Orsanmichele (pronounced [orsammiˈkɛːle]; "Kitchen Garden of St. Michael", from the Tuscan contraction of the Italian word orto) is a church in the Italian city of Florence. The building was constructed on the site of the kitchen garden of the monastery of San Michele which no longer exists.
Located on the Via Calzaiuoli in Florence, the church was originally built as a grain market[1] in 1337 by Francesco Talenti, Neri di Fioravante, and Benci di Cione. Between 1380 and 1404, it was converted into a church used as the chapel of Florence's powerful craft and trade guilds. On the ground floor of the square building the 13th-century arches that had originally been open, forming the loggia-style grain market, were walled up. The second floor was devoted to offices, while the third housed one of the city's municipal grain storehouses, maintained to withstand famine or siege.[1]
As early as 1339 the main guilds had each been assigned a space between the arches to make a framed niche, with a statue of their patron saint in it. At this time, only the Arte de Lana (wool guild) seems to have done so; this figure was later replaced.[2]
Towards the end of the 14th century, the guilds were again charged by the city to commission statues of their patron saints to embellish the facades of the church.[1] The majority of the statues date from 1400 to 1428, with two of the earliest from that period later replaced, in the 16th century. The sculptures seen in the exterior niches today are copies, the originals having been removed to museums, mostly the one on the upper floor of the building (see below).
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Transcription
(piano playing) Dr. Steven Zucker: We're on the first floor of Orsanmichele, which is this extraordinarily complicated and important building. It's a grainary and it's odd to think of a grainary right in the middle of town. Dr. Beth Harris: Well, we don't often think about granaries. Granaries were a place to store grain. Dr. Zucker: But this was incredibly important because there were years when a town might be under siege and you couldn't get to the fields, or there might be bad harvests. Dr. Harris: Right, so right here on the first floor of Orsanmichele, there was a grain market and it was open. Dr. Zucker: And then upstairs there were the storage areas and those are huge spaces. Dr. Harris: So this was, at one point, the church and then became a grainary and there was an image of the Madonna that was located here that was believed to have miraculous powers and at some point it burned and then another image of the Virgin was created Dr. Zucker: Was endued with the same powers and I think we're up to the third version. This was by Bernardo Daddi, but it's surrounded by this extraordinary alter, which was by [Orcania], who we generally think of as a painter. Dr. Harris: It's an amazing tabernacle housing this miraculous image of the Virgin, so we have to imagine that this space was once open. Dr. Zucker: Okay, so the walls that are there now we're not there originally. This was really a part of the city. The city, in a sense, flowed through it. I think it's important to think about this place as an intersection of the spiritual, it was a church, and of the sort of everyday business of the city, that is it was a grainary. In even it's location, it's midway between the great cathedral the Duomo and of the town hall, the Signoria. Dr. Harris: It's here that the first Renaissance sculptures were created for the niches on the outside of this building. It's in this context that the first, really, humanist Renaissance sculptures are born. Dr. Zucker: Let's go upstairs because sculptures that used to be in the niches are now all protected upstairs in the area that used to hold the grain. Dr. Harris: We just climbed up a long flight of stairs and we entered a large open space, filled with the sculptures, the monumental figures, that stood on the outside of Orsanmichele in the niches. Dr. Zucker: So, now if you go outside, you see casts of the originals, which are here because it's safer from the elements. Dr. Harris: To protect them. Dr. Zucker: Yeah. Dr. Harris: In the very early 15th century the guilds of Florence each were responsible for completing a figure for a niche on the outside of Orsanmichele and the guilds each commissioned a sculptor of their choice and we're sitting in front of Donatello's Saint Mark, which was commissioned by the Linen Drapers Guild. Donatello gives us this classical figure. Dr. Zucker: So, what is classical about it? I mean, the first things your eyes see, of course, is this incredible contrapposto that comes through even under that heavy cloth. I mean, look at the way, for instance, that his right engaged leg, the drape falls down to almost as if that's the fluting of the column. Dr. Harris: And we can see his left knee pressing through the drapery, so Donatello is really reviving contrapposto, which hasn't been seen in western art in a thousand years. Dr. Zucker: But it's so beautifully handled. You have the sense of the absolute stability of this figure and yet the sense of his movement. Dr. Harris: The thing that's most impressive is the psychological intensity of this figure, which is really overwhelming. There's a sense, almost as though, along with the contrapposto, he's going to move and he's going to speak. There's a real sense of the dignity of Mark here and I think by extension, that sense that one has in the Florentine Renaissance of the dignity of man, of human beings. Dr. Zucker: There's a kind of intensity. There's a kind of focus. There's a kind of deep human sense of understanding in that face, in the just little bit of the furrow of the brow that you can see and the way that the head is cocked slightly and it's off-center in terms of the shoulders, turning back around and there's an interior awareness, a kind of interior intelligence that comes through so starkly. Dr. Harris: At the same time, without a halo. Dr. Zucker: Yeah. Dr. Harris: I have no doubt that this is someone who sees something that ordinary human beings don't see, when you look at his eyes, he is, in a way, seeing past us. Dr. Zucker: So, isn't that the core of the story of the Florentine experience in the 15th century? You have this intensely devote culture and yet at the same time, you have a culture that is beginning to really celebrate human experience, the individual and the idea of the rational. (piano playing)
Interior
Inside the church is Andrea Orcagna's bejeweled Gothic Tabernacle (1355–59) encasing a repainting by Bernardo Daddi's of an older icon of the "Madonna and Child".[3]
Exterior
The facades held 14 architecturally designed external niches, which were filled from 1399 to around 1430. The three richest guilds opted to make their figures in the far more costly bronze, which cost approximately ten times the amount of the stone figures.
| Niche | Statue | Sculptor | Guild | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Madonna of the Rose | Pietro di Giovanni Tedesco | Medici e Speziali (doctors and apothecaries) |
1399 | |
|
Quattro Santi Coronati (Four Crowned Martyrs or Four Saints) |
Nanni di Banco | Maestri di Pietra e Legname (wood and stone workers) |
1408 | [4][5] |
|
St. Mark | Donatello | Arte dei Linaiuoli e Rigattieri (linen-weavers and peddlers) |
1411 | [6][7] |
|
St. Philip | Nanni di Banco | Arte dei Calzaiuoli (shoemakers) |
1412-14 | [8][9] |
|
Christ and St. Thomas | Andrea del Verrocchio | Tribunale di Mercanzia (merchants) |
1467-83 | Replaced St. Louis of Toulouse by Donatello (1413)[10][11][12] |
|
St. Eligius | Nanni di Banco | Arte dei Maniscalchi (farriers) |
1411-15 | |
|
St. James | Niccolò di Piero Lamberti, probably with his son Piero di Niccolò Lamberti.[13] | Arte dei Pellicciai (furriers) |
by 1410[14] | |
|
St. Peter | Filippo Brunelleschi | Arte dei Beccai (butchers) |
1415 | |
|
St. John the Baptist | Lorenzo Ghiberti | Arte di Calimala (The Guild of Merchants of Calimala) |
1414-16 | [15] |
|
St. George | Donatello | Arte dei Corazzai (armourers) |
1416 | [16][17] |
|
St. Matthew | Lorenzo Ghiberti | Arte del Cambio (bankers) |
1419-20 | [18][19] |
|
St. Stephen | Lorenzo Ghiberti | Arte della Lana (wool manufacturers) |
1428 | [20] |
|
St. John the Evangelist | Baccio da Montelupo | Arte della Seta (silk merchants) |
1513-1515 | |
|
St. Luke | Giambologna | Giudici e Notai (magistrates and notaries) |
1601 | [21] |
Modern assessment
Orsanmichele's statuary is a relic of the fierce devotion and pride of Florentine trades, and a reminder that great art often arises out of a competitive climate. Each trade hoped to outdo the other in commissioning original, groundbreaking sculptures for public display on Florence's most important street, and the artists hired and materials used (especially bronze) indicate the importance that was placed on this site.
Today, all of the original sculptures have been removed and replaced with modern duplicates to protect them from the elements and vandalism.[22] The originals mainly reside in the museum of Orsanmichele, which occupies the upper floor of the church, and can be seen on every Monday, the only day when the museum is open. Two works by Donatello are in other Florentine museums: St. George and its niche are in the Bargello, and St. Louis of Toulouse is in the museum of the Basilica di Santa Croce.
Notes
- ^ a b c Zucconi, Guido (1995). Florence: An Architectural Guide. San Giovanni Lupatoto, Vr, Italy: Arsenale Editrice srl. ISBN 88-7743-147-4.
- ^ Seymour, 58
- ^ "The Orsanmichele Market in Time of Famine". The National Gallery of Art. Archived from the original on August 21, 2006. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ "Nanni Di Banco". The National Gallery of Art. Archived from the original on August 21, 2006. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ Sullivan, Mary Ann (July 10, 2005). "Four Crowned Saints (or Four Crowned Martyrs) and relief at base of tabernacle, Orsanmichele". Orsanmichele. Digital Imaging Project: Art historical images of European and North American architecture and sculpture from classical Greek to Post-modern. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ Sullivan, Mary Ann (July 10, 2005). "St. Mark, Orsanmichele". Orsanmichele. Digital Imaging Project: Art historical images of European and North American architecture and sculpture from classical Greek to Post-modern. Retrieved July 14, 2006.[dead link]
- ^ Kren, Emil; Marx, Daniel (June 22, 2006). "St Mark". Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ Sullivan, Mary Ann (July 10, 2005). "St. Philip, Orsanmichele". Orsanmichele. Digital Imaging Project: Art historical images of European and North American architecture and sculpture from classical Greek to Post-modern. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ "St. Philip" (JPG). Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ Sullivan, Mary Ann (July 10, 2005). "Christ and St. Thomas (or Doubting of Thomas), Orsanmichele". Orsanmichele. Digital Imaging Project: Art historical images of European and North American architecture and sculpture from classical Greek to Post-modern. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ "Verrocchio". The National Gallery of Art. Archived from the original on August 21, 2006. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ Kren, Emil; Marx, Daniel (June 22, 2006). "St Louis". Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ Seymour, 59
- ^ Seymour, 59
- ^ Sullivan, Mary Ann (July 10, 2005). "St. John the Baptist". Orsanmichele. Digital Imaging Project: Art historical images of European and North American architecture and sculpture from classical Greek to Post-modern. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ Sullivan, Mary Ann (July 10, 2005). "St. George (bronze copy of the original marble) and relief at the base of the tabernacle, Orsanmichele". Orsanmichele. Digital Imaging Project: Art historical images of European and North American architecture and sculpture from classical Greek to Post-modern. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ Kren, Emil; Marx, Daniel (June 22, 2006). "St George". Web Gallery of Art. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ "St. Matthew" (JPG). Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ "Ghiberti". The National Gallery of Art. Archived from the original on August 21, 2006. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ "St. Stephen" (JPG). Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ Sullivan, Mary Ann (July 10, 2005). "St. Luke". Orsanmichele. Digital Imaging Project: Art historical images of European and North American architecture and sculpture from classical Greek to Post-modern. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- ^ "Orsanmichele". Foundation For Italian Art and Culture. November 9, 2005. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
References
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Orsanmichele, Smarthistory"Orsanmichele". Smarthistory at Khan Academy. Retrieved May 9, 2013. |
- Seymour, Charles Jr., Sculpture in Italy, 1400–1500, 1966, Penguin (Pelican History of Art)
External links
- Sullivan, Mary Ann (July 10, 2005). "Orsanmichele". Digital Imaging Project: Art historical images of European and North American architecture and sculpture from classical Greek to Post-modern. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- "Monumental Sculpture from Renaissance Florence". The National Gallery of Art. Archived from the original on July 13, 2006. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
43°46′14.73″N 11°15′18.61″E / 43.7707583°N 11.2551694°E
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This page was last edited on 4 December 2023, at 16:09