No matter how long you have lived in Florence or are visiting for, you can stumble across the most fascinating historic and artistic gems hidden in unsuspecting corners all over the city. One of these can be found in what externally looks like an unimposing building at via Pandolfini 3, very near to via Verdi. This is the Oratory of San Niccolò of Bari, called “del Ceppo”.
Some say the name is based on a hollowed-out tree stump, usually oak, where those wishing to leave alms could do so through an opening in the wall. Founded in 1417 by the venerable and noble Confraternity of San Niccolò of Bari, it is dedicated to the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and to Saint Nicholas of Bari, with special devotion to Saint Jerome. Still in existence today, the Compagnia is actively made up of approximately 100 lay members. More plausibly, others maintain that, when the Confraternity required a bigger place to meet and worship, it moved from the Oltrarno to the parish of San Jacopo tra i Fossi, near the hospital of the same name, next to the convent of the Poverine nuns, which was located in a place called “il Ceppo”, now via Tripoli. In 1561, again in need of a new seat, Giambologna was hired to design the new oratory in via Pandolfini for two different groups of members, who always paid attention to local families in need. One group was for young people aged between 8 and 18, while the other for adults met at night and practised penitence. The San Niccolò Confraternity was one of only nine (out of about 250) compagnie that Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Tuscany did not suppress in 1785 because of its charitable work. It also survived Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1808 purge of religious institutions in Tuscany.
By the second half of the 18th century, under Bartolomeo Cherubini, father to the composer Luigi, the Confraternity set up a music academy where the musician’s son studied on the beautiful organ still in use in the oratory. The Confraternity often still hosts concerts that are open to all to attend.
Since countless artists lived and worked over the centuries in the Santa Croce neighbourhood near the oratory, some of them donated paintings or sculptures to the institution. Alternatively, the Confraternity only paid for the materials for the works they commissioned. All of this makes for a varied collection in the vestibule, church, sacristy and other adjoining rooms, although the masterpiece is regarded as Beato Angelico’s Crucifixion. Depicting the crucified Christ between Saints Nicholas and Francis of Assisi, the captivating artwork was originally placed above the church altar, as seen in another small votive painting in the oratory by Jacopo da Empoli, but it is now found on a wall in the sacristy. The Opificio delle Pietre Dure carried out the most recent restoration of the work between 2016 and 2018. (The Crucifixion, like other artworks and volumes in the oratory’s historical archive, had been badly damaged in the 1966 flood in Florence.) The original bust of Saint Francis, however, somehow disappeared between the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s, reappearing in the Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1912. A copy stands in its stead in the oratory. Another recently restored painting of the Madonna with the Baby Christ on the Throne and Two Pilgrims is by Biagio di Antonio Tucci, dated 1480-85 and donated to the Confraternity in 1788. In the background, the artist painted a wooded country scene. Between 2007 and 2018, considerable restoration also took place on the buildings in the complex, including the roof and decorations as well as other paintings and frescoes.
In Roman times, Saint Nicholas of Myra, or Nicholas of Bari, who was born in Anatolia but was of Greek descent, became a Christian bishop. A worker of myriad miracles, he became the patron saint of sailors, pawnbrokers, merchants, children, single people and students all over Europe. Since he was legendary for generously and secretly giving gifts, he soon became known as Saint Nick, or Santa Claus. In celebration of his saint’s day on December 6 every year, the oratory remains open to the public all day, especially to children, who are given three chocolate coins. The gesture is said to symbolize Saint Nicholas’s actions, who, without being seen, threw three gold coins from a window to three maidens whose father had decided their only future was to become prostitutes because he was too poor to be able to afford their dowries.
Happy holiday season!
