Santa Felicita, Florence

Church of Saint Felicity of Florence
(Chiesa di Santa Felicita)
Church of Saint Felicity of Florence; (Chiesa di Santa Felicita)
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Santa Felicita (Church of St Felicity) is a

Saint Felicity of Rome. A new church was built in the 11th century and the current church largely dates from 1736–1739, under design by Ferdinando Ruggieri

, who turned it into a one nave edifice. The monastery was suppressed under the Napoleonic occupation of 1808–1810.

The

Medici family

used to listen to the mass without being seen by the people staying at ground level.

Description

In the piazza in front of the façade, stands the rebuilt 15th-century Column of Santa Felicita. Only the 14th century Chapter House survives from the Romanesque with fragmentary frescoes (1387) by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini (Crucifixion and in the ceiling, roundels with the Redeemer and the Seven Virtues).

The Brunelleschian sacristy dates from 1473 and was under the patronage of the Canigiani family. There are the 14th century Madonna with Child and Saints by Taddeo Gaddi, the 15th century Adoration of the Magi by Francesco d'Antonio and St. Felicity with Her Seven Sons by Neri di Bicci.

The

Guglielmo da Marcillat

in 1526.

The desire to create a complementary space to this led to the decoration of the opposite Canigiani chapel by Bernardino Poccetti (Miracle of Our Lady of the Snow, 1589–1590). In 1565, as recorded by Vasari himself, Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici decided to build the long corridor which would connect the old Priors' Palace in Piazza della Signoria with the new Medici residence, previously property of the Pitti family; as this would pass through the church of Santa Felicita, the church began to play a very important role in the life of the Medici court. Cigoli was responsible for the design of the chancel whose patrons were the Guicciardini family (and where the famous historian Francesco was buried in 1540). The work continued until the vault was decorated by Cinganelli (c. 1620); on the altar is the Adoration of the Shepherds attributed to Francesco Brina (1587).

In the church there are also the Martyrdom of the Maccabees (1863) by

Jacopo Pontormo

one of Pontormo's surviving masterpieces.

The sacristy has a painted crucifix (circa 1310) attributed to Pacino di Buonaguida.

Bibliography

Guglielmo Maetzke, Fiesole: scoperta di tombe etrusche in via G. Matteotti; Firenze: resti di basilica cimiteriale sotto santa Felicita; Sticciano scalo (Grosseto): scoperta di un tesoretto monetale disperso, in Notizie degli scavi di antichità, vol. 11, Roma, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1957, pp. 268-327

Sources

Cesati, Franco (2002). Le chiese di Firenze. Rome: Newton Compton.

External links

Media related to Santa Felicita (Florence) at Wikimedia Commons

Authority control databases
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