Santa Lucia dè Magnoli, Renaissance church in Oltrarno district, Florence, Italy
Santa Lucia dei Magnoli is a Renaissance church in the Oltrarno area of Florence, distinguished by a stone facade featuring a terracotta relief of Saint Lucy with two flanking angels. The building sits on Via de'Bardi, surrounded by other historic structures in this part of the city.
The church was founded in 1078 by Cavaliere Uguccione Della Pressa as one of roughly 36 parishes within Florence's final city walls, built between 1284 and 1345. This origin tied it to the city's early religious organization during a crucial period of urban expansion.
The name "dei Magnoli" comes from Magnolo, son of founder Uguccione Della Pressa, who completed the church and whose descendants administered it. A 1646 plaque by the Signori Otto on the facade forbids games near the building. The church was long also called Santa Lucia delle Rovinate, after the landslides that struck the slope in front of it.
The church stands on Via de' Bardi in the Oltrarno, its entrance marked by a 1956 tabernacle commemorating Saint Francis's 1211 stop at the leper hospice once facing it. The bell tower, a two-arched sail, is best seen from Lungarno Torrigiani behind the church. A 1646 plaque by the Signori Otto on the facade forbids games near the building.
In 1620 Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena of Austria had Andrea del Sarto's Disputation on the Trinity of 1517 removed from this church for the Medici collections. Ottavio Vannini's 17th-century copy took its place, and in 1862 it was moved here as compensation when Domenico Veneziano's Sacra conversazione left on loan.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,076 contributors worldwide.