Santa Maria Novella: A Renaissance Facade in Florence

Santa Maria Novella

Leon Battista Alberti, 1456-1470

(Bows and a decorative circular window in the middle)

The facade consists of two spirals that connect the central body with the sides, thus giving proportion and harmony to the work, which is, after all, the main feature of the Renaissance. Using a classical pediment is another element taken from the repertoire offered by antiquity. Alberti reworked this repertoire with great freedom. To achieve a harmonious relationship between the width of the lower body and the much narrower upper body of this facade, the architect designed the two scrolls already mentioned, which had a great impact on sixteenth-century religious architecture.

Note the use of many geometric shapes in the work, such as the squares between the pilasters of the upper part of the facade; circles, like those in the scrolls and the oculus, etc. For Alberti, geometric forms promoted meditation on the truths of faith, an idea that anticipated the Neoplatonic aesthetic trends that would dominate Florentine culture. This is because it shows how visible forms are carriers of specific ideological meanings and because the geometric inlay embodies the ideal of reducing form to pure "design."

The facade has a semicircular arch characteristic of classical architecture. In the semicircle defined by the hooks of the pillars and the arch, there is a molding with a religious scene, as shown in the accompanying photo. At the same time, the combination of rectangles and the materials used, in accordance with medieval Florentine tradition, lends particular beauty to the whole.

Alberti recovered surfaces with geometric inlays from the Florentine Romanesque, such as San Miniato, perhaps thinking that the Florentine Romanesque was the last phrase or the first gem reborn as "classic." But he developed the Romanesque issue from the principles of Vitruvius, using modular composition and assuming the square as the compositional module.

You can appreciate the intention of highlighting the gate of the church by placing multiple decorative elements:

• Pilasters that give beauty and proportion to the space occupied by the gate.
• The arch that gives stability and endows it with harmony and beauty.
• The placement of dark brown molding with irregular shapes around the gate contrasts with the other forms mentioned above.
• The final placement of two great pillars of green marble with Corinthian capitals frames the gate and the whole facade.

Near the base of the facade are various marble arches decorated alternately with white and red. This makes the work more proportionate, as if there were no such arches, the work would appear like a giant block of marble. This way, the work becomes more proportional, more human.

At the summit, we have a Latin cross made of an iron core and covered with pure gold.