Santa Maria Novella Square

Piazza Santa Maria Novella was opened in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, alongside construction of the grand Dominican complex. The Friars Preachers arrived in Florence in 1219, and their small original church outside the twelfth-century walls soon proved inadequate for the increasingly popular and powerful order. Work on the new complex began in 1278 and ended only in the mid-fourteenth century. The large space before the façade served preaching, the Dominicans’ preferred means of combating heresy. During the fifteenth century Leon Battista Alberti completed the basilica’s magnificent façade, while the loggia of the Hospital of San Paolo was built opposite. That building now houses the Museo Novecento, an important collection of twentieth-century Italian art and a leading exhibition venue. The two sixteenth-century obelisks at the square’s ends once served as turning posts for the Palio dei Cocchi, a traditional race of horse-drawn chariots. Elegant and grand, the square is one of Florence’s most atmospheric spaces and often hosts important city events.