Basilica di Santa Maria del Santo Spirito, Florence

Santo Spirito is the church before you, a major Florentine basilica with a deliberately plain exterior opening onto its namesake square. Its interior stretches for 97 m and ranks among the outstanding achievements of Renaissance architecture. Filippo Brunelleschi created the design, with Giuliano da Sangallo and Antonio Ciaccheri also credited as architects.

The chapels form a repeated rhythm around the interior, while the broad arcades make the ground plan unusually easy to read. The building began as an Augustinian foundation in 1252, and the convent became a place of advanced study and lively humanist exchange. Giovanni Boccaccio visited the community and left his personal library to it after his death.

In 1492, Michelangelo stayed here as a teenager and was allowed to study human anatomy through dissections; he later gave the convent a crucifix now kept in the sacristy. The rich canopy above the main altar was made by Giovanni Battista Caccini with Gherardo Silvani. That later addition brings elaborate sculpture and hard-stone decoration into Brunelleschi’s spacious, disciplined interior.