Ognissanti

The All Saints church, near the Arno, just beyond the 2nd bridge downstream from the Ponte Vecchio, is one of the important churches we had not seen before. The more we learned about it, the more important it became to us. It took us three visits to see everything of interest.

Ognissanti, 13th century

Pretty Baroque nowadays; but it's not really the church you come to see

"Amerigo, the beautiful..." You see, the Ognissanti was the parish church of the
Vespucci family; that's Amerigo there just left of Mary; he was on a mission for
the Medicis, to check out the claims of the Genovan Cristoforo Colombo; he took
two separate cruises on said mission and came to the conclusion that Columbus
had not reached Asia nor the Indies but a whole new hitherto undiscovered
continent; actually two; in one of the better PR moves in history, Amerigo had
two continents named after him; the leading mapmakers of the day, it so happened,
were Florentines, so of course they promoted the local boy; and the rest is history

Simonetta Vespucci was the great beauty of her age, captivating her Vespucci
husband Marco, possibly Lorenzo the Magnificent's brother, Giuliano, and
most certainly the great painter of the age, Botticelli; she is Venus, Spring, the
Madonna, Eve and who knows what else among the works Botticelli pitched
into the Bonfires of the Vanities; she died quite young, 22; 34 years later
Botticelli asked to be buried at her feet in the chapel 

Thus

And thus

The day's love letters to Botticelli; the church also holds his
St. Augustine in His Study, but it was on loan for an exhibition
in Brazil

In the Ognissanti's refectory is Ghirlandaio's Last Supper, possibly the first of
this style of Last Supper; Ghirlandaio was Michaelangelo's first teacher

Incredibly, the sinopia for the fresco is on the adjacent wall, and one can study the
changes that occurred between design and realization

Detail; not Ghirlandaio's most famous work, but one of them

"Jeez, lame white wine, again!"

The cloister is filled with frescoes, including this one with bold new ideas about
tights for guys