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Santa Maria Novella

Santa Maria Novella

Leon Battista Alberti & Iacopo Talenti

Photo: Armin Kleiner · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Florence, Italy
Client / Owner
Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai
Year
Completed 1470
Access
Tickets required
Typology
Spiritual

Dominican friars, possibly Sisto, Jacopo Passavanti and Ristoro, began the church in 1279, though the article also gives 1290 and about 1276. Construction took almost 200 years. Iacopo Talenti supervised the bell tower and sacristy, and Pope Eugene IV consecrated the church in 1420. The lower facade was begun in 1350. The upper facade, commissioned by the wool merchant Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai from Leon Battista Alberti, was finished in 1470.

The facade is white marble with green serpentine panels. Alberti added a pediment with a round window and large S-shaped scrolls that link a wide base to a narrower top. The T-shaped interior has a nave 328 feet (100 m) long, pointed arches and black-and-white ribs.

It holds Masaccio's Holy Trinity, the first monumental Renaissance painting using linear perspective, and Ghirlandaio's Tornabuoni Chapel frescoes of 1485 to 1490. The article gives no ticket information.

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