The Basilica of Santa Maria Novella

The Basilica of Santa Maria Novella is located a stone's throw away from the central station of Florence which is called, precisely, Santa Maria Novella station.

The facade of the basilica is a splendid example of Florentine Renaissance. It was built with white Carrara marble and dark green marble from Prato by the great artist Leon Battista Alberti, a favorite architect of the Rucellai family, who financed part of the project. On the facade it is possible to see the heraldic emblem of Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai, "sails with shrouds in the wind", transformed into an elegant marble frieze.

The interior of the basilica is the first example of Florentine Gothic. At the end of the central nave you can admire Giotto's grandiose Crucifix. Giotto painted it between 1288 and 1289, representing for the first time on a cross a true and not idealized man. Another particularly valuable work is The Trinity by Masaccio, which is located in the third arch of the left nave. This early 15th century work is the first in the world in perfect mathematical perspective. Vasari wrote about it that “the most beautiful thing, apart from the figures, is a barrel-shaped vaulting, drawn in perspective and divided into squares filled with rosettes, which are foreshortened and made to diminish so well that the wall appears to be pierced."

Of unequaled beauty is Filippo Strozzi’s Chapel located in the right transept and entirely frescoed by Filippino Lippi at the end of the 15th century with the Stories of the Lives of Saint Philip the Apostle and Saint John the Evangelist. Next to this chapel, right in the center of the transept, behind the altar, there is the Main Chapel or Tornabuoni Chapel with a suggestive cycle of frescoes by Ghirlandaio and his workshop. This cycle represents the stories dedicated to the life of the Virgin Mary and that of Saint John the Baptist, patron of Florence (it is likely that even a very young Michelangelo worked here). The peculiarity of this work is that Ghirlandaio set the scenes in contemporary Florence, representing the commissioners of the work and other prominent personalities of the time such as Marsilio Ficino and Agnolo Poliziano.

Among the many works of art in the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, we should also mention the Crucifix by Brunelleschi in the Gondi Chapel on the left of the main chapel. It is the only work in wood by the great Renaissance artist that, according to the stories, was created to respond to a challenge launched by his friend Donatello.