Church & Museum of Orsanmichele
Former grain-market loggia with a jeweled Gothic tabernacle and guild-commissioned Renaissance statue niches.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Church and Museum of Orsanmichele in Florence begins with a 1304 fire, set by a vengeful friar, that tore through the city's grain market on this spot and left one painted Madonna eerily untouched. It follows what happened when the Black Death swept through in 1348 and terrified Florentines flooded the shrine with coin, and how the confraternity guarding that fortune spent it on a jeweled marble tabernacle. Look up at the spiral columns and colored glass surrounding the small painting.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
The SS. Annunziata di Firenze
Renaissance basilica famed for a fresco locals believe an angel finished, and centuries of wax votive figures.
Baptistery of St. John
Octagonal baptistery famed for gilded bronze doors and a glittering Byzantine mosaic ceiling.
Basilica of Santa Maria Novella
Dominican basilica with a green-and-white marble facade and a crucifix carved to outdo a rival.
Basilica di San Lorenzo
Renaissance basilica with a bare, never-finished brick facade and Medici family tombs inside.
Museo Marino Marini Firenze
Deconsecrated medieval church holding a sculptor's restless bronze horses beside a still-sacred Renaissance tomb chapel.
Opera del Duomo Museum
Museum of original Duomo and Baptistery masterpieces, including Michelangelo's unfinished Pietà.