Museo Marino Marini
The Marino Marini museum mixes both old and new architecture and paintings.
The collection is dedicated to the modern Italian artist from Pistoia who is best known for his large horse and knight-themed sculptures.
The museum is located within a deconsecrated church where modern renovations have allowed for a large open space ideal for a museum.
Across the street is the palazzo of the Rucellai family and from the museum there is the possibility to view the Cappella Rucellai which was requested by the family and completed by Leon Battista Alberti (1457- 67).
Here you can visit the Sacellum of the Holy Sepulchre of Leon Battista Alberti, one of the ‘wonders’ of Florentine Renaissance.
Leon Battista Alberti was one of the masters of Italian renaissance
Leon Battista Alberti was a humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer, he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. He is considered the founder of Western cryptography. He is often considered solely as an architect but to do this detracts from his other works where he made significant contributions. He has designed many famous buildings and in Florence his hand touched many buildings for expample the Palzzo Rucellai and Santa Maria Novella
Façade of Palazzo Rucellai
The design of the façade of the Palazzo Rucellai (1446–51) was one of several commissioned by the Rucellai family. The design overlays a grid of shallow pilasters and cornices in classical style onto rusticated masonry, and is surmounted by a heavy cornice. The inner courtyard has Corinthian columns. The palace lead the way and fixed classical building elements that became influential throughout Florence.
The Rucellai Sepulchre was constructed in imitation or emulation of the Holy Sepulchre in Anastasis, Jerusalem and contains the tombs of Giovanni Rucellai and members of his family.
This is the real reason to use the museum!
The tomb was placed in the first chapel on the left of the church, connected to the central nave through an elegant triforium made up of two agile Corinthian columns surmounted by an entablature with a heavy cornice.
The inner walls and vault of the sepulchre are entirely frescoed, work that one author has attributed to Giovanni da Piemonte.
Santa Maria Novella
At Santa Maria Novella, Florence, between (1448–70) the upper façade was constructed following the design of Leon Battista Alberti.
It was a challenging task, as the lower level already had three doorways and six gothic niches containing tombs and employing the polychrome marble typical of Florentine churches. The design also incorporates an ocular window that was already in place. Alberti introduced Classical features around the portico and spread the polychromy over the entire façade in a manner that includes Classical proportions and elements such as pilasters, cornices, and a pediment in the Classical style, ornamented with a sunburst in tesserae, rather than sculpture. The best known feature of this typically aisled church in the manner which Alberti solved the problem of visually bridging different levels of the central nave and the much lower side aisles. He employed two large scrolls, which were to become a standard feature of church façades in the later Renaissance, Baroque, and classical revival buildings.