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St. Mark's Anglican Church, Via Maggio 18, FirenzeThe church is part of an old Medici Palace that was owned by Machiavelli, renovated in a neo-renaissance style with beautiful icons. To find the church, first find the Ponte Vecchio on a map of Florence. The next bridge to the left (west) is the Ponte Santa Trinita. The road that follows south from the Ponte Santa Trinita is Via Maggio, and the church is located about one minute's walk from the river, on the right-hand side. Click here for a map of the area. For information and reservations, phone 340 811 9192.
History
St Mark’s was established on its present site on May 1st 1881, the feast of SS Philip & James. There is a letter from the Reverend Charles Tooth to a member of the congregation, dated August 9th 1880, in which he writes: “You may imagine I have been somewhat busy, when I tell you that just before leaving Florence a month ago, an opportunity presented itself of an eligible site for our new Church – a small old Palazzo in the Via Maggio no 18, close to Santa Trinita Bridge. I have completed the purchase and the plans, and have now twenty men at work, and I hope in a few months to have the Church in use. I am sorry that I cannot send you a drawing, but I think it will finish a respectable looking Church. It will have a Nave, Aisles and Transept and will seat comfortably over 400 people.” English Church architect G.F.Bodley described the church in 1891 as “an almost perfect specimen of Renaissance work,” The palazzo itself is thought to date back to the 1500s. It is said to have belonged at one time to the Machiavelli family whose most famous son wrote ‘The Prince’ and other works on government. St Mark’s provided an Anglo-Catholic alternative to Florence’s English establishment church of Holy Trinity at a time when Anglo-Catholicism was fiercely resisted in England. Charles Tooth, formerly Chaplain to the English Community in Siena, was the brother of the Reverend Arthur Tooth. In early 1877 Arthur Tooth was arrested and imprisoned in England for leading Anglo-Catholic rites in defiance of the Public Worship Act of 1864. Later that same year Charles Tooth established the first Anglo-Catholic community in Florence, meeting as an independent ‘house church’ in 1, Via die Serragli. Its purpose was to promote Anglo-Catholic principles of church teaching and to offer Holy Eucharist five mornings per week. Despite meeting with considerable opposition and social alienation from the fashionable and ‘established’ circles of Holy Trinity it rapidly outgrew its home. Within three years Charles Tooth was on the look out for more suitable premises and by 1880 he had purchased the core building of today’s church. In 1906 the Trustees of St Mark’s purchased the adjacent building, 16 Via Maggio, in order to extend the church. Mr. Charles Mitchell signed the papers on behalf of the trustees but it is believed that the purchase was made possible through the generous bequest of a Mr. Thomas Brocklebank. The extensions included a further side chapel with 60 people, a sacristy, storage rooms and an emergency exit to Via del Presto di San Martino. The vestibule was also enlarged and the staircase built. When the previous, more elegant, columns were found to be insufficiently load bearing they were replaced with the cuboid pillars you see today. The distinctive decoration of St Mark’s (much now lost) and many of its accoutrements reflect the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. The ideals and principles underpinning this movement had much in common with those of its contemporary, the Anglo-Catholic movement. Both sought to express religious mystery and to create an atmosphere conducive to devotional worship. Thus, for example, the votive Lady Chapel is an important feature in Anglo-Catholicism yet a side chapel of this nature was unusual in an AnglicanChurch of this time. Artists from this ‘ school’ associated with St Mark’s include John Roddam Spencer Stanhope who is believed to have executed most of the decoration, and local artist Professor Giuseppe Catani Chiti. G.F.Bodley, architect of the Anglo-Catholic church of All Saints, Cambridge is closely associated with the ‘trademark’ return to mediaeval style of Church decoration and architecture in nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic or Tractarian churches. The rich ‘pineapple’ patterned wall decoration of St Mark’s are remarkably similar to the bursting pomegranate design that Bodley oversaw for the walls of All Saints. The well-known Pre-Raphaelite artist Holman Hunt is also known to have had connections to Florence. St Mark’s Church possesses a communion chalice inscribed to the memory of Fanny Holeman Hunt, his first wife who died here in December 1867 of an illness brought on by childbirth.
Today’s St Mark’s sources and origins:
Guide to St Mark’s:NB The compass points are given by liturgical orientation, not geographical. In this church the ‘East’ end is where the sanctuary and high altar are located.
Font:This was given in memory of Maria Arabella Meller in 1895 and is in Italian Romanesque style, carved in white marble. It is still possible to see the brown watermark left by the floodwater of 1966.
Stained Glass:The roundel of the Risen Christ above the High Altar is by Clayton & Bell c.1885 and is given in memory of Sarah Piper who died May 1884. The roundels in the west windows are English, c.1885. They are in typical Pre-Raphaelite style of praying angels on distinctive ‘clear’ patterned glass. Similar examples are to be seen in All Saints church, Cambridge.
High Altar:The High Altar is of white marble with an alabaster bas-relief front portraying a copy of Fra Angelico’s ‘Cenacolo’. It was a gift of the Misses Cavendish Bentnick. The Tabernacle (c.1920) is a later addition to the altar in ‘Quattrocento’ style
The Reredos:The Triptych is the work of C. Jeffreys. The centre panel is of the Crucified Christ adored by St Mary Magdalene set in a Tuscan landscape. The left panel is of St Mark and Our Lady and the right panel is of St John the Evangelist and St George. It was a gift from the Misses Cavendish Bentnick and is dated at 1888.
Bishop’s Throne:This is designed by Bodley and Hare, c.1890 and is situated on the north wall of the Sanctuary. It was installed from Holy Trinity in 1970.
Venetian Hanging Lamps:Individual members of St Mark’s gave the Venetian style sanctuary and hanging lamps in memory of their loved ones. The English woman Emily Dowbiggen (Madame de Tchihatcheff) donated the seven lamps situated in front of the High Altar in 1887 in memory of her late husband, the Russian naturalist and geologist Pietri de Tchihatcheff (1812-1890).
Pulpit:This is of carved wood, donated in 1910 in memory of Justina Francis Hughes.
Icons:The icon of the ‘Lady of Kazan’ situated on the north wall of the church was donated by Pietri de Tchihacheff.The icon of ‘St Mark’ situated on the north wall and is of the young St Mark and was ‘written’ by the community of the ‘fraternity of Jesus’ when resident at the Church of Ognissanti in Florence. It was commissioned by Fr. Lawrence MacLean, the present Chaplain and donated by the congregation and friends of St Mark’s. It was dedicated at the Patron Festival in April 2003. The icon of the ‘Virgin and Child’ (picture left) in the Lady Chapel is Greek. It dates from the late17th century and has recently been fully restored.
Madonna & ChildThe small terracotta statue of the Madonna and Child in the Lady Chapel is brought to have been produced in one of the terracotte craft workshops of Impruneta.
Paintings:The ‘Annunciation’ (north column nave) and ‘St Michael’ (south column nave) by Guiseppe Catani Chiti of Prato (born 1866) were both donated by Sir Dick Lauder (died 1919). They were recently hung at the Uffizi Galleries as part of an exhibition on the Pre-Raphaelites in Florence.
Brass Memorial Plaques:There are several interesting brass plates around the church. To the north side of the Nave on the pillar in front of the first pew is a small crucifix and brass plate in memory of Queen Sophia of Greece. To the south side are various brass plates in memory of the Keppel family, the most famous beeing Alice Keppel. Violet Trefusis, daughter of Alice Keppel is also remembered here.
The decoration:Current opinion suggests 1893 as the probable date for the stencilling on the walls and the ceiling of the Church. In 1935 a parishioner recalled how much taken she had been with the warm soft colouring of the highly decorative stencilled walls when she first entered the Church in late 1893. Sadly little remains today of that original wall painting although small patches is still to be seen behind the Baptist font. The ceiling has fared little better. The patches of stencilling on the walls do not give us the full repeat pattern. However it is hoped to mount a programme of restoration that would almost certainly reveal the pattern at present hidden behind the whitewash. That work and ongoing research within the archive of St Mark’s could also help us resolve the puzzle of who did design the original stencil, J.R. Spencer Stanhope or G.H. Bodley?For the Pre-Raphaelites, decoration is not there to tell a story but to reinforce the senses of the abstract wall plane-a symbol for the infinite nature of God. A sense of the infinite nature of God we very much hope you will carry away with you as you leave this remarkable Church. Thank you for looking around. Please feel free to spend some private time in prayer or reflecting before departing.
Jacqueline MacLean: Penny Mittler: Berenice Schreiner 2005
L'Associazione Musicale "Concerto Classico a Siena"
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