Santa Margherita dei Cerchi, Florence

Santa Margherita dei Cerchi is a Catholic church devoted to Saint Margaret, dating from the 13th century and counted among Florence’s oldest churches. Its architecture is Romanesque. Written evidence places the church on record in 1032.

The Donati family worshipped here, and the building holds several Portinari tombs, linking it to Beatrice Portinari, Dante’s beloved. As local tradition has it, Dante married Gemma Donati here; that story is placed in either 1285 or 1290. Another tradition invites visitors to write appeals to Beatrice about their love lives and leave them in a basket near her shrine.

Inside, you can see an altarpiece showing the Madonna with Four Saints, painted by Neri di Bicci. The entrance also contains a chapel founded by Jacopo Salviati and Lucrezia de’ Medici.