San Marco Museum

The San Marco Museum is housed in the former Dominican convent located in the square bearing the same name. The convent was renovated and enlarged by Michelozzo following a commission by Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici who invested a considerable amount of money in it.

The architect worked on it from 1439 to 1444 creating a complex designed in a linear and functional way. The rooms develop around two cloisters: the Cloister of Sant'Antonino and the Cloister of San Domenico. The focal point is the library that housed the Medici family's library which included ancient Latin and Greek texts, and were the object of study by important personalities such as Pico della Mirandola and Agnolo Poliziano.

The monastery, consecrated in 1443, was the gathering point for intense religious activity. Among the illustrious people who passed through it, we should mention Sant'Antonino Pierozzi, archbishop of Florence, Beato Angelico and Girolamo Savonarola, who was prior of this convent.

The San Marco monastery contains many works by Beato Angelico, a Dominican friar, who decorated both public and private spaces with a delicate but at the same time exquisite style: the Chapter Room, Sant'Antonino Cloister and the cells of the friars. Of particular interest is the cell of Cosimo the Elder, which Angelico created with the help of some collaborators including Benozzo Gozzoli.

Among the many works by Angelico, the most famous are the Crucifixion with Saints which is located in the chapter room and the Annunciation near the friars’ cells.

In the chapter room there is a bell linked to the Savonarolian period and known by the Florentines as "the Piagnona" (the whiner) as the followers of the Dominican friar were called "Piagnoni" to indicate their constant complaints and preaching.

Another important artist that can be admired at the complex was Fra Bartolomeo with his most famous works such as La Pala della Signoria and the Portrait of Savonarola.

In what was once the guesthouse, there is the Cenacle of San Marco where Domenico del Ghirlandaio frescoed a beautiful Last Supper in 1486.