Santa Maria Novella is a church in Florence, situated just across from the main railway station which shares its name. Chronologically, it is the first great basilica in Florence, and is the city's principal Dominican church.

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Piazza Santa Maria Novella, the square in front the church was used by Cosimo I for the yearly chariot race (Palio dei Cocchi). This custom existed between 1563 and late in the 19th century. The two obelisks marked the start and the finish of the race. They were set up to imitate an antique Roman circus. The obelisks rest on bronze tortoises, made in 1608 by the sculptor Giambologna.

The facade is not only the oldest of all the churches in Florence but it is also the only church with its original planned facade in place.

Architecturally, it is one of the most important Gothic churches in Tuscany. The exterior is the work of Fra Jacopo Talenti and Leon Battista Alberti.

Alberti’s contribution consists of a broad frieze decorated with squares and everything above it, including the four white-green pilasters and a round window, crowned by a pediment with the Dominican solar emblem, and flanked on both sides by enormous S-curved volutes.

The pediment and the frieze are clearly inspired by the antiquity, but the S-curved scrolls in the upper part are new and without precedent in antiquity. The scrolls (or variations of them), found in churches all over Italy, all find their origin here in the design of this church

This church was called Novella (New) because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne. When the site was assigned to Dominican Order in 1221, they decided to build a new church and an adjoining cloister.

the green Cloister (Chiostro Verde)

The Spanish Chapel (or Cappellone degli Spagnoli) is the former chapterhouse of the monastery. It is situated at the north side of the green Cloister (Chiostro Verde).

It was later called "Spanish Chapel", because Cosimo I assigned it to Eleonora of Toledo and her Spanish retinue (it was used by the courtiers of Eleanor of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I)

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An armillary sphere and a gnomon were added to the end blind arches of the lower façade by the astronomer of Cosimo I. This armillary sphere was designed and erected by Ignazio Danti in 1572 enabling him, with other instruments, to measure the exact length of the year by determining the true equinox. At the vernal equinox in March 1574 Danti observed that it was eleven days early according to the Julian calendar. This was one of the factors that led to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582

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A memorial stone affixed to the Loggia dei Lanzi, in Piazza della Signoria, recalls as a historically significant moment the date on which in Florence too, at the decree of Grand Duke Francesco II of Lorraine, time began to be measured starting from January 1st of each year. It was 1750, the year in which the "Florentine style" calendar was definitively abandoned in favor of the one reformed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.

Before 1750, the Florentine year began ab Incarnatione, on March 25, the day consecrated by the Catholic Church to the Archangel Gabriel's annunciation to Mary (nine months prior to the birth of Jesus).

That date also coincided with the beginning of spring, which started only a few days earlier, on March 21, when the Sun entered the constellation of Aries.

For Florence, this was a particularly important moment. It was the beginning of a new life marked on the astronomical level by the first season of the year, on the religious level by the festival of the Annunciation - grandiosely honored in the Church of the SS. Annunziata since the 13th century - and on the level of the city's origins, by the ancient Ludi Florales dedicated to Flora, the goddess of springtime, for whom Florence had been named.

Two masterpieces by Botticelli, The Birth of Venus and the Primavera, have indelibly engraved in the collective consciousness the iconography of Flora-Florentia associated with the birth that recurs each year under the sign of Aries.

Begin from the Middle Ages the Public Square of Santa Maria Novella was used for festivities and other shows. In the public square we can admire the loggiato of the Hospital of San Paolo

Sound : Firenze Santa Maria Novella - Pupo Mattinata fiorentina - Claudio Villa Firenze sogna - Giuseppe Di Stefano

Text: InternetPictures: Daniela IacobArangement: Sanda Foişoreanu