Church & Museum of Orsanmichele

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.