A place for meditation and study. The convent complex was commissioned by Cosimo the Elder to his favorite architect Michelozzo in 1437. The entire building responds to the rigid canons of Renaissance architecture inspired by Filippo Brunelleschi. Built on two levels, on the ground floor there is the beautiful Cloister of Sant'Antonino which leads to the Sala dell'Ospizio dei Pellegrini where the paintings of Beato Angelico are gathered, the Chapter
Room and the Refectory where there is the beautiful fresco of the Last Supper by Domenico del Ghirlandaio. Upstairs you can visit the cells that Fra Angelico decorated with frescoes for the friars of the convent, including Girolamo Savonarola’s cell: here there are some of his personal objects such as the chair and the habit.
From 1300 assigned to the Silvestrini monks, it then passed into the hands of the Dominicans in 1418 of which some names are still famous today: Beato Angelico, S. Antonino Pierozzi and the ferrarese friar Girolamo Savonarola who was also Prior of the Convent from 1489 to 1498 when he was hanged and burned in Piazza della Signoria, where there is still a plaque dedicated to him. The facade built entirely of strong stone dates back to 1777. The interior is richly decorated and with a decidedly Baroque appearance; a concentration of works of art that could not be imagined looking at the church from the outside. Fourteenth-century and Renaissance frescoes, Byzantine mosaics, Mannerist altarpieces and tombs of illustrious men. A great treasure to be discovered!