The monumental complex of Santa Croce reopened its doors to tourists on the world day dedicated to Florence Nightingale, the founder of the Florentine nursing profession and celebrated in the basilica with a monument in her memory. He did so with a conference of the National Federation of Nursing Professions Orders and with the first families and small groups to visit the basilica and cloister: in total over 200 in the first day, despite the few openings, only six, and the bad weather that accompanied throughout the day.
The monumental complex, from today, will remain open six days a week (except Tuesday), from 11 to 17 (Sunday from 13 to 17).
Still on the subject of anniversaries, in this case Dante’s seven hundredth anniversary, three new guided tours will be inaugurated on Friday, the first with the accompaniment of the Opera’s cultural mediators, all three dedicated in some way to Dante, even if indirectly, and concentrated on weekends. The first was designed to deepen the figure of Giotto – a contemporary of Dante and with whom the artist met precisely in Santa Croce – but not as a painter, but as an “entrepreneur” and organizer of construction sites in the chapels frescoed by himself or by his pupil. Taddeo Gaddi, especially the Bardi chapel and the adjacent Peruzzi chapel which he set up as a construction site in a modern and absolutely revolutionary way for the fourteenth century. A second path dedicated to St. Francis whose life was frescoed by Taddeo Gaddi and for which Gaddi added a fourth image in the lunettes in addition to the three theological virtues: precisely that “humility” Dante talks about in Paradise. And a third dedicated to the client bankers – in Dante’s time – of the long tradition of Santa Croce. All three routes are the result of a special promotion with reduced tickets for all (from 20 to 14 euros) and others even more popular for residents of Florence and university students, precisely to encourage a return to the guided tour experience. Which in Covid time will be carried out by the guides at a distance of over a meter through the explanations in the headphones.
In May the Music for Santa Croce project will also resume with the concerts of the Orchestra della Toscana in the cloister next to the cenacle.
The monumental complex is open every day except Tuesdays from 11am to 5pm and Sundays from 1pm to 5pm. Info and reservations on the site www.santacroceopera.it and on the new official Opera app.
May 12, 2021 | 16:47
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