Florence, restoration of the Cornacchini Gate, to which an ancient legend is linked, kicks off

Work has begun in Florence to assemble the restoration site of the 14th-century Porta dei Cornacchini on the north side of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. The restoration, which will be completed by the end of December 2021, is made possible by theOpera di Santa Maria del Fiore with the contribution of the Fondazione CR Firenze and under the high supervision of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the metropolitan city of Florence and the provinces of Pistoia and Prato.

The restoration was necessary because the north side of the Florentine cathedral, of which the Porta dei Cornacchini is a part, is severely degraded in the marble elements that cover it. Degradation phenomena that also affect the Porta dei Cornacchini, such as surface dirt deposits of various kinds; black crusts with underlying sulfation phenomena present mainly in the areas not subjected to rainwater runoff and worked, such as the columns, corbels and capitals; partial loss of modeling in the areas subjected to rainwater washing.

The Porta dei Cornacchini owes its name to a family that owned some houses near the first section of Via del Cocomero, today’s Via Ricasoli. At the base of the gateway are statues of a lioness with cubs and a stylophorous lion, which refer to the legend of Anselmo and the dream, told in the 15th century by Giovanni Cavalcanti in his Istorie Fiorentine. A certain Anselm, who lived in the early fifteenth century in Florence and lived on Via del Cocomero, dreamed a lion was biting his hand and that he would die from that bite. The next morning, greatly shaken by the dream, he noticed that there were two lions carved on the Porta dei Cornacchini of the Duomo. At that point he decided to put his hand in the mouth of one of the two lions, saying, “I want the dream to take its course, so that I will come out of such perverse imagining and be free from the sad annunciation.” Unfortunately, inside the lion’s mouth was a scorpion that stung Anselm in a finger of his hand, causing his death.

The first historical record of the presence of the Cornacchini Door dates back to January 4, 1358 when, during work on the construction of the Cathedral, a solution was studied to erect the outer walls without touching the door. The decorations of the doorway probably refer to three phases: the first framing between 1342 and 1348, the second between 1353 and 1364, during which the splays, archivolt, and spire with the tondo in the center were completed under the direction of Francesco Talenti, and the last phase dates to about 1380, when the stylophoric lions supporting the twisted columns and the tabernacle above the spire were placed. The decorations on the door can be traced to later phases.

Ph.Credit Opera Santa Maria del Fiore