An Art Lover's Guide to Florence

12. The Tornabuoni Chapel in S. Maria Novella

Chapter 12 The TOrNaBuONI ChapEL in S. marIa NOVELLa duELING dONOrS W hen three wealthy and prominent fifteenth-century Florentine families vie for the privilege of becoming the patrons of a prestigious chapel, the intrigues can become complicated. Pity the poor Dominican friars at the church of s. Maria Novella, who had to contend with the ricci, sassetti, and Tornabuoni families, each claiming the right to decorate the cappella maggiore, the main chapel, which is in fact the entire apse, the altar end of the enormous church. The site was particularly choice because the area around the main altar is considered the most sacred part of a church, so having worship and burial privileges there would bring spiritual merit as well as great social prestige to the family that claimed it. s. Maria Novella is called Novella (new) because it stands on the site of an earlier church in an area that in medieval times lay outside the city limits. In 1221, when the Dominican order arrived in Florence, they received the preexisting church, which had been built by a man named Jacopo Tornaquinci. (The reader should keep the surname in mind—it will occur again in this story.) The friars tore down the old church, and in 1246 they began replacing it with a much larger and grander one. The cathedral is the only church in Florence bigger than s. Maria Novella. even though s. Maria Novella contains many interesting works of art, by far the most striking are the two cycles of colorful frescoes by Domenico 158 aN arT LOVEr’S GuIdE TO FLOrENCE Ghirlandaio that cover the walls of the high and spacious apse. Giovanni Tornabuoni was the patron who commissioned them in 1486. Among the wealthiest and most influential men of Florence, his power derived from his connection to the Medici. He was related to the Medici through the marriage of his sister Lucrezia to Piero de’ Medici, and their son—his nephew—was Lorenzo the Magnificent, since 1469 the ruler of the city. Thanks to these connections, Giovanni became the general manager of the Medici bank in rome, the most profitable branch because of its lucrative business with the papal curia. This was the source of Giovanni’s vast fortune. Given all these advantages, Giovanni Tornabuoni should have sailed into s. Maria Novella and without any difficulty acquired patronage rights to its most important chapel. Instead, he had to wage a long and sometimes bitter battle with several other families, whose members also claimed they had rights to the same chapel. Who is to decide when would-be donors disagree? A further historical fact needs to be clarified before proceeding: Giovanni Tornabuoni belonged to one branch of an old and large aristocratic family whose original name was Tornaquinci. In the mid-1200s the government of Florence, disgusted with the feuds and other excesses of the city’s noble families, had barred aristocrats from holding public office, and in response some families changed their names in order to reenter the political arena. At that time a branch of the Tornaquinci changed its name to Tornabuoni. With this in mind, we can easily see why Giovanni Tornabuoni thought he had a right to the church’s main chapel—after all, one of his Tornaquinci ancestors had founded the original church on the site. No other family could have an earlier claim than that. But priority concerning the site of the original church was insufficient to assure patronage rights to such a prestigious chapel. Another family, the ricci, insisted they had been granted rights to the chapel. Although they had paid for the round window in the façade in 1365 and had made a few other modest bequests to the church, their grounds for claiming the chapel are no longer clear. But the ricci, whatever the validity of their claims, were no match for the Tornabuoni. By the late 1400s, they were a declining lineage: few in number, politically insignificant, and financially strapped. They were in no position to assert their possession of the chapel, which—as Giovanni Tornabuoni pointed out to the Dominicans—was poorly maintained and its frescoes in a deplorable state. Furthermore, those frescoes had been commissioned in the 1360s The Tornabuoni Chapel in S. Maria Novella 159 by a Dominican friar named Jacopo Passavanti, whose mother was a Tornaquinci . In 1485 the ricci were finally persuaded—or more likely forced—to...