
Piazza della Santissima Annunziata
Renaissance square framed by porticoes, home to a foundling hospital's arcaded facade and a bronze equestrian statue.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Piazza della Santissima Annunziata in Florence starts at the foundling wheel set into the loggia, the wooden cylinder where mothers once left infants at the Ospedale degli Innocenti without ever being seen. It covers Filippo Brunelleschi's arcaded loggia, begun in 1419 for the city's silk guild, the first child who arrived there in 1445, and the keepsakes some mothers tucked in hoping to reclaim their children. Then turn to the piazza's center, where a bronze rider on horseback watches over the square.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Museo degli Innocenti
Renaissance foundling hospital with a revolving anonymous window and drawers of tokens once split between mothers and children.
Loggia del Mercato Nuovo
Bronze boar fountain rubbed for luck beside a marble stone once used to shame bankrupt merchants.
The SS. Annunziata di Firenze
Renaissance basilica famed for a fresco locals believe an angel finished, and centuries of wax votive figures.
Loggia dei Lanzi
Open-air Gothic loggia sheltering Renaissance and classical sculptures beside a grand civic square.
Church & Museum of Orsanmichele
Former grain-market loggia with a jeweled Gothic tabernacle and guild-commissioned Renaissance statue niches.
Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore
Gothic cathedral topped by the world's largest masonry dome, a feat of Renaissance engineering.