Ognissanti

Another favorite is the Ognissanti, the church of all the saints (and also all the martyrs, known and unknown), located in the Vespucci neighborhood. It's a little out of the way and certainly not one of the biggies as Florence churches go. We go there primarily for the Vespucci thing, which is complex, and also for the Ghirlandiao Last Supper and others in the refectory. It is open for visitors only on Saturdays and Mondays and hence there are few tourists and no field trips.

From the little market across the street

The building dates from the 13th century but it was re-modeled extensively in
the 17th ("if it ain't Baroque...").

I have photographed Ghirlandiao's wonderful St. Jerome
before; this is actually a copy, as Vicki astutely noticed;
the original is undergoing restoration 

"Amerigo, the beautiful" Yes, that Vespucci

Botticelli's St. Augustine

Simonetta, the love of Botticelli's life, had married into the Vespucci clan and
is buried at Ognissanti; Botticelli is buried, as he requested, at her feet; he carried
the torch for 46 years after she died

Outside in the cloister...the 1966 flood waters got this high

Ghirlandiao's Last Supper takes up one end of the refectory and is remarkable
not least because Leonardo studied it before doing his Last Supper (which we'll
see next Saturday in Milan)

It's remarkable too because the sinopia is on an adjacent wall and one can see
some of the changes effected from the design

Other sinopias

Other frescoes

This Annunciation has always interested me--it is clearly
older than the Ghirlandiao pieces in the room; it was
Saturday morning and a volunteer docent was able to tell me
it was "anonimo" but dated 1300. Woof.