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The History and Persistence of the Florentine Feast of San Giovanni and Its Significance to the City’S Civic Identity

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The History and Persistence of the Florentine Feast of San Giovanni and Its Significance to the City’S Civic Identity Architecture, Festival and Order: The history and persistence of the Florentine Feast of San Giovanni and its significance to the city’s civic identity. Christian Wilson Frost Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy London Metropolitan University; October 2018 Volume 1 of 5 TEXT Volume 1: Text Volume 2: Illustrations Volume 3: Maps and Tables Volume 4: The Donation of the Candles 2016 Volume 5: The Civic Parade and Fireworks 2016 i Table of Contents Acknowledgments v List of Figures vi List of Tables and Maps xvii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 - Research Questions and Methodology 7 1.1. Phenomenological Hermeneutics versus Method • The Hermeneutics of Festival 9 • Phenomenological Hermeneutics in the context of festival 15 • City Governance: Natural State and Agon 18 1.2. Research Tools • Observations, Maps, and plans 23 • Primary Literature 26 • Secondary Literature 32 Chapter 2 – Roman Florence: Order and Cosmos 39 2.1. The Origins of Roman Florence • Roman History of the Foundation of Florence 40 • Chronicle accounts of the Roman Legacy 45 • Archaeological evidence of Roman Florence 47 2.2. Florence and Roman Festival • Foundation and festival: The Foundation of Rome: 21st April 49 • Other Relevant Roman Feasts 54 o Maia: 1st May 54 o Bona Dea ad saxum: 1st May 54 o Laribus Praestitibus: 1st May 55 o Ludi Florae: 28th April-4th May 55 o Fortis Fortunae - 24th June 57 2.3. Roman feasts as a representation of Cosmic Order 60 ii Chapter 3 – Feudal Florence and the Emergence of the Commune 67 3.1. The Origins of the Florentine Commune • Political and Governmental Developments to Around 1200 69 • Developments in Church Administration 76 • Legacy of the Changes 78 • Chronicle accounts of the period 79 3.2. The Medieval City as Seen 83 • The First Set of Commune Walls (1173-75) 84 • The Houses of the City 86 • The Cathedral of Santa Reparata 87 • The Baptistery of San Giovanni 90 • The Other Significant Churches of the City 93 3.3. The Commune and Christian Festival • The Service Books of Santa Reparata 95 • The Feast of San Giovanni and the Rite of Baptism at the 98 Beginning of the Thirteenth Century in Florence: 24th June • Other Significant Processional Feasts o The Entry of a New Bishop (Varies) 100 o St Agatha (5th February) and St Philip (1st May) 101 o Palm Sunday (moveable) 102 o Rogation Processions (moveable) 102 3.4. Christian Feasts as a Representation of Sacramental Order 103 Chapter 4 - The Commune: Florence from 1250 113 4.1. The Development of the Commune in Florence • Political and Governmental developments from around 1200 114 • The Chronicle Accounts of the Commune 126 4.2. The Commune as seen • Three Bridges and the Second Set of Commune Walls 129 • Houses and Palazzi 132 • Guilds 135 • The Bargello 138 • The Palazzo Vecchio 140 • Santa Maria del Fiore and the Mendicant Churches 142 4.3. The Commune and Civic Festival • The Feast of San Giovanni 145 • Entries and the Feast of the Magi 151 4.4. Commune Festivals as a Representation of Civic Order 152 iii Chapter 5 –Dialectical Readings of Festival and Architecture 163 5.1. From Philology to Architecture 165 5.2. From Classical to Modern: Architectural readings of Dante and Boccaccio • Dante and the threshold to the Salon at Poppi Castle 172 • Boccaccio and the Language of the Salon in Florence 179 5.3. Festive Representation in the Sassetti Chapel • The Sassetti Chapel (1478-85) 189 • Representations of Cities in the Frescoes 191 • Representation of Time and Movement in the Frescoes 194 5.4. Architects, Architecture and the City: Some themes on the continuity of classical ideas relating to the Latin Middle Ages • Divided Representation 199 • The legacy of Vitruvius’s De Architectura 200 • Creation and the Liberal Arts in thirteenth-century Europe 205 Chapter 6: Conclusion: Architecture, Festival and the City 215 6.1. The Calcio in Florence: Agonistic Ritual and the Space of Civic 217 Order 6.2. Historicism and Historicity in Modern Architectural Criticism 229 Bibliography 237 Bibliography used for construction of maps 255 iv Acknowledgments Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Professor Peter Carl for his guidance over the past thirty-five years, but particularly over the last five while I have been reading for this PhD. During this period, I thank him for sharing his immense knowledge, as well as his patience, and for guiding me through the immense topic that I undertook. I would also like to thank Dr Dalibor Vesely, who sadly passed away in 2015, who was a part of my original advisory team, and also mentored me through the same extensive period. More recently Dr Helen Mallinson, and Dr Nabil Ahmed have joined the team, but it is Dr Matthew Barac who has read the final drafts and helped me navigate the final submission. Besides these advisors, I would like to thank Professor Maurice Mitchell and the other members of the Post Graduate Research seminar who have listened, commented and shared their wisdom with me. During the research I have used a number of different institutions, but I would particularly like to thank Dr Alessio Assonitis at the Medici Archive Project in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze for introducing me to the mechanisms of research in an Italian archive, and also the staff at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence for accommodating my research visits. During the five years of this research I have had much support from Professor Kevin Singh at the Birmingham School of Architecture and Design, but also from other members of staff—particularly Jemma Brown, Alessandro Columbano, Mike Dring, Holly Galbraith, Jieling Xiao, Maria Martinez Sanchez and Luke Nagle—who have kindly covered for me whilst on research leave. I thank them all. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my wife Isabel for putting up with many absences, and my children—Stefan, Milôs, Kristina and Theodore—for tolerating me at all during this sometimes-stressful exercise. v LIST OF FIGURES (Pages refer to pagination in specific volume. Those shaded cannot be digitised) Figures in Volume 2: Figure Figure Caption Page 2.1. Centuriation of the Arno Valley 4 Gian Luigi Maffei and Gianfranco Caniggia, Casa fiorentina (Marsilio, 1990), 14. 2.2. Centuriation of the Arno Valley. View of Florence 4 Gian Luigi Maffei and Gianfranco Caniggia, Casa fiorentina (Marsilio, 1990), 19. 2.3. Giorgio Vasari, The Foundation of Florence (1563-65), Palazzo 5 Vecchio, Florence https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giorgio_Vasari_- _Foundation_of_Florentia,_a_Roman_settlement_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) 2.4. Giorgio Vasari, The Foundation of Florence (1563-65), Palazzo 5 Vecchio, Florence. Detail https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giorgio_Vasari_- _Foundation_of_Florentia,_a_Roman_settlement_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) 2.5. Totila razes the walls of Florence: illumination from the Chigi ms of 6 Villani’s Cronica Totila fa distruggere la città di Firenze, ms. Chigiano L VIII 296 della Biblioteca Vaticana, f.36r (1.III,1) cs: Stětí blahoslaveného Maurutia, biskupa fiesolského a zničení města Attilou 2.6. Roma Quadrata 6 2.7a. The Seven Hills of Rome and the original Pomoerium 7 http://mark.levengood.people.cpcc.edu/HIS111/Pics/Rome/RomeHillsMapMod.j pg 2.7b. The Republican Districts of Rome 7 http://roma.andreapollett.com/S5/rioni.htm 2.8. The Fourteen Regions of Augustinian Rome 7 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CasernesVigileII_planrome.png 2.9. Plan of Timgad 8 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Timgad_Expansion_in_ 2nd_and_3rd_Century.jpg 2.10. Forum Romanum 8 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_downtown_Rome_during_the_ Roman_Empire_large.png 2.11. Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli 9 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rambles_in_Rome_- _an_arch%C3%A6ological_and_historical_guide_to_the_museums,_galleries,_villas, _churches,_and_antiquities_of_Rome_and_the_Campagna_(1887)_(14788039883).j p 2.12. Piazza Armerina, Sicily. 9 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Villa-del-Casale-plan-bjs-1.jpg vi 3.1a. Recto of Plan of Saint Gall see catalogue entry (in German) 10 on Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Codex_Sangallensis_1092_recto.jpg 3.1b. Ground plan, St. Gall monastery, Switzerland. Scanned in from Vol. 1, 10 9th edition of EB (1875). Source :: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:St_gall_plan.jpg] {{PD}} 3.2. Image of Medieval Tower House grouping in medieval Florence 10 James Wood Brown, The Builders of Florence (New York: E.P Dutton & Co., 1907), 81. 3.3. Single Tower Houses. Top: Manelli family; Bottom: Alberti Family 11 Gian Luigi Maffei and Gianfranco Caniggia, Casa fiorentina (Marsilio, 1990), 172. 3.4. Image of Florence showing many of the towers on the skyline of 12 Florence from middle of the fourteenth century at the bottom of the Madonna della Misericordia (school of Bernardo Daddi) Author’s photo 3.5. Palazzo Vecchio in relation to a hypothetical reconstruction of the 12 Roman Theatre and, by association, the demolished houses of the Ghibelline Uberti family http://museicivicifiorentini.comune.fi.it/en/palazzovecchio/scavi_teatro_romano .htm 3.6. Plan of Santa Reparata in the thirteenth century 13 Franklin Toker, On Holy Ground: Liturgy, Architecture and urbanism in the Cathedral and the Streets of Medieval Florence (London : Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2009). 3.7. Santa Reparata compared to Arnolfo di Cambio’s proposal and that 13 of Francesco Talenti https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SMDFplan36.gif 3.8. Relationship of Baptisteries to their related churches at the same 14 scale. Early Christian examples on the left, and Tuscan Romanesque on the right. (R. Emanuele) Franklin Toker, ‘A Baptistery below the Baptistery of Florence’, The Art Bulletin 58, no. 2 (June 1976): 157–67. 3.9. Detail of Madonna della Misericordia (school of Bernardo Daddi) 14 showing S.
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