I’ve been in a lot of churches. If you study architecture, they ladle their floor plans on you like gravy, so you get familiar with all sorts of churches from around the world. I’ve never been in a church that could compare with the chiesa di San Salvatore di Ognissanti in Florence, Italy. All Saints.
It’s got a lot of competition in Florence. Some of the most notable churches ever built, really. The big draw in the city is Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (St. Mary of the Flower), i.e. the Florence Cathedral:
The exterior of this cathedral looks like a giant wedding cake made out of marble. It’s staggering to look at, and really brightly colored. It’s more famous for its duomo than anything else, though, and for good reason:
If you’re wondering about the scale of that thing, if you look closely you can see people standing on an observation ledge up near the top. We stood there ourselves. It was fun unless you thought too hard about the railing, that was no doubt installed by the low bidder in the middle ages. You get up there by climbing a narrow stone staircase between the inner and the outer dome. You can’t stand up, really, and have to lean your hand on the inner wall to steady yourself the whole way.
It’s still the largest dome in the world made out of bricks. They worked on the building for more than a century with no idea how to build the dome on top of it. Brunelleschi, one of the smartest ginks I’ve ever heard of, said he could do it, and he could do it without the usual timber form work and scaffolding to hold it up during construction. Oh, yes, he also invented linear perspective. That’s like saying you invented fire or the wheel or something.
But the interior of the church is sorta drab in comparison with the exterior. There’s a big mural on the underside of the dome that depicts people who put premium gas into rental cars ascending to heaven, and the seven circles of call waiting, and other biblical scenes. It’s ugly and hamfisted compared to the interior of Ognissanti.
Ognissanti is on an out-of-the-way street. I knew in my heart I would only have one trip to Florence, or anywhere else for that matter, and I used to roam around the city very early in the morning while my wife and our traveling companions slumbered. I happened upon it completely by accident. I remember it had a strip painted about chest high on the exterior wall by the door that marked the high water line of some flood or another they suffered in Florence. Like Mark Twain before me, I couldn’t picture the Arno causing a big flood like that. Like Sam said, it would be a passable river, if they pumped some water into it. But then again, he was used to the Mississippi.
There was a Mass of some sort going on in Ognissanti. A few dozen people were in attendance. It was held in Italian, which I learned for the trip, and it was so close to the Latin from my childhood that it brought a tear of remembrance to my eye. A Catholic Church Mass used to be a serious business. They’re competing with Unitarians, now, I gather.
I sat there in that church and it blasted my eyes out. I’ve never seen painting like that in my life. The trompe l’oeil on the ceiling and the walls was mesmerizing. It’s all just painted plaster and oil paintings.
But look who painted the stuff: Giotto, Domenico and David Ghirlandaio, and Sandro Botticelli. The church had been rather plain inside, too, but the locals liked the religious order who ran it, the Humiliati, and started delivering works of art and relics to the place, and remodeled it to a version of Baroque grandeur. They’ve got St. Francis of Assisi’s scratchy bathrobe, for instance. There are a series of chapels that fan out from the main altar you see in the picture, and each one is more astonishing than the last.
Boticelli is buried there, and so is Amerigo Vespucci. They named our country after him, so I thought I should drop by his bier and asked him, sotto voce, if he’d like to take his name off it, out of embarrassment. He was cagey on the point. Amerigo’s cousin Simonetta is buried there, too, near Botticelli who used her for a model for a lot of his paintings. So did Piero di Cosimo:
That’s probably her rising out of the waves on a clamshell, too.
It was maybe twenty five years ago when we went. I assume the church is an Arby’s or something now, because that’s the way of the world. But for a brief moment, sitting on a bench in the back, alone but not lonely, with the Italian words washing over me, it made me remember that architecture wasn’t always a contest to see how ugly you can make something. And it has always been fun to be afraid you’d be struck dead by lightning if you turned around in church during the service, because the nuns told you so. Nuns wouldn’t lie, would they?
11 Responses
Ginks AND Humiliati. Sometimes it takes me a while to get through your posts, and leaves me with several open tabs on my browser. I’m never less for having visited.
Hi Charles- Thanks for reading and commenting and putting up with my vocabulary.
I think they refuse the way of the world, so no Arby’s allowed.
Hi Jean- It’s always nice to see your name in the comments.
What a lovely treat! My DH and I thank you!
I understand the feeling you get from hearing the old words in those places of worship. They wash over like a soothing warm bath. My own tradition which is based on the English language is much younger than the Latin prayers, but oh how I loved to hear those English words that were in our prayer books from the last century–a time when the language soothed and flowed and gave hope.
My churches have become bars and condos, the teachers have stepped away from the practice of grace which was a calm and soothing way to be into a rant about today’s politics. Most importantly the church leaders have stolen our books. The old prayer books (prior to 1972 reprint) are almost impossible to find. Your post today helped to replace the loss.
Hi Anne- Always nice to see your name in the comments. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Thank you for your time, and encouragement!
I was so very lucky to finally get a glimpse into a classical education; something like you have had. For me it came late in life–in my mid 50’s. I chose to return to school try to complete an education that had been pieced together over thirty years and four universities. I finally settled into a Jesuit University.
My husband, my daughter, and the Jesuits are the finest contributions to this life! My English professor in particular–you remind me of that bald, nearly blind old Jesuit with the wicked sense of humor! I used to feel that I had just been waltzed across a very slick glass dance floor!
I am afraid my writing has gotten sloppy these past years on the internet. Please excuse.
Long time reader here but have never commented.
It is a decisive man who can pick one Florence church as his favourite and as the best. Every church there seems to have something marvellous in it if it is not actually entirely marvellous itself.
My own favourite is Santa Maria Novella. I had never heard of it before visiting Florence with my wife eight years ago. One grey February afternoon, when my wife wanted to rest in the hotel, I paid my five euro and wandered into the almost empty and vast church and Friary buildings and encountered almost every Rennaissance artist that I had heard of and few that I hadn’t.
My compliments on your blog- you are a man of many talents.
Hi Seamus- Thanks for reading and commenting and your kind words.
Santa Maria Novella is another fine choice. There’s a little park on front of it, a great place to just sit and stare at the front of the church, its best feature, I think. You really can’t do that at the Cathedral or Ognissanti, for instance.
Been by there, no doubt, and many more in Florence and in other cities around the world. And no doubt, being in a hurry to make sure that I saw ‘everything’ in the city in the time allowed, I did little more than pass by, take some quick photos and maybe notice this or that. I should, of course, have sat quietly in each, studied and marveled at it all. Now, it’s all something of a metaphor for the rest of life, I guess …. maybe. Thanks for posting the thoughtful things so that I can at least attempt to catch up now.
Hi Harry- Thanks for reading and commenting.