Our BC group has been blessed to visit some great Florentine sites in the past couple of days. Here I’m going to highlight mainly how what we saw relates to the life of Dante, as the Divine Comedy has been my principal academic interest this semester and a course I’m co-teaching with my wife. Our students have been doing a great job of reading and discussing Dante so far, and it has been a joy to prepare this course while living in Dante’s town.
The first site I want to mention is the church of Santa Croce in Florence. In this famous church lie buried men such as Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli. Its museum, formerly a Franciscan convent, houses art from Cimabue and Donatello among other greats. As for Dante, there is a huge statue of him outside in front of the church, and then inside there is a “tomb” of Dante. Dante’s body is not actually there–it’s in Ravenna where he died after he was exiled from his beloved Florence. The Florentines tried to get him back, but Ravenna told Florence, “If you didn’t want him when he was alive, you can’t have him now that he’s dead, either.” I really enjoyed praying a bit at this site. I can’t say if Dante is a saint in Heaven you can pray to, but certainly we can all strive to enter into the mystery he presents in the Comedy, that great journey out of the hellish pit of our sins through the mountain of purgation unto the celestial heights of virtue and union with God.
The second site I’d like comment on is the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. In a side chapel you can find panels depicting the Last Judgment and the Comedy’s three realms, Hell receiving the most attention. The works are deeply in need of restoration but are still great. In this church you can also find masterpieces such as Masaccio’s Trinity–the first of the Renaissance to use perspective–as well as crucifixes from Giotto and Brunelleschi. Below I have posted a complete view of Giotto’s crucifix and a close-up of its bottom wherein Christ’s blood drips upon a skull, traditionally understood to be that of Adam. This is one variation on a common theme in Western and Eastern art–that of Christ harrowing Hell and raising Adam, Eve, and the patriarchs. In Jerusalem, there is also a chapel of Adam and Eve under the site of Golgotha in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Here you see a fissure in the rock directly below the crucifixion site which is described as the place where Christ’s blood dripped down to reach those in limbo who awaited his coming.
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- Galileo’s tomb inside Santa Croce
- Santa Croce in Florence
- Our family was the subject of a lengthy photo shoot by some Chinese folks outside Santa Croce
- Nice trick by a dude outside Santa Croce. This one was actually worth a photo, I thought
- Statue of Dante outside Santa Croce
- Nice Trinity piece in the museum of Santa Croce
- Brunelleschi’s first dome atop the Pazzi Chapel within the complex of Santa Croce in Florence. This was a “practice” dome for the great one atop the Duomo.
- Massive liturgical chant book on display in the former sacristy of S. Maria Novella
- The illustrated Divine Comedy in 6 volumes which we have in our library here
- A segment of Fra Angelico’s Last Judgment in San Marco, Florence. See Satan at the bottom with his three heads as depicted in the Divine Comedy. More on this another time.
- In the museum of S. Maria Novella you can find this great piece depicting Christ’s harrowing of Hell, a favorite image of mine in Eastern and Western Christian art
- Divine Comedy fresco featuring Hell and Purgatory in S. Maria Novella–needs major restoration
- Joseph hanging out while Jen gives Julia some gelato in San Marco piazza as we await our bus
- Giotto’s crucifix in S. Maria Novella
- Nave of S. Maria Novella
- Masaccio’s Trinity in S. Maria Novella with perfect persepctive. The skeleton below is accompanied by the words, “WHAT YOU ARE, I ONCE WAS; WHAT I AM, YOU WILL BECOME”–a true memento mori.
- Dante’s memorial “tomb” in Santa Croce
- Michelangelo’s tomb in Santa Croce
- Facade of S. Maria Novella
- Brunelleschi crucifix in S. Maria Novella, made to rival Donatello’s in Santa Croce
- Close-up of the bottom of Giotto’s crucifix with Christ’s blood drips upon a skull, traditionally understood to be that of Adam.