Basilica della Santissima Annunziata & the Bronze Grand Duke
Why is it significant?
Before you step under the portico of the basilica, turn and face the bronze rider in the middle of the square.
Key Facts
| Place | Basilica della Santissima Annunziata & the Bronze Grand Duke |
|---|---|
| Address | Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, 50121 Firenze FI, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 43.77700, 11.26140 |
| Part of Walk | From the Dome to David: Brunelleschi, Ghiberti and Michelangelo in Florence |
| Generated | Generated |
Before you step under the portico of the basilica, turn and face the bronze rider in the middle of the square. It is Grand Duke Ferdinando the First, begun by Giambologna and finished after his death by his pupil Pietro Tacca in 1608, and an inscription on the base boasts that the bronze came from cannons captured from the Turks.
An English poet saw something else in him. Florentine legend said the duke had loved a married lady who lived in the palace on the corner of Via dei Servi, and that his statue was turned to gaze at her window for ever. Robert Browning made it a poem, The Statue and the Bust, published in 1855, about two lovers who wait and wait and never dare. Follow the duke's stare and you will find the window.
Now go in. The first space is a small courtyard, the Chiostrino dei Voti, and its walls are a duel between young painters around 1510 to 1517: Andrea del Sarto, and two of his pupils, Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino. Their twisting figures and acid colours are among the first steps of what we now call Mannerism. Inside the church, by the entrance, a marble shrine designed by Michelozzo protects a fresco of the Annunciation. Legend says that in 1252 the painter fell asleep before finishing the Virgin's face, and woke to find an angel had done it for him. Florentine brides still leave their bouquets here.
Imagine this church crowded with people who never moved. For centuries grateful pilgrims hung life-size wax figures of themselves from the walls and ceiling, dressed in their own clothes, some even on horseback. After he survived the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478, Lorenzo de' Medici had a wax double of himself made, and one was placed here. The whole eerie crowd was cleared away at the end of the eighteenth century.
This is also an artists' church. Giambologna lies in the chapel he designed behind the high altar, Andrea del Sarto and Benvenuto Cellini are buried here too. Leave the square from its top right-hand corner and walk a few blocks north to the gate of the old Medici herb garden.