The Great Synagogue of Florence or Tempio Maggiore is a notable synagogue in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, Italy.

History and architecture

The synagogue was built between 1874 and 1882. The architects were Mariano Falcini, Professor Vincente Micheli, and Marco Treves, who was Jewish. Their design integrated the architectural traditions of the Islamic and Italian worlds.

Layers of travertine and granite alternate in the masonry, creating a striped effect like that of the Siena Cathedral. Old photographs show bold red and beige stripes, but the bold colors of the stone have faded over time, leaving a more mottled effect.

The overall form of the synagogue is the cruciform

Cruciform

Cruciform means having the shape of a cross or Christian cross.- Cruciform architectural plan :This is a common description of Christian churches. In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is more likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross,...

 plan of Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey...

 emulated by so many mosques. The corner towers are topped with horseshoe-arched towers themselves topped with onion domes in the Moorish Revival

Moorish Revival

Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of the Romanticist fascination with all things oriental...

 style. Three horseshoe arches form the main entrance, above it rise tiers of ajimez windows, with their paired horseshoe arches sharing a single column.

Inside the building "every square inch is covered with colored designs," in Moorish patterns. The interior mosaics and frescoes inside are by Giovanni Panti. Giacomo del Medico designed the great arch.

During World War II Fascist soldiers used the synagogue as a vehicle garage. In August 1944 retreating German troops worked with Italian Fascists to destroy the synagogue, but the Italian resistance managed to defuse most of the explosives. Only a limited amount of damage was done. The synagogue was restored after the war. It was restored again after damage by massive flooding in 1966.

Replicas of the Great Synagogue

The Great synagogue of Florence has been widely admired. Replicas include:

• The 1892 Eutaw Place Temple of Temple Oheb Shalom, (Baltimore, Maryland)

Jewish community in Florence

The Jewish community in Florence is composed of about 1400 people. However, it has a long history which reaches back to the medivel era. However, there was a nearby Jewish community in the Oltrarno area, south of the Arno river that dates to the Roman Era. It is known that the first synagogue was built in the 13th century.

External links

• Jewish Florence