Description
The church of Santo Spirito stands in the square of the same name in Siena, and it is a Renaissance church: brick outside, and inside a single nave with chapels full of works from the 15th to the 17th century.
The exterior is in brick, with a gabled facade and a fine Renaissance portal attributed to Baldassarre Peruzzi, dated 1519. Above rises the dome with its drum, attributed to Giacomo Cozzarelli (1508).
Inside there is a single nave with four chapels on each side. The richest is the Cappella degli Spagnoli, the first on the right: here in 1530 Sodoma frescoed Saint James of Compostela Defeating the Moors.
In the same chapel is a rare painted terracotta nativity scene by Ambrogio della Robbia, from 1504, son of the more famous Andrea.
In the third chapel on the right, a 17th-century painting by Deifebo Burbarini shows Blessed Bernardo Tolomei before the Cross. In the second is a painted wooden statue of Saint Vincent Ferrer, by Giacomo Cozzarelli. On the left side, a wooden statue of Saint Catherine of Siena, perhaps by the same Cozzarelli.
In the right transept, Ventura Salimbeni's frescoes surround Francesco Vanni's altarpiece: on the left Saint Hyacinth restoring a boy's sight, on the right Saint Hyacinth walking on water. In the apse basin is the Pentecost by Giuseppe Nicola Nasini.
In the sacristy, carved out of the old cloister, is a fine fresco of 1516 by Fra Paolino da Pistoia.
The church, founded in the 14th century, changed owners several times. It first belonged to the Sylvestrine Benedictine monks, then to the Vallombrosans; around the middle of the 15th century it passed to the Dominicans, who rebuilt it almost completely between 1498 and 1530.
In 1848 the convent was suppressed and turned into a prison, until the diocese brought it back to a church. Some works have left Santo Spirito: Beccafumi's Coronation of the Virgin, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, and his Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, now in Palazzo Chigi-Saracini.
The exterior is in brick, with a gabled facade and a fine Renaissance portal attributed to Baldassarre Peruzzi, dated 1519. Above rises the dome with its drum, attributed to Giacomo Cozzarelli (1508).
Inside there is a single nave with four chapels on each side. The richest is the Cappella degli Spagnoli, the first on the right: here in 1530 Sodoma frescoed Saint James of Compostela Defeating the Moors.
In the same chapel is a rare painted terracotta nativity scene by Ambrogio della Robbia, from 1504, son of the more famous Andrea.
In the third chapel on the right, a 17th-century painting by Deifebo Burbarini shows Blessed Bernardo Tolomei before the Cross. In the second is a painted wooden statue of Saint Vincent Ferrer, by Giacomo Cozzarelli. On the left side, a wooden statue of Saint Catherine of Siena, perhaps by the same Cozzarelli.
In the right transept, Ventura Salimbeni's frescoes surround Francesco Vanni's altarpiece: on the left Saint Hyacinth restoring a boy's sight, on the right Saint Hyacinth walking on water. In the apse basin is the Pentecost by Giuseppe Nicola Nasini.
In the sacristy, carved out of the old cloister, is a fine fresco of 1516 by Fra Paolino da Pistoia.
The church, founded in the 14th century, changed owners several times. It first belonged to the Sylvestrine Benedictine monks, then to the Vallombrosans; around the middle of the 15th century it passed to the Dominicans, who rebuilt it almost completely between 1498 and 1530.
In 1848 the convent was suppressed and turned into a prison, until the diocese brought it back to a church. Some works have left Santo Spirito: Beccafumi's Coronation of the Virgin, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, and his Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, now in Palazzo Chigi-Saracini.