Episode 48: Florence – San Miniato al Monte

Buongiorno. I’m Dr. Rocky Ruggiero. Join me in rebuilding the Renaissance and making art and history come to life.

Welcome to the Rebuilding the Renaissance podcast, your guide to the art and history of Italy from the glory of Rome to the magnificence of the Renaissance. And now here’s your host, Dr. Rocky Ruggiero.

Buongiorno, everyone! Today’s podcast is about my favorite church in the city of Florence, which is called San Miniato al Monte, which translates into English as Saint Minias on the Mount.

Now the church is actually situated on a hill in the southeastern part of the city, and anyone going to Florence sooner or later will raise his or her eyes up and see this particular green and white marble church facade perched up on the hill. That is the church of San Miniato al Monte. It was consecrated in the year 1018 AD. I repeat, 1018 AD. And in fact, in April of the year 2018 this particular church celebrated its 1000th birthday. One of the two oldest still standing structures in Florence along with the Baptistery, which we discussed in my previous podcast. And in fact, if we combine these two buildings, the Baptistery and San Miniato al Monte with the cathedral complex in Pisa, we have pretty much covered some of the most important Romanesque-style monuments in all of Europe and all of them being built in the 11th century or so.

Now who is this Saint Minias guy? Saint Minias is English for San Miniato. Well, according to Florentine tradition, Saint Minias was an Armenian prince, who was actually making a pilgrimage to Rome and the third century after Christ, but decided to settle down in Florence and live as a Christian hermit. And when the Roman Emperor Decius found out that he was Christian and refused to offer sacrifice to pagan gods, this emperor decided to torture Minias in all sorts of creative ways. One of which was throwing him into a lion’s den, much the same way Daniel was in the Old Testament, but whatever he tried, the Roman emperor was unsuccessful in killing Minias so he decided to resort to that old fashioned but very dependable method of beheading.

And so the story goes that he cut off Minias’s head and after the decapitation Minias stood up, collected his head… Now he was supposedly somewhere down in the eastern part of the medieval city of Florence, what today is the Piazza Beccaria area, that was the area used for public executions. And Minias collected his head, which had been disembodied, been cut off, and decided to walk up to the top of the hill back to where he had been living as a hermit and to rest there. And that is why the church is located where it is, way up on the top of the mount, because that is where Minias had been living as a hermit all of those years.

The building itself is actually one of the most beautiful, and being Romanesque, is also one of the more unique structures. When you’re looking at the outside of the church of San Miniato… Now word of warning, getting up there is a pretty arduous task. Not only do you have to walk up the hill to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which is just down below… And if you don’t know, the 19th century Piazzale Michelangelo was this sort of lookout square built by this famous architect in Florence named Giuseppe Poggi to offer visitors to the city this dramatic view down. It’s so close you can pretty much reach out and touch the city, but standing up above gives you a unique perspective.

But few people realize that if you actually continue up, that is from the Piazzale Michelangelo all the way up to the church of San Miniato al Monte, you get an even more spectacular view. You’re perched up even higher and your perspective over the city is absolutely extraordinary. And when you walk up that dramatic flight of stairs… And that flight of stairs leading up to the church is also a 19th century edition, it was all done at the same time, you realize that the path to heaven is in fact an arduous one. But when you get to the top of the staircase, you also realize that your efforts were in good faith because the church is simply breathtaking.

And what you come across as this green and white church facade preparing you. We’ve been talking about how church facades are, in fact, intended to prepare the visitor to experience in 2D what they will find behind the facade in 3D, and that’s exactly what you get with the facade of San Miniato. You’ll see the taller central section, which of course faces the nave, that widest central aisle inside the church, and then the two wings that you see in the facade, which of course represent the two flanking side aisles. You have a series of five blind arches along the base of the facade and those five arches will be carried over through the organization of the structure on the interior as well. And you’ll see this quite nicely once we walk inside of the church.

Those five blind arches, using odd numbers because it helps to create a symmetrical arrangement, house a large central door in the middle arch and then two flanking doors in the second and fourth arch, respectively, from the left-hand side. Essentially representing the aisles that you will find behind. In the upper portion of the facade, we have a single window illuminating the clear story level above which is a mosaic of Jesus Christ positioned in between the Virgin Mary and the titular Saint, that is the Saint to whom the church is entitled, whose name is Saint Minias. And so the idea that this mosaic sort of representing heaven and that the entrance into heaven, which is the window down below, is controlled by Christ himself from the company of these two saints.

And to the either side of the central section of the facade, you have these two sort of slanting triangular motifs. And those motifs are the sort of wings, or the bookends if you will, that cover up, that disguise, the side aisle rooms that are behind them. One of the more difficult things for Renaissance architects to eventually figure out is how to put a Renaissance style facade on these Basilica style churches because of course they all have their independent roots and the solution that you see here is really one of the more elegant. And would inspire a later Renaissance facade, one that I’ll be talking about in a podcast, and that is the facade of the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella, designed by the great architect Leone Battista Alberti in the middle of the 15th century. Really the only Renaissance style facade of note in the city of Florence and largely inspired by the facade of San Miniato.

Now when you walk through the door into the church, I think the first thing that will strike you about San Miniato al Monte is how dark the interior is. It’s really difficult to see inside of the church. You have to give yourself a few minutes to let your eyes adjust. And when you do, what you see is sparse decoration throughout the space. And in fact, as I mentioned in many previous podcasts, this is typical of Romanesque structures. Because they are so dark, it doesn’t really make sense to put a lot of decoration because you can’t really see the decoration. Pretty much the only decoration you can see are some randomly scattered frescoes on the walls along with the beautiful inlaid marble floors.

So just like at the Baptistery, where essentially you get this distinct impression that you’re looking at carpets, that is the sort of decoration that you say inside of San Miniato. And in fact, the second section of inlaid marble floor running through the nave will be very familiar to many of you because it is a zodiacal wheel. These symbols of horoscope technically and of astrology, which is kind of curious because we’re inside of a church and so one imagines, of course, that the Catholic church was against the reading of the stars because only God controls everything. But curiously, again, the influence of Eastern culture was so strong and, of course, the love of astrology on the part of Arab cultures that you see that zodiacal wheel position here as well.

Now, once you get your bearings, what you’ll note is that the columns around you look as if they’re made of marble. But if you look carefully, what you discover is that they’re sort of cheap imitations. This is… This type of material called scagliola. And scagliola, or as we pronounce it in English scagliola, is marble dust mixed with plaster that is then used to cover a lesser expensive type of masonry. In fact, in the case of San Miniato, those columns are made of brown stone blocks, which are then covered in the scagliola, giving the impression of marble. And because it’s so dark, they actually sort of pull the illusion off quite well inside. But if you put your hand on one of those columns, you’ll see that they are not nearly as cold as they should be, were they in fact made of marble instead. And you’ll also notice that many of the column capitals don’t fit properly onto the column shafts and the reason is many of those capitals are ancient Roman capitals, just like we saw inside of the cathedral in Pisa, so to here at San Miniato the use of spoglie or of architectural elements from ancient Roman buildings recycled and reincorporated into their own to add prestige. And not surprisingly at San Miniato, you’ll see that a majority of those ancient capitals, the originals, are located down by the altar area because it’s the more important.

Now the layout of the church is actually quite unique. Your first thing you may notice is that there is no transept, there is no cross arm to San Miniato, because it was built so early that essentially the structure is more pure in it’s Basilica layout. Just a rectangular church. The transept, or the cross arm, that typifies most Catholic churches today came along in the 13th century. Essentially at the same time that the church loosened up its policy about who could be buried inside of churches. And once essentially they realized that anyone who could afford to be buried inside of a church could, that’s when they introduced the transept to introduce more prime real estate. In other words, to introduce more private chapels, which could be sold off.

This is something we’ll be talking about quite at length in future podcasts because I, in fact, do my research on the economics of building specifically in the 15th century. So we’ll talk about how private chapels became a real moneymaker for, not just the Catholic church, but for churches in se. Well, San Miniato was so early in date that that policy of in church burial was still reserved essentially for high-ranking clerics. That is high ranking priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, popes, and for sovereigns or for kings. They were the only people to be buried inside of churches, so there was not this need yet for further burial space.

So San Miniato, it’s pure rectangular Basilica plan, looking very much like an ancient Roman structure, but that is divided horizontally into different levels. In other words, when you’re looking down towards where the high altar is, what you find… Now try to ignore that little chapel that you see in the center of the church. That was a 15th century addition and I’ll get to it in just one second, but what I want you to notice are those arches leading down. And those arches leading down, lead into the crypt. C-R-Y-P-T area of the church. Leading down, not into hell, but into the realm of the dead. The idea of descending into the realm of the deceased. Not necessarily an underworld, but a place where those of us who have died are awaiting judgment day, are awaiting the opportunity to be judged and to enter into heaven.

And if you descend those stairs down into the crypt area of San Miniato, you’ll find this mystical space essentially articulated with these columettes, these small columns. A kind of almost dwarf-like column forest holding up these beautiful vaults. And you’ll notice that the columns closest to the alter, because there is a separate alter down there, are the ancient Roman pieces. You can actually see fluted columns with ancient capitals on tops, so the idea that the more precious materials used in the area around the altar, and that alter should remind you quite a bit of the alter that we saw in the Baptistery because it too is a reliquary alter. A table at which a priest celebrates mass, but also a box that can contain a relic. And the relic, if you look inside that little window, there is a reliquary, a stone container of relics… That’s what a reliquary is, and upon it is the name Saint Miniatos. And so one would rightfully imagine that the reliquary contains the bones of Saint Minas, but it does not because the bones of Minas were actually sold off by the original Benedictine monks who inhabited the church.

They ran out of money to actually complete construction, so they sold off the remains of Saint Minas to a group of Cistercians that were passing through the city. So I’m not really sure what’s in there right now, maybe chicken bones or something like that. But anyway, it gives you this sort of point of reference.

And you’ll notice that the altar is oriented towards this beautiful sort of apse space with these alabaster screen windows. And that was very common in the Romanesque world to actually fill windows with thinly sliced pieces of alabaster, translucent but not transparent and creating this extraordinarily mystical ambiance inside of churches. And consider that the church of San Miniato is easted, in other words, it’s alter faces east. And so the idea that when the priest would celebrate mass and the rising sun would fill this dark crypt space with light, the real meaning of Christianity and this idea of resurrection, I think, would take hold.

So the crypt area reserved for the dead, and of course the place of honor reserved for the Saint. Or the remains of the Saint, I should say, after whom the church is dedicated.

If we now leave the crypt area and make our way up the stairs. In other words, those arches, those five arches, just like we saw on the facade leading down into the crypt, but there are staircases that lead up and they lead up into this area called the presbyterium. And a presbyterium was the area reserved for use by the presbyters. Presbyter means priest. And so the presbyterium was the, sort of, exclusive choir area that was actually inhabited by the priests themselves. Now the area is closed off by this marble-faced wall. And if you get up there, you can actually see the choir seats, the wooden choir stalls where the priests would sit. You could also see the alter that’s situated there, more alabaster screening the windows, and then this particular stone throne. Because consider that San Miniato and its adjoining Benedictine monastery was where the Bishop of Florence would spend the hot summer months, right? Cooler up there on the hill. So the throne representing essentially the Bishop’s throne because it became the kind of summer cathedral, if you will, of the city of Florence in the middle ages.

And above that thrown in the conch area of the church. In other words, that curvilinear surface above the actual throne itself, you will notice a mosaic. And hopefully by this point you’re becoming better at reading these images. This particular mosaic, which was made right around the same time as the one in Florence Baptistery, in fact, depicts the figure of Jesus looking rather omnipotent, a panto cracked or figure of Jesus Christ, and in this case we actually see Greek letters appearing on either side of his head. We have an Alpha to the right of his head and an Omega to the left. Jesus said, “I am the beginning and the end. I am the Alpha and the Omega.” And so those letters represent it.

Under his right hand, which is extended, by the way, in this sort of peace sign. And of course everyone imagines that Jesus is giving us the gesture peace, when in reality that peace sign that we see, those two fingers raised up… And oftentimes you see baby Jesus performing the same gesture, is a gesture from ancient Roman times that was performed by an orator or a politician just as he was about to begin speaking. So it was essentially the gesture that let the crowd or the audience know that he was about to speak. Jesus is the word of God, at least according to the gospel of Saint John, and so the idea that Jesus, by performing this gesture, is the word of God. God is speaking through the physical manifestation of this figure called Jesus Christ.

And under Jesus’s right hand stands this hooded female figure, who is identified by two letters to the left of her head, and the letters are S and M. I guess you could probably guess Santa Maria or Saint Mary, the Virgin Mary, who else? And then to the other side of Jesus, we have this young male figure presenting a crown to Jesus Christ, and he is identified in the inscription around and to the right of his head as San Minitus Rex Erminie, so Saint Minas, King of the Armenians. And the crown, not just because he was a prince or a king, but because the crown is the symbol of martyrdom. Remember in Christianity you were told that if you died for your faith, you could enter it directly into the kingdom of heaven. So the crown, along with the palm branch, became a symbol of martyrdom.

And around the lower part of Jesus’s throne are these weird symbols. One is an eagle, one is a winged lion, one is an angel, and the other is a winged ox. And if you know your Christian iconography, if you know your Saint iconography, you know that these are the four symbols of the four evangelists. The symbol of Matthew is the angel because according to tradition his gospel was dictated to him by an angel. The symbol of Mark is the winged lion because his gospel opens up with John the Baptist roaring about the coming of the Messiah, crying out from the wilderness. The evangelists Saint Luke is represented by a winged ox because his is the gospel that most emphasizes the sacrificial nature of Jesus’s mission. And consider then in the ancient world, the ox was the preferred animal for slaughter. And then the Eagle as the symbol of Saint John. Because of the four gospels, it’s the most unique, it’s soars above the others.

And so oftentimes in Byzantine art or Byzantine inspired art, we’ll actually see the symbols of the evangelists as opposed to the evangelists themselves. And that’s exactly what you have here in this very beautiful mosaic that looks like a cross between what we saw in Florence Baptistery and what we discussed in the conch above the altar of Pisa Cathedral as well. All of this being created right around the same time.

Now, if you’re up there, what you’ll see are these very beautiful Roman capitals sitting on top of these columns. And to your right-hand side there’s a door that leads into the sacristy. Now I believe this is the first sacristy that we are encountering together. A sacristy is essentially what I like to call the priests’ locker room. It was a room off the main space of the church where a priest not only prepared and undressed after mass, but also where his vestments were kept, where the different vessels were kept also.

And the sacristy here at San Miniato was decorated by a painter named Spinello Aretino. And Spinello Aretino painting in the second half of the 14th century, around the year 1378, scenes from the life of Saint Benedict. The paintings are quite beautiful but, perhaps even more importantly, are incredibly well preserved. When we get into some conservation podcasts later on we’ll talk about how the greatest enemy to fresco paint is humidity. And because of this church is so high up, there is relatively little humidity that seeps into those walls, so those frescoes survive almost perfectly from when they were executed about 700 years ago. So spend some time looking at the scenes and see the Benedictines. They’re identifiable in their characteristic robes of white in the scenes as well.

Now, as you exit the sacristy, you go back down into the church. And I told you at the very beginning of our visit here that we want to ignore that freestanding structure directly in front of the presbyterium because it has nothing to do with the church, okay? That is the so-called Chapel of the Crucifix. That was designed by a Renaissance sculptor/architect named Michelozzo. And it was intended as a sort of shrine to a crucifixion painting that was believed to be miraculous. Now that painting is no longer in San Miniato, it’s down at the church of Santa Trinita. But because it was considered to be miraculous, they decided to celebrate it.

Well, “Who was they?” Or, “Who were they?” The they in this case was the Medici. San Miniato was one of the few churches that the Medici had nothing to do with, and they were always looking to sort of mark their territory, mark their hegonemous reign over the city of Florence. So what they decided to do was to pay for the construction of this little chapel. And though curiously the architect Michelozzo does a very good job in kind of camouflaging almost or kind of chameleon-ing, if you will, the chapel itself because it looks like the rest of the church. You’ll notice the columns are different, the capitals are different, so although it’s an early Renaissance work of sculpture, it looks very much like the Romanesque architecture that surrounds it. And you’ll notice, of course, no shortage of reminder of who paid for the actual chapel because you’ll see the balls of the Medici rather discretely represented in the circular curves of the barrel vault that you see at the top.

And last thing worth mentioning. When you’re looking at this little chapel off to your left-hand side… I mentioned that this idea of in-church burial had not really taken hold but you’ll notice that there’s actually a chapel attached to the church of San Miniato which was added later. That is the so-called chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal. Because the story goes that midway through the 15th century, a Portuguese Cardinal was visiting Florence when he died unexpectedly. And so the city, and more importantly the Medici, decided to honor this deceased Portuguese Cardinal by having a chapel built in one of its most important churches, San Miniato, as a funerary space for the Cardinal himself. And this little chapel, which might remind you quite a bit of Brunelleschian style architecture was designed and built by one of Brunelleschi’s successors whose name was Antonio Manetti Ciaccheri.

We’ll be talking about Manetti Ciaccheri when we get to Santo Spirito, which is my church, the church I do my research on. And there Ciaccheri was one of Brunelleschi’s successors, actually completing the church. And so Ciaccheri creates this Brunelleschian space of proportion and harmony of gray stone. And you’ll actually see the right-hand side, the actual tomb of the Cardinal himself. Quite elegant. An interesting combination of early Renaissance versus the Romanesque architecture that you see on the outside.

So it is a really unique space, the church of San Miniato. And it’s a very eclectic space. In a mix of different languages, in a style of architecture that’s just not that common because so many of these Romanesque churches were knocked down and replaced by either Gothic or Renaissance churches later on. But consider that its unique position, its unique style, and its unique decoration make it an absolute gem of Florentine architecture, particularly from the middle ages.

Okay. With that, we’ll finish up our discussion about San Miniato al Monte. So stay tuned for more and alla prossima, until my next podcast.

For more information on lectures and programs in the United States, art history tours in Italy and for online video lectures, visit RockyRuggiero.com.