Academic literature on the topic 'Prato. San Francesco (Church)'

‘QUI PERUSII IN ARCHA SAXEA TUMULATUS’: LA TOMBA DEL BEATO EGIDIO NELLA CHIESA DI SAN FRANCESCO AL PRATO, PERUGIAL'autore presenta una nuova ricostruzione della tomba del Beato Egidio (†1262), il terzo compagno di San Francesco ed una delle figure più importanti della prima storia francescana. La tomba di Egidio a San Francesco al Prato, Perugia, ha acquisito una notevole considerazione nello studio del primo patrocinio francescano grazie sia all'uso di un sarcofago paleocristiano che all'indiscutibile influenza di quest'arca sulla pala d'altare dipinta su entrambi i lati per la chiesa dal Maestro di San Francesco (c. 1272). Conseguentemente, gli studiosi hanno collocato il sarcofago di Egidio al di sotto dell'altare maggiore di San Francesco al Prato, in modo da formare un unico insieme visivo con il retroaltare. Tuttavia, una serie di fonti inedite indica che il Beato fu invece sepolto nel transetto meridionale. Secondo questa ricostruzione, la sua tomba va invece collocata nella tradizione delle tombe elevate a cassa, esemplificata dall'arca di tredicesimo secolo di San Domenico a Bologna. In termini di accesso e pratica devozionale, la tomba a cassa elevata era da un punto di vista funzionale più soddisfacente della sistemazione dell'altare maggiore impiegata nella stessa tomba di Francesco. La tomba di Egidio dimostra dunque come, quando necessario, i Frati Minori potessero rifiutare il modello fornito dalla loro Chiesa Madre di Assisi.

San Domenico Church (Prato, Tuscan, Italy) is a very peculiar case of terrestrial archaeology surveyed with underwater archaeological photogrammetric approach. The vault of the choir was completely filled by a very important numbers of potteries, which is very interesting building technique. To document this technique a complete photogrammetric survey was realized, layer by layer, following underwater archaeology system. It is interesting to note that in underwater archaeology such a case is quite rare, in fact or the wreck is in shallow water and the digging can be made (but this case is now unrealistic because in shallow water all the wreck have been stolen – or already excavated by archaeologist – !) or we are in deep water, with well conserved wreck but the depth doesn’t allow the excavation. In the last case only a surface survey is possible. Also for these reasons this particular case- study is very interesting in order to test underwater methods on real case. This experimentation is a good opportunity to develop and check methods, algorithm and software to obtain a relevant model of the site merging 3D measure and knowledge about the artefact as typology, theoretical model, spatial relationship between them. Even if this work started in 2006, with now obsolete digital camera and with a photographic campaign which not respect always the current constraints for building a dense cloud of point in photogrammetry,it is now used as a case-study for developing a relevant approach for underwater archaeology survey.

A study devoted to the gradual emergence of pictorial depth in Cimabue's paintings, and how it applies, together with other factors, to the understanding of their sequential chronology. The conclusions reached underscore the vast difference in Cimabue 's conservative art and the exceptional naturalism of the evolving Life of Saint Francis mural cycle lining the lower nave walls in the upper church of San Francesco at Assisi.

In his will, dating from 1490, the nobleman Francesco Scottivoli from Ancona ordered his heirs to erect a chapel in his memory at the church of San Francesco delle Scale, and have it adorned with a painted altarpiece, executed in 1508 by a painter of Greek origin residing in Ancona. In the late 18th-century a full-scale renovation of the church resulted to the dissolution of the Scottivoli chapel and the removal of the painted altarpiece, which was subsequently lost and has been considered missing ever since. This article aims to identify the long-missing Scottivoli altarpiece and determine the identity of its creator based on the re-evaluation of previously published sources and the discovery of unpublished archival and visual material. In light of this new information, this study interprets the Scottivoli altarpiece within the context of the intense cross-cultural transfer that took place in the multicultural contact zone of the early modern Eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.

Italy is a high seismic risk country since 1900 more than 30 earthquakes with magnitude greater than Mw=5.8 have occurred, and the last one is the Central Italy seismic sequence. The first shock occurred in the 24 August (Mw=6.2) followed by another stronger quake in the 30th October (Mw=6.5). It hit the regions of Marche, Umbria, and Abruzzo heavily causing many deaths, injuries and extensive damages on the cultural heritage. This paper analyses the church of San Francesco in Amadola, located in the Marche region that has been considered condemned for the severe damages reported after these earthquakes. The church is globally analyzed by the application of nonlinear static analysis on a Finite Element Model where the nonlinearity of masonry is taking into account with a proper constitutive law. The study wants to prove how global analysis combined by the local analysis can reproduce the behavior of this structure during a quake, showing that it can repeat the real damages produced by earthquakes.

Throughout history, natural hazards, wars, political changes and urban evolution have contributed to the obliteration of outstanding monuments. The study of their remains, frequently recovered as archaeological findings, can be the basis for a reconstruction of the lost structures, by way of their size, function, decoration and stylistic evolution. The present study developed a multidisciplinary approach to gather and interpret archaeological fragments and archive sources, in order to gain as much information as possible on “lost monuments”. The approach was tested with remnants (i.e., several hundreds of marble fragments found during archaeological excavations) of the monastic complex of San Francesco di Castelletto (Genoa), which was demolished after the Napoleonic suppressions. A preliminary organisation of the sample set was attained through cataloguing shape, size, and decoration. After this, a comparison with similar complexes still existing in Genoa allowed the inference of the age and specific ornamental functions for the majority of the pieces. Surface analysis, carried out in situ (portable microscope) and on micro‐samples (petrographic analysis and SEM‐EDS), allowed the characterisation of the materials (e.g., assessing marble provenance and identifying pigments). As a whole, the method evolved into an operational protocol, which helped both the organisation of the archaeological findings and the reconstruction of unknown phases of the lost monument.

Leo Steinberg’s doctoral dissertation of 1960 contained an exposé of the complex geometry of Francesco Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, and while his scheme has been the starting point for subsequent interpretations, Joseph Connors points out that the majority of drawings relied upon by Steinberg were in fact reworked by Borromini in the 1660s, after the church was built. The geometrical armature of the 1660s plans must therefore be read with caution, measured against the dimensions of the actual building and the geometry discernible in the drawings of the design stage. Whatever the basis of the geometrical reconstruction, something remains unclear, namely, the rationale of the curvature of the lateral chapels. In Practical and Symbolic Geometry in Borromini’s San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Michael Hill explores the geometrical rationale of the plan, particularly the role of the biangolo, to unlock its developmental sequence. He also argues for the symbolic importance of the biangolo that provides a cue for a consideration of the plan in terms of an epiphanic representation of the Trinity, a characterization that in turn sheds light on the devotion of San Carlo Borromeo, co-dedicatee of the church, as well as the meaning of the normally ignored altarpieces.

The oeuvre of the sculptor Paolo Callalo (Venice 1655-1725) is a paradigmatic example of how the oeuvres of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Venetian sculptors have been expanded, supplemented and revised during the last twenty years. Until Simone Guerriero’s ground-breaking article of 1997, Paolo Callalo was almost completely unknown. In his search for Callalo’s earliest preserved work, Simone Guerriero suggested that Callalo was responsible for the stipes of the altar of St Joseph, featuring the relief of the Flight into Egypt flanked by two putti which are almost free standing, which was made between 1679 and 1685 for San Giovanni Crisostomo at Venice. However, another significant sculpture can now be added to the catalogue of Callalo’s early works: a memorial monument to the Bishop of Nin Francesco Grassi (Chioggia, 3 October 1667 – Zadar, 29 January 1677) which is located on the left presbytery wall in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta at Chioggia. As we learn from its commemorative inscription, the monument was commissioned by Paolo Grassi, the nephew of the deceased who was a prominent member of this aristocratic family from Chioggia. The Grassi (de Grassi) family produced as many as three bishops of Chioggia: Pasquale (1618-1639), Francesco (1639 -1669) and Antonio (1696-1715) who was a brother of Francesco, the Bishop of Nin, and a great-nephew of the first two. The monumental memorial to the Bishop of Nin Francesco Grassi in the presbytery of Chioggia Cathedral consists of a rectangular marble plaque topped with a semi-circular pediment with two reclining putti. Immediately below, two more putti are depicted flying and drawing a curtain in front of an oval niche containing the bishop’s bust, the commemorative inscription and the bishop’s coat of arms set in a wreath. All the elements of this excellent work point to Paolo Callalo’s hand. The bishop’s bust was most probably created posthumously by relying on one of the portraits of the bishop as a source model. It depicts him as having a somewhat square face with a lively mouth opened in a melodramatic way and as having probing eyes with emphasized pupils, all of which characterize Callalo’s sculpting technique. A direct parallel for such a physiognomy can be found in the 1686 sculpture of St Michael in San Michele in Isola at Venice. Two remarkably beautiful and skilfully modelled putti which are drawing the curtain can be connected to the putti on the stipes of the altar of St Joseph in San Giovanni Crisostomo at Venice, but also with a putto on the keystone of a niche on the 1684 altar of St Teresa in the Church of the Scalzi. The richly draped marble curtain being drawn by the two flying putti is an example of Callalo’s thorough knowledge of contemporary sculptural innovations and trends in Venice. He could have seen a similar curtain on the 1677 monument to Giorgio Morosini in San Clemente in Isola at Venice, which belongs to the oeuvre of Giusto Le Court, the most important Venetian sculptor of the second half of the seventeenth century. That Callalo was no stranger to this type of decoration is also demonstrated by one of his later works, now sadly lost, the contract for which set out the terms for the sculptural decoration of the high altar in the old Venetian church of La Pietà. In 1692 Callalo agreed to make for this high altar ‘a curtain out of yellow marble of Verona being held by putti’.The stylistic analysis of the memorial to the Bishop of Nin Francesco Grassi indicates that it was erected in a relatively short period of time after the bishop’s death in 1677. It seems highly likely that it was made in the early 1680s or around 1686 at the latest because in that year Callalo made the statue of St Michael in San Michele in Isola. The memorial to the Bishop of Nin Francesco Grassi in Chioggia Cathedral is the first monument on the left-hand side of presbytery wall which would in time become a ‘mausoleum’ of the Grassi family. Around the same time or perhaps somewhat later, the Bishop of Chioggia by the name Francesco Grassi was honoured posthumously with a memorial containing a bust portrait that can be attributed to Giuseppe Torretti (Pagnano, 1664 – Venice, 1743). This group of episcopal memorials in the presbytery of Chioggia Cathedral ends with 1715 when Alvise Tagliapietra (Venice, 1680 – 1747) made the tomb for Bishop Antonio Grassi while he was still alive.Callalo’s Dalmatian oeuvre is relatively modest and consists of the following works so far identified as his: two marble angels set next to the high altar in the Parish Church at Vodice and four music-making putti at the sides of the high altar as well as those on a side altar in the Parish Church at Sutivan on the island of Brač. However, Callalo’s hand can also be recognized in a statue from a large-scale sculptural group which adorned the altar of the Blessed Sacrament in Zadar Cathedral. The altar structure was built by Antonio Viviani in 1719 while Francesco Cabianca (Venice, 1666-1737) carved the majority of the altar’s rich sculptural decoration. At the centre of the altar is a niche with a relatively small marble statue of Our Lady of Sorrows with the dead Christ in her lap. It is difficult to find a place for this marble Pietà from Zadar in Francesco Cabianca’s catalogue especially with regard to his Pietà above a door in the cloister of the Frari Church at Venice in 1714. Compared to the Zadar Pietà, Cabianca’s Venetian Pietà displays a number of differences: a crisper chiselling technique, a certain roughness of workmanship, robust bodies as well as a different treatment of the figures’ physiognomies and drapery. However, the Pietà from Zadar can be added to the catalogue of Paolo Callalo’s works. The carefully modelled figure of Our Lady of Sorrows and the soft drapery which spreads outwards in a radial fashion around her feet can be compared to the statues of Faith and Hope on the altar of the Blessed Sacrament in Udine Cathedral, which was made after 1720. The statue of the Risen Christ on the tabernacle of the aforementioned altar from Udine provides a parallel for the modelling of Christ’s body and, in particular, his face with a restrained expression. The same can be said for the Risen Christ on the tabernacle of the Parish Church at Clauzetto, which I also attribute to Callalo, as well as for earlier, more monumental, examples such as the Christ from the 1708 altar of the Transfiguration in the Parish Church at Labin.Callalo’s memorial to the Bishop of Nin Francesco Grassi in Chioggia is an important indicator of his personal stylistic development. He transformed his stylistic expression from the robust energy of this ‘youthful work’ at Chioggia to the lyrical poetics characterized by softness which can be seen in his late work, the Pietà on the altar of the Blessed Sacrament in the Cathedral of St Anastasia at Zadar. It is likely that future research in Venice, Dalmatia and the rest of the Adriatic coast will expand Paolo Callalo’s already rich oeuvre and confirm the important place he holds in Venetian sculpture as one of its protagonists during the late Seicento and early Settecento.

In 1278, the Franciscan Order of Piacenza acquired a large piece of land in the center of the city. The land had been confiscated by the commune when the property's former owner had been exiled several years earlier. However, that land was occupied by at least eleven other private and commercial tenants, including the jurisdictions of five different parishes. The friars immediately set to work demolishing the houses, and sealing off the site with a high enclosure wall. They then began construction on a large church and convent. The impact on the economy of the parish churches in loss of charitable revenue was immediate. One month into their project, a representative of the Bishop and Chapter of the Cathedral arrived at the site and denounced the friars in the name of the harm it was inflicting on the surrounding parishes. The friars ignored the warning and the result was their excommunication. Four years later Pope Martin IV sent three delegates to investigate the Franciscans' actions. The inquest that followed was recorded in a detailed manuscript that is preserved in Parma's Archivio di Stato. The document records the testimony of eighteen witnesses, including parish priests, neighboring lay people and workers on the building. Their testimony and the accompanying documentary material allows us to reconstruct the alteration to the economic and urban fabric of the parish community caused by the Franciscans.

Dissertation

Leon Battista Alberti's church of Sant' Andrea in Mantua has been closely studied by many Renaissance scholars in relation to its layout, dimensions, proportions, chronology, style and aesthetics, as well as earning its place in both Alberti's corpus and the sweep of Renaissance architecture. The thesis investigates how eloquence is embodied in the sequential repetition of the triumphal arch motif between inside and outside. This thesis it is based on extensive and critical review of historical and theoretical literature. It marks a close examination of Sant?Andrea and to lesser extent San Francesco in Rimini, revisiting key ideas, texts and words. The principal finding of the thesis is that Alberti?s concept of respondeo, as developed in De Re Aedificatoria is the key to understanding the triumphal arch motif and its repetition in the interior. The thesis also comprehensively outlines the variety of contexts in which repondeo can be understood. This term, correlated to the passing of time and to rhetorical-based Albertian terms as decorum and convenio, means a 'sensitive suitability' between parts. The analysis of the triumphal arch motif of Sant?Andrea suggests that formalism has played a more important role in Alberti's design for this church than previously believed. This is by the motif's rigorous outline changing between the interior nave and the exterior fa??ade according to the observer's different visual perceptions. The rhetorical structure of the triumphal arch, in the way that it moves became from two to three dimensions in the fa??ade, seeks familiarity with the city's surrounding environment to establish simultaneity of actions. In this way, by joining the historical-religious point of references to a strategy of perception, the triumphal arch achieves public consensus. This rhetorical program is addressed especially by the patron of the church of Sant' Andrea Ludovico Gonzaga II also the ruler of Mantua with popular aspects of his public representations.

Following the arrival of the plague, and the dramatic fall in population, pressure on food supplies within the Mediterranean diminished. This did not mean that the old Mediterranean grain trade withered. In fact, it flourished: as inferior lands were abandoned and turned over to pasture, and as other areas became dedicated to products such as sugar and dyestuffs, the economic life of the lands bordering the Great Sea became more varied. As specialization increased, trade in all manner of goods was stimulated. The Mediterranean economy began to take on a new shape. Local contacts came to the fore: products such as timber were ferried down the coasts of Catalonia; wool was sent across the Adriatic from Apulia to the burgeoning towns of Dalmatia, and from Minorca (famous for its sheep) to Tuscany, where around 1400 the ‘Merchant of Prato’, Francesco di Marco Datini, obsessively ensured that every bale was recorded and every piece of correspondence was preserved – about 150,000 letters – to the great advantage of historians. One of his agents in Ibiza complained: ‘this land is unhealthy, the bread is bad, the wine is bad – God forgive me, nothing is good! I fear I shall leave my skin here.’ But the demands of business came before personal comfort. The Merchant of Prato also had Tuscan agents based in San Mateu on the Spanish coast, where they could collect the best Aragonese wools, while deep within the Spanish interior sheep were conquering the Meseta, as millions of animals grazed the high ground in summer and the plateau in winter. Datini’s reach extended to the Maghrib and eastwards to the Balkans and the Black Sea. In the 1390s, he was involved in the slave trade, at a time when Circassians from the Black Sea and Berbers from North Africa were being sold in the slave markets of Majorca and Sicily. From oriental lands beyond the Mediterranean he obtained indigo, brazilwood, pepper, aloes, zedoary and galingale, as well as cotton, mastic and refined sugar from within the Great Sea. From Spain and Morocco, he imported, besides vast amounts of raw wool, ostrich feathers, elephant ivory, rice, almonds and dates.

The link between the design drawing to an architectural work, sometimes goes through the definition of geometric paths which establish alignments, proportions, correspondences. The comparison of the geometric construction of survey data of an architecture and design data is very important for understanding the original design idea, highlighting not only the artist's modus progettandi, but also matches, modifications or changes respect of precisely geometric paths and its building architecture. In these studies, the church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome, by Francesco Borromini, is an exemplar case. The project of the church, built between 1638 and 1675 and characterized by a coffered vault with an oval planimetric shape, is documented by a consistent corpus of Borromini drawings. This research, based on survey data, can allow to make new contributions to Borromini work and formulate new hypotheses regarding his construction practice.

The chapter deals with the assessment of the seismic vulnerability of the “San Francesco ad Alto” historical masonry building, a former church located in Ancona (Italy), which is currently used as a Regional Headquarter of the Marche Region by the Italian Army. The interest toward this building comes from a double motivation. From the one side, it underwent a series of structural changes, including the addition of a new floor splitting in two levels the original nave, which makes the structure very peculiar and closer to a classical building than to a church. From the other side, it is no longer used as a church, a fact that changes the hazard aspects. The construction schematically consists of two masonry boxes overlapping, the lower being wider than the upper. It has various characteristic structural elements, such as some semicircular arches, segmental arches, timber floors, a barrel vault, some wooden trusses on the roof and steel ties in retention of the facade and of the external walls. The equivalent frame method is used, and several pushover analyses are performed. The seismic action has been defined considering the building both with strategic (current situation) and with ordinary (possible future situation) importance during earthquakes. The role of the masonry spandrels on the response of the structure has been investigated in depth and the main effects highlighted. The result of the pushover analyses is a seismic risk index (IR), that defines the safety level of the construction with respect to one ultimate limit state (SLU), in particular the so-called limit state of “saving life” (SLV).

The chapter deals with the assessment of the seismic vulnerability of the “San Francesco ad Alto” historical masonry building, a former church located in Ancona (Italy), which is currently used as a Regional Headquarter of the Marche Region by the Italian Army. The interest toward this building comes from a double motivation. From the one side, it underwent a series of structural changes, including the addition of a new floor splitting in two levels the original nave, which makes the structure very peculiar and closer to a classical building than to a church. From the other side, it is no longer used as a church, a fact that changes the hazard aspects. The construction schematically consists of two masonry boxes overlapping, the lower being wider than the upper. It has various characteristic structural elements, such as some semicircular arches, segmental arches, timber floors, a barrel vault, some wooden trusses on the roof and steel ties in retention of the facade and of the external walls. The equivalent frame method is used, and several pushover analyses are performed. The seismic action has been defined considering the building both with strategic (current situation) and with ordinary (possible future situation) importance during earthquakes. The role of the masonry spandrels on the response of the structure has been investigated in depth and the main effects highlighted. The result of the pushover analyses is a seismic risk index (IR), that defines the safety level of the construction with respect to one ultimate limit state (SLU), in particular the so-called limit state of “saving life” (SLV).