San Marco Must Not Die
It is the most famous Dominican convent in the world. From Florence it has been for centuries a beacon of holiness, of art, of culture. But now it is on the point of being suppressed, by none other than the order of Saint Dominic
by Sandro Magister
ROME, July 17, 2015 - The final decision could come at any moment, amid the distraction of the summer. And it will concern the life or death of the most famous Dominican convent in the world, the convent of San Marco in Florence.
What is at stake smacks of the incredible. It is as if the Franciscan friars were to decide to close the convent of Assisi. And yet this is what could happen, at the behest of the order of Saint Dominic itself, if the superior general of the order, Fr. Bruno Cadoré, should put into effect the decision that the chapter of the Dominican province of central Italy, named after Saint Catherine of Siena, made in the autumn of 2013: the decision, that is, to suppress the “house," meaning the convent of San Marco in Florence.
The superior general has taken his time. In March of last year he made a visit to the convent about to be suppressed. He then wrote a letter to the Dominicans of the province in question, asking them to re-examine the question from the ground up, with the help of “experts.” To no effect. The fathers of the province of St. Catherine of Siena met again in chapter at the end of last June and reiterated to the superior general the request to suppress the convent of San Marco.
If that were to happen, in the cloisters and in the cells wondrously frescoed by Fra Angelico (see above the Annunciation, from 1442) there would no longer be any friar to pray. From the library designed by Michelozzo, the first library of the modern era open to the public, the robes of the learned would disappear. What has been for centuries a cenacle of men of letters, artists, bishops, saints, would give way to a trivial guest house.
The Masses in the church attached to the defunct convent would be officiated by someone from outside: from the not-distant convent of Santa Maria Novella, the only Dominican convent that would remain open in Florence.
It is true that the shortage of vocations in the order of Saint Dominic has reached dramatic levels. But it is also true that many Dominican convents in the world survive with just two or three friars, without being combined or suppressed for this reason.
And the convent of San Marco is a symbolic place too lofty to be wiped out with impunity.
The servant of God Giorgio La Pira, the mayor of Florence in the 1950’s and ’60’s who is on the road to beatification, stayed in cell VI of San Marco and said this about his beloved convent:
“Florence is the center of the world. San Marco is the center of Florence, and the Annunciation by Blessed Angelico frescoed there is the center of San Marco. Therefore the Annunciation is the center of the world.”
La Pira was speaking as the prophet and visionary that he was, as a worker of peace among nations, in the Middle East, in Russia, in Vietnam. But the convent of San Marco has truly been an indispensable beacon of holiness and culture not only for Florence, but for Europe and the world.
It was so in the season of humanism and the Renaissance, with Fra Angelico, Savonarola, Saint Antonino of Florence, Poliziano, Pico della Mirandola. It was so until our time with, for example, such as La Pira.
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that a convent that has given so much to the world should today receive help from the world in remaining alive. Perhaps with an influx into its cells and cloisters of Dominican friars from other nations and continents.
Already one year ago the superior general of the Dominicans received a petition to save the convent of San Marco, with four thousand signatures:
> Salviamo il convento di San Marco a Firenze dalla chiusuraAmong the signers, Catholic and not, was the philosopher Sergio Givone, culture assessor of the city of Florence, another famous philosopher, Massimo Cacciari, historians of Christianity Daniele Menozzi, Roberto Rusconi, and Roberto de Mattei, sociologists Pietro De Marco and Arnaldo Nesti, and scholar of mysticism Marco Vannini.
It can only be hoped that the petition may not fall upon deaf ears. Time is running out. San Marco must not die.
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English translation by
Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.
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For more news and commentary, see the blog that Sandro Magister maintains, available only in Italian:
> SETTIMO CIELO
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17.7.2015
