Museum of Orsanmichele, Religious art museum in central Florence, Italy
The Museum of Orsanmichele occupies the upper floors of a Gothic building in the heart of Florence, once used as a grain market and later as a church. The interior houses the original sculptures removed from the facade niches, alongside other works from the 14th and 15th centuries.
The building was erected from 1337 on the site of an earlier covered grain loggia that had burned down. Over the following centuries it served alternately as a market, a place of worship, and a storage space before becoming a museum.
The outer walls of the building are lined with niches, each one originally belonging to a Florentine trade guild that commissioned a statue of its patron saint. Walking along the facade, visitors can still identify the emblems of each guild carved into the stone.
The building stands on Via Arte della Lana, a short walk from the cathedral, and the museum entrance is separate from the ground-floor church. It is worth checking both entry points before arriving, as they lead to different parts of the building.
Many visitors do not realize that the building's name comes from a small garden that once stood next to an earlier chapel on the same site. The name Orsanmichele likely derives from "orto" meaning garden, combined with San Michele, the saint to whom that early chapel was dedicated.
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