Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo
Filippo Brunelleschi, Florence, 1419-1428
Cheng Liu
The Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo is a symbolic building of Brunelleschi with the use of pendentives structure, umbrella dome, pilasters, and geometry.
The use of sacristy could be understood as a storage of liturgical vessels and the colset of the priest. It is where they store and put on their chasuble. The vestment (chasuble) is not worn out. Both the vessels and the vestment are only for the use of ritual functions and activities, like masses and so.
The floor plan is designed with a square and a circle tangent to the square to form the dome and the altar of the sacristy is formed as another square with an umbrella dome on the west side. Extruding the geometry up, the space is consists of a cube with a hemisphere on the top and the circle defined by arches.
It is also called Medici Sacristy because the Old Sacristy also functions as an important burial space for Medici Family. This is the reason why there is an altar placed in the sacristy and causes two different circulations for the ritual of vestment for the priest.
One main circulation is that the priest would enter the sacristy, go to the side room wash hands, go to the vestment table to put on the chasuble and then circulate out the sacristy to the main altar of San Lorenzo. The secondary circualtion is that after the vestment has been put on, the priest would go directly to the altar in the Old Sacristy to do the ritual event for Medici Family only.
The platform for all the vestment happenning is on several steps higher than the main level of San Lorenzo. Both altars are on another several steps up. The hierarchy of the vestment and spaces was displaied this way.
Bibliography:
Cutts, E. L., and E. L. Butts. “The History of the Eucharistic Vestments.” The Art Journal (1875-1887), vol. 1, 1875, pp. 77–80. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20568646. Accessed 4 Feb. 2020.
Hayward, Jane. “Sacred Vestments as They Developed in the Middle Ages.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 29, no. 7, 1971, pp. 299–309. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3258646. Accessed 4 Feb. 2020.
Morolli, Gabriele, and Pietro Ruschi. San Lorenzo, L’architettura: 393-1993: Le Vicende Della Fabbrica . Basilica Di San Lorenzo, 1993.
Morris, Frances. “A Mediaeval Vestment.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 22, no. 12, 1927, pp. 300–310. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3255944. Accessed 4 Feb. 2020