Neighbourhood and Identity in Renaissance Florence: Artistic Patronage at Santa Trinita and San Pancrazio

This thesis considers works of art – broadly defined to include altarpieces, sculptures, frescoes, tombs, and liturgical furnishings – commissioned for the two Florentine, Vallombrosan churches of Santa Trinita and San Pancrazio, specifically in light of the geographical proximity of these two churches within the urban neighbourhood that extended loosely between Palazzo Strozzi, the Lungarno, Via de’ Fossi, and Via della Spada. Working with archival and documentary sources, this research addresses a fundamental gap in monastic and art-historical scholarship that has to date overlooked the impact of the Vallombrosan congregation, a reformed branch of the Benedictine order, in favour of a focus on the mendicant and other reformed congregations, especially within the Florentine artistic and social spheres. Divided into five chapters, this thesis broadly covers three main themes: neighbourhood, patronage, and identity. To explore the ramifications of the unusual urban proximity between these two churches belonging to the same order, all the chapters address the local networks of patronage and artists that dictated the decoration and furnishing of these buildings from the second half of the fourteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century. To do so, it re-examines the role of the monks in the dynamics of art commissioning, proposing a more holistic model of patronage. This model encompasses a network of relationships involving individual patrons, families, monks, community ties, and artists, allowing for the coexistence of both individual and communal modes of patronage within the same church. Indeed, the role of a variety of local patrons is also explored – including the Scali, Gianfigliazzi, Strozzi, Rucellai, and Minerbetti families, along with local confraternities – and the strategies by which these patrons marked their patronal presence. Factors such as neighbourhood ties, spatial proximity, bonds of trust and friendship, a pursuit of social and artistic cohesion, and local competition between families played pivotal roles in determining artistic sponsorship in the two Vallombrosan churches. As such, broader issues that are addressed include the function and importance attached to different liturgical spaces, the relationship between works of art and their spatial and liturgical contexts, and the role of art in the creation of social identity. Overall, this Florentine micro-history proposes a more complex yet nuanced paradigm of patronage, which responded to both the self-fashioning needs of the congregation and of different local patrons. Within this study, works of art are thus considered in anthropological terms, as products of makers and patrons, aimed towards a viewer who was directed to perceive the social identities of patrons in specific ways.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Young, Michela

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cooper, Donal

• Neighbourhood
• Florence
• Vallombrosans
• Patronage
• Church interiors
• Altarpieces
• Networks
• Angelico
• Sacred space
• Strozzi
• Trust
• Competition
• Rucellai
• Filippino Lippi
• Parishes
• Spatial proximity
• Cimabue
• Choir screens
• Self-fashioning
• Gentile da Fabriano
• Giovanni dal Ponte
• Bicci di Lorenzo
• Quattrocento

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/4101c3ef-e9f6-4b65-b1a5-6850e2e688e9/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.116568

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/381358