Santa Croce, Florence

GIOTTO di Bondone (b. 1267, Vespignano, d. 1337, Firenze
Scene from the Life of St John the Evangelist: 3. Ascension of the Evangelist 1320
Fresco, 280 x 450 cm
Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce

GADDI, Taddeo (b. 1300, Firenze, d. 1366, Firenze)
Allegory of the Cross 1330s
Fresco
Santa Croce

DADDI, Bernardo (b. ca. 1280, Firenze, d. 1348, Firenze)
The Martyrdom of St Stephen 1324
Fresco, Santa Croce



DONATELLO (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi) (b. ca. 1386, Firenze, d. 1466, Firenze)
Annunciation
c. 1435
Gilded pietra serena, 218 x 168 cm
Santa Croce

DONATELLO (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi) (b. ca. 1386, Firenze, d. 1466, Firenze)
Annunciation (detail) c. 1435
Gilded pietra serena,
Santa Croce



DONATELLO (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi) (b. ca. 1386, Firenze, d. 1466, Firenze)
Annunciation (detail) c. 1435
Gilded pietra serena,
Santa Croce

The Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence

Basilica of Santa Croce - present day

Basilica of Santa Croce and square - 1688

The lithograph image shows a game of Fiorentine football
Note.- In the house at Number 5 of the piazza was born Maffeo Barberini, the future Urban VIII, who in 1633 condemned Galileo Galilei,and who is now buried in the Basilica.High Altar High Altar
Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337)
Death of St Francis
Fresco, Cappella Bardi, Santa Croce Crucifix above High Altar Nave Nave Cimabue
Crucifix
Santa Croce museumTomb of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer.Tomb of Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), Italian physicist, astronomer, and philosopherTomb of Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527), political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright.Tomb by Alberti of Leonardo Bruni (c.1370 – 1444), leading humanist, historian and a chancellor of Florence.Tomb of Gioacchino Antonio Rossini (February 29, 1792 – November 13, 1868), Italian musical composer

In the Paradiso, Dante described the Franciscan and Dominican orders as the two great wheels on which the church of his day relied on in its journey. Without one, no journey was possible.

The Dominican is seen as the moral and intellectual guide to the corporate church. The Franciscan is the charismatic personality appealing to individual emotions.

In the Florence of Dante`s day and beyond, allegiance was broadly divided between the Franciscans and the Dominicans. They were the two main religious authorities in the city. The Dominicans had San Marco and the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. The Franciscans were based at Santa Croce.

St Francis visited Florence in 1209. Shortly after his death, some of his followers came to Florence and erected a Church called Santa Croce in 1228. This was at Porto san Gallo.

In response to the Dominican decision to build the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, the Franciscans erected a Church on the present site of Santa Croce in 1294/5.

The current church begun in 1294, possibly by Arnolfo di Cambio, was paid for by some of the city's wealthiest families. It was consecrated in 1442 by Pope Eugene IV.

The vast structure is the largest Franciscan church in the world.

Its most notable features are its sixteen chapels, many of them decorated with frescoes by Giotto and his pupils, and its funerary monuments. In 1560, the choir screen was removed and the interior rebuilt by Giorgio Vasari, who damaged the church's decoration in the process. The decoration carried out to comply with the directives of the Council of Trent.

The neo-Gothic facade, by Nicolò Matas, only dates from 1857-1863. The campanile was built in 1842.

It welcomed in many outstanding figures in the history of the church, such as Saint Bonaventure, Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Bernardine of Siena and Saint Louis of Anjou, Bishop of Toulouse.

Over the centuries it also received many Popes, including Eugenius IV, Sixtus IV, Leo X and Clement XIV

The interior houses works by Cimabue, Giotto, Maso di Banco, Giovanni da Milano, Brunelleschi, Michelozzo, Donatello, Domenico Veneziano, Della Robbia, Benedetto da Maiano, Giuliano da San Gallo, Bronzino, Vasari, Canova and others.

Santa Croce has been called “the Pantheon of Italian glories” since it houses the tombs of numerous illustrious figures, including Ghiberti, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Galileo, Alfieri, Foscolo and Rossini.

References:

Opera di Santa Croce (official web site)

http://www.operadisantacroce.it/santacroce.htm

The Church in Florence

http://www.coordinamentochiesedifirenze.it/eng/presentazione.asp

Catholic Diocese of Florence (Official Website )

http://www.webdiocesi.chiesacattolica.it/cci_new/vis_diocesi.jsp?idDiocesi=75

Ars et Fides Firenze (Official Guides)

http://www.arsetfidesfirenze.it/

Florence Art Guide:Basilica of Santa Croce

http://www.mega.it/eng/egui/monu/xbasilic.htm

New China. New crisis

Sunday January 7, 2007
The Observer

In the last decade China has emerged as a powerful, resurgent economic force with the muscle to challenge America as the global superpower. But, in his controversial new book, Will Hutton argues that China's explosive economic reforms will create seismic tensions within the one-party authoritarian state and asks: can the centre hold?

See an edited extract from The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century to be published by Little, Brown on 15 January, £20.

See article here

St. Clare of Assisi (Santa Chiara) (1194-1253)

Chiara Offreduccio was born at Assisi, 16 July, 1194 and died there on 11 August, 1253.

She was eighteen years of age when St. Francis came to preach the Lenten course in the church of San Giorgio (now the site of the Basilica of Santa Chiara) at Assisi. Inspired, she sought him out secretly and begged him to help her that she too might live "after the manner of the holy Gospel."

On the night of Palm Sunday (20 March, 1212), Clare, secretly left her father's house, by St. Francis's advice and, accompanied by her aunt Bianca and another companion, proceeded to the humble chapel of the Porziuncula. There St. Francis and his disciples met her with lights in their hands. Clare then laid aside her rich dress, and St. Francis, having cut off her hair, clothed her in a rough tunic and a thick veil, and in this way the young heroine vowed herself to the service of Jesus Christ.

Clare and her sister remained with the nuns at various local communities until they and the other fugitives from the world who had followed them were established by St. Francis in a rude dwelling adjoining the poor chapel of San Damiano which he had to a great extent rebuilt with his own hands.

Thus was founded the first community of the Order of Poor Ladies, or of Poor Clares, as this second order of St. Francis came to be called.

St. Clare, who in 1215 had, much against her will been made superior at San Damiano by St. Francis, continued to rule there as abbess until her death, in 1253, nearly forty years later. There is no good reason to believe that she ever once went beyond the boundaries of San Damiano during all that time.

On 15 August 1255, the successor of Innocent IV, Pope Alexander IV, who had been Cardinal Protector of the Poor Ladies, solemnly canonised Clare in the cathedral of Anagni.

In 1260 the Poor Ladies moved to their new monastery in Assisi, where the church of San Giorgio once stood. They took with them the crucifix of San Damiano and the mortal remains of Clare. After her death her Sisters became known as the Order of St. Clare.

The tomb of St. Clare was found on 30 August 1850, and on 23 September her relics were exhumed. In 1872 they were placed in an urn in the crypt of the basilica, for the veneration of pilgrims.

Someone has said that without Saint Clare, the Franciscan movement, as we know it today, surely would not have survived. Clare was utterly loyal to St Francis. During his lifetime, she gave him total support. After his death, Clare gave the Franciscan movement much energy, fought to preserve the privilege of absolute poverty, and helped keep the movement on the straight path that Saint Francis of Assisi had originally intended.

Biographies of St Clare:

Catholic Online

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=215

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_of_Assisi

Saint Clare of Assisi Parish - Coquitlam

http://www.stclareofassisi.ca/St_Clare_Bio.html

The Poor Ladies of Assisi

http://www.wtu.edu/franciscan/pages/groups/clares/life.html

The Franciscans

http://www.franciscanfriarstor.com/stfrancis/St_Clare_of_Assisi/stf_st_clare_of_assisi.htm

Public debate on hybrid embryos

BBC News reports (Thursday, 11 January 2007, 11:48 GMT) that the public will be asked whether scientists should be allowed to create hybrid human-animal embryos, regulators have announced.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority says it will not rule on any research applications until a consultation has been completed.

This is in response to two UK requests to mix human and animal cells in order to find cures for degenerative diseases.

The consultation is expected to be completed in the Autumn.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has published a press statement regarding the decision not to take a decision until the consultation has been completed.

The website of Core Ethics has published a useful note as to why the experimentation should not be allowed, bearing in mind that many countries already ban such experimentation, on the gounds that alternative means already exist for achieving the same results.

Pope Leo XIII (Gioacchino Pecci 1878-1903)

Are these the first "moving" images of a Pope ?

Moving last letters of explorer Scott

Moving last letters of explorer Scott

BBC News


Explorer Scott (Captain Robert Falcon Scott 1868-1912 ) of the Antarctic died in 1912 on his ill-fated South Pole expedition. The last letter Capt Robert Scott wrote to his wife, Kathleen, reveals the human tragedy behind the doomed journey. The last messages are now on the BBC website. They are poignant and moving.

The final messages written by Capt Scott to his family will be on public display at the Scott Polar Research Institute Museum in Cambridge from 17 January. It was donated to the museum by his son's widow.

For more information about Captain Scott and his expedition see here.

Grime and punishment

Better late than never !


The Sunday Times
December 31, 2006

DIRT FOR ART’S SAKE
Books on Trial from Madame Bovary to Lolita
by Elisabeth Ladenson
Cornell Univ Press £16.95 pp304

Review by Christopher Hart

Sex for us may have begun in 1963, but for the Victorians it began in 1857. So suggests Elisabeth Ladenson in this witty and elegant study, written with an exceptional sensitivity to the multiple ironies regarding sex and censorship in literature. 1857 was the annus mirabilis, or horribilis, that saw the publication and then prosecution of Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du Mal, as well as the passage of the Obscene Publications Act in England.

Madame Bovary was defended successfully, while Les Fleurs du Mal came out in modified form. But Baudelaire does tend to strike us now as part of that slightly silly late Romantic/fin de siècle movement that, having no real grasp of “evil”, decided it must be something exotic and thrilling with which to épater le bourgeois.

A century or more later, we have some rather more concrete examples of evil to reflect upon, and very unglamorous and aesthetically unappealing they look too, in all their sickness and squalor and banality. Toying with some astract idea of “Mal” as an aesthetic credo seems both childish and repellent, and Ladenson’s description of Baudelaire as “The Florist of Evil” is appropriately withering.



Full review: here

Lindisfarne's Gospels meet their Bishop

In Lindisfarne's Gospels meet their Bishop, Mgr Mark Langham, Administrator of Westminster Cathedral, London of Solomon, I Have Surpassed Thee, describes a visit of the Bishop of Lindisfarne to see the copy of the Lindisfarne Gospels in the British Library at St Pancras, London.

The Gospels are one of the treasures of the Library. They are shown in a separate section amongst the other treasures such as Magna Carta and the First Folio of Shakespeare`s plays.

The British Library website has a section called "Turning the Pages" where one can view the Gospels and some of the other great books held by the Library.

Nobel scientists urge fertility watchdog to back hybrid embryos

The Times
January 10, 2007

Nobel scientists urge fertility watchdog to back hybrid embryos
By Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor

Leading scientists, including three Nobel prizewinners, have called on the Government’s fertility watchdog to back the creation of “human-animal” embryos.

In a letter published in The Times today, 45 experts, including the President of the Royal Society, urge the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) not to bar research that could help patients with currently incurable conditions such as motor neuron disease and Alzheimer’s.

The HFEA meets today to consider its policy towards fusing animal eggs with human DNA to create short-lived embryos for research. Three teams have applied for permission to create such embryos.


Full story here

St. Francis of Assisi (1182; - 1226)

Tomb of St Francis of Assisi, at the Basilica in Assisi


BERLINGHIERI, Bonaventura (active in mid-13th century)
St Francis 1235
Tempera on wood 160 x 123 cm
Church of San Francesco, Pescia
Earliest known image of St Francis

Entrance to birthplace of St Francis


Tunic of St Francis: kept at the Basilica in Assisi

Twelve sackclothed vagrants with no visible means of support gathered in A.D. 1210 in the little Italian hill town of Assisi. They started what Danish Roman Catholic Historian Johannes Jorgensen called "the most powerful attempt since Christ to make the world truly Christian."

Their leader was a gentle little man who began life as a young gallant with a yen for glory. Then in 1205, riding off to war at 22, he heard a voice ask, "Why do you desert the Lord?"

Not long after, Francis of Assisi (baptised Giovanni di Bernadone:born at Assisi, in 1181 or 1182; died there, 3 October, 1226) turned to prayer and fasting. Hauled into an episcopal court for selling some of his merchant father's best fabrics to help a poor priest, he stepped out of his fine clothes before the stunned bishop and handed them back to his father. Thenceforth he renounced the ways of the world.

In a few years Francis and his order of Frati Minori, or Little Brothers (they did not at first aspire to the priesthood), had become a mass movement dedicated to holy poverty. When Francis got around to writing down a formal rule for his order, he prescribed "vile vestments" and, in preaching, "brief discourses, because the Lord while on earth talked briefly."

There are few, if any, medieval lives more thoroughly documented.

He was active at the same time as St Dominic was. Indeed the two once met in Rome.

The burial place of St. Francis was found again in 1818. His remains had been hidden by brother Elia to prevent the spread of his relics in medieval Europe. By order of Pope Pius IX a crypt was built under the lower basilica. It was designed by Pasquale Belli with precious marble in neo-classical style. But it was redesigned in bare stone in neo-Romanesque style by Ugo Tarchi between 1925 and 1932.

The ancient stone coffin with iron ties is enshrined in an open space above the altar.

In 1934 his most faithful brothers were entombed in the corners of the wall around the altar: brother Rufino, brother Angelo, brother Masseo and brother Leone.

At the entrance of the crypt, an urn with the remains of Jacopa dei Settesoli was added to the crypt. This woman of Roman nobility was the most faithful friend and benefactress of St. Francis. She was at his side in the Porziuncola at the hour of his death.

In 1978, the remains of St. Francis were reburied after a special rite at the basilica in Assisi, Italy. When the remains were exhumed so the grave site could be repaired, Pope Paul VI asked scientists to study them. Their findings: the saint, who died in 1226, was short and frail and his bones "very porous, denoting a form of malnutrition."

Biographies of St Francis:

Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06221a.htm

Sacred Convent of Assisi
http://www.sanfrancescoassisi.org/index.php?lang=eng

Catholic Online
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=50

EWTN
http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/FRANCIS.htm

Franciscan Archive
http://www.franciscan-archive.org/patriarcha/

Auspicato Concessum: Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Francis of Assisi (17th September, 1882)
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_17091882_auspicato-concessum_en.html

Rite Expiatis: Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on St Francis of Assisi (30th April 1926)
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_30041926_rite-expiatis_en.html

ArtSolidarity

Just came upon excellent new blog on the bloggosphere: ArtSolidarity.

It describes itself so:

"ArtSolidarity is a coalition of artists: writers, directors of cinema and the theater , painters, sculptors, designers, architects, musicians, teachers of art, art historians and artists by desire. We are calling to all artists who believe that "Beauty will save the world." We are coming together to create a solidarity of artists who will in turn help cultivate a robust culture of beauty."

Hat tip to The Roving Medievalist.

Eau du Pape

Fr Tim Finigan of The hermeneutic of continuity reports on the result of a scientific trial which he carried out on the new eau de cologne based on Pope Pius IX`s aftershave.

The results seem quite dramatic.

At least it doesn`t give epileptic fits...

Just an everyday Medieval scene...

Hat tip to Totus Pius:
http://totuspius.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-years-resolution.html

Francesco Messina (1900 – 1995)

Monument to St Catherine of Siena, by Castel Sant`Angelo


Monument to St Catherine of Siena (detail)


The Dying Horse, outside offices of RAI, Rome (1966)



Cardinal Schuster, Milan

Monumento funerario a De Luca (Milano Cimitero monumentale, 1954)

Mary holding up the crucified Christ

Monument to Pope Pius XII by Francesco Messina

Details:

". . . I pray those whose affair it is not to bother to erect any monuments to my memory: sufficient it is that my poor mortal remains should be laid simply in a sacred place . . . "
(Pope Pius XII, 1876-1958, Last Will and Testament)


Notwithstanding the terms of Pope Pius` Will, the Cardinals appointed by Pius XII ordered a monument to him. It was made by the artist Francesco Messina in 1964. It stands in St Peter`s Basilica in the Vatican.

The Pope is shown blessing the faithful and clad in papal robes.

His gesture also seems to express his desire to put an end to the scourge of the Second World War, while his expression seems to reiterate his famous sentence uttered immediately after his election in 1939: "Nothing is lost in peace, all can be lost with war".

In bronze, the statue presents an austere, detached and strongly rigorous figure. The face is luminous, earnest, ascetic and anxious.

Outside Italy, the artist is perhaps not as well known as he should be. Francesco Messina (Linguaglossa, Catania 1900 – Milano 1995) was born in Linguaglossa, in the province of Catania, in 1900. He spent most of his youth in Genova.

As a young artist, he was an excellent draftsman, and found an early affinity for the human form. He soon began to sculpt in clay (terra cotta) and other media.

In the 1930s, his sculpture was exhibited throughout Europe in group shows of Italian artists.

In 1932, he moved to Milan, and was soon appointed a tenured professor at that city's Brera Art Academy.

His Fascism (he was a longtime party member) was sufficient to bring about a brief post-war suspension of his tenure as director of the Brera Academy. The artist's association with the Fascist Party may have been a simple question of opportunism, since it facilitated his receiving public appointments and public commissions.

In 1963, he executed the statue of Pius XII in Saint Peter's Basilica.

Among his admirers were Jean Cocteau and Salvatore Quasimodo. In an age of abstract movements, Messina's works found favour among many who felt alienated by the new wave of expressionist sculpture. His work is neo-classical. His work may not have the imagination and flamboyance of Manzu but within the classical discipline, he is much more than competent.

His other notable works include:

1935 Monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus for the town of Chiavari

1938 “Minerva armata” monument dedicated to the University town of Pavia.

1950 to 1960 Statues and monumental groups for the Milan Monumental Cemetery and for the Basilica of Sant’Eugenio in Rome. Sant`Eugenio was consecrated to the namesake of Pius XII and is closely connected to Pius XII, and is now the principal Church of Opus Dei.

1961-62, Large marble monument dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena, patron saint of Italy which was placed on the battlements of Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome.

1963 Monument of Pius XII for St. Peter`s Basilica in Rome and a bust of Pietro Mascagni for the Scala Opera House.

1966 The “Cavallo morente” (Dying horse) statue for the Palazzo RAI (Italian Broadcasting Company) in Rome.

1961 Monument dedicated to Pius XI for Milan Cathedral.

1968 to 1971 Monumental “Via Crucis” (Way of the Cross), sculptured a huge “Madonna with child” in Carrara marble for the town of San Giovanni Rotondo sul Gargano in Puglia.

1974 Portrait of Ranieri III, Prince of Monaco.

1980 Statue of the “Resurrection of Christ”, six metres high as a conclusion for the Way of the Cross of San Giovanni Rotondo.

Further comment on the statue of Pius XII, see St Peter`s Basilica website.

The cardinals created by Pius XII in his two consistories of February 18, 1946 and January 12, 1953 are set out in The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. In passing, one of the noteworthy acts of Pius XII was the creation of a non-Italian majority in the College of Cardinals for the first time in centuries. The beginnings of the "internationalisation" of the Curia could be said to have started in this pontificate.