Convent
of San Francesco

Convent
of San Francesco

The monastic complex of San Francesco is the place where faith, art, and history converge, preserving the memory of many centuries of life in the city of Fiesole.

Built by the Friars Minor in 1399, enlarging the chapel and house for a community of Benedictine nuns dating from 1225, it can be reached by walking along the link with Francis Streets. The church is in neo-Gothic style, the result of restoration work directed in 1905 by architect Giuseppe Castellucci. The interior has a single-nave floor plan, divided into four bays by painted pilasters and with an ogival barrel-vaulted roof, and the exterior façade is adorned with two frescoes depicting St. Francis, placed in the lunette and vault of the prothyrum that surmounts the entrance portal.

The complex is the custodian of works of great artistic and cultural value. The following can be seen inside the church: the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine by Cenni di Francesco, the Immaculate Conception by Piero di Cosimo, a 15th-century Adoration of the Magi, the triptych Madonna Enthroned with Child among Angels and Saints by Bicci di Lorenzo, the Annunciation by Raffaellino del Garbo and the Crucifixion by Neri di Bicci. The convent, on the other hand, which is built around three porticoed cloisters, preserves in its rooms frescoes depicting the famous Franciscan episode of the Saint Preaching to the Birds.