History

The Benedictine community at San Domenico di Fiesole is documented from the 11th century; the precise date of foundation is disputed, but a building campaign that produced the unfinished Romanesque facade is clearly datable to the early-to-mid 11th century. The geometric marble inlay — white Carrara and green Prato serpentine in a grid of squares, diamonds, and circles — belongs to the Florentine proto-Renaissance tradition that also produced the Baptistery facade (c. 1059) and San Miniato al Monte (1013). The construction stopped, apparently due to lack of funds, before the upper register was completed; the raw stone edge at the top has never been finished.

In 1439 the abbey passed to the Augustinian Canons Regular, who undertook a major rebuilding under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici (Cosimo il Vecchio, 1389–1464). The key decision — to incorporate the Romanesque facade into the new Renaissance exterior rather than demolish it — was not obligatory: other Cosimo projects (notably San Lorenzo and San Marco) involved wholesale rebuilding. The decision to preserve and embed the earlier facade suggests a deliberate appreciation of the older work, perhaps by Cosimo himself. The result, with the Romanesque marble rectangle standing proud of the later stone around it, is a visual quotation of the medieval in the Renaissance — one of the most suggestive architectural choices of 15th-century Florence.