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There is a place in Florence that tells a story of saints, poets and navigators. The Convent of Ognissanti (All Saints) jealously guards priceless treasures of paintings, secrets of Florentine nobility and a monumental last supper by Domenico Ghirlandaio, painted in 1480. You can enter into this mysterious world by walking down the passageway next to the church where you will emerge from dim light into a bright Renaissance cloister. Your curious eyes will find frescoed lunettes on each wall of the entrance of the wide refectory of the convent, founded by the order of Umiliati friars in the thirteenth century.
Thanks to generous donations from wealthy Florentines, such as the Vespucci’s and Lenzi’s, who lived closeby at the "Prato di Ognissanti," the church and the convent were decorated by the greatest Florentine masters of their times: Giotto, Botticelli and Ghirlandaio. Greatest Artists of His Time Ghirlandaio received various commissions from Ognissanti: one of his greatest masterpieces is the Last Supper inside the refectory. I encourage you to look closely near the feet of Christ, where you will see that it is clearly dated 1480. The painter chose an open loggia as the setting, exploiting the architectural elements of the vast hall and extending it with an illusionistic effect depicting a garden in the background. Unlike the other Last Supper frescoes, here you find more naturalistic and symbolic elements that generate a sense of every day life, calm and deep harmony.
Details offer a Guide to Understanding The trees allude to precise Christian symbols: the orange and cedar trees evoke the beauty of Paradise, the palm tree and the cypress foreshadow the martyrdom and death. The other natural elements such as birds in flight or sitting within the two windows have other symbolic values. The hawk on the right, which is chasing the duck, is thought to be an emblem of the struggle of good versus evil, or a symbol of sacrifice for the salvation of the flock, metaphor of Christ, redeeming mankind. Notice the elegant and colorful peacock's tail depicted on the left: for its renewal of the plumage in spring it often symbolizes immortality and rebirth. Crystal clear water jugs and fruits are well defined along the table, set up with an elegant preciousness in each detail. Even the bright tablecloth is finely embroidered, featuring dragons along the edges. I love each touch of color of the scene: the ripe apricots as a symbol of sin, the simplicity of lettuce, symbol of penance, lush red cherries and pomegranate, allusion to the sacrifice of Christ, who occupies the central position in the scene. Right in middle, he is surrounded by the Apostles, announcing that one is going to betray him. The figure of Judas is easily recognizable by his separated position, holding the bag with the reward of his betrayal. Like in Andrea del Castagno’s Last Supper, Judas is sitting on a stool on a lower level than all the other characters. Peter holds firmly the knife in his left hand, while John, the young apostle is tenderly asleep by the right arm of Jesus. Every gesture is measured, creating a balanced atmosphere, lacking of dramatic expressivity.
At either edge of the bench and on the vase of flowers you will find a curious detail: the monogram of the friars of Ognissanti. Their old coat of arms consists of a double cross, featuring the letters OSSC, plus a small "i" within the C: in short “OMNES SANCTI” (All Saints). After the flood of 1966, the fresco was detached and restored. On that occasion, the sinopia was discovered underneath, and displayed aside: thanks to this preparatory sketch you can notice that the original expression of Christ looked very different. The face that we see today is in fact due to a restoration of the XVII century, when the painter Carlo Maratta repainted the head completely, modifying it. Remarkable and well defined are the shadows of the characters, depicted with care thanks to a careful study of natural light coming from the windows on the left wall.
In 1482 a young Florentine painter, Leonardo da Vinci, left Florence for Milan and offered his services to an ambitious Italian Duke, Ludovico Sforza, called il Moro. At that time Ludovico, who wanted to make of the Milanese court one of the most illustrious courts of Italy, aimed at the reinforcement his Duchy and of the position of the Sforza family, by a skillful use of art and architecture. At the centre of Ludovico’s project was the Milanese monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, rebuilt in 1492 by Bramante and later turned into Sforza’s mausoleum. Ludovico commissioned the Florentine painter, Leonardo, to embellish the wall of the monastery’s refectory with the scene representing the Last Supper. Leonardo painted the fresco between 1494 and 1498 and not long after his work was praised by the art lovers and copied by other painters. Today Leonardo’s Last Supper is one of the most widely known masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance art.
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The most ancient Cenacolo with the Last Supper was painted in Florence in 1355 by Taddeo Gaddi, one of Giotto’s pupils, in the refectory of the Franciscan Santa Croce. Since then the walls of the Florentine refectories, the rooms where the monks and the nuns used to meet for a common meals, were decorated with the images of Christ sharing his last supper before the Passion with the apostles. During the centuries varied Florentine artists before Leonardo, Taddeo Gaddi, Domenico Ghirlandaio or Andrea del Castagno, left in the city their visions of this holy event. Taddeo Gaddi’s Last Supper in Santa Croce, painted around 1355 is the earliest example of a Last Supper scene decorating the wall of a refectory in a Florentine convent.
Not by chance the most busy Florentine workshop specialized in fresco painting engaged in the production of these images. Around 1480 Ghirlandaio decorated the walls of the refectory in San Marco’s guesthouse with a scene representing the Last Supper. Using the width of the entire wall of the refectory, Ghirlandaio imagined the cenacle located in a vaulted room, partially open to a garden. Also here, just like in del Castagno’s vision in Sant’Apollonia, the painter wanted to represent the emotional reactions of the Apostles to Jesus’ words. John faints, Peter clenches his fist with anger. We read astonishment, fear and suspicion on the faces of the disciples. Judas sits on the other side of the table.
The lunettes offer an easy opportunity to the expert painter - a view of trees in a Tuscan garden beyond the wall; fruit-trees, cypresses, and an isolated palm-tree that appears rather incongruous in the surroundings. To the right, a peacock perches on a windowsill, while other birds flutter around in the crystalline air. The table is covered by a white tablecloth with blue embroidery. Plates, decanters, glasses, saltcellars and knives are carefully arranged in front of each table-guest, as are the bread and cherries. It might even be the realistic and serene representation of a Florentine table of the period. The defense walls date back to the '400, but in some points you can backdate the thirteenth century.
San Marco is the name of religious complex in Florence, Italy. It comprises a church and a convent. The convent, which is now a museum, has three claims to fame: during the 15th century it was home to two famous Dominicans, the painter Fra Angelico and the preacher, Girolamo Savonarola. The present convent occupies the site where a Vallombrosan monastery existed in the 12th century, which later passed to Benedictine monks of the Silvestrine line. In 1435 the Benedictines were replaced by Dominicans from the Convent of San Domenico in Fiesole. Two years later, they appealed to Cosimo de' Medici the Elder, who lived nearby in the family palace, now known as the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, to fund the renovation of the entire complex. The works were entrusted to Michelozzo. Each cell of the monks cloister and many other walls were decorated by Fra Angelico in collaboration with others, including Benozzo Gozzoli. The convent is now home to the Museo Nazionale di San Marco, housing the major collection of works by Fra Angelico, and also featuring works by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Alesso Baldovinetti, Giovanni Antonio Sogliani and Fra Bartolomeo.
It was completed during the 1250s, but almost completely rebuilt on the Baroque designs of Bartolomeo Pettirossi, in 1627. The Umiliati developed a strong positive relationship with the Florentine people. Many works of art, dedicated by various Florentines, began to accumulate in their once very simple church. Giotto's celebrated Madonna and Child with angels, now in the Uffizi, was painted for the high altar in 1310. Famous works inside the church include quattrocento frescoes in the nave chapels, by Ghirlandaio and Botticelli (who is buried in the church) and Madonna della Misericordia, also by Ghirlandaio. Perhaps the greatest of Ognissanti's frescoes is Ghirlandaio's Last Supper in the refectory between the two cloisters, a work with which Leonardo was intimately familiar.
Доменико Гирландайо, Last Supper в Оgnissanti, демонстрирует сочетание реализма повседневной сцены и глубокой символики. В сравнении с миланской версией Леонардо, фреска флорентийской мастерской сохраняет спокойную гармонию и психологическую умеренность, акцентируя внимание на архитектурной связи с залом и декоративной деталировке.
Do you want to visit the Florentine cenacles? Contact me! From Florence city centre it only takes half an hour by car to reach the place, but once there you will certainly have no regret, especially with regards to the long queues of waiting visitors you would probably find at the doors of hot spots such as the Uffizi, or Santa Maria del Fiore. The Abbey is very well kept by the monks - who belong to the ancient ‘Congregazione Vallombrosana’ (founded in 1093) - and has a breathtaking pensile garden with a view on the Chianti’s vineyards. The restoration costed nearly half a million euro, and it took so long basically because of a lack of money due to the economic crisis started in 2008. The frescos has been cleaned from the dirt accumulated in its more than 500 years of life and also from the corrections made to the picture at the end of the XIX century by Count Włodzimierz Dzieduszycki, a distinguished Polish noble and art collector who bought the property of the Abbey after 1866 and turned the refectory into a semi-fake Renaissance boardroom. This might be quite likely indeed if considering the old tradition that secret societies have played in this area (a personality such as Licio Gelli, who passed away a few days ago, was in fact born in Pistoia, not far from here).
tags: #Ghirlandaio #Last #Supper #Florence
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