A Jacobite Gazetteer - Florence

Monument to Queen Louise

This church is the "Westminster Abbey" of Florence; here are buried many of the city's most important former residents.

In the right transept of the church is the Cappella del Santissimo (the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, sometimes called the Castellani Chapel). The first monument on the left wall of this chapel is the tomb of Queen Louise (wife of King Charles III) who died in 1824; her body was placed here by decree of the Grand Duke Ferdinand III of Tuscany. The chapel is poorly lit, and therefore the details of the tomb are difficult to see.

François-Xavier Fabre (Queen Louise's major heir, and her companion in the last years of her life) commissioned the monument to Louise's memory. The white marble monument measures 4.00 metres high by 2.45 metres wide. Two mourning angels stand one on each side of a funerary stele; the left angel holds a wreath, while the right angel holds a trumpet. The stele has an inscription below, and above, a relief showing the three theological virtues: Faith at the centre (with the cross and chalice) flanked on the left by Charity (with a child in her arms and another at her feet) and on the right by Hope (holding the top of an anchor). At the top of the stele is a winged hour-glass (symbolizing the passage of time and of earthly life). Above the stele are Louise's arms, i.e. the royal arms of Great Britain and the princely arms of Stolberg-Gedern, surmounted by a royal crown, encircled by a wreath, and flanked by the royal supporters. ¹ The whole is enclosed within a round arch decorated with various foral motifs.

The monument was originally designed by Fabre's friend Charles Perçier. ² The angels and the stele relief were sculpted by Emilio Santarelli. ³ The other minor details including the arch were sculpted by either Luigi or Ottavio Giovannozzi. ⁴

Many years before, Count Vittorio Alfieri had composed a Latin inscription intended for Louise's tomb: "A Vittorio Alferio ultra res omnes dilecta et quasi mortale numen ab ipso constanter habita et observata" (Loved above all things by Vittorio Alfieri, and ever held and venerated by him as a semi-divine creature). ⁵ Fabre, however, did not use this; instead the Latin inscription reads as follows:

Monument to Count Vittorio Alfieri

Half way down the nave in the right aisle, between the monuments to Nicolo Machiavelli and Dante Alighieri, is the funerary monument to Count Vittorio Alfieri (died 1803). It was commissioned by Queen Louise and sculpted by Antonio Canova. ⁶

On an oval base decorated with a lyre and two wreaths stands a female figure weeping over a sarcophagus; she wears a mural crown (i.e. a crown made of city walls) and represents either Florence or Italy. The top of the sarcophagus is decorated with a poet's laurel wreath in the centre and with a mask of Tragedy and a mask of Comedy at the left and right corners. The front of the sarcophagus is decorated with garlands and with a relief portrait of Alfieri in a round cartouche. Around the portrait is an inscription:

Below on a larger oval base there is a Latin inscription which reads as follows:

Several models for the monument as well as an earlier stele version are in the collection of the Museo Canova in Possagno.

The basilica is open weekdays 8.00 a.m. - 6.30 p.m. and holidays 3.00 p.m. - 6.00 p.m. (Telephone: 39.055.244619). It is a major tourist site, and it is often necessary to stand in line for some time in order to enter the basilica.