Orsanmichele Church

Along our Renaissance walk, we came to the Orsanmichele Church. It was originally a granary, but it also served as a place of worship. The people would walk in through the arches and get the grain they needed, and they could worship at a painting, too. (I guess they tried to have one-stop-shopping!) In the 14th century, the arches were filled in, and the structure became a full-fledged church.





There are 14 niches around the outside of the church, and different people or guilds would commission an artist to create a statue for each niche.

This is Four Saints by Di Banco. It pictures four early Christians who were martyred because they would not sculpt pagan gods. The relief carving beneath the statue shows which guild commissioned this piece, but experts disagree on which guild this carving depicts.

Here is St. George by Donatello. We are supposed to see the Renaissance style of humanism in this piece.

This is St. Mark by Donatello. He is carrying his Gospel with him. His pose, where most of his weight is on his right leg and he bends his left leg, is called the contraposto, and this statue was the first one in ages to be portrayed in this pose. The linen-sellers guild commissioned this statue, so notice the great attention to the robes! (Isn't that awesome?!!)

Here is St. John the Baptist by Ghiberti, (who also did the doors to the Baptistery). This is the first free-standing bronze statue since years and years and years before this, so Florence was pretty proud of their know-how to have this done.

And here is Christ and St. Thomas, by Verrocchio. St. Thomas here is Doubting Thomas. He is reaching out to touch Christ's side.

And here is the inside of the church. The rectangular hole at the bottom of the picture is where the grain would come out if someone sent it down from the store room upstairs. It's hard to see in the picture, but there is a ring at the top hanging on some sort of wire, and that was probably a pulley system. I enjoyed seeing the chutes where the grain would come down!