FLORENCE IN SEPIA

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he nuns in my convent were burning what they considered rubbish, old books, old documents, old photographs, about their school in Naini Tal in India, about their Foundress's brother's St Bede's Theological College, Umtata, in Africa. One of them came to me with a large black portfolio. 'Perhaps we shouldn't burn these. Perhaps you might like them'. Inside, carefully wrapped in black cloth, were hundreds of sepia photographs of Florence and other places in Italy. They had been bought by my Mother Foundress, Agnes Mason, C.H.F., in the nineteenth century They were what were sold to cultured tourists in that distant time. Mother Agnes even had made a point of sending teaching Sisters by way of Florence to their school at Naini Tal in India so they could learn of the beauty of Florentine art on their journey. She had written in our Rule that a sin against beauty was a sin against the Holy Ghost. And now I had fallen heir to these many photographs in sepia by Brogi, Alinari and others. I was going to Florence and thought my bringing them was like, as Dylan Thomas said, 'carrying holes to Sir Hugh's castle'. But when I got here I found that not even Alinari had their original prints, only their glass plates, their prints having been all destroyed in the 1966 Flood in Florence. I now share with Florentines and international visitors this great treasure, keeping the originals carefully in the dark so they do not fade, having digitized them, and only displaying those that I have carefully framed and exhibit.

I digitized all of them as a CD titled Florence in Sepia, and created for the third City and Book international conference held in Florence, 3-5 June 2004, with the Gabinetto Vieusseux in the Palazzo Strozzi and in the English Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello. Doing so, recalling that the American sculptor Hiram Powers' son, Longworth Powers, was a Florentine photographer. These web pages first present these photographs of Florence in sepia, then they discuss Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Casa Guidi, and the Piazzale Donatello, cataloguing the Swiss-owned 'English' Cemetery's international and ecumenical tombs Last, they discuss Mother Agnes Mason, C.H.F., of the Oxford Movement Anglican Community of the Holy Family, whose collection of sepia photographs they catalogue. In seeing these we look as if through the eyes of those in our Cemetery, seeing not the Florence of the twenty-first century with its graffiti of despair, but that of the nineteenth century. We turn to the collection of postcards of the 1966 Flood and see that beauty become ugliness. It is our task, the world's task, to restore her beauty. The essays and e-books, including nineteenth-century Guidebooks to Florence, are illustrated by these photographs, by engravings and by other images, and are keyed to the Maps of Florence.
 

FLORENCE IN SEPIA: GENERAL INDEX:

FLORENCE IN SEPIA: Sepia I. Santa Trinità to Santa Croce || Sepia II. The Uffizi ||  Sepia III. North-Eastern Quarter || Sepia IV. North-Western Quarter and Oltr'Arno || E-books: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Florence || Anna Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art || Susan and Joanna Horner, Walks in Florence|| Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, Notes in Florence|| John Ruskin, Mornings in Florence || George Eliot, Romola || George Eliot's Florence || Francesca Alexander|| Augustus J.C. Hare, Florence || Augustus Hare, Edwardian Travel Writer || Florence's Libraries and Museums || Museum Thoughts ||

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING: Embroidering of Pomegranates: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Courtship || Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Pan || Apuleius and the English Cemetery || Casa Guidi italiano/English || Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Aurora Leigh || Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Florence: Preface  italiano/English || Poetry  italiano/English || Laurel Garland: Women of the Risorgimento || Death and the Emperor in the Poetry of Dante, Browning, Dickinson and Stevens|| Enrico Nencioni on Elizabeth Barrett Browning italiano ||

THE ENGLISH CEMETERY IN FLORENCE: Virtual Guide to Cemetery || Florence's English Cemetery: Thunders of White Silence || ChapterA || ChapterAB || ChapterB || ChapterC || ChapterD || Chapter E || Chapter F || ChapterLost || Chapter Last || Online

AGNES MASON, C.H.F.: Agnes Mason, C.H.F., Anglican Mother Foundress || Agnes Mason's Patron Saints || Saints Cecilia and Agnes || Augustus Hare, Edwardian Travel Writer || Holmhurst St Mary || I Fratelli Alinari: Florentine Photographers || Portfolio|| Maps of Florence

FLORENCE IN SEPIA: EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

Didascalie autografe

1 Santa Maria Novella, ‘Buonarotti’s Bride’. (Not a photograph, but a print.)5551. Firenze. Chiesa e Piazza di S. Maria Novella. Edit. Brunner & C., Como, Stab. eliografico.

2 Santa Maria Novella, Interior. Ed. Alinari. P.1.N. 2772a. Firenze. Chiesa di S. Maria Novella. Interno del Coro con gli affreschi di Domenico Ghirlandaio

3. Cimabue, Madonna, brought from Borgo Allegri to Santa Maria Novella. Ed. Alinari. 4026. Chiesa di Santa Maria Novella. La Madonna col Bambino Gesù (G. Cimabue)

4 St Francis and St Dominic, Della Robbia, Hospital of St Paul, Piazza Santa Maria Novella

5 Baptistry. Ed. Alinari P.1.N.1807. Firenze. Il Battistero (VII e VIII secolo, restaurato e rivestito di marmi da Arnolfo di Cambio)

6 Lorenzo Ghiberti’s winning panel for the Golden Doors of the Baptistry. Ed. Alinari. P.1.N.1868. Firenze. Battistero, Porta in bronzo all'Est. Abramo ospita gli Angeli e Sacrificio di Isacco. (L. Ghiberti)

7 Giotto’s Tower. Ed. Alinari. P.1.N 1993. Firenze. Cattedrale. Il Campanile (Giotto)

8 Jubal Cain. Ruskin’s audience of schoolboys applauded the sheepdog.Ed. Alinari. P.1.N. 2001. Firenze. Campanile del Duomo. Giabel Padre dei Mandriani (Giotto e Andrea Pisano)

9 Il Duomo/ The Cathedral, without its façade. 1002 Firenze. Cattedrale

10 Della Robbia, Cantoria. Ed. Alinari. P.1.N. 2545. Firenze. Museo di S. Maria del Fiore. Cantoria di Luca della Robbia. (Ricostruito e restaurato dall'Arch. Prof. L. Del Moro.)

11 Detail, Della Robbia, Cantoria

12 The Bridges of Florence from delle Grazie: Ponte Vecchio, Santa Trinità, Carraia. Firenze - Veduta dei Ponti Vecchio, S. Trinita, della Carraia e di Ferro alle Cascine

13 Dante’s House. Firenze Casa di Dante

14 Dante’s Portrait, Giotto (found beneath whitewash by Seymour Kirkup in Bargello’s Magdalen Chapel). 7526 Firenze - Museo Nazionale - Ritratto di Dante Alighieri; affresco di Giotto

15A Bargello, Exterior. 19 Bargello

15B Bargello, Interior. George Eliot's Romola

16 Girolamo Savonarola, San Marco. George Eliot's Romola. HIERONYME FERRARIENSIS ENSIS A DEO/ MISSI PROPHETAE EFFIGIES 141 Firenze Museo di S. Marco, Savonarola (Fra Girolamo)

17 Night and Day, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, Michelangelo. P.1.N  Firenze. Capelle Medicee, Monumento di Giuliano Duca di Nemours (Michelangelo)

18 Dusk and Dawn (Aurora), Medici Chapel, San Lorenze, Michelangelo.

19 Tomb of the Portuguese Cardinal, San Miniato al Monte. Ed. Alinari. P.1.N. 3376. Firenze. Contorni. Basilica di S. Miniato al Monte. Un dettaglio del Monumento al Card. di Portogallo (Rosselino, 1461)

20 Peter in Prison, Masaccio, Santa Maria del Carmine. Ed. Alinari. P.22.N. 3849. Firenze. Chiesa del Carmine, Capella Brancacci. S. Pietro in carcere, visitato da S. Paolo. (Massaccio)

21 The Visit of the Magi/Medici, Chapel, Benozzo Gozzoli, Palazzo Medici. Ed. Alinari. P.2.N. 4397. Firenze, Capella del Palazzo Riccardi. Il viaggi dei Re Magi, particolare (Benozzo Gozzoli)

22 Botticelli, 'The Three Graces', Detail, Primavera. 7559. Firenze (Accademia [now, Uffizi]). Dettaglio del quadro allegorico; la Primavera; Botticelli. (Edizioni Brogi)

23 Botticelli, Coronation of the Virgin, Detail. Ed. Alinari. P.2.N. 4661. Firenze. R. Galleria Antica e Moderna. Gruppo di Angioli, dettaglio del quadro l'Incoronazione (Botticelli)

24 Filippino Lippi, St Bernard’s Vision of the Virgin, Badia. 6398 Firenze (Badia). La Vergine che apparisce a S. Benedetto; Filippino Lippi.

25 Raphael, Madonna of the Grand Duke. 2832. Firenze. Galleria Pitti. La Madonna detta del Granduca. Raffaello Sanzio

26 Andrea del Sarto and his Wife. N°. 15934. Galleria Pitti. Ritratto di Andrea del Sarto e di Lucrezia del Fede sua moglie. Andrea del Sarto.

27 Palazzo Strozzi
 

  

 Incoronazione della Madonna e quattro santi (1490 circa)

The Pala of San Marco (commissioned by the Goldsmiths in 1488-90 for their chapel at San Marco),
which came to the Uffizi in 1919, with St John Evangelist, St Augustine, St Jerome and St Eligius,
patron of Goldsmiths (whose eyes look at us). Botticelli has imitated the Beato Angelico
'Coronation of the Virgin' shown below.

The sepia photographs are keyed with asterisks and red numbers to this map of Florence for tourists:

MODERN MAPS FOR TOURISTS

1* Duomo/Cathedral +; 2* Campanile di Giotto/ Giotto's Bell Tower; 3* Battistero/ Baptistry +; 4 Casa di Dante/ Dante's House; 5 Colonna dell'Abbondanza/ Column of Plenty in Piazza della Repubblica; 6 Badia/ Abbey Church +; 7* Bargello; 8* Palazzo Vecchio/ People's Palace; 9 Loggia dei Lanzi o dell'Orcagna; 10* Galleria degli Uffizi/ Uffizi Gallery; 11* Ponte Vecchio/ Old Bridge; 12* Orsanmichele +; 13 Poste e Telegrafi/ Post Office; 14 Palazzo Strozzi/ Strozzi Palace; 16 Palazzo Ferroni Spini; 17* Chiesa di Santa Maria Novella +; 18 Stazione Centrale/ Santa Maria Novella Station; 20* Chiesa di San Lorenzo e Capella Medicea/ Basilica of San Lorenzo +, Medici Tombs/ Laurentian Library (this last is in the cloister and upstairs, entered on the left from the church); 21*Palazzo Medici Riccardi with Benozzo Gozzoli Chapel; 22* Cenacolo di S. Apollonia (a free museum with magnificent fresco of Last Supper) +; 23* Accademia di Belle Arti; 24* Chiesa e Museo di San Marco/ Church and Museum of San Marco +; 25* Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata and Ospedale degli Innocenti +; 26* Chiesa di Santa Croce +; 27 Biblioteca Nazionale; 28 Giardino di Boboli; 29 Palazzo Pitti; 30 Chiesa di Santo Spirito +; 31 Chiesa del Carmine +; 32* Museo di Storia delle Scienza; 34 Teatro Communale; 35 Fortezza da Basso; 37 Piazzale Michelangelo; 38 Forte di Belvedere; 39 Sinagoga; 41* Chiesa di Ognissanti +

aaEnglish Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello, is oval below

                                                                                                                                   English Cemetery
                                                                                                                                   Piazzale Donatello

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