Excellent news from Florence! The Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore is cleaning another of the magnificent panoply of stained glass windows in the cathedral; and it is the grandest of them all, the largest and one of the most colourful: the facade's main oculus, depicting the Assumption of the Virgin Mary to be crowned by the welcoming Christ in heaven. The window was designed by young Lorenzo Ghiberti, at the same time as he was making his first set of bronze doors for the Baptistery after the famous competition he won in rivalry with Brunelleschi in 1401; made by the expert glassworker Nicccolò di Piero Tedesco ("the German"); and installed by the end of 1404 or early 1405. Ghiberti boasted of the accomnplishment in his memoirs. Evidently the Opera and Florentines were just as pleased with the result since Ghiberti went on to become their cathedral windows designer par excellence. He designed himself (or with his busy workshop) not only the other two facade oculus windows of Saints Stephen and Lorenzo (made 1412-1415), but the whole vivid, sparkling series of stained glass for the fifteen apse tribune chapels' windows and fifteen more for the tribune windows above (a more complicated chronology, from the 1430s into the 1440s). Only with the designs for the eight extraordinary oculus windows of the cupola was he challenged: his design for the single most prominent window in the whole church, the Coronation of Mary by Christ which everyone sees when entering the cathedral, straight in front of us at the eastern end, was turned down in favour of a design by Donatello. Four more of the cupola windows were designed by "the younger generation", one by Andrea del Castagno and three by Paolo Uccello; but Ghiberti designed three of the eight, too.
In total, Santa Maria del Fiore was endowed by the Opera with no fewer than forty-five marvellous stained glass windows, forty-four of which survive (one of Uccello's was, alas, destroyed by lightening in the nineteenth century). Over recent decades, beginning in the 1970s, the still-active Opera has directed and overseen an ongoing cleaning and restoration campaign for all of them, with the work expertly done by the Florentine Studio Polloni & Co.. The Assumption oculus will be the thirty-fourth to be cleaned (if I count correctly!), and is projected to be re-installed in summer 2015.
In the meantime, visitors see the four cleaned and restored nave windows (the earliest, dating to 1394-96, all designbed by Agnolo Gaddi, whose frescoes in the main apse chapel of Santa Croce have very recently also been cleaned and restored, beautifully), and the cupola oculus windows, especially the three or five most visible from the nave side of the choir -- one of the grandest company of artistic masterpieces in Florence still in their original place today, by Donatello, Ghiberti, Uccello, del Castagno! In fact, the closest views of any of the cathedral's coloured glass windows is reserved for those who pray or attend mass in the southern apse tribune. After all, the cathedral was and is a church, not a museum!
In total, Santa Maria del Fiore was endowed by the Opera with no fewer than forty-five marvellous stained glass windows, forty-four of which survive (one of Uccello's was, alas, destroyed by lightening in the nineteenth century). Over recent decades, beginning in the 1970s, the still-active Opera has directed and overseen an ongoing cleaning and restoration campaign for all of them, with the work expertly done by the Florentine Studio Polloni & Co.. The Assumption oculus will be the thirty-fourth to be cleaned (if I count correctly!), and is projected to be re-installed in summer 2015.
In the meantime, visitors see the four cleaned and restored nave windows (the earliest, dating to 1394-96, all designbed by Agnolo Gaddi, whose frescoes in the main apse chapel of Santa Croce have very recently also been cleaned and restored, beautifully), and the cupola oculus windows, especially the three or five most visible from the nave side of the choir -- one of the grandest company of artistic masterpieces in Florence still in their original place today, by Donatello, Ghiberti, Uccello, del Castagno! In fact, the closest views of any of the cathedral's coloured glass windows is reserved for those who pray or attend mass in the southern apse tribune. After all, the cathedral was and is a church, not a museum!
I confess a personal interest: I will be writing more on the coloured glass windows of Santa Maria del Fiore....
[Image: Assumption of the Virgin, designed by Ghiberti, 1404/05: from BIVI Vetrate Italiane Banca Ipermediale delle Vetrate Italiane]
[Image: Assumption of the Virgin, designed by Ghiberti, 1404/05: from BIVI Vetrate Italiane Banca Ipermediale delle Vetrate Italiane]
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