An update to Blue Guide Florence from Alta Macadam.

One of the frustrations of guide book writing is the rate at which changes can occur. In the latest edition of Blue Guide Florence I complained that the museum of Santa Maria Novella had “a rather shabby and abandoned feel to it”, and that the oldest part of the monastery had been “closed for restoration for many years”. At that time there seemed no signs at all that the situation would change, and indeed I had found it in the same state for at least the previous four editions!

But now–finally–my complaints are no longer true, since a few months ago the museum arranged around the cloisters attached to the great church of Santa Maria Novella was given a definitive facelift and provided with a brand new entrance from the station square. Most important of all, access into the church from the Green Cloister has been provided so that the two monuments are once again linked together in their correct historical context (and can be visited with a single ticket).

You can now visit the Cloister of the Dead (so named because there was a cemetery here) and the pavement tombs and funerary monuments on the walls are well lit and well cared for (although sadly there is no description of them, as yet:  it would be interesting to have the inscriptions and dates transcribed).  The mid-14th-century frescoes include those in a chapel attributed to Orcagna (where the unusual Nativity scene is dominated by a flock of sheep and goats, and even a bumptious dog). Although the other frescoes here are extremely worn and some of them now barely visible, they have been restored as far as possible, and excellent explanations are provided in situ of the history of this, the oldest part of the monastery.

In contrast, off the adjoining cloister, the frescoes in the Spanish Chapel, dating from the later 14th century, are superbly preserved, and they remain one of the great sights of Florence. Here, too, the new explanatory panels (also in English), are well placed and extremely helpful. This chapel overlooks the Green Cloister with its three mighty cypress trees, and green-toned frescoes. The four most important lunettes, by Paolo Uccello, have been removed for restoration, but one of the four can always be seen (on a rotating basis–when not in the restoration laboratory) in the Chapter House close by. Here, since they are displayed at ground level, the visitor is provided with a wonderful opportunity to examine them at very close range. The huge vaulted chapter house also provides a magnificent setting for some of the monastery’s treasures, including vestments and church silver, and in the adjoining chapel are two memorable late 14th-century painted wood busts of female saints, as well as an altar frontal with fifteen charming embroidered scenes of the life of the Virgin, stitched by nuns in a Florentine convent in 1466. From outside this chapel glass doors enable you to look into the Great Cloister–currently occupied by the military police, though they are soon to be moved to new barracks, so this part of the monastery will also one day be accessible to the public.

Tucked away in a quiet nook in the sestiere of Castello is Palazzo Grimani, newly opened to the public, after years of restoration. I arrived late one afternoon, just as dusk was falling. As I climbed the wide stairway to the first floor, the sound of ethereal music floated down to greet me. A tall, slim woman in black was singing Josquin, accompanied on period instruments, to a small assembly in the portego. It was a magnificent way to begin a tour of this extraordinary place.

The palace was begun (so the Blue Guide tells us) around 1530 by Cardinal Domenico Grimani, son of Antonio (who was Doge from 1521–23), and work was continued to enlarge the palace by Antonio’s grandson Giovanni, Patriarch of Aquileia. It has been suggested that Jacopo Sansovino may have been involved in the work, collaborating directly with Giovanni Grimani.

Cardinal Domenico had a famous collection of Classical sculptures. At the death of his grandson Giovanni (in 1593) they were donated to the Republic, forming one of the first ever museums of Classical antiquities (and they are still on public view, constituting the main core of the Museo Archeologico in Piazza San Marco). Domenico was an important collector in other fields, too: he purchased works by Bosch, Memling and Dürer, drawings by Leonardo, and paintings by Raphael, Giorgione and Titian. At the death of the last descendant of the family in 1865, all the works of art which had remained in the palace were sold and dispersed. What you see today, as you visit the palace, are the rooms themselves, stupendously decorated in a wealth of original styles, the former backdrops for these marvellous works.

At one end of the portego, the central hall that runs the length of piano nobile, is the Cameron d’Oro where plaster casts of famous Classical sculptures (including the Laocoön) evoke the marbles once exhibited here by the Grimani. The room leading off it, the Sala a Fogliami, is perhaps the most remarkable in the whole palace, because of its ceiling, covered with a fresco showing thick foliage and fruit trees—peach, pomegranate, pear, medlar and quince—populated by birds which appear to be attacking each other. Amongst the plants the painter included maize and tobacco, recently arrived from north America. The motif of the birds, it is said, was designed to symbolise Giovanni Grimani’s stern stance against heresy, a reference to his acquittal by the Inquisition, who had accused him of unorthodox attittudes to predestination. There is a bench in the room: the best thing you can do is prostrate yourself on it, flat on your back, and just look:

The extraordinary Tribuna was designed by Giovanni Grimani to display some 130 pieces of his statuary collection. Its sober atmosphere recalls the vestibule of the Laurentian Library in Florence—and it is now empty except for the Ganymede (a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original) which has been returned from the Museo Archeologico and now again hangs from the centre of the ceiling as it did in the Grimani’s day.

The Sala di Doge Antonio, and the little vestibule and chapel adjoining, are decorated with exotic marbles. The ceiling of the chapel is decorated with the following Latin motto: “Thou has protected me, O Lord, in thy tabernacle, from the slander of tongues.” By fireplace in the main room is a bronze bust of the Doge himself, a stern-looking man. Leading off from here are the Camerina di Apollo and Camerina di Callisto, decorated in the 1530s in stuccowork and fresco.