| Basilica of the Holy Cross | |
|---|---|
Basilica di Santa Croce (Italian) | |
.jpg) Façade of Santa Croce, October 2023 | |
  Basilica of the Holy Cross Location in Florence | |
| 43°46′6.3″N11°15′45.8″E / 43.768417°N 11.262722°E /43.768417; 11.262722 | |
| Location | Florence, Tuscany |
| Country | Italy |
| Denomination | Catholic Church |
| Sui iuris church | Latin Church |
| Religious order | Order of Friars Minor |
| History | |
| Status | Minor basilica Conventual church |
| Consecrated | 1443 |
| Architecture | |
| Architectural type | Church |
| Style | Gothic,Renaissance,Gothic Revival |
| Groundbreaking | 1294–1295 |
| Completed | 1385 |
| Administration | |
| Archdiocese | Archdiocese of Florence |
TheBasilica di Santa Croce (Italian for 'Basilica of the Holy Cross') is aminor basilica and the principalFranciscan church ofFlorence, Italy. It is situated on thePiazza di Santa Croce, about 800 metres (2,600 ft) southeast of theDuomo, on what was once marshland beyond the city walls. Being the burial place of notable Italians, including those from theItalian Renaissance such asMichelangelo,Galileo, andMachiavelli, as well as the poetFoscolo, political philosopherGentile and the composerRossini, it is also known as theTemple of the Italian Glories (Tempio dell'Itale Glorie).
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The basilica is the largest Franciscan church in the world. Its most notable features are its sixteenchapels, many of them decorated withfrescoes byGiotto and his pupils,[a] and itstombs and cenotaphs. Legend says that Santa Croce was founded bySt Francis himself.[citation needed] The construction of the current church, which replaced an older building, was begun on 12 May 1294,[2] possibly byArnolfo di Cambio, and paid for by some of the city's wealthiest families. It was consecrated in 1442 byPope Eugene IV. The building's design reflects the austere approach of the Franciscans. The floorplan is an Egyptian orTau cross (a symbol of St Francis), 115 metres in length with anave and two aisles separated by lines of octagonal columns. To the south of the church was aconvent, some buildings of which remain.
The Primo Chiostro, the maincloister, houses theCappella dei Pazzi, built as thechapter house, completed in the 1470s.Filippo Brunelleschi (who had designed and executed the dome of the Duomo) was involved in its design which has remained rigorously simple and unadorned.
In 1560, thechoir screen was removed as part of changes arising from theCounter-Reformation and the interior of this area was rebuilt byGiorgio Vasari. As a result, there was damage to the church's decoration and most of the altars previously located on the screen were lost. TheBardi Chapel which contained a cycle of frescoes of the life of St Francis was plastered over, at the behest ofCosimo I, and Vasari placed some new altars against the walls, causing considerable damage to the frescoes.[3]
The bell tower was built in 1842, replacing an earlier one damaged by lightning. Theneo-Gothic marble façade dates from 1857 to 1863. The Jewish architect Niccolò Matas from Ancona designed the church's façade, working a prominentStar of David into the composition. Matas had wanted to be buried with his peers but because he was Jewish, he was buried under the threshold and honoured with an inscription.
In 1866, the complex became public property, as a part of government suppression of most religious houses, following the wars that gained Italian independence and unity.[4][5]
During the 19th-century restorations, the 16th-century altars and plaster were removed from the Bardi Chapel, revealing Giotto's frescoes of the Life of St Francis, which include theDeath of St. Francis. This painting, missing sections where an altar had been attached to the wall, was heavily restored in the 19th century. These restorations were later removed to reveal those areas which are definitively Giotto's, leaving portions of the painting missing.[6]
The Museo dell'Opera di Santa Croce is housed mainly in therefectory, also off the cloister. A monument toFlorence Nightingale stands in the cloister, in the city in which she was born and after which she was named. Brunelleschi also built the inner cloister, completed in 1453.
In 1940, during the safe hiding of various works duringWorld War II, Ugo Procacci noticed theBadia Polyptych being carried out of the church. He reasoned that this had been removed from theBadia Fiorentina during theNapoleonic occupation and accidentally re-installed in Santa Croce.[7] Between 1958 and 1961,Leonetto Tintori removed layers of whitewash and overpaint from Giotto's Peruzzi Chapel scenes to reveal his original work.[1]
In 1966, theArno River flooded much of Florence, including Santa Croce. The water entered the church bringing mud, pollution and heating oil. The damage to buildings and art treasures was severe, taking several decades to repair.
Today the former dormitory of the Franciscan friars houses the Scuola del Cuoio (Leather School).[8] Visitors can watch as artisans craft purses, wallets, and other leather goods which are sold in the adjacent shop.
The basilica has been undergoing a multi-year restoration program with assistance from Italy's civil protection agency.[9] On 20 October 2017, the property was closed to visitors due to falling masonry which caused the death of a tourist from Spain.[10][11] The basilica was closed temporarily during a survey of the stability of the church.[12][13] The Italian Ministry of Culture said that "there will be an investigation by magistrates to understand how this dramatic fact happened and whether there are responsibilities over maintenance."
Artists whose work is present in the church include (for funerary monuments and stained-glass windows see below):
Once present in the church's Medici Chapel, but now split between the Florentine Galleries and theBagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan, is apolyptych byLorenzo di Niccolò, whilst theNovitiate Altarpiece byFilippo Lippi and a predella byPesellino was painted for the church's Novitiate Chapel.
Santa Croce also contains some of the earliest stained-glass windows in Florence. In medieval Italy, stained-glass windows were usually designed by a painter and then created by aglazier, an artist with specialized training in the fabrication of stained-glass windows. Many of the private chapels located in the church'stransept, as well as the high altar chapel of the church, contain well preserved late 13th- and 14th-century stained-glass windows. There are also several examples of 19th- and 20th-century stained glass in Santa Croce. The windows in and around the high altar chapel include:
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_e_agnolo_gaddi_(santi%2c_1380_ca.)_02.jpg)
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The basilica became popular with Florentines as a place of worship and patronage and it became customary for greatly honoured Florentines to be buried or commemorated there. Some were in chapels "owned" by wealthy families such as the Bardi and Peruzzi. As time progressed, space was also granted to notable Italians from elsewhere. For 500 years monuments were erected in the church including those to:
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Footnotes
Citations
Works related toCatholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Suppression of Monasteries in Continental Europe at Wikisource
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