Piazza del Carmine’s Celebratory Re-Opening

The city of Florence will hold an art and music celebration for residents and visitors this Saturday, June 16, to inaugurate the renovations and restorations to Piazza del Carmine. The Brancacci chapel, which features visually stunning frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino, will have special hours from 5-11 pm, with final entry at 10:30 pm with free admission. Reservations are required and groups may not exceed 30 people.

Images of Masaccio’s frescoes will be projected onto the façade of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine from 8-10:30 pm. Earlier, at 6:30 pm, the wooden sculptures by the artist ‘Leone’ Moradi will be placed among the piazza’s newly planted trees. The grand opening will also feature musical performances by the chamber groups and children’s choir from Florence’s Grammy award-winning Maggio Musicale orchestra at 8:30 pm.

The restoration work of Piazza del Carmine lasted for several months under the direction of the city’s technical and fine arts services. The piazza’s pavement is now completely restored: the pedestrian walkway is now slightly raised so as to discourage people from parking there. A new drainage system wraps around the pedestrian area to both keep people from parking and to provide a more resistant means to collect runoff.

The path leading up to the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine utilizes the piazza’s recovered and restored original cobblestones. Architectural concrete marks the intersection between the church pathway and the drainage system, both highlighting the piazza’s layered history and providing a smooth walkway for the disabled.

The newly planted grove of 23 trees stands in the pedestrian area on the side opposite the chapel. The city also installed a new drinking fountain in the piazza. The municipality of Florence held a competition in order to select the most innovative and practical fountain design, and the realized winning design will be on display in the piazza on Saturday. The piazza now features four benches engraved with references to the four most significant historical periods of the square. The images portray the Carmelite foundation, Masaccio’s frescoes, Rosai’s paintings, and Florentine street art.

As evidenced by the bench’s diverse set of engravings, the Piazza del Carmine has a rich history. The square was constructed in the thirteenth century as the home of a group of Carmelite monks from Pisa who founded the church of the Blessed Virgin of Carmel in Florence. The church was consecrated in 1422, though construction of the church did not cease until 1475, and the façade remained unfinished.

Brancacci, a wealthy silk merchant, commissioned frescoes for his eponymous chapel two years after the church’s consecration. He hired the artists Masaccio and Masolino to fresco the chapel walls. The paintings depict scenes from the life of Peter, the temptation of Adam and Eve, and their subsequent expulsion from Eden. The harmonious pairing of Masolino’s perspectival precision and Masaccio’s expressive figures represent a milestone in renaissance art.

In the sixteenth century, the church was heavily remodeled with the sanctions by the Council of Trent. A fire broke out in 1771, but spared the ancient Sacristy, the Corsini Chapel, and the Brancacci Chapel. The church was then remodeled in the late Baroque style by architect Giuseppe Ruggieri, though the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel were darkened by soot and ash from the 1771 fire. It was only in 1984 that the art historian Umberto Baldini and his wife Ornella Casazza restored the frescoes and revealed their original luminous colors.

Though the works Church of Santa Maria del Carmine was brought back to their original splendor, the Piazza del Carmine was converted into a parking lot. In 2014, the city declared that the parking lot would disappear on January 12 of that year. Now, with Saturday’s inaugural reveal of the piazza’s renovations, the space will be returned to its original purpose as a beautiful public space worthy of housing the Church Santa Maria del Carmine and the Brancacci chapel’s great works. (isabelle blank)

Reservation contact information for free entrance into the Brancacci chapel during special hours is as follows: +39 055-2768224 / +39 055-2768558 – Monday to Saturday 9:30 am-1 pm and 2 pm-5 pm , Sunday and holidays 9:30 am-12:30 pm; info@muse.comune.fi.it