The "Bride" of Michael Angelo

The Church of Santa Marie Novella, which Michael Angelo called "his bride," is frescoed throughout by the early painters. Cimabue's "Madonna" is one of three authentic works of this Master. The figures are above life-size, painted on a gold ground. The greatest enthusiasm is recorded of this picture when it was exhibited over six hundred years ago; admiring throngs rent the air with shouts of delight, and a stately procession bore it from the studio of the Master to its present place in this Church. The figures now seem stiff and grim; but this work of Cimabue, painted in 1270, was so superior to those of its predecessors, that his painting seemed to the enthusiastic Florentines the revival of a lost art. Their national pride was stirred, and brilliant hopes for the future were awakened. The Virgin is seated on a throne holding the Infant Christ in her lap. Three angels, one above the other, on either side, support the throne and look up in adoration. The numerous frescoes in this Church and its chapels are interesting from the fact that nearly all the figures are life portraits of Florentines of that day. A picture of "Petrarch and His Laura" is valuable. And in Santa Marie Novella the opening scene of Boccaccio's "Decameron" is laid. He represents himself as meeting here those "graceful Florentine ladies" who agreed to withdraw to a neighboring villa to escape the plague then devastating Florence (1348). This Church and Convent belonged to the Dominican Monks, and was for many years the rival of San Marco.