Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa: With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour by William Parkinson and Sixteen Other Illustrations, Second EditionHutton, Edward
History
Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa: With Sixteen Illustrations in Colour by William Parkinson and Sixteen Other Illustrations, Second Edition
Hutton, Edward
Art -- Italy -- Florence; Genoa (Italy) -- History; Tuscany (Italy) -- Description and travel
Returning down Via Cavour, if we turn into Via Ventisette Aprile we come
to two more desecrated convents,--that of S. Caterina, now the Commando
Militare, and facing it, S. Appolonia, now a magazine for military
stores.
Here, in the refectory of the latter convent, where Michelangelo is said
to have had a niece, and for this cause to have built the nuns a door,
is the fresco of the Last Supper by Andrea del Castagno; while on the
walls are some portraits, brought here from the Bargello, of Farinata
degli Uberti, Niccolo Acciaiuoli, and others.
In another suppressed convent, S. Onofrio in Via Faenza, not far away
(turn to the left down Via di S. Reparata, and then to the right into
Via Guelfa), is another Last Supper, supposed to be the work of a pupil
of Perugino,--Morelli says Giannicolo Manni, who painted the miracle
picture of Madonna in the Duomo of Perugia.
Another picture of the Last Supper--this by Andrea del Sarto--may be
found in another desecrated monastery, founded in 1048 by the
Vallombrosans, the second monastery of the congregation, S. Salvi, just
without the Barriera towards Settignano. It was in front of this
monastery that Corso Donati was killed in 1307. He was buried by the
monks in the church, and four years later his body was borne away to
Florence by his family. This monastery is now turned into houses, and
the refectory with the Andrea del Sarto is become a national monument.
Like many another desecrated church, convent, or religious house, the
Government, as at S. Marco, Chiostro dello Scalzo, and S. Onofrio,
charges you twenty-five centesimi to see their stolen goods.
FOOTNOTES:
[111] Villari, _History of Florence_, London, 1905: p. 318.
[112] The best account of this abbey I ever read in English is contained
in a book full of similar good things, good English, and good pictures,
called _The Old Road through France to Florence_, written by H.W.
Nevinson and Montgomery Carmichael, and illustrated by Hallam Murray
(Murray, London, 1904).
XX. FLORENCE
OLTR'ARNO
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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