Orsanmichele

The church of Orsanmichele, rising in the heart of the old city between its civic and religious centres, is a major cultural and visual landmark in the history of early Renaissance and republican Florence. In the 15th century, Orsanmichele served as a place of confraternal charity, Christian worship and also as the commune’s granary. The guilds of Florence, which made up the government of the city, had patronage rights over the monument and, in the first decades of the Quattrocento, they commissioned a series of sculptures to decorate the building’s façade, giving the site a unique character that spoke to the creation of a communal identity. This Orsanmichele visit involves approaching the façade’s sculptures from the street and studying works of art by Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Nanni di Banco and Verrocchio.

Church of Orsanmichele, Florence