Architectural Geology of Florence, Part 13: Cloister Corner | Santa Maria Novella Basilica (14th & `15th centuries AD), Tuscany, Italy
Looking at one small section of the Green Cloister's covered and colonnaded walkway.
I've tried to locate which side of the square enclosure I'm on using Google Earth, but the view there is restricted. On top of that, I don't know whether significant, appearance-altering restoration has been done here in the past half-century.
While this particular scene offers none of the Green Cloister's famous Uccello frescoes on Book of Genesis themes, it does feature lovely fresco ornamentation on the arches and panels of its ribbed vaults.
What catches my eye even more, though, is the stone of the polygonal column and exposed wall section. This, as I've noted in my other posts of this series, is the sine qua non of Florentine architecture, the Pietraforte Sandstone.
Not to be confused with the much more elegant, cool-bluish-gray Pietra Serena Sandstone of Oligocene-to-Miocene age, also found all over the place in this city, this buff-to-brownish clastic sedimentary rock dates to about 150 Ma ago, in the Upper Cretaceous.
Like the Pietra Serena, the Pietraforte originated as a turbidite produced by the kind of submarine avalanches known as turbidity currents. It was traditionally quarried on the Left (southern) Bank of the Arno, in various places including where the Boboli Gardens is now located.
You'll find the other photos and descriptions of this series in my Architectural Geology of Florence album.
Architectural Geology of Florence, Part 13: Cloister Corner | Santa Maria Novella Basilica (14th & `15th centuries AD), Tuscany, Italy
Looking at one small section of the Green Cloister's covered and colonnaded walkway.
I've tried to locate which side of the square enclosure I'm on using Google Earth, but the view there is restricted. On top of that, I don't know whether significant, appearance-altering restoration has been done here in the past half-century.
While this particular scene offers none of the Green Cloister's famous Uccello frescoes on Book of Genesis themes, it does feature lovely fresco ornamentation on the arches and panels of its ribbed vaults.
What catches my eye even more, though, is the stone of the polygonal column and exposed wall section. This, as I've noted in my other posts of this series, is the sine qua non of Florentine architecture, the Pietraforte Sandstone.
Not to be confused with the much more elegant, cool-bluish-gray Pietra Serena Sandstone of Oligocene-to-Miocene age, also found all over the place in this city, this buff-to-brownish clastic sedimentary rock dates to about 150 Ma ago, in the Upper Cretaceous.
Like the Pietra Serena, the Pietraforte originated as a turbidite produced by the kind of submarine avalanches known as turbidity currents. It was traditionally quarried on the Left (southern) Bank of the Arno, in various places including where the Boboli Gardens is now located.
You'll find the other photos and descriptions of this series in my Architectural Geology of Florence album.