The colorful exterior walls are made from marble; white from Carrara, green from Prato, and red from Maremma. The duomo is composed of the cathedral, the Battistero di San Giovanni and Giotto's bell tower. The majestic dome, the greatest of Brunellesci's woks, is considered a feat of unrivaled engineering skill. Weighing 37,000 tons and containing over 4 million bricks, the dome was the largest and highest of its time. 463 steps lead to the top of the dome, which offers a spectacular view of Florence.

There are several great works of art contained in the interior of the cathedral. Notable works include busts of Brunellesci, Giotto, and Michelin, Michelino's Dante, the Condottieri memorials, a sculpture of the prophet Joshua, and Paolo Ucello's Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood.
In 1436 in the Florence cathedral, Uccello completed a monochrome fresco of an equestrian monument to Sir John Hawkwood, an English mercenary who had commanded Florentine troops at the end of the 14th century. In the Hawkwood fresco, a single-point perspective scheme, a fully sculptural treatment of the horse and rider, and a sense of controlled potential energy within the figure all indicate Uccello's desire to assimilate the new style of the Renaissance that had blossomed in Florence since his birth. Following the Hawkwood monument, in 1443 Uccello completed four heads of prophets around a colossal clock on the interior of the west façade of the cathedral; between 1443 and 1445 he contributed the designs for two stained-glass windows in the cupola.

The baptistery is one of the oldest and most famous buildings in Florence, and its east door is the most celebrated work of Lorenzo Ghiberti. The door took almost Ghiberti's entire life to complete and Michelangelo is said to have called it the Gate of Paradise.

Giotto di Bondone succeeded Arnolfo di Cambio (the first Master of the Cathedral Works)
upon his death in 1334, and as the famous painter and architect was 67 years old, he concentrated his energy on the Campanile. He created a design that became a showpiece of Florentine Gothic style. He probably confined himself to designing the separate Campanile which stands like a tower beside the facade. In fact Giotto's Campanile is not entirely as he designed it. Only the lower story of the bell tower was realized from Giotto's design. There, set in the pink-coloured fields of marble, are figural reliefs, whose order and number were changed by later alterations. The design of the original 21 reliefs very probably came from Giotto. They were executed by Andrea Pisano (1290-1348), Giotto's successor as capomaestro.


Florence | The Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore

Santa Maria del Carmine is a church of the Carmelite Order. It is famous for its Brancacci Chapel which houses magnificent Renaissance frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale, later finished by Filippino Lippi.
The church, dedicated to the Beatæ Virginis Mariæ de monte Carmelo, began to be built in 1268 as part of the Carmelite convent, which still exists today. Of the original edifice Some Romanesque-Gothic remains of the original structure can still be seen on the sides of the church. The complex was enlarged once in 1328 and again in 1464, when the capitular hall and the refectory were added.
Renovated again in 16th-17th centuries, the church was damaged by a fire in 1771 and rebuilt internally in 1782. The façade, like many other Florentine churches, remained unfinished. The fire did not touch the sacristy and fortunately many artworks survived, including the stories of St. Cecilia attributed to Lippo d'Andrea and the marble monument of Pier Soderini by Benedetto da Rovezzano. The vault of the nave has a trompe-l'oeil fresco by Domenico Stagi.

The Brancacci Chapel also survived the fire and was also restored due to the intervention of a Florentine noblewoman who firmly opposed the covering of the frescoes. The Chapel is home to famous frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino, considered the first masterworks of the Italian Renaissance. Masaccio's master, Masolino, commissioned by a wealthy merchant, Felice Brancacci, began work on the chapel in 1425 but the project was soon taken over by his pupil whose treatment of figures in space made the frescoes among the most important to have come out of the Early Renaissance. The scenes by Masaccio are the Expulsion from Paradise, The Tribute Money St Peter Healing a Lame-Man, and St Peter Raising Tabitha from the dead. The cycle was finished by Filippino Lippi.

The Corsini Chapel of the church was built by the Corsini, probably the richest family in Florence during the 17th-18th centuries. The chapel is dedicated to St. Andrew Corsini, a Carmelite bishop of Fiesole who was canonized in 1629. The architect Pier Francesco Silvani choose a Baroque style for the chapel. The small dome was painted by Luca Giordano in 1682. The elaborated rococo ceiling is the work of one of the most important 18th century artists in the city, Giovanni Domenico Ferretti.

The convent of the church has suffered several times from numerous disasters, from the fire to the flooding of 1966. Most of the artworks are therefore damaged: these include the Bestowal of the Carmelite Rule by Filippo Lippi and the Last Supper by Alessandro Allori, and remains of works from other chapels by Pietro Nelli and Gherardo Starnina.

Churches in Florence | Santa Maria del Carmine
Art in Tuscany | Masaccio | Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence

The decorative marble facade of Tuscany's most important Gothic church incorporates billowing sails and ostrich feathers (emblem of the Medici). The Santa Maria Novella church houses immense artistic treasures, donated by wealthy patrons, many with chapels named after them.
The old church on this site, taken over in 1219 by a group of Dominicans led by Fra Giovanni da Salerno, was called Santa Maria della Vigne (the nearby Duomo was Santa Maria del Fiore). The foundation stone of the present church was laid in October 1279, and the church was finally consecrated 140 years later in September 1420.

The exterior is the work of Fra Jacopo Talenti and Leon Battista Alberti. The interior holds extraordinary works of art including Masaccio's Trinità, Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle in the Tornabuoni Chapel and Giotto's Crucifix, among others.
The convent was built between 1279 and 1357 by Dominican friars near a 7th century church located in the fields just outside Florence's medieval walls. The lower part of the marble facade, which is Romanesque in style, is believed to have been executed by a Dominican architect, Fra Iacopo Talenti da Nipozzano, while the upper part was completed only 100 years later in 1470 by Leon Battista Alberti. Thus, the facade is not only the oldest of all the churches in Florence but it is also the only church with its original planned facade in place. As you will see, the church of San Lorenzo never even received its planned marble facade while others were completed centuries later with new designs.

Santa Croce, rebuilt for the Franciscan order in 1294 by Arnolfo di Cambio, is the burial place for the great and good in Florence. Michelangelo is buried in Santa Croce, as are Rossini, Machiavelli, and the Pisan-born Galileo Galilei, who was tried by the Inquisition and was not allowed a Christian burial until 1737, 95 years after his death.
The cenotaph dedicated to Dante Alighieri, the Florentinian poet who was sent into exile and died and is buried in Ravenna (despite some attempts to bring his body back to Florence).
Construction of the basilica began in 1294 and it was consecrated by the pope in 1442.
The church exterior is covered with a polychrome marble façade added in 1863 and paid for by the English benefactor, Sir Francis Sloane. It looks onto the Piazza Santa Croce, which is the site of the annual soccer game in medieval costume, the Calcio Storico.

There is great artistic wealth in Santa Croce; frescoes (1380) by Agnolo Gaddi in the Cappella Maggiore tell the story of the holy cross, "santa croce", and beautiful frescoes by Giotto in the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels show scenes from the life of St. Francis and St. John the Evangelist.
Taddeo Gaddi, one of Giotto's pupils painted the Baroncelli Chapel in the church of Santa Croce in Florence around 1328, brilliantly employing the technical achievements of his teacher. The frescoes represent Scenes from the Life of the Virgin. He also frescoed the end wall of the refectory of the church with a Last Supper, a Tree of Life and Four Miracle Scenes. An unusual relief, the Annunciation, in gilded limestone by Donatello decorates the south nave's wall. Don't miss the memorial to the 19th century playwright Giovanni Battista Niccolini to the left of the entrance said to be been the inspiration for the Statue of Liberty.

Outside the Basilica di Santa Croce is this statue of Dante Alighieri, the poet who wrote The Divine Comedy and who was responsible for the development of the modern Italian language.

The church of Santa Croce was severely hit by the flood of 1966, a tide mark shows far up on the pillars and walls.
Perhaps one of the most famous pieces is Cimabue's Crucifix, which was badly damaged during the 1966 flood that hit the city of Florence, but is still on display in the refectory. The basilica's cloisters are also open to the public.

Churches in Tuscany | Chiesa di Santa Croce, Firenze
Art in Tuscany | Cimabue

Orsanmichele (or "Kitchen Garden of St. Michael", from the contraction in Tuscan dialect of the Italian word orto) was constructed on the site of the kitchen garden of the monastery of San Michele, now gone.
Located on the Via Calzaiuoli in Florence, the church was originally built as a grain market in 1337 by Francesco Talenti, Neri di Fioravante, and Benci di Cione. Between 1380 and 1404 it was converted into a church used as the chapel of Florence's powerful craft and trade guilds. On the ground floor of the square building are the 13th century arches that originally formed the loggia of the grain market. The second floor was devoted to offices, while the third housed one of the city's municipal grain storehouses, maintained to withstand famine or siege. Late in the 14th century, the guilds were charged by the city to commission statues of their patron saints to embellish the facades of the church. The sculptures seen today are copies, the originals having been removed to museums.
Inside the church is Andrea Orcagna's bejeweled Gothic Tabernacle (1355-59) encasing a repainting by Bernardo Daddi's of an older icon of the 'Madonna and Child'.
The facades held 14 architecturally designed external niches, which were filled from 1399 to around 1430. The three richest guilds opted to make their figures in the far more costly bronze, which cost approximately ten times the amount of the stone figures.

The Badia Fiorentina, the pointy tower in Dante's neighborhood is one of the nicest (and least visited) older churches in Florence. It was founded as a Benedictine abbey in the late 10th century, and rebuilt as a Gothic church in 1284–1310. The interior has an unfortunately uninspired baroque overlay. The Badia helped regulate life in medieval Florence through the tolling of its bell, which marked the beginning and end of the working day.
There are some tombs sculpted by Mina da Fiesole and Bernardo Rossellino, a painting by Giorgio Vasari, and several nice but ruinous frescoes by Nardo di Cione. The best work inside is Filippino Lippi's Madonna Appearing to St. Bernard.
The entrance to the Badia was originally on the via del Proconsolo, but in the 17th century the orientation of the church was turned 90 degrees and a new choir was built. On the right of the choir, a door opens onto a flight of stairs, which leads to the upper storey of the Chiostro degli Aranci, the Cloister of the Oranges, one of the city's many hidden gems.
Murals depicting the Life of St. Benedict were painted in the cloister between 1435 and 1439 at a time when the Benedictine Order in Italy was experiencing profound change as certain Italian houses undertook a reform of their monastic practice and a refashioning of their corporate identity. The Florentine Badia was one of four Italian monasteries to initiate a Reform Congregation in 1419, and the frescoes that decorate the Badia’s cloister served as a means to define what it meant to be Benedictine. The frescoes are some of the earliest frescoes to show some of the new developments of the renaissance, naturalism andlinear perspective.[2]
It is not known for certain who the frescoes are by, although a number of attributions have been made. One possible contender is the Portuguese painter, Giovanni Gonsalvo, who is known to have arrived in Florence during the 1430s, the estimated date for the execution of the frescoes. More often than not, the artist is known, simply, as the Il Maestro di Chiostro degli Aranci, (The Master of the Cloister of Oranges).

The Renaissance cloisters were designed by Rossellino around a well and some orange trees. Try to get access to the upper level with its anonymous 15th century frescoes.[3] The cloister is only open on Monday afternoons from 3 until 6.

The Badia, around the corner from Dante's House, was also the parish church of Beatrice Portinari, the famous Beatrice of Dante's Divine Comedy, with whom the author's alter ego was in love and whom he quite literally followed through the Gates of Hell and slog of Purgatory all the way to Paradise.

The Basilica di San Lorenzo was also the site of the most influential architectural innovations of the Renaissance: the Old Sacristy designed by Brunelleschi and decorated by Donatello is the first architecture based on proportion, the unity of elements, and the use of classical orders. It was financed by the Medici, who used it for their tombs, and it is one of the most important monuments of early Renaissance architecture.
The church has no facade, just the rough stone and brick. This is the oldest church in Florence (founded in 393). It was the Florence Cathedral until the 7th century, when the Bishop moved to Santa Reparata (later to become the Duomo). In 1419, Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, the founder of the dynasty, offered along with other parishioners to rebuild the church, and hired Brunelleschi to work on plans for a new interior. This was to start a revolution in Renaissance architecture. Progress was off and on for a while due to financial and political issues until Cosimo de’ Medici offered a fortune equal to the annual earnings of 250 families to ensure completion. San Lorenzo then became the Medici church, and the Medici Chapel became their private chapel and burial crypt. The interior is an early Renaissance masterpiece by Brunelleschi, Donatello, and others of the most talented artists of their time.
For 500 years the church has been without a proper marble facade. It came very close to getting one at the beginning of the 16th century when Giovanni de' Medici, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was elected Pope Leo X. The parish church of a family which could now boast a Pope in its ranks had to have a suitably impressive facade and a family friend and sculptor was commissioned to design and build one. He was the same age as the new Pope and his name was Michelangelo.
In the end, the facade never got built, as the Pope transferred his attention to another project, one which would also promote the name. wealth and honour of the Medici family, the building of a new Sacristy.

Behind the church of San Lorenzo, you do not miss to visit Medici funeral Chapels. Built to be a mausoleum for family members, nowadays it is an interesting museum. This museum consists of the Medici Crypt, the Chapel of the Princes and Michelangelo’s New Sacristy.

The pulpits of the San Lorenzo

The Church of Santa Trinita, or St. Trinity Church, overlooks the square of the same name and can easily be reached by walking down via de' Tornabuoni, one of the most elegant streets in Florence's city center, down towards the Arno River.
The Santa Trinità church was erected in the 13th century. It was rebuilt several times and the present Baroque façade was made only at the end of the 16th century by Bernardo Buontalenti. The interior was restored in Gothic style at the end of the 19th century. The church is famous for the Sassetti Chapel decorated in 1486 by Domenico Ghirlandaio with frescoes of the life of St Francis.
Commissioned by Vallombrosan Benedictine monks, the Santa Trinita Church was founded in the middle of the 11th century. Originally located just off the ancient city walls, the church was incorporated into the city center when the second walls were built in 1172-1173.
The ancient medieval building is still partially visible inside as you look at the "counter-facade". The current facade was designed in 1500 by Bernardo Buontalenti, one of the main Mannierist artists in Tuscany, and displays scuplteres by Giovanni Caccini.
The Church of Santa Trinita belonged to the Strozzi family and then passed to the Medici family. In 1400 many important painters worked for the church (the Sassetti Chapel by Ghirlandaio was completed between 1483-1486).

The Davanzati Chapel is dedicated to Giuliano Davanzati. Inside the chapel stands the Sarcofago del buon pastore - Sarcophagus of the Good Shepherd by Rossellino (1444) who used a Roman sarcophagus. On it, a shepherd is depicted with lambs portrayed in a very dour way; in fact the man almost seems a monk.
In the chapel a beautiful Crowned Virgin by Bicci di Lorenzo is displayed.
The chapel also has a fresco portraying Saint John Gualberto (founder of the Vallombrosan Order) by Neri di Bicci (mid 1400) was moved here from the Church of San Pancrazio. The fresco reminds one of works by Masaccio, but the figures look stiller. There is also an Annunciation by Neri di Bicci.
The Spini Chapel houses the fresco of the Holy Bishop by Alessio Baldovinetti. In the chapel a wooden statue (almost full size) depicts Magdalene by Desiderio da Settignano that looks like the Magdalene by Donatello.
The Saint John Gualberto Chapel commemorates the founder of the Vallombrosan Order whose relics are preserved here. It was built as a gift to the church by the monks, and it was designed and created to look like a real yet small casket. Frescoes were painted by Passignano at the end of the 1500s.
Commemorating Benozzo Federighi, Bishop of Fiesole who died in 1450, the Benozzo Federighi funerary monument was created by Luca della Robbia (1454). The monument's frame is made of majolica using the "opus sectile" technique: every oval is made of small tiles that create a mosaic (it's one of the first examples of the use of majolica for funerary monuments).
Main Altar | In 1500, the original chancel was taken apart by Buonatalenti, one part was completely removed while another was just moved back. The altar houses a beautiful polyptych: S. Anthony, S. Michael, S. Francis and S. Julian and in the center God and Jesus (in smaller proportion).
The Doni Chapel houses a fresco depicting a Blessing Christ by Bicci di Lorenzo. Inside, a crucifix also stands.
The Sassetti Chapel is one of the most beautiful and rich chapels in the church. In the center is a painting depicting the birth of Jesus "The Adoration by the Shepherds". It dates back to 1585 and is signed by Ghirlandaio, as well as all of the frescoes in the chapel. The members of the Sassetti family who commissioned the work are themselves portrayed within the frescoes, as in Masaccio's Trinità.
The frescoes depicting Stories of San Francis are really beautiful. These date back to the same period (1500s). In the middle, a miracle attributed to San Francis is portrayed: it depicts a child fallen down from a window in the Palazzo Spini ("revived child"), the palace right in front of Santa Trinita, an event that horrified the population. Because it heppened in Piazza Santa Trinita, the fresco shows how the square looked like at that time (the church frescoed doesn't have the Romanesque facade).
The sacristy entrance stands to the right of the Sassetti Chapel. Originally it was the Strozzi Chapel, designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi. On the altar used to stand the Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano, now displayed at the Uffizi Gallery. Onofrio Strozzi wanted a monument to commemorate Saint Onofrio and Saint Nicholas, which was made by Michelozzo. The chapel also houses also a Pietà by Barbieri.
The last chapel by the entrance on the right, the Bartolini - Salimbeni Chapel, is enriched by a valuable cycle of frescoes, Life of the Virgin, a work by Lorenzo Monaco (1420-25). Signed by the same artist is also the beautiful wooden painting of the Annunciation in the same chapel.

Art in Tuscany | Domenico Ghirlandaio | The Sassetti Chapel in the Santa Trinita church in Florence

'One of the most highly venerated Marian shrines in Florence, the church was founded in 1250 as the Oratory of Cafaggio, by the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order. These noble Florentines, having been vouchsafed a vision of the Virgin, retired from the city to a wild hermitage at Monte Senario, north of Florence.
The history of their new Oratory is closely connected to the cultus of a painting of the Madonna, showing the Annunciation, which is still preserved in a chapel at the entrance to the basilica. Popular piety relates that the fourteenth-century artist, a certain Friar Bartolomeo, was having difficulty in painting the face of the Virgin, when he fell asleep; on waking he found that the fresco had been finished by angelic hands. The religious fervour aroused by this reported miracle led to the church being enclosed by houses in the 14th century as people wanted to be near the place where the miracle had happened.

The present structure took shape between 1444 and 1477, when Michelozzo began the tribune with its radiating chapels, later finished by Leon Battista Alberti.

The breath-taking interior, with arches and piers sheathed in coloured marble (16th and 17th century), has a golden ceiling decorated between 1664 and 1670 to a design by Baldasarre Franceschini, known as Volterrano, who also painted the canvas of the Assumption.
High up between the windows there are panels and medallions, painted with Miracles of the Annunciate by 17th-century artists.
To the left of the entrance is the Chapel of the Most Holy Annunciate, where the highly venerated image of the Virgin is preserved.
The elegant tempietto which encloses it was designed by Michelozzo and built by Pagno Portigiani in 1448; the small oratory next to it has a panel of the Holy Face by Andrea del Sarto.

The many side chapels in the nave are mainly of the 17th and 18th century, such as the Feroni Chapel, by Giovan Battista Foggini and others, a jewel of the Florentine baroque.
The Tribune has nine chapels which were completely transformed in the baroque period. Andrea del Castagno, one of the principal exponents of the Florentine renaissance style, was especially active in Santissima Annunziata: one of his frescoes is of St Julian, in the Feroni Chapel, another is of the Holy Trinity with St Jerome, in the adjacent chapel.'[3]

Santissima Annunziata | Chiesa della SS. Annunziata, Piazza SS. Annunziata, Firenze

Opening hours
Weekdays: 7.30 am - 12.30 pm; 4 pm - 6.30 pm
Holidays: 7.30 am - 12.30 pm; 4 pm - 6.30 pm

Churches in Florence| The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata

The oldest church of Oltrarno, the Chiesa di Santa Felicita, is renown for the masterpiece of Mannerist painting exposed in one of its chapels, the Deposition by Pontormo. During the centuries this church had many alterations before Ferdinando Ruggieri, in 1736, gave it its present appearance. In 4th Century a church was built on this place by the Christian community of Florence, which inhabitated on this side of the river, opposite to the Roman city; this early-christian building was subsequently modified and enlarged (in 11th Century, and then in 14th Century, when a tower located by the church was transformed in bell-tower), so that today only few fragments of the originary structure are still recognizable.

Santa Felicita is characterized by the Vasari Corridor (built in 1565) running across its façade and by the overall decoration by Federico Ruggeri completed in the years 1736-1739. The restoration of 1936 brought to light some rests of the original face of the Barbadori Chapel, built by Brunelleschi for the Capponi family.

Above the portico the façade is partly hidden by the Vasari Corridor, which joins Palazzo Vecchio and Pitti Palace and was built 1565 by Giorgio Vasari; under the portico we find some tombs (15th to 16th Century): among them, the one of Barduccio Chiericini (a merchant died in 1416) and the one of Cardinal Luigi dei Rossi (made in 1500 by Raffaello da Montelupo).
In the first chapel on the right (the Barbadori chapel, built in 1425 by Brunelleschi) are exposed two paintings by Pontormo: the famous Deposition (1528, on the altar) and the Annunciation (on the right of the altar). The Sacrysty (1470) was built by Michelozzo (or perhaps by Leon Battista Alberti) following the typical Brunelleschi's style. Among the paintings in the Sacrysty are to be mentioned the polyptychon with Madonna with the Child and Saints, by Taddeo Gaddi, and the Adoration of the Magi, by Francesco di Antonio (1450).

Entrance from: Piazza Santa Felicita.
Opening hours: Holydays: 9AM-1PM; Working days: 9-12AM; 3-6PM.

The Chiesa di San Jacopo Soprarno shows elements from different periods and styles - from Romanesque to Baroque. The San Jacopo in Soprarno was built in the 10th-11th century in Romanesque style. The church experienced heavy modifications, including the addition of a triple-arched portico; the has a Romanesque 12-13th century three-arched loggia taken from San Donato in Scopeto, which was destroyed in the siege of 1529.

According to the Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari, Filippo Brunelleschi built here a chapel, the Ridolfi Chapel, in which he studied, in smaller scale, architectural elements later later used in his famous dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. The chapel is now destroyed. Since 1542 it was held by Franciscans of the Minorite Order. The entrance portico was remade by order of Cosimo I de' Medici in 1580. The bell tower was designed by Gherardo Silvani in 1660.

The church was damaged when the Arno River flooded Florence in 1966. Repairs of the church after flood led to the restoration of some of the historical architectural features[1], and the discover of columns belonging to the original Romanesque church in the Baroque interior.

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata (Basilica of the Most Holy Annunciation
) stands in a Renaissance piazza with rounded porticoes and fine decoration. In the center, there is the equestrian statue of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I, a work from 1608 by Pietro Tacca who was responsible for the very original bronze fountains alongside. The church itself was founded in 1260 to be the Oratory of the Servants of Mary. However, it was very soon renovated and enlarged because of growing devotion to the fresco of the Annunciation. The present church is preceded by a portico that leads you into the so-called "small cloister of votive tablets" and you pass from here into the main church which consists of one single nave with side chapels and a large round tribune at the end.
The interior was reconstructed in the mid 15th century, and renewed again in the second half of the 17th in a sumptuous Baroque style. Particularly worthy of note is the wooden ceiling, decorated in gold with paintings and precious in-lay carvings.
The front piece of the high altar is a splendid work in silver made by the Grand Duke's silversmith, Cosimo Merlini, an artist with Baroque tastes.

This Chiostro dello Scalzo forms the entrance to the chapel of the Confraternity of the Disciplinati of St John the Baptist, known as the Cloister of the Scalzo, founded in 1376.

At various intervals between 1509 and 1526, the great Florentine artist Andrea del Sarto painted the walls with frescoes depicting Scenes from the life of St John the Baptist and the Virtues, except for two episodes that were painted by Franciabigio.
It is called "dello Scalzo" (barefoot) because the friar holding the cross used to go barefoot. The Chiostro dello Scalzo really shows Andrea del Sarto's painting path: it is an absolute masterpiece in the constant dialogue of space, architecture and figures highlighted by the use of monochrome.

Address: Chiostro dello Scalzo, Via Cavour 69.
Open Mon, Tue, Sat 8,15am-1.50pm.
Admission: free.

The Chiesa Santo Stefano al Ponte is a church in Florence. The church was originally constructed in the 11th and 12th century in a Romanesque style with a polychrome marble facade.
The annexed Diocesan Museum houses a panel with a Madonna by Giotto and exhibits works of art taken from other churches in town and in the territory of the diocese of Florence.
The Church of Santo Stefano al Ponte Vecchio was badly damaged during the second world war, and again by the 1966 flood.
It has a main entrance, which has a two-colored stone molding, dating back to late 13th century. The interior is rectangular, and originally had three aisles, which were merged into a single nave by F. Tacca between 1649 and 1655. The roof has exposed trellisbeams that are at two different elevations.
The church has now been deconsecrated, and hosts the Orchestra Regionale Toscana.

Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi is a religious complex in central Florence, Italy, including a church and a former convent in Borgo Pinti. The entrance to this church is an unassuming, unnumbered door on Borgo Pinti that opens onto a cloister designed by Giuliano da Sangallo in 1492.

The Pazzi name was added after a Carmelite nun, canonized in 1669, from the Pazzi family, who patronized the church. The original convent had been dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen delle Convertite, the patron of once-fallen, now "converted" women. The Cistercian order from Badia a Settimo took control of the site in 1332, and moved here in 1442, while the convent was transeferred to San Donato in Polverosa. However the church and chapter house were rebuilt between 1481-1500, with initial designs in 1492 by Giuliano da Sangallo. The 13th-century interiors were redecorated in the 17th and early 18th centuries, which removed prior altarpieces by masters such as Botticelli, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Raffaellino del Garbo. They were replaced by new ones, by minor masters such as Carlo Portelli, Alfonso Boschi, Domenico Puligo, Santi di Tito, and Francesco Curradi. In the chapter house is a fresco divided into three lunettes of the Crucifixion and Saints (1493-96) by Pietro Perugino, commissioned by Dionisio and Giovanna Pucci.

The first chapel to the right of the entrance is the Cappella del Giglio (Chapel of St. Mary of the Lily) frescoed with depictions of Saints Filippo Neri, Bernard, Nereo, and Achilleo by the studio of Bernardino Poccetti with an altarpiece by Domenico Passignano. The fourth chapel on the right has a stained glass window by Isabella, the daughter of Georges Henri Rouault. The choir chapel originally contained a fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio, but was rebuilt in 1685-1701 by Ciro Ferri and Pier Francesco Silvani. Ferri painted the altarpiece and Luca Giordano the flanking pieces. The statues of Penitence and Faith on the right were sculpted by Innocenzo Spinazzi, while Innocence and Religion on the left by Giovanni Monatauti. The bronze reliefs on the altar were made by Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi.

The interior also contains works by Giovanni and Cosimo Bizzelli, Jacopo Chiavistelli, Ottavio Vannini, Cosimo Rosselli, Cosimo Gamberucci, Leonardo del Tasso, Giuseppe Servolini, and Giuseppe Piattoli among others.

Open
Daily 9am-noon; Mon-Fri 5-5:20pm and 6-6:50pm; Sat 5-6:20pm; Sun 5-6:50pm

Address
Entrance next to Borgo Pinti 58. Perugino Crucifixion, ring bell at no. 58 9-10am or enter through sacristy (knock at the last door on the right inside the church) at 5pm or 6:15pm daily

Churches in Florence | Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi