Santa Monica, Former church in Oltrarno district, Florence, Italy.

The chiesa di Santa Monica is a Renaissance church in the Oltrarno district with a simple facade and a 15th-century portal. The Capponi family crest displayed above the entrance indicates the historical connections of this building.

In 1442 Ubertino de' Bardi and his wife founded the monastery for Sister Jacopa dei Gamberini and her Augustinian sisters of Castiglion Fiorentino, thanking her prayers for the birth of their son and sheltering the nuns from fighting between Florentine and Milanese troops. The church was begun in 1447 under Capponi patronage. Suppressed in 1808, the building later housed a Christian doctrine school and, from 1865, Florence's first charity nursery.

The name Santa Monica refers to the mother of Saint Augustine, to whom the Augustinian nuns dedicated the monastery in 1442. The nuns' raised choir on the counter-facade, with late 16th-century wooden stalls and a 17th-century organ case, shows how they attended services screened from the public. The deconsecrated hall now hosts meetings, exhibitions and concerts.

The former church is reached from via Santa Monaca at the corner of via dell'Ardiglione, in the Oltrarno; the street sign "VIA DELL'ORIUOLO" marks the neighbouring lane. The interior is a single hall entered through the carved wooden double door under the curved pediment. Much of the old monastery along via Santa Monaca now houses a youth hostel, and the remaining sides are private buildings, so only the church rooms are open to visitors.

Behind the public church the nuns had a twin church of nearly equal size, accessible only to them and to a priest. The monastery once covered the whole block; today a large quadrangular cloister with Tuscan arcades on three sides can still be made out in plans and aerial views, though its central space has been filled by later buildings.