Via dell'albero
corner Via della Scala
corner Via della Scala
the tabernacles of florence
THE TABERNACLE
Madonna del Giglio
The tabernacle houses a "Our Lady of the Lilies" made in the 1950s by Pellegrino Banella at the request of the "Committee for City Aesthetics" to fill the empty tabernacle. He thus made a concrete bas-relief depicting a young virgin seated holding a lily symbolizing purity as well as the city of Florence.
Tabernacle
The tabernacle has an 18th-century centered pietra serena frame, a canopy from which hangs a lantern, and a stone almoner's box at lower left for collecting offerings.
THE STREET
VIA DELL'ALBERO
The small street crossed the vegetable gardens of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala and owes its name precisely to the presence of a large tree. The hospital was founded in 1310 by Cione di Lapo Pollini on the inspiration of the Sienese structure of the same name on which it depended. In 1536 the hospital was closed and the structure passed to the Camaldolese nuns of San Martino al Mugnone, who renovated it by building the Convent and church of San Martino della Scala. They remained there until 1866. Now the structure houses an office of the Juvenile Court of Florence.
AUTHOR
Pellegrino Banella
(Allerona, Terni 1920 - Florence 1990)
Sculptor active in the second half of the 20th century and an important restorer in the Galleries of Florence and for the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. His is the restoration of the Crucifix attributed to MIchelangelo exhibited in the Church of Santo Spirito, Brunelleschi's Crucifix in the Goddi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, and Donatello's Maddalena severely damaged by the 1966 flood.
The sculptor
(Allerona, Terni 1920 - Florence 1990)
Banella also worked outside Tuscany, as attested by some restorations of polychrome wooden sculptures that he performed in Puglia and Campania during the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century, in addition to the ciborium and the frontal for the parish church of Chiesanuova, in the Republic of San Marino, always at that time.
Curiosity
The material used by the artist is concrete and it was a very unusual choice.
In June 2022 the tabernacle's restoration was completed thanks to a private donation from a Florentine family.
GALLERY
Madonna del Giglio
Via dell'Albero corner of Via della Scala
Tabernacle
Via dell'Albero corner of Via della Scala
Detail: Madonna
Via dell'Albero corner of Via della Scala
FURTHER INFORMATION
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