Review: Building Santa Maria Novella: Materials, Tradition and Invention in Late Medieval Florence

Book Review| March 01 2024 Review: Building Santa Maria Novella: Materials, Tradition and Invention in Late Medieval Florence Elizabeth Bradford Smith Building Santa Maria Novella: Materials, Tradition and Invention in Late Medieval Florence Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2022, 224 pp. , 116 color illus. 288/€100 (cloth), ISBN 9788891326096 Michael T. Davis Michael T. Davis Mount Holyoke College Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2024) 83 (1): 104–105. https: //doi. org/10. 1525/jsah. 2024. 83. 1. 104 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures Review: Building Santa Maria Novella: Materials, Tradition and Invention in Late Medieval Florence. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1 March 2024; 83 (1): 104–105. doi: https: //doi. org/10. 1525/jsah. 2024. 83. 1. 104 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the Society of Architectural Historians Search At the end of his life and concluding an ecclesiastical career as bishop of Orvieto and papal vicar, Aldobrandino Cavalcanti returned to the convent of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, where he had spent time previously. The prelate's obituary, quoted in Elizabeth Bradford Smith's Building Santa Maria Novella, reports that before his death in September 1279, he "had the model of our church made, and he had all the materials prepared, namely cement, stones and wood for the construction" (57). The cornerstone was duly laid on 18 October 1279 by Cardinal Fra Latino Malabranca. Building the new monumental church of the Dominican community, along with its cloisters and conventual structures, occupied the following three-quarters of a century, at the "cost of one hundred thousand gold Florins" (198). Smith trains her attention on this initial design that guided construction into the early fourteenth century as it established the exterior envelope. . . You do not currently have access to this content.