After nearly three months of Coronavirus shutdown, the Grand Synagogue in Florence opened for a day on Sunday, May 31st with an art installation marking Shavuot that directly channeled the work of the great Florentine Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli.
The synagogue immediately closed again, for restoration work on its floor. It is due to reopen, along with the Jewish Museum, on July 5.
It’s a tradition to decorate synagogues with roses to honour Shavuot. In Florence, the synagogue was festooned with more than 200 roses, arranged in the sanctuary as an art installation by the Israeli-born artist David Palterer, who lives and works in Florence.
The installation created a sort of tent or “shower of roses,” with the blooms suspended within the nine arches that delimit the synagogue’s lofty sanctuary.
“Since we are in Florence, one can’t escape an absolutely intentional association with two works by Sandro Botticelli that are almost the symbols of the Uffizi Gallery — the Birth of Venus and La Primavera (Spring), and at the success of their iconography until the present day,” a statement from Florence Jewish Museum Director Dora Liscia Bemporad said.
The synagogue is a monumental, Moorish style building, designed by Mariano Falcini, Marco Treves and Vincenco Micheli and inaugurated in 1882.
It has a lavishly decorated interior, and its dome is the second largest in Florence, after that of the Duomo (Cathedral).
Visits to the installation were by reservation only, and face masks and social distancing were mandatory.
