Florence and the idea of Jerusalem (2025)

Florence as New Jerusalem The Rite of the Scoppio del Carro and the Annual Miracle of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem

Florence as New Jerusalem The Rite of the Scoppio del Carro and the Annual Miracle of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem, 2022

Among several phenomena related to the concept of Florence as New Jerusalem, urban sacred performances played a significant role, recreating in the city the spatial imagery of the Holy Land. 1 Very important in this sense is the ritual Scoppio del Carro, or "Explosion of the Cart", staged up to the present every Easter Sunday in the square between the Baptistery and Cathedral, to which a volume of historical and theological analysis has recently been devoted. This Paschal event is well-known but to the present has been perceived as a mere folk celebration and popular entertainment for the Florentines. Its historical origins and symbolic concept remain unclear. Yet, in my view, it had a crucial meaning for the Medieval and Renaissance Florence, being the most important spatial icon of Jerusalem, related to the more general phenomenon of the recurring annual miracle of the Holy Fire. This paper was prepared as a part of my research project at the Villa I Tatti (The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies) where I was invited as a visiting professor in the autumn of 2018. I take this chance to express my deep gratitude to all the friends and colleagues there who created most stimulating atmosphere for my studies at I Tatti.

Jerusalem Lost: Crusade, Myth, and Historical Imagination in Grand Ducal Florence--Introduction

Jerusalem on the Hill: Rome and the Vision of St. Peter's in the Renaissance

2010

The project to revitalize St. Peter’s basilica as the center of a resurgent Church proceeded in step with the goal to reassert papal authority across the Italian peninsula and to extend that authority to the Eastern Mediterranean by mounting a crusade to recover the Holy Land. By embedding references to the Holy Land in the fabric of the new church, the architecture itself became the expressive voice of the papacy’s political agenda to transform the basilica, and all of Rome, into a New Jerusalem. In tracing the development of these ideas as they were introduced by Nicholas V, (1447-1455) refined by Julius II (1503-1513), and translated into physical form by Donato Bramante, this essay provides a new way of understanding myriad problems – multiple papal patrons, numerous architects, and several distinct designs – associated with the project of rebuilding St. Peter’s over almost two centuries. Three terms come together in this discussion: the aspirations of the restored papacy, recen...

(article) Jerusalem on the Hill: Rome and the Vision of St. Peter’s in the Renaissance: Nicholas V and Julius II

La Basilica di San Pietro: Fortuna e Immagine, ed. Giovanni Morello, Rome: Gangemi, 2012, 2012

The project to revitalize St. Peter’s basilica as the center of a resurgent Church proceeded in step with the goal to reassert papal authority across the Italian peninsula and to extend that authority to the Eastern Mediterranean by mounting a crusade to recover the Holy Land. By embedding references tothe Holy Land in the fabric of the new church, the architecture itself became the expressive voice of the papacy’s political agenda to transform the basilica, and all of Rome, into a New Jerusalem. In tracing the development of these ideas as they were introduced by Nicholas V, (1447-1455) refined by Julius II (1503-1513), and translated into physical form by Donato Bramante, this essay provides a new way of understanding myriad problems – multiple papal patrons, numerous architects, and several distinct designs – associated with the project of rebuilding St. Peter’s over almost two centuries.

The Israelite Temple of Florence: The Struggle for a Jewish Space and Style in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Europe

“CIVITAS FLORENTI[A]E”: The New Jerusalem, and the Allegory of Divine Misericordia

A Scarlet Renaissance: Essays in Honor of Sarah Blake McHam, 2013

6 Translations of the Sacred City between Jerusalem and Rome

2014

‘Encounters in Renaissance Venice: Exchange, communication, and interaction between Jerusalem-bound pilgrims and local residents,’ Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento 49, no.1 (2023): 49-72.

2023

This article is part of a special issue entitled ‘Crossroads in early modern Italy: Encounters between foreign travelers and local inhabitants’, edited by Marta Albalá Pelegrín and Sandra Toffolo. The special issue is partly available in Open Access on: https://www.rivisteweb.it/issn/0392-0011/issue/8754

Jerusalem as a Holy Place: Christian Sacred Sites in the Holy City

Between Cultural Diversity and Common Heritage: Legal and Religious Perspectives on the Sacred Places of the Mediterranean, 2014

Jerusalem in the Eyes of a Late Renaissance Architect. Galeazzo Alessi and the Design of the Temple of Solomon at the Sacro Monte of Varallo Sesia (1565-1572), in AnnaliAnnali di architettura, Rivista del Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, 35 (2023)

Annali di Architettura, 2023

Around 1565 the Late Renaissance architect Galeazzo Alessi designed an ambitious renovation plan for the Sacro Monte of Varallo Sesia, outlined in a 320-sheet manuscript book of drawings known as Libro dei Misteri (1565-72). When Galeazzo Alessi undertook the project, the Sacro Monte was one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Northern Italy. It was known as the ‘Jerusalem’ of Varallo, because it physically reproduced many monuments of the Holy Land and recreated in the middle of the Alps the spatial experience of visiting Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth. Many studies on the Sacro Monte suggest that Alessi set aside the idea of reproducing the sites of the Holy Land and designed a sort of ideal city, a garden of marvels and delights. Nevertheless, a deeper analysis of the Libro dei Misteri reveals a striking number of iconographical links to the Holy Land: as stated by architect himself in the pages of the book, “the buildings [are designed to] imitate the true ones in the city of Hierusalem”. Examining the case of the Temple of Salomon, the main architectural element designed in the Libro dei Misteri, I argue that Alessi merged Renaissance architectural ideals with many different literary and figurative sources, such as the Bible, pilgrims’ accounts, printed and painted images of the Holy Land. With the advice of the Franciscan friars in Milan, Alessi was able to interpret voices and images of his time and to create a sophisticated and modern Nova Hierusalem.