Chiostro dello Scalzo: Andrea del Sarto in Monochrome
Why is it significant?
Behind the plain door on Via Cavour lies a small, silent cloister, and every wall around you is painted in one soft earthy tone, as if someone had drawn a whole story in sepia ink directly onto the plaster. There is no gold, no blue, no red. Just light and shadow.
Key Facts
| Place | Chiostro dello Scalzo: Andrea del Sarto in Monochrome |
|---|---|
| Address | Via Cavour 69, 50129 Firenze FI, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 43.77970, 11.25940 |
| Part of Walk | From the Dome to David: Brunelleschi, Ghiberti and Michelangelo in Florence |
| Generated | Generated |
Behind the plain door on Via Cavour lies a small, silent cloister, and every wall around you is painted in one soft earthy tone, as if someone had drawn a whole story in sepia ink directly onto the plaster. There is no gold, no blue, no red. Just light and shadow.
This was the meeting place of a lay brotherhood devoted to Saint John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence. Everyone called them the Scalzo, the barefoot ones, because the brother who carried their cross in processions walked without shoes. The brotherhood was dissolved in the 1780s, but its cloister survived almost untouched.
The paintings are by Andrea del Sarto, and they took him the best part of fifteen years, from around 1511 into the 1520s. Scene after scene tells the Baptist's life: his birth, his preaching in the desert, the baptism of Christ, Salome dancing, the head on the platter. Why monochrome? Perhaps the brothers had little money, perhaps they wanted austerity; nobody knows for certain. But without colour you see pure drawing, and Andrea's figures have the weight of sculpture.
In 1518 the King of France, Francis the First, invited Andrea to his court, and while he was away his friend Franciabigio painted two of the scenes here. Andrea came home the next year, officially only to fetch his wife Lucrezia. According to Vasari he spent the money the king had given him to buy works of art, and never went back. Look for the difference in hand between the two painters; it is a lovely game.
Vasari called Andrea the painter without errors, a compliment with a sting in it, and Robert Browning, the poet of the bronze duke in the last square, turned that sting into a famous monologue. Few visitors find this place; enjoy having it to yourself. Walk back south along Via Cavour and turn right into Via Ventisette Aprile, where an old convent hides a Last Supper.