Transforming the Church Interior in Renaissance Florence

Abstract

Before the late sixteenth century, the churches of Florence were internally divided by monumental screens that separated the laity in the nave from the clergy in the choir precinct. Enabling both separation and mediation, these screens were impressive artistic structures that controlled social interactions, facilitated liturgical performances, and variably framed or obscured religious ritual and imagery. In the 1560s and 70s, screens were routinely destroyed in a period of religious reforms, irreversibly transforming the function, meaning, and spatial dynamics of the church interior. In this volume, Joanne Allen explores the widespread presence of screens and their role in Florentine social and religious life prior to the Counter-Reformation. She presents unpublished documentation and new reconstructions of screens and the choir precincts which they delimited. Elucidating issues such as gender, patronage, and class, her study makes these vanished structures comprehensible and deepens our understanding of the impact of religious reform on church architecture.

Senses of Space in the Early Modern World

“…Clergy in Florence removed the rood screens that bisected the nave so that the whole interior space could be under surveillance and the activities within it could be monitored. English protestants erected fences around their altars to control the dogs whose barking, pissing, and interest in communion bread disturbed holy worship (Smith 2002;Craig 2005;Allen 2022).…”