Piazza Santissima Annunziata

This visit will explore the history of the Santissima Annunziata Square. For centuries, masses of worshipers were attracted to the Servite church and its conspicuous miracle-working image of the Virgin Mary, and after Florence’s recovery from the Black Death, the parish neighbourhood provided a prominent location for the construction of the city's first corporate-sponsored foundling hospital, the Ospedale degli Innocenti (designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, begun 1419). The square itself was largely formalized in the Renaissance with the addition of the Loggia dei Servi di Maria (begun 1452 by Antonio Manetti and others) and the equestrian monument to Ferdinando I de' Medici (by Giambologna, 1608). In both form and function, the resulting urban space remains a lasting testament to Florence's Renaissance Humanist values and the civic responsibilities of its leaders.