Convent San Marco, Dominican friary in Florence, Italy
Convent San Marco is a Dominican friary on Piazza San Marco in Florence, comprising a church and a convent rebuilt by Michelozzo for Cosimo de' Medici from 1439 to 1444. The church has a single nave with side chapels by Giambologna and a Neo-Classical facade of 1777–1778. The convent is arranged around two cloisters, with a chapter house, two refectories, a library, and friars' cells on the upper floor.
The friary was originally founded by Sylvestrine monks but transferred to the Dominican Observant order in 1438. Cosimo de Medici financed major renovations, shaping the complex into the form it still holds today.
Fra Angelico painted the cloister lunettes and the friars' cells between 1438 and 1445, starting with the five oldest lunettes of the Cloister of Sant'Antonino, among them Christ as a Pilgrim Welcomed by Two Dominicans. In the chapter house his Crucifixion and Saints (1441–1442) fills the north wall, its surrounding medallions of saints painted by his assistant Benozzo Gozzoli.
The museum entrance is off the Cloister of St. Antoninus, whose lunettes carry frescoes by Bernardino Poccetti and other artists of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Fra Angelico's frescoes fill the cells on the upper floor, reached by Michelozzo's staircase; the chapter house holds his Crucifixion of 1441–1442. The church, with Giambologna's side chapels and the 1777–1778 Neo-Classical facade, is entered separately.
Cosimo de' Medici kept a cell in the guest corridor next to the friars' cells, and Pope Eugene IV slept in it the night the church was consecrated in 1443. Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli painted the cells of the dormitory, Cosimo's included.
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