DISCOVER FLORENCE

The church and convent of the Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence are very old; their foundation is dated just after the middle of the thirteenth century, by a group of Carmelite friars from Pisa. It is the first of the large complexes built by the mendicant orders in Florence. The oldest environments in the monastery are the ones developed around the current cloister, which was rebuilt during the seventeenth century. In particular the old section overlooking the porch and the Cenacolo hall which were decorated in 1581 by Alessandro Allori.

The Brancacci Chapel is located inside the church, a masterpiece universally known for the cycle of frescoes “Life of St. Peter” by Masaccio and Masolino. Painted in the years 1425-1427 they were left incomplete and later completed by Filippino Lippi between 1481 and 1482.

In the convent, in the Sala della Colonna there are several frescoes and preparatory drawings coming from the same monastery and the church, in particular two of the early frescoes by Filippo Lippi, Gherardo Stamina’s frescoes from the destroyed Chapel of St. Jerome and two preparatory drawings attributed to Masaccio and Masolino found in the Brancacci Chapel.