Religious, Spiritual sights in Florence
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Basilica di San Lorenzo
Founded in the late 4th-century, San Lorenzo lays claim to being the oldest church in Florence and once served as its cathedral. The current incarnation dates to the 1420s, when the Medici hired Brunelleschi to spruce up their parish church. The facade may look like a pile of rough-cut stones, but it belies the extraordinary, light-filled interior. The harmonious geometry, quantities of natural light and classical Corinthian columns of pietra serena (soft grey stone) were unlike anything in Christendom. Michelangelo was commissioned to design the facade in 1518, though it was never executed; hence its unfinished appearance. Donatello, who sculpted the church’s two bronze …
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B
Sinagoga e Museo di Storia e Arte Ebraica
This late-19th-century synagogue is a fanciful structure with playful Moorish and even Byzantine elements. Although Florence was home to a Jewish community since at least the 14th century, serious discussion on the building of an appropriate temple only began around 1850, after the town authorities had definitively dropped all discriminatory regulations against the Jews.
The playfulness of the exterior of the synagogue that resulted is matched inside by the prayer hall, sumptuously (if a little gloomily) decorated with Arabesques and held together by Moorish-style arches. Up on the top floor is the small museum. You can see Jewish ceremonial objects and some old codices,…
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C
Cappella Brancacci
Inside the rather workaday baroque finery of Basilica di Santa Maria del Carmine, the small Brancacci chapel harbours one of the great treasures of early Renaissance art. Commissioned in 1424, the fresco cycle was begun by Masolino, but it’s the work of his pupil Masaccio, then only 22, that makes art historians launch into paeans. His most important contributions include Expulsion of Adam and Eve, Tribute Money, St Peter Healing the Sick and Distribution of Alms and Death of Ananias. Besides their naturalism and successful use of perspective, Masaccio’s depiction of emotion – particularly Eve’s anguish – lends the cycle a remarkable combination of immediacy and humanit…
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D
Chiesa di San Firenze
From as early as 1645, the Oratorian Fathers wanted to expand the small parish church of San Firenze. For the next century, architects and finances came and went, and the design continued to change. The original church, which stood on the right flank of the present building, was to have a chapel and convent added. In the end, a new church, dedicated to St Philip Neri, was built on the left flank and the San Firenze church was reduced to an oratory.
The two were then linked and the whole complex became known, erroneously, as Chiesa di San Firenze. The late-baroque façade that unites the buildings was completed in 1775. Today most of the building is occupied by law courts, …
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E
Chiesa di Sant'Ambrogio
A rather dull 18th-century façade hides centuries of church history on this site. The first church here was raised in the 10th century, but what you see inside is a mix of 13th-century Gothic and 15th-century refurbishment. The name comes from the powerful 4th-century archbishop of Milan, Sant'Ambrogio (St Ambrose), who stayed in an earlier convent on this site when he visited Florence. The church is something of an artists' graveyard too.
Among those who rest in peace here are Mino da Fiesole, Il Verrocchio and Il Cronaca. Nearby is the local produce market, Mercato di Sant'Ambrogio, on Piazza Ghiberti.
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F
Chiesa di San Marco
At the heart of Florence’s university area sits the Chiesa di San Marco.
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