) but unfortunately I don't have a lot of food pictures, so I will have to see if I can get some from my friends.  In the meantime, I wanted to share some pictures from my art history field trip to San Miniato al Monte.

In my art history class we are learning about the different architectural styles of churches.  San Miniato al Monte is a great example of the Florentine Romanesque style.  The facade (Italian: la facciata) is made of white Carrara and green Prato marble and features a mosaic in the middle of Jesus, Mary, and Saint Miniato.

San Miniato al Monte

As you can see it is up on a hill ("al Monte" means on the hill) and so we had a spectacular view of the city.

I can't imagine I will ever tire of this view

Inside San Miniato

This is what it looked like inside.  As you can see, it is very ornate.  Our professor explained that it would have also been very dark as there are few windows and the only light would have been provided by candles.  We can see the details in this picture because they have since added lights to the church and they leave the doors open during the day.  The darkness and heaviness (or sturdiness) of San Miniato is typical of the Romanesque style, as are the round arches (Italian: arco a tutto sesto) and the columns.  Each column capital (the top part of the column) is unique.  Very often these capitals, as well as other parts of the church, are pieces taken from ancient roman buildings and then reused as building material.  This happened all the time in the ancient world as well, in fact, this summer at the excavations in Greece we found all sorts of interesting things in the walls of buildings!

Imagine how this gold mosaic would glow in a church lit only by candles!

Check out the detail on the floor...

...on the walls...

...and on the ceiling of this cappella (chapel)

There are also some frescoes on the walls of the church that were added sometime after it was built.  Here we can see where the artist made the outline for his work but never actually got around to painting over it:

Sketches that were never painted over.  You can see the finished frescoes on the right.

 Well, that's all for now!  I hope that you have enjoyed all the pictures.  I am always in awe of how much attention to detail and fine craftsmanship is present in these churches and it is really great to be learning about their architectural styles.  I'm excited to share with you my trip to Santa Croce next week because you'll really be able to see how much the style changed and how it is reflective of changing perspectives on Christianity (and also there are some really cool people buried there!).  If you have any questions about anything feel free to ask and also let me know if you'd like me to go into further detail about something. :)

Ciao a tutti,
Isabella