Basilica Santa Croce

A sacristy is a room for keeping vestments and other church furnishing and sacred vessels. The Sacristy was built in 1340 and was commissioned by the Peruzzi Family. The room is in gothic style with richly painted trusses on the ceiling.

The sacristy owes part of its charm to its antique furniture consisting of a central chest and side cupboards dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries (with later alterations). Today as then, this furniture is used to store the vestments which the friars don here before attending liturgical services.

Frescoes byTaddeo Gaddi which more scenes were added towards the end of the 14th century when Spinello Aretino painted the Procession to Calvary on the left and Niccolò di Pietro Gerini painted the Resurrection on the right and the Ascension above.

Close look at the fresco. It took over 60 years for the entire piece to be completed and Gaddi died before seeing it finished. The richly painted frame surrounding the panels looks like straight out of illuminated manuscript.

Items used in liturgical services are stored and where the priest and other members of the clergy prepare for those services.

Surrounding the rest of the room are large wooden cabinets which contain various vestments an sacred relics collected by the church.

The Crucifixion on tempera on wood by Cimabue around 1288.

Cimabue's imposing Crucifix is one Santa Croce's most iconic works and will forever be a symbol of the tragedy of the flood that hit Florence in 1966.

The Crucifixion on tempera on wood by Cimabue around 1288.

During the flood of Florence in 1966 the Crucifix, which hung in the great hall of Cenacolo, where the water reached almost 5 meters was covered in mud. It took 10 years to restore to cross and return it to its original home. Having lost 70% of its painted surface, it still stands as a testimony to those terrible days. It was hung up high in the Sacristy for added safety in 2013.

Well Room

This room is part of the 15th century project commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici for the Novitiate area. Its function was closely connected to that of the adjacent sacristy, which is why it was furnished with cupboards for liturgical vestments and accoutrements, a washbasin (removed in the 20th century) and a well.

Nardo di Cione's Madonna and Child with Saints painted for the Santa Maria degli Angeli monastery in 1365, Giovanni del Biondo's St. John Gualbert Enthroned with Four Stories from his Life (c. 1370) coming from the San Salvi monastery and Lorenzo Monaco's St. James Enthroned painted for an unknown destination in 1408.

On the left is a painting by Giovanni del Biondo, St. John Gualbert Enthroned with Four Stories from his Life, c. 1370,

On the left is a niche that housed the well, with its green-earth fresco dated c. 1445 and attributed to Paolo Schiavo depicting Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well.

The niche also has a Medici coat-of-arms in stone attributed to the workshop of Michelozzo.

On the left is Madonna and Child on tempera wood, By Master of San Martino All Palma -First half of the 14th Century

In the center Madonna and Child on tempera wood, by Jacopo di Cione, Circa 1360

On the right Madonna and Child on tempera wood, by Master of the Medici Chapel -First half of the 14th Century

The Medici Chapel

This rectangular chapel has a twin cross-vaulted ceiling and ends in a square chancel.

Intended for novices, it was built between 1435 and 1445 thanks to the generosity of Cosimo de' Medici, who became its patron.

The chapel's Renaissance structure, probably designed by Michelozzo, has remained virtually unchanged over the years, but its furnishings have been altered on many occasions, including, since 1815, with works of art removed from churches and convents suppressed in the Napoleonic era.

The chapel's present aspect is the result of a project developed in 2014 to keep works difficult to move such as Bronzino's Descent of Christ into Limbo (see below) or Francesco Salviati's Deposition from the Cross safe from the threat of flood damage.

Entombment of Christ, circa 1547-1548, by Salviati, Oil on Wood

The Decent of Christ into Limbo, circa 1552 by Bronzino-Oil on wood

The Holy Trinity by Trinita, circa 1592, oil on Wood

The dispute over the immaculate Conception by Carlo POrtelli, circa 1555, oil on Wood

Room overview.

Madonna and Child enthroned between Saints Louis of Toulouse and John the Evangelist and with Saints John the Baptist, Andre, Anthony the Abbot and Lawrence (left) Peter, Bartholomew, Christopher and Francis of Assis (right)

Early 15th century, tempera on wood by Loranzo di Nicoolo

The Cloister

San Croce is actually home to 3 separate cloisters, each one constructed in a different period by different architect. Today, we are just visiting the primary cloister.

Design by Arnolfo Di Cambio, it is the largest cloister indented to going the church from the refectory with an open garden in the center

The Primary cloister of Santa Croce is known as the ancient cloister because it is connected to the second phase of the building of Santa Croce, which is dated post 1250. It is the heart of the Franciscan complex, is surrounded by the Pazzi chapels, and is considered one of the masterpieces of Renaissance architecture.

The chapel has a rectangular base covered with a conical central dome supported by fine vaulting that one also finds in the porch. The spaces are divided up with a geometric lucidity. The white intonaco (plaster) of the walls is in cool contrast to the pilasters in grey “serene” stone.

View of the bell tower from the cloister.

The bell tower, which stood unfinished for over a 100 years, as "il sasso" or the stone. Over 255 ft. tall. it is located to the right of the church within the cloister.

The original bell tower built above the apse of the Church fell down in 1512 and Francesco da Sangallo was asked to design another one but soon were interrupted due to the lack of funds. Everything came to a standstill until the 1800s when it was finally finished.

Capella de' Pazzi

Entering the Capella de' Pazzi.

The chapel was built after a fire that damaged this area of the complex in 1423. It was commissioned by Andrea de' Pazzi, a member of one of Florence's most influential families, to serve both as a family chapel and as the Franciscans' chapter house.

The Pazzi Chapel, one of the earliest and most representative architectural structures of the Renaissance, is based like the buildings of the classical era on a module, in other words on a system establishing a proportionate relationship between the different parts of the building.

The chapel's interior is defined by precise proportional relationships: the central module is a cube surmounted by an umbrella dome and flanked by two symmetrical, barrel-vaulted wings.

on the left in blue is the astrological fresco in the small dome over the chancel.

The two stained-glass windows in the chancel were designed by Alesso Baldovinetti: in the oculus we see God the Father Blessing, while St. Andrew behind the altar alludes both to the patron who commissioned the work and to the saint to whom the chapel is dedicated.

Angel and Lion monument to Giuseppe La Farina located next to the exit.

Giuseppe La Farina (20 July 1815 in Messina – 5 September 1863 in Torino) was an influential leader of the Italian Risorgimento. He was founder of the Italian National Society in 1857, a society dedicated to the unification of Italy.

NEXT.... Day 3-Ponte Vecchio/Lunch