ART, DEVOTION AND CIVIC HISTORY
A Renaissance square, a Marian sanctuary and one of the most important painting cycles of the Florentine modern manner.
Santissima Annunziata, one of Florence’s most important basilicas, overlooks the square of the same name and brings together art, devotion and civic history. This Marian sanctuary was founded by the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order.
YOUR PRIVATE GUIDE IN FLORENCE
Visit Santissima Annunziata with Giulia Bacci
I am Giulia Bacci, a licensed tour guide in Florence. I can guide you through the square, the basilica and the Votive Cloister with a private visit tailored to your interests and the time you have available.
THE SQUARE AND ITS URBAN DESIGN
Piazza della Santissima Annunziata
Piazza della Santissima Annunziata brings together art, devotion and civic history.
Approaching from Via Cesare Battisti, Via della Colonna or Via Gino Capponi, a music of arches, palaces and fountains opens before us. The bronze Ferdinando I de’ Medici appears as the proud conductor of a concert that began on 25 March 1250, when the Servites, seven Florentine noblemen, laid the foundation stone of the new Marian sanctuary.
In 1419, Filippo Brunelleschi designed the loggia for Florence’s first orphanage, the Istituto degli Innocenti. Its classical alternation of columns and arches, pietra serena and plaster, would become a model not only for the square but for the entire city.
A loggia could serve many purposes: shelter for pilgrims and the sick, a marketplace, a place of welcome and a symbol of civic and religious community.
In 1516, Antonio da Sangallo the Elder began the Loggia dei Serviti opposite Brunelleschi’s building. In 1599, Giovan Battista Caccini extended the portico of the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata, completing the work begun by Antonio Manetti in 1447.
In 1563, Giuliano di Baccio d’Agnolo began Palazzo Budini Gattai. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Palazzo delle Due Fontane echoed its colours. Jean de Boulogne, followed by Pietro Tacca, created the bronze equestrian monument to Ferdinando I in 1608; Tacca later made the two magnificent fountains, decorated with sea monsters and masks reflecting the taste of the modern manner.
Finally, Via dei Servi recalls the Servites, the founders of the sanctuary. Brunelleschi’s Dome receives and releases the magnificent proportions of the square, as though returning them to the whole city.
A PANTHEON OF THE MODERN MANNER
The Votive Cloister
A school of painting that became an essential destination for every lover of art and beauty.
Leaving the square to enter the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata, we first pass through the Votive Cloister. Its name preserves the memory of intense devotion: on the night between 7 and 8 September, country people came to the sanctuary carrying torches to light their way — a custom linked to Florence’s traditional Rificolona festival —, slept in the square and, the following day, confessed, received Communion and returned home.
After 1310, a wooden shelter was erected and later replaced by a permanent structure, the first Votive Cloister, rebuilt to a design by Michelozzo in 1447. During the feasts of 8 September and 2 February, the most beautiful votive offerings were displayed here.
This is not a true cloister but a covered portico, enclosed in the mid-nineteenth century in the hope of protecting its precious wall paintings. It preserves one of the most important fresco cycles in fifteenth- and especially sixteenth-century Florentine painting, devoted to the Holy Founders, the Adoration of the Magi and the life of the Virgin.
Alessio Baldovinetti
Cosimo Rosselli
Andrea del Sarto
Pontormo
Rosso Fiorentino
Franciabigio
THE MARIAN SANCTUARY
Basilica of Santissima Annunziata
On 25 March 1250, seven Florentine merchants devoted to the Virgin Mary climbed Mount Asinario — now known as Monte Senario — and founded the Servite Order. They later established Santa Maria di Cafaggio, named after the wooded area, which became the earliest nucleus of Santissima Annunziata.
The church was originally aligned east–west rather than north–south, corresponding to the area now occupied by Michelozzo’s tabernacle and the adjoining space. It had a small frescoed atrium and an early cloister. During the fourteenth century, important masters worked here, especially Orcagna and Taddeo Gaddi.
During the Renaissance, the Medici commissioned Michelozzo to enlarge the church and sacristy between 1444 and 1453 and to create the magnificent tabernacle for the miraculous image of the Annunciation.
According to tradition, the Servite friars commissioned a painter named Bartolomeo to depict the Annunciation. Unable to paint the face of the Virgin, he fell asleep and, on awakening, found that an angel had completed it.
THE HEART OF THE SANCTUARY
Michelozzo, the tabernacle and the tribune
Michelozzo was also entrusted with rebuilding the atrium in front of the sanctuary, reorganising the nave, creating the library and carrying out other works. Together with Pagno di Lapo, he built the richly decorated marble shrine that houses the miraculous fresco.
The adjoining room once contained the Armadio degli Argenti, whose doors were painted by Fra Angelico. The surviving panels are now preserved in the San Marco Museum in Florence.
Construction of the tribune, begun by Michelozzo and completed by Leon Battista Alberti, lasted from 1444 to 1477. The Renaissance renovation also brought major artists to decorate the chapels, including Andrea del Castagno, Alessio Baldovinetti and Cosimo Rosselli.
The sanctuary was celebrated for its sacred metalwork and votive offerings, reflecting the deep affection that the Florentine people have always shown for Santissima Annunziata.
THE GOLDEN AGE
The sixteenth century and the School of Santissima Annunziata
After the tribune was completed, work began on the high altar and the great altarpiece structure by Baccio d’Agnolo. Its twelve painted panels, dating from 1503 to 1507, include works by Filippino Lippi and Perugino. The complex was later enriched by works by Baccio Bandinelli and Giambologna, who designed an entire funerary chapel for himself and other Flemish artists.
The sixteenth century was a golden age for the sanctuary, thanks to painters such as Fra Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Domenico Puligo, Piero di Cosimo, Agnolo Bronzino and Alessandro Allori.
Between 1509 and 1516, the decoration of the atrium walls, begun by Cosimo Rosselli and Alessio Baldovinetti, was completed with ten new frescoes depicting the Stories of the Virgin and Saint Philip Benizi. This is the heart of the modern manner, as Giorgio Vasari would call it: Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Franciabigio and Rosso Fiorentino. Together they form the celebrated School of Santissima Annunziata.
A new kind of painting
Entering the Votive Cloister, we encounter the solid and noble painting of Andrea del Sarto, rich in theological and everyday references and distinguished by remarkable technique and portraiture.
Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino and Franciabigio developed highly innovative colour, using vivid and almost fluorescent tones, while still maintaining the historic Florentine search for naturalism that had continued since Giotto.
Other major sixteenth-century commissions include Andrea del Sarto’s Madonna del Sacco of 1525 in the Great Cloister and the Chapel of Saint Luke, formerly the Chapter House, inaugurated in 1562 and designed by the Servite sculptor Giovannangelo Montorsoli as a burial place for great artists.
The chapel is dedicated to the Trinity and the three arts and contains frescoes by Pontormo, Allori, Vasari and Santi di Tito, who also painted the Last Supper in the refectory. From 1630 onwards, the numerous votive offerings displayed on the arches and piers of the basilica were moved to the atrium, which consequently became known as the Votive Cloister.
FROM THE BAROQUE PERIOD TO THE MODERN AGE
Transformations, dispersal and memory
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
In 1655, the great silver ciborium, designed by Alfonso Parigi and made by Giovan Battista and Marco Antonio Merlini, was installed. The choir was transformed and the dome frescoed by Volterrano. During the eighteenth century, work continued in the Chapter House, the sacristy furnishings and the new large library.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The nineteenth century was a dark period for religious houses. The Napoleonic suppression of 1808 and that imposed by the Italian state in 1866 dispersed much of the cultural heritage and divided the complex among different institutions and owners. In 1866, the novitiate passed to the Istituto di Studi Superiori, later the University of Florence; the front area went to the parish and the central section to the Military Geographical Institute, before part of it was returned to the Servites.
A city within the city
The Basilica of Santissima Annunziata is one of Florence’s greatest treasures. It preserves exceptional works of Renaissance art and Medici patronage — including Michelozzo’s shrine and the great painting cycle of the first half of the sixteenth century — as well as major seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Baroque additions.
As often happens in Florence, this is a city within the city, where the history of Florence, its patrons, politics, faith and art are woven together.
BEFORE YOUR VISIT
Frequently asked questions about Santissima Annunziata
What can a visit to Santissima Annunziata include?
The visit can include the square, the Loggia degli Innocenti, the Votive Cloister, the basilica, the tabernacle of the miraculous image and the other accessible areas of the complex.
Why is the Votive Cloister so important?
It preserves a fundamental cycle of Florentine painting from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with works by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Franciabigio and other masters.
Can the visit be combined with other nearby sites?
Yes. Santissima Annunziata is close to the San Marco Museum, the Accademia Gallery, the Museo degli Innocenti and the Cathedral complex.
Is there a dress code?
The basilica is a consecrated place of prayer. Visitors are therefore expected to wear respectful clothing appropriate to the religious character of the sanctuary.
PERSONALISED GUIDED TOUR
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