San Michele Visdomini, Baroque church in central Florence, Italy

San Michele Visdomini stands on Piazza San Michele Visdomini at the corner of Via Bufalini and Via dei Servi. Its single nave is lined with lateral altars, and the transept opens into three chapels, two flanking the central one along the rear wall. The facade carries a large medallion with the Visdomini and Aliotti arms, a mitre and a pastoral staff between them, framed by a partly legible Gothic inscription naming the families as founders and patrons.

The original church, under the patronage of the Visdomini family, was demolished in 1363 to make room for the tribunes of the new Florence Cathedral. The present building was begun in 1364, with Bishop Andrea Corsini of Fiesole laying the first stone on land provided by the Del Palagio family. Celestine monks officiated from 1552 to 1782 and carried out a radical remodelling funded by Livia Vernazza, widow of Giovanni di Cosimo I de' Medici, to a design by Michelangelo Pacini with Francesco Masini.

The name Visdomini comes from "vice domino", a title for an administrator in an episcopal office. Inside, the Pucci chapel holds Pontormo's Holy Family and Saints, painted in 1518 for Francesco Pucci. The church also keeps 15th-century inlaid wooden cupboards from the destroyed San Pier Maggiore, and a plaque on the facade recalls that the painter Filippino Lippi was buried here.

The church is positioned at a busy intersection, making it easily accessible on foot from several directions in central Florence. Visitors should be prepared to find internal spaces arranged in different styles due to centuries of renovations and adjustments.

The 1966 flood damaged the church, and restoration work then brought to light 14th-century fresco fragments and sinopie in the transept chapels. The chapel to the right of the main one preserves remains attributed to Spinello Aretino, while the left chapel keeps a 14th-century Crucifix called dei Bianchi, brought by the Celestines from San Pier Murrone.