 Introduction
Orsanmichele was one of the three most important buildings in late medieval Florence, along with the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore (Il Duomo) and the Palazzo della Signoria. Orsanmichele (or Kitchen Garden of St. Michael, from the contraction in Tuscan dialect of the Italian word orto. Located on the Via Calzaiuoli it, was originally built as a grain market.
The present church, a very well-preserved 14th century building, developed from an oratory and a corn hall, for trading in grain, which held a miraculous picture that came in time to attract more worshippers than buyers, with the consequence that in the late 14th century the building's religious significance came to predominate. The delicate articulation of the external walls, the ornamentation, arches, niches, figures, mouldings, the marble infill in the window openings and the uncluttered tracery of the pillared arcades make the church's architecture of the highest order. The beauty of the architecture is complemented by important works of sculpture.
 History
In 1290 Arnolfo di Cambio built a loggia to serve as the grain market; it burned in 1304. In 1337 Francesco Talenti, Neri di Fioravante and Benci di Cione began the present structure, which was supposed to be a larger grain market. In 1380 the two upper floors were added to store grain for emergencies, and Simone Talenti closed the arcades of the ground floor to transform it into a church to be used as the chapel of Florence's powerful craft and trade guilds. The building is square in plan, and there are still, on the ground floor, the 13th century arches that formed the loggia. On the exterior of the chapel marble tabernacles were built to host statues of the patron saints of the Guilds, who commissioned the greatest artists of the period. The sculptures seen today are copies, all of the original sculptures have been removed and replaced with modern duplicates to protect them from the elements and vandalism. The originals reside in the Bargello or the museum of Orsanmichele.
 Location
Address:Via Calzaiuoli.
Transit: Bus: 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 23.
 Exterior
The intricately crafted niches (or tabernacles) on the facade, commissioned by the city's guilds, hold the individual guilds' patron saints.
On the Via dei Calzaiuoli side on the left is Lorenzo Ghiberti's "St John the Baptist" (1414), the first great Renaissance statue in bronze, in the next niche (by Donatello) can be seen Andrea del Verrocchio's major work "Incredulity of St Thomas" (ca. 1480), and "St Luke" by Giambologna (1600) is on the right.
On the Via dei Lamberti side, the south side, is "St Mark", an early Donatello (1411), "St James" by Lamberti (ca. 1422), "Madonna delle Rose" (1399, probably by Piero di Giovanni Tedesco) and "St John the Evangelist" by Baccio da Montelupo (1515).
The west facade holds Lorenzo Ghiberti's most important large statue, "St Matthew" (1419-1422), "St Stephen", also by Ghiberti (1428), and Nanni di Banco's "St Eligius" (1415).
On the north side is Donatello's "St Peter" (1408-1413), then Nanni di Banco's "St Philip" (1415) and "Four Crowned Saints" (1408), a group of martyrs, and a copy of Donatello's "St George" (1418; original in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, see Palazzo del Bargello).
 Interior
The interior of the two-naved church is impressive on account of its frescoes, paintings and stained-glass windows. At the back of the left-hand nave is the altar of St Anne with Francesco da Sangallo's marble sculpture "Madonna and Child with St Anne" (1526). The right-hand nave ends with Orcagna's famous Gothic marble tabernacle (1349-1359), its rich ornamentation setting off the miraculous picture of the Madonna (by Bernardo Daddi, 1347). Reliefs on the plinth show scenes from the life of the Virgin (front) and "Death and Assumption of the Virgin" with a self-portrait of Orcagna (back; 1359). The tabernacle is decorated with angels and prophets, sibyls, apostles and allegorical figures of the virtues. Pietro Migliore's marble grille with a bronze trellis (1366) is also an interesting feature.
 Useful information
Open: 09:00 till 12:00 and 16:00 till 18:00 Monday to Sunday
Tips: Photography prohibited.
Disabled: Full facilities for persons with disabilities.
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