Chiesa di Sant'Egidio

Beautiful church adjacent to the S.M.Nuova hospital! Town center'

Beautiful church, a little hidden inside an ancient hospital, but worth a visit.

Very nice church, good architecture. How beautiful is Italy.

A beautiful and historic church in the heart of the oldest Florentine hospital in the world

A masterpiece of less advertised and sponsored Florence. It houses significant works of art.

Of very ancient foundation, it was part of a Romanesque convent that was located outside the walls. Incorporated in the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, after the foundation of the latter by Folco Portinari in 1289, it followed its fate ever since. It was rebuilt for the first time, maintaining a single nave without a transept, on the initiative of the spedalingo Benedetto da Montebello, who entrusted the design to Lorenzo di Bicci. It was reconsecrated in 1419 by Pope Martino V. Of the first fifteenth-century reconstruction, today only a fresco by Bicci di Lorenzo remains, with the Consecration of Sant'Egidio, now detached and preserved inside the hospital. Between 1439 and 1461 some of the most famous Renaissance artists worked on a cycle of frescoes: from Domenico Veneziano, to Andrea del Castagno and Alesso Baldovinetti, but their work, which according to contemporaries had an importance among the works of the first renaissance equal only to that of the Brancacci Chapel, it was almost completely destroyed: only a few fragments of the sinopias remain, which are, however, not very significant because they relate to the base only, preserved in the Museum of the Cenacle of Sant'Apollonia. The Tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament dates back to 1450, composed of a marble decoration with an Annunciation in bas-relief by Bernardo Rossellino and a bronze door decorated with a Blessing Christ by Lorenzo Ghiberti (the door is now replaced by a copy for safeguarding needs ). At the main altar was the Adoration of the Magi by Lorenzo Monaco, a masterpiece of the Florentine international Gothic style, now in the Uffizi, replaced in 1483 by the even more important Portinari Triptych by Hugo van der Goes, the grandiose Flemish altarpiece which was admired and copied studied by the major Florentine artists, such as Domenico Ghirlandaio and Sandro Botticelli, also in the Uffizi, not surprisingly in the large room dedicated to the artist of Spring and the Birth of Venus. Thanks to the comparison with Flemish works, Florentine art reached these heights of realism and brightness that the masters of Flanders already knew. The current appearance of the church is due to the last renovation of the late sixteenth century, designed by Bernardo Buontalenti and put in place by Giulio Parigi, when the frescoes were covered by four classical side altars in serene stone, decorated with large altarpieces. The invention of the curved staircase that leads to the mezzanine floor of the altar also dates back to Buontalenti, while the balustrade, although it blends harmoniously, is from the following century, like the altar decorated with inlays of hard stones, the so-called Florentine shop assistant. The altarpiece depicts Sant'Egidio in the cave and is by Giacinto Gemigniani da Pistoia, seventeenth-century author. The following canvases are found at the altars: -Madonna with Child and Saints by Felice Ficherelli known as Il Riposo (1605-1669) -Probatic swimming pool by Giovan Battista Paggi (1554-1627) -Deposition by Alessandro Allori, from 1579 -San Ludovico del Volterrano The ceiling decoration dates back to the 18th century and is the result of the collaboration between Giuseppe Tonelli, author of the architectural squares, and Matteo Bonechi, painter of the figures. Among the buried personalities stands out Folco Portinari, the founder of the hospital, buried in front of the staircase with other characters from his family. Many of the original works of the church are now located in the representative rooms of the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital.

Ancient Catholic place of worship incorporated in the ancient hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.