CHAPTER XXI.
S.Maria Novella The great churches of Florence--A Dominican cathedral--The "Decameron" begins--Domenico Ghirlandaio--Alessio Baldovinetti--The Louvre--The S.Maria Novella frescoes--Giovanni and Lorenzo Tornabuoni--Ruskin implacable--Cimabue's Madonna--Filippino Lippi--Orcagna's "Last Judgment"-- The Cloisters of Florence--The Spanish Chapel--S.

Dominic triumphant--Giotto at his sweetest--The "Wanderer's" doom--The Piazza, as an arena.
S.Maria Novella is usually bracketed with S.Croce as the most interesting Florentine church after the Duomo, but S.Lorenzo has of course to be reckoned with very seriously.

I think that for interest I should place S.Maria Novella fifth, including also the Baptistery before it, but architecturally second.

Its interior is second in beauty only to S.Croce.

S.Croce is its immediate religious rival, for it was because the Dominicans had S.Maria Novella, begun in 1278, that several years later the Franciscans determined to have an equally important church and built S.Croce.The S.Maria Novella architects were brothers of the order, but Talenti, whom we saw at work both on Giotto's tower and on San Michele, built the campanile, and Leon Battista Alberti the marble facade, many years later.