FLORENCE, ITALY – After restoration work, the Renaissance-era Rucellai Chapel with its tiny architectural model of the Temple of the Holy Sepulchre by Leon Battista Alberti will reopen to the public on Saturday. Even art scholars have not had many opportunities to study the model, which is based on what legend claims is Christ’s original tomb in Jerusalem.
Made of white marble with black inlays, the model temple is decorated with 30 different marble inlays, inserted in boxes depicting naturalistic and symbolic themes. The chapel, once part of the church of San Pancrazio, was cut off from the rest of the structure in 1808 under an edict from Napoleon, whose forces turned the church into the seat of the city’s lottery.
Today, the chapel is reached through the Marino Marini museum. To mark its reopening, a Mass, celebrated by the Archbishop of Florence Giuseppe Betori, is scheduled for Thursday.
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