The Sassetti chapel

 

I shouldn't be writing this. This goes against my own self interests.

Go to Florence, and you face crowds that make you hum Paul McCartney's tune after the Beatles split: "Too Many People"! Throngs* on the Ponte Vecchio, crowds around Michelangelo's David and the beautiful Battisterio. Crossing the Piazza della Signoria is no easy job. One can only imagine what it would be like to stroll here, lonely as a cloud, admiring the most perfect cupola in the world, which I did after one dinner close to midnight.

But, coming from Oltrarno ('the other side of the river Arno), just make your way across the Ponte à Santa Trinita, the bridge from which you have the best view on the Ponte Vecchio, and head for the fancy shopping street Via de Tornibuoni. On your left you will see an unassuming church with a baroque or mannerist facade - the Santa Trinita church.

First good news - no entrance fee. Then you enter the semi darkness and head for the chapel at the right hand side of the choir. There is an old fashioned slot machine: one euro for one minute of light. And then, pure beauty hits you in the face. And then you realize: you are watching a masterpiece, all on your own. Heavens thank the Michelin guide of Italy to just bestow two stars out of three.
The Sassetti chapel was painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), a painter of the early renaissance while his work still refers to the gothic style of the Flemish primitives. One of his many disciples was Michelangelo.

Francesco Sassetti (1421–1490) was a rich banker and a member of the Medici entourage. He was director of the Medici Bank. As was the case in those days, rich folk had a craving to be immortalized through arts, and just like Judocus Veydt, who commissioned The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb in the Saint Bavon cathedral in Ghent, Sassetti ordered Ghirlandaio to be painted, kneeling and pious, with his wife, both framing the central altar piece.

Most of the chapel depicts scenes from the life of Italy's patron saint Saint Fransiscus, but the centerpiece is The Adoration of the Shephards, containing a truly breathtaking Madonna. Joseph looks as if he has no clue to what is happening, and the three little pieces of stone refer to the donor's name (Sassetti meaning 'little stones'). The scene is very much of the realistic style of the Flemish painters, and the resemblance with Hugo van der Goes' Portinari tryptich (on display in the Uffizi) is striking. The three shepherds don't really look like shepherds, but must be portraits of noblemen or friends of the painter. In fact, the left painter is Ghirlandaio himself, taking part in the drama by pointing to the new born Christ. Here is a striking break with the Flemish school, whose painters are as modest as the current Flemish people nowadays.

Above this altar piece/masterpiece is a touching fresco depicting a miracle where a boy falls from a building and comes back to life. At the right you can see the facade of the Santa Trinita church in its earliest, unadorned roman style

Watch all this in awe, and then head back to the busy Florentine streets. Have luch in the Antinori Palace, for instance, and try a wonderful Pinot Noir or a Syrah from one of the many Antinori estates in Tuscany, Umbria or Piemonte.

No, really, I shouldn't be writing this. If you want to watch this gem in silence and solitude, keep this secret to yourself.

*A beautiful word, though, throng(s). It is related to the Dutch dringen, referring to the pressing (of people).