Passing Through
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Interests & themes
  • Contact

Santo Spirito and Florence

18/7/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
We maybe chose the hottest time to visit Florence. I'm not built for heat. That aside, it was a memorable trip. A full two weeks allowed unhurried sightseeing, in Florence and beyond.

We stayed in a flat at St Mark's English Church: no air-con, and 99 steps to reach it. The reward was this balcony (right) and its view of the church of Santo Spirito, designed by Brunelleschi and begun in 1428. Our days were bookended by it's bells. To my ear there is something wonderful about the slightly discordant and chaotic sound of continental church bells that makes English ringing sound like a corseted aunt.

This church houses something that, of all the artefacts I saw on our trip, made the greatest impression: a crucifix believed to have been carved by a 17 year-old Michelangelo. The story is that he was allowed to make anatomical studies on the corpses coming from the convent's hospital; in exchange, he sculpted this which was placed over the high altar. It was thought to be lost, then resurfaced in the early 1960s, heavily overpainted. Today, cleaned up and restored, it hangs, suspended in mid-air in the octagonal sacristy off the west aisle of the church.

Picture
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Church As Institution
    Dogs
    Feasts And Festivals
    Humour
    Language
    Liturgy
    Misc
    Music
    Observed
    People
    Places
    Power
    Prayer
    Quotations
    Sentimentality
    Sermons
    Signs & Wonders
    Vocation

    Sites I keep an eye on
    Beaker Folk
    Henry/Annunciation Trust
    Raptitude
    Mother Pelican

    Feral Spirituality
    The worker priest


Belief is reassuring. People who live in the world of belief feel safe. On the contrary, faith is forever placing us on the razor's edge. Jacques Ellul
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for any one else. Charles Dickens (Our Mutual Friend)
Get in touch
(c) Hugh Valentine