Description
Piazza della Santissima Annunziata is one of Florence's most harmonious squares: arcaded on three sides, with two twin buildings on the fourth, north of Piazza del Duomo. Of all the city's squares it is the one that best expresses the ideals of the Renaissance city.
At the end of the straight Via dei Servi the dome of the Duomo appears framed as if in a telescope. It is a deliberate effect: the architects who worked here, starting with Brunelleschi, wanted a square that would be a perfect world in itself.
The left side is the Spedale degli Innocenti, with Brunelleschi's loggia, begun in 1419: the first great work of the Renaissance in the city. The columns are ten braccia apart and nine high, so each bay is almost a cube closed by a small dome. The architects who came after took it as their measure.
Under the loggia, the busts of the grand dukes Cosimo I, Francesco I and Ferdinando I.
From 1516 a twin portico rose on the opposite side, the loggia of the Servi di Maria. At the far end stands the basilica della Santissima Annunziata, with its portico: it holds a miraculous Annunciation which, according to legend, was painted by an angel.
In the center rises the equestrian monument to Ferdinando I, Giambologna's last work, finished by his pupil Pietro Tacca in 1608. The grand duke wears no toga or crown: he wears modern armor, with the cross of Saint Stephen on his chest.
Farther back, symmetrical, are the bronze fountains of the sea monsters, from 1629, Tacca's masterpiece: they were meant for Livorno, but people liked them so much that they were set up here.
Even so, it took almost two centuries to finish. At first there was no city here: it was open countryside, outside the walls, with woods and pastures. In the 1200s the Servi di Maria founded their church here.
So many pilgrims came, especially on September 8, that a square was needed, and then a road to reach it: Via dei Servi. On the eve, September 7, falls the Rificolona festival, which is said to come from the lanterns of the pilgrims headed for the basilica. Every year on Epiphany the old market is still held here.
By the 1600s the square already had the shape it has now, and the 1684 guide called it “square and quite wide,” with loggias from which it gets “the look of a theater.”
Probably because of the statue and the fountains, no games or tournaments were played here, as in Piazza Santa Croce and Piazza Santa Maria Novella: there was no free space.
Don't miss
• The two sea monster fountains.
• The Innocenti loggia.
• The swarm of bees on the statue's base.
• The view of the dome from Via dei Servi.
Did you know?
• There are 91 bees on the base, arranged in staggered circles to confuse anyone trying to count them: 90 workers and a queen, the grand duke surrounded by his people.
• The statue was cast from the bronze of cannons taken from Turkish galleys; on the horse's strap it says “De' metalli rapiti al fero Trace,” and the people twisted it into “De' denari rubati in guerra e in pace.”
• Under the Servi loggia a plaque from 1613 forbade games, rubbish and gatherings, under penalty of two pulls of the rope.
At the end of the straight Via dei Servi the dome of the Duomo appears framed as if in a telescope. It is a deliberate effect: the architects who worked here, starting with Brunelleschi, wanted a square that would be a perfect world in itself.
The left side is the Spedale degli Innocenti, with Brunelleschi's loggia, begun in 1419: the first great work of the Renaissance in the city. The columns are ten braccia apart and nine high, so each bay is almost a cube closed by a small dome. The architects who came after took it as their measure.
Under the loggia, the busts of the grand dukes Cosimo I, Francesco I and Ferdinando I.
From 1516 a twin portico rose on the opposite side, the loggia of the Servi di Maria. At the far end stands the basilica della Santissima Annunziata, with its portico: it holds a miraculous Annunciation which, according to legend, was painted by an angel.
In the center rises the equestrian monument to Ferdinando I, Giambologna's last work, finished by his pupil Pietro Tacca in 1608. The grand duke wears no toga or crown: he wears modern armor, with the cross of Saint Stephen on his chest.
Farther back, symmetrical, are the bronze fountains of the sea monsters, from 1629, Tacca's masterpiece: they were meant for Livorno, but people liked them so much that they were set up here.
Even so, it took almost two centuries to finish. At first there was no city here: it was open countryside, outside the walls, with woods and pastures. In the 1200s the Servi di Maria founded their church here.
So many pilgrims came, especially on September 8, that a square was needed, and then a road to reach it: Via dei Servi. On the eve, September 7, falls the Rificolona festival, which is said to come from the lanterns of the pilgrims headed for the basilica. Every year on Epiphany the old market is still held here.
By the 1600s the square already had the shape it has now, and the 1684 guide called it “square and quite wide,” with loggias from which it gets “the look of a theater.”
Probably because of the statue and the fountains, no games or tournaments were played here, as in Piazza Santa Croce and Piazza Santa Maria Novella: there was no free space.
Don't miss
• The two sea monster fountains.
• The Innocenti loggia.
• The swarm of bees on the statue's base.
• The view of the dome from Via dei Servi.
Did you know?
• There are 91 bees on the base, arranged in staggered circles to confuse anyone trying to count them: 90 workers and a queen, the grand duke surrounded by his people.
• The statue was cast from the bronze of cannons taken from Turkish galleys; on the horse's strap it says “De' metalli rapiti al fero Trace,” and the people twisted it into “De' denari rubati in guerra e in pace.”
• Under the Servi loggia a plaque from 1613 forbade games, rubbish and gatherings, under penalty of two pulls of the rope.