Abstract
On the Feastday of the Nativity of the Virgin, September 8, 1296, the papal legate of Boniface VIII, Pietro Valeriano di Piperno, blessed the rebuilding of the church of S. Reparata in Florence. In the ceremonial presence of the podestà, the Standard-Bearer of Justice, and the priors of the Signoria, he named the new cathedral “Santa Maria del Fiore.” Arnolfo di Cambio was made chief architect in charge of the renewal; and it was he who began a program of monumental sculpture devoted to the life of the Virgin (fig. 1). Giovanni Villani, who recorded the benediction ceremony in his chronicle, admitted that notwithstanding the rededication of the church to the Virgin and the invention of the poetic name “Santa Maria del Fiore,” most Florentines continued to call the cathedral S. Reparata.
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