History The Humiliati order from Lombardi had grown from groups of citizens in prospering urban centres, dedicated to poverty and humility in response to the perceived corruption and iniquities of the church in the late 12th century. The order, and several similar, had been condemned as heretical by Pope Lucius III in 1184. But in 1201 Pope Innocent III recognised all three orders of Humiliati - men, women and priests. They were by then established as successful entrepreneurs in the wool trade and were invited to Florence by the bishop, Ardingo Trotti, in 1239. They were initially granted the church and monastery of San Donato in Polverosa, outside Florence. Eleven years later, on the 6th of February 1250, they were given Santa Lucia al Prato, a church and hospital considerably closer to the river and city centre, and permission t ![]() Observant Franciscans from San Salvatore al Monte replaced the Humiliati here in 1561, the latter order having waned in size and influence - only six monks remaining here that year. The order was moved to the smaller church of Santa Caterina. The name of the church was changed at this time to San Salvatore in Ognissanti to refer to the Franciscan's previous church. Around this time Carlo Borromeo, the archbishop of Milan, was asked to reform the failing Humiliati order. Unhappy with his proposed reforms four disgruntled monks plotted against Borromeo and one of them, Girolamo Donati, made a botched attempt to assassinate him whilst he prayed, on October 26 1569, managing to inflict nothing more than a flesh wound with his harquebus. The male branch of the order was consequently suppressed by Pope Pious V in 1571, the year after the conspirators were executed. The Franciscans brought with them from San Salvatore al Monte the tunic worn by Saint Francis when he received the stigmata on Mount Verna in 1224. (This relic was returned to the sanctuary at La Verna when the Franciscans left Ognissanti on November 1st 2000.) The complex was found to be in a very poor state by the Franciscans and extensive renovations took place, largely paid for by the Medici. It's probably around this time that Ghirlandaio's frescoes in the Vespucci chapel were painted over. By 1580 there were eighty Franciscans here and the new church was consecrated on August 1st 1582. The two cloisters were built at this time too. Work continued into the early 17th century, with considerable work on the interior in 1627 by Bartolomeo Pettirossi and completion in 1637 with addition of a fine baroque façade by Matteo Nigreti, built before 1756, which was rebuilt in 1827 to the original design. The glazed terracotta lunette over the door, from the older façade, is Coronation of the Virgin, with Saints and Angels of c.1510-20, attributed to Benedetto Buglioni, who headed up a rival studio to the della Robbia and probably trained with them. Suppressed in 1810 and 1866. The convent became a Carabinieri barracks in 1923 but in 1885 some of the complex was returned to the Franciscan friars. They left on November 1st 2000 and the complex passed to a new Benedictine order. This order were themselves replaced by 2007 by a new group of observant Franciscans, and these friars remain. Interior The church seems small inside, with no aisles, and compressed almost, for being very densely decorated. The nave is probably the same size as that of the original church, which had a pitched timber roof, some polychromed remnants of which remain behind the current vertigo-inducing trompe l'oeil architectural frescoes by Giuseppe Benucci, with scenes showing The Glory of Saint Francis by Giuseppe Romei (see photo right) dating from 1770. Romei collaborated on a similarly impressive ceiling in Santa Maria del Carmine just over the Arno. ![]() There are four altars down each side of the nave, the second on the right being the third (and last) of the Vespucci chapels in this church (see right). It contains Domenico Ghirlandaio's very early Madonna della Misericordia in its lunette, with a Lamentation below. The latter looks very much like the work of many hands, and a pair of barely-there flanking saints, although the elft-hand one has been identified as the Archangel Raphael. Bands of simulated marble would have originally suggested a framed altarpiece and there are fragments of predella-like narrative panels below the saints. These frescoes, of c.1475, were rediscovered under whitewash in 1898 by Roberto Razzòli. The search for the murals was encouraged by Vasari's assertion that the Misericordia contains a portrait of Amerigo Vespucci, the navigator from whose name America is derived, but these claims have been thrown into doubt in recent decades by referring to tax returns and the like, showing that Amerigo would've been 14 when the fresco was painted. Also arguably depicted here is Simonetta Vespucci, the wife of Marco Vespucci, the supposed mistress of Giuliano de' Medici and, it is said, Botticelli's model for his famous Venus. Opposite this chapel is the Rustici chapel, decorated by Domenico's son Ridolfo Ghirlandaio c.1530. The Coronation of the Virgin is depicted in the lunette, with The Trinity below. The latter was also uncovered in 1898. |
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Between third and forth altars on the right is Botticelli's Saint Augustine, (see above right) his only fresco remaining in Florence, recently reinstalled after two years in restoration. It makes a distinct pair with Ghirlandaio's Flemish-inspired Saint Jerome opposite (see above). This Flemish influence is said to have derived from a Saint Jerome in his Study by Jan van Eyck then in the collection of Lorenzo de Medici, now possibly in Detroit. These Doctors of the Church are both frescoes, both from 1480, and were detached from the old tramezzo (rood screen), on which they were placed either side of the doorway, which was pulled down in the mid-1560s. The exact location and configuration of the tramezzo is unknown. The removal of these screens is traditionally said to have been prompted by the Counter Reformation and the Council of Trent's decree that even the laity should have a clear view of the altar and be able to clearly hear the sermon, but recent research has lead to the appreciation of more factors, many more aesthetic than liturgical, and a longer timescale. Saint Augustine is reacting to a vision of the death of Saint Jerome, said to have taken place in the hour before sunrise, the time shown on the clock behind him. Above Saint Augustine in the fresco the text in an open book includes the mysterious lines Where is Fra' Martino? He fled. And where did he go? He is outside Porta al Prato. When the panels were removed from the tramezzo the inscriptions on the painted porphyry-coloured panels above the pair were changed. Augustine's humourously reads 'Augustine has devoted himself so completely to sacred studies that he is still not aware that his location has changed.' Steps up take you into a transept seemingly as long as the church, the right wing longer than the left with an extra chapel to the west at the end. Botticelli is buried in this otherwise uninteresting right wing, very near the last resting place of Simonetta Vespucci, in another Vespucci family chapel. She was his model for Venus in The Birth of Venus and, as his request to be buried near her suggests, possibly someone who meant much more to him. He was buried in the Ognissanti's churchyard in 1510 but his body was later moved here. The floor tomb of Simone di Pietro Vespucci here, from 1376, is the first of the family's works for the church. The shield-shaped stemma shows wasps (vespe) from which the family name derives. ![]() At the end of the right transept is a door to the recently-restored burial chapel of Queen Caroline Bonaparte (see left). The cappella maggiore, begun in 1574, has a large domed choir behind the ornate early 17th century high altar by Francesco Gargiolli, (see photo right). The Crucifix now to be found in the left transept Gucci Chapel was widely thought to be by the studio of, or a follower of, Giotto (see photo below right). But following a 5-year restoration project, and its return here in 2010, it is now attributed here to the man himself. When it was thought to be merely giottesca it was kept in the sacristy (see black and white photo below right), but in the 18th century it was in the Gucci Chapel. This chapel is a rare survival from before the Franciscan rebuilding programme, and is a small copy of the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, in both its position and construction. Both chapels are said to have been inspired by the Calvary Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem, which may explain the Gucci Chapel's survival of the Franciscan rebuilding. The sacristy, off of the left transept to the left of the Gucci Chapel, has a fresco of The Crucifixion with Saints Bernard and Benedict by Taddeo Gaddi from c.1340/60 (see photo below). Lacking a charismatic fonder the Humiliati had adopted Saint Bernard in the decades before the commissioning of this fresco. Also in here is a fresco fragment found after 1966 in the cappella maggiore. It shows the bottom of a Resurrection and the top of an Ascension attributed to Pietro Nelli from c.1390-95. The subjects strongly suggest a Passion cycle around the high altar.
There's a carved wooden Crucifix by
the famed German sculptor Veit Stoss in one of the transept chapels.
It was commissioned around 1500 by someone called Santi délia Fonte for
the church of
San Salvatore al Monte, and was
transferred here 1561. Stoss's limewood statue of San Rocco in
Santissima Annunziata
was described by Vasari as ‘a miracle in wood’.
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