Santa Maria Novella

In Dante’s day, the church of Santa Maria Novella was where he came to learn from the Dominican tradition, including figures like Albert the Great and especially Thomas Aquinas. The structure is located in a spot where there once stood a tiny church called the Novella (the new one), an ancient building that was inherited by Dominican friars in 1221.

The architects of the new church were selected from their own Order and the first stone was laid on 18 October 1279 by cardinal Latino degli Orsini who had been sent by the pope to Florence to make peace between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. By 1360, the church lacked only the façade, which was created in 1470 by Alberti.

Santa Maria Novella was the place where Charles of Valois pledged to promote peace among Florentines in 1301, a promise that set off a series of events that, for Dante, culminated in his exile. A month earlier, Charles had secretly met with Boniface VIII and was told about the plan hatched by the pope and Corso Donati. Chronicler Giovanni Villani tells us:

“Charles arrived in Florence on All Saints’ Day 1301, having been allowed to enter the city unopposed, and the Florentines did him great honor, for they filed by before him in procession, with many soldiers carrying banners and riding steeds draped in silk. Once he had rested and stayed in Florence for some days, he asked the Signoria and City Guard for the authority to act as peacemaker between the Black and White Guelphs. And the Commune agreed. On the Fifth Day of November in the church of Santa Maria Novella, in the presence of the podestà, the Captain of the Popolo, the Priors, their Counselors, the bishop and all the good people of Florence, his request was proposed and debated, after which Charles was invested with the power and might of the city.” (Nuova cronica 9.49)

Despite promising to keep the city safe, Charles did just the opposite. He ignored injustices done to the Whites and turned an eye to the power grab of the Blacks. The situation was grave. “In the midst of this hubbub,” Villani continues, “Corso Donati, exile and rebel, arrived in Florence from Peretola, just as planned.” It wasn’t long before the Blacks gained absolute power and Dante was banished forever.

“C’est dans [...] l’église de Santa-Maria-Novella qu’il faut chercher Dante à Florence, [...] non pas son portrait, mais celui de son enfer.”

“It is in [...] the church of Santa Maria Novella that one must search for Dante in Florence, [...] not a portrait of him, but of his hell.”  (Jean-Jacques Ampère)

Ampère, instrumental in the popularization of Dante in France, was taken by Domenico di Michelino’s portrait of Dante in the Duomo, but still more by Nardo di Cione’s visualization of Dante’s Hell (1350-57). You’ll find it at the end of the transept on the left, on the north wall of the chapel of Strozzi di Mantova (1335).

Similarly, you’ll find more demons like those Dante encountered in the Malebolge in the Spanish Chapel, just off the Green Cloister (see below), in a work by Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze (1366-67).

On an adjacent wall is more proof that Andrea was a reader of Dante. However, unlike our poet who put Averroes in Limbo, Andrea painted frescoes of the Cappella degli Spagnuoli that depict Averroes, defeated together with the heretics Sabellius and Arius, at the feet of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Andrea’s “Triumph of Christian Doctrine,” or “Triumph of Saint Thomas” (ca. 1365-67), was completed after Dante’s death, but our poet would certainly have recognized the main themes in the painting.

This is a remarkable representation of Dominican clarity of thought and hierarchy. Great philosophers represent various disciplines or intellectual traditions and are flanked by the cardinal and theological virtues, biblical authors, the liberal arts (featuring Cicero) and the sacred sciences. It’s hard not to think of the appearances of Saint Francis and Saint Thomas in Paradiso 11-12 when you look at it.

The comparably immense fresco on the other side of the room features allegorical dogs that are black and white (like the Dominicans’ habit). Man’s best friend comes from wordplay between the order’s name and the Latin phrase Domini canes, God’s dogs. Some hounds here are protecting the lambs of God and others are fighting off the wolves of temptation and sin. If you look closely, you’ll see two conspicuous characters being ‘protected’ by Dominicans. 

The man in the white headgear, with white mantle and green robe, is Petrarch. The other man holding a book just below him is Boccaccio.