Note d’archivio e precisazioni sui restauri seisettecenteschi della chiesa di San Paolino a Firenze

Abstract

The article reconstructs the construction and decorative events that affected the church of San Paolino in Florence between 1619  (the year the convent was granted to the Carmelite order) and 1801, when the important Spezieria was built. In fact, over almost  two centuries the sacred building underwent numerous changes that began with the almost complete reconstruction of the  primitive church, begun in 1636 on a project by the architect Francesco Morosi, even if it will be with the arrival, in 1667, of the architect Giovanni Battista Balatri that the works will undergo a real acceleration. From that moment, with the progress of the  building - in June 1671 the vaulting began to be designed; in May 1676 the construction of the new choir was proceeding - the two  altars of the transept were also built (the first dedicated to Teresa of Avila, in 1676; the second to St. Joseph, in 1677) and the dome  began in May 1680. The building, thus renovated and enlarged but not yet finished, was nevertheless blessed on 23 January 1685  and dedicated to Saints Paul the Apostle and Teresa of Avila. 
During the eighteenth century, other important decorative works took place inside the sacred hall: in 1725-’27 the existing altar of  Santa Teresa was renovated and it was equipped with new molded furnishings, thanks to the sculptor Girolamo Ticciati , as a  painting, this by the painters Pietro Marchesini and Ignazio Enrico Hugford; in 1741 it was the turn of the corresponding altar,  dedicated to St. Joseph, also renovated by the painters Domenico Ferretti, Vincenzo Meucci and the aforementioned Hugford. In the  second half of the eighteenth century there were interventions on the space in front of the main altar, the manufacture of the mposing organ on the counter-façade produced in 1780 by Benedetto and Filippo Tronci, the construction of the new high altar in  arble begun in 1791, due to the design of Francesco Masi and put in place by the marble worker Lorenzo Bozzolini in June 1794.