The Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova dates back to 1288 and since then it has been the oldest hospital in Florence still operating in the historic center of the city.
The Church of Sant’Egidio is part of the museum and hospital complex, now a place of worship located in the center of the hospital’s porch.
The church was used as a convent of the “Friars of the penance of Jesus Christ”, a mendicant order that existed until 1274. The convent was soon transformed into a men’s hospitalization ward, separate from the one dedicated to women. However, both rooms were connected by an underground passage that still exists and can be seen on the square in front of the hospital.
From the 17th century the whole complex passed to the Medici Grand Dukes who began a long renovation of all the rooms, including those of a hygienic-sanitary nature.
At the end of the 1400s, Leonardo da Vinci established a school of human anatomy where artists could also go to study the human body in detail.
Today inside the hospital you can admire extraordinary artistic works dating back to different eras but all on religious and welfare themes.
Book the guided tour with Florenceforanyone and discover the oldest hospital in Florence, where art and medicine have been intertwined for over 700 years.
Guided tour route
The guided tour of the Santa Maria Nuova hospital complex starts from the Loggia dating back to the 17th century and decorated with marble busts depicting the Medici Grand Dukes. Among these is the bust of Ferdinand 2. A cycle of frescoes with a religious theme from the 1600s completes the decoration of the Loggia.
From the Loggia you reach the entrance to the hospital decorated with a polychrome terracotta high-relief with a religious theme depicting the Coronation of the Virgin of 1400. Below the work is an evocative fresco concerning the Consecration of St Egidio, also from 1400.
The itinerary continues in the Room of the Crucifixes where two important crucifixes from the 1500s and 1600s are exhibited as well as other architectural decorations including the relief of the “crutch” that has always been the symbol of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.
The Rooms of the Ancestors, now home to the Offices of the Health Authority, where artistic works with religious and welfare themes are kept.
We then move on to the Matroneum of St Egidio, a suggestive gallery once reserved for the Oblates to attend religious services.
Continuing on, you arrive at the Cloister of Bones, a small porticoed courtyard with a cemetery function. We then enter the Chapel of the Laurels, frescoed entirely by Alessandro Allori in 1578.
Continuing on, you arrive at the Church of St Egidio, annexed to the Hospital in 1305, or years after the foundation of Santa Maria Nuova. Inside there are four classical altars in serene stone decorated with paintings and large altarpieces.
The Santa Maria Nuova Hospital is an exclusive journey through sacred art, Renaissance medicine and Medici history: book the guided tour!
The stages with Florenceforanyone
The stages of the tour at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova:
- Façade and Loggia
- Entrance
- Room of the Crucifixes
- Rooms of the Ancestors
- Women’s gallery
- Cloister of Bones
- Chapel of the Laurels
- Church of Sant’Egidio
