Santa Maria Novella

The church, the first basilica of Florence, is located on the place Santa Maria Novella. Built in XIIIème century by the Dominican ones, it replaces the oratory Santa Maria delle Vigne, built on the same site as of IXème century (from where its qualifier of Novella).

The tower of the Gothic bell-tower of style and the stripped posterior part of the church make a beautiful contrast with the frontage.

The complex of Santa Maria Novella is composed of the church, three monumental cloisters and the dependences of the Dominican convent. Chiostrino dei Morti, or Small Cloister of Deaths, is oldest of the three.

It was built about 1270 and was modified in XIVème century. Inside the funerary vault of Strozzi is decorated with frescos with Andrea Orcagna. Chiostro Large or Large Cloister also dates from XIVème century but underwent important modifications in XVIème century.

The most famous cloister of the convent is Chiostro Verde, or Green Cloister, thus called because of the green tonality (verde will terra it) frescos of Paolo Uccello which decorate its walls. Carried out between 1430 and 1446, they represent scenes of the Old Will among which the Universal Flood and the Intoxication of Noah are especially remarkable.

The church owes in particular its celebrity with the fabulous frescos which it has: Giotto, Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Benedetto da Maiano, Masaccio, Domenico Ghirlandaio Filippino Lippi, Andrea Orcagna di Cione for his retable of the Strozzi Vault, and in the cloister, the frescos and greyness of Paolo Uccello.

The frontage rebirth of the building, out of marbles white and black, started in 1300, is finished by Leone Battista Alberti, in 1470.

Beside the church a cemetery is in which rest a number of noble florentins which financed the building.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_Novella
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