Enhance your holiday travel experience by downloading this audio tour of the Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy.
Great Discoveries audio tours will provide you with the most entertaining and informative way to visit the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, one of the most picturesque churches in all of Florence and the mother church of the Florentine Dominican Order. The Dominicans, or the Domini Canes (the Hounds of God), mission was to hunt down heresy and punish the heretics. Its members are referred to as black friars, the mendicant friars who revolutionized religious life in Europe during the high Middle Ages.?
Its name, Novella, or new, comes from the fact that it was built on the site of a 9th century church, called Santa Maria delle Vigne. Construction started on what would be the sumptuous new headquarters of the powerful Dominican Order in 1278 in accordance with the Gothic design of its two architect monks, Brother Sisto Fiorentino and Brother Ristoro da Campi. It was completed in 1360, almost one hundred years later, under the direction of Brother Iacopo Talenti, who also designed the Spanish Chapel and the convent Refectory.
Santa Maria Novella's interior is quite magnificent, with its arches in two colors that lead gracefully toward the high altar. It is vast, lofty, illuminated by ample sunlight and more Gothic in feel than any other church in Florence. This church was designed specifically with the idea of preaching sermons to as large a congregation as possible, hence its size. But its architects were not content with its sheer physical size alone so they created a further illusion of space using an ingenious trick to deceive ones eyes. Looking from the back of the church to the main alter the distance between the columns diminishes while the arches get lower and the floor gets higher thus creating a deceptive tunnel effect, a perspective illusion that makes the 100 meter nave seem even longer. Gothic architects were aware of the rules of a three dimensional perspective but they had not yet learned to render it on a two dimensional canvas. The interior's architectural grandiosity is further enriched by the richness of its artwork.
Treasures aplenty fill the interior, not the least of which is a groundbreaking painting by Masaccio, a crucifix by Giotto and no fewer than three major fresco cycles. This carefully researched tour guides you through the Basilica while our professional narrator, accompanied by historically appropriate background music, points out and describes her most significant works of art and other historic treasures. Shatter your idea of history, throw down your guidebook and venture off to see and hear the stories behind this resplendent church and the great Medieval and Renaissance artists and architects who created this magnificent gothic wonder.
Guides are recorded in easy to follow segments that are readily located your iPod. This 1 hour and 43 minute, 37 track, audio tour is designed to work with an easy to read building diagram, with clearly numbered locations, which coordinate with the track numbers and descriptions displayed on your iPod.
Author/Spoken By Bill Browne/Christopher Kent
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Enhance your holiday travel experience by downloading this audio tour of the Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy.
Great Discoveries audio tours will provide you with the most entertaining and informative way to visit the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, one of the most picturesque churches in all of Florence and the mother church of the Florentine Dominican Order. The Dominicans, or the Domini Canes (the Hounds of God), mission was to hunt down heresy and punish the heretics. Its members are referred to as black friars, the mendicant friars who revolutionized religious life in Europe during the high Middle Ages.?
Its name, Novella, or new, comes from the fact that it was built on the site of a 9th century church, called Santa Maria delle Vigne. Construction started on what would be the sumptuous new headquarters of the powerful Dominican Order in 1278 in accordance with the Gothic design of its two architect monks, Brother Sisto Fiorentino and Brother Ristoro da Campi. It was completed in 1360, almost one hundred years later, under the direction of Brother Iacopo Talenti, who also designed the Spanish Chapel and the convent Refectory.
Santa Maria Novella's interior is quite magnificent, with its arches in two colors that lead gracefully toward the high altar. It is vast, lofty, illuminated by ample sunlight and more Gothic in feel than any other church in Florence. This church was designed specifically with the idea of preaching sermons to as large a congregation as possible, hence its size. But its architects were not content with its sheer physical size alone so they created a further illusion of space using an ingenious trick to deceive ones eyes. Looking from the back of the church to the main alter the distance between the columns diminishes while the arches get lower and the floor gets higher thus creating a deceptive tunnel effect, a perspective illusion that makes the 100 meter nave seem even longer. Gothic architects were aware of the rules of a three dimensional perspective but they had not yet learned to render it on a two dimensional canvas. The interior's architectural grandiosity is further enriched by the richness of its artwork.
Treasures aplenty fill the interior, not the least of which is a groundbreaking painting by Masaccio, a crucifix by Giotto and no fewer than three major fresco cycles. This carefully researched tour guides you through the Basilica while our professional narrator, accompanied by historically appropriate background music, points out and describes her most significant works of art and other historic treasures. Shatter your idea of history, throw down your guidebook and venture off to see and hear the stories behind this resplendent church and the great Medieval and Renaissance artists and architects who created this magnificent gothic wonder.
Guides are recorded in easy to follow segments that are readily located your iPod. This 1 hour and 43 minute, 37 track, audio tour is designed to work with an easy to read building diagram, with clearly numbered locations, which coordinate with the track numbers and descriptions displayed on your iPod.
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