ARCHITECT, Italian
(active 1450s in Fiesole)

Interior view

1450s
Photo
Badia Fiesolana, Fiesole

The original church and Camaldolite convent in Fiesole was rebuilt in 1025-28 and, more drastically, in 1456-64 after the church was taken over by Augustinian canons. The last rebuilding is what we see today, with the only remainder of the first reconstruction being the Romanesque polychrome marble section of the otherwise unfinished façade. The 15th century work was funded by Cosimo the Elder, and is by local masters inspired by Brunelleschi and Alberti. In 1520 the complex was temporarily used as a hospice for sufferers from Florence's syphilis epidemic. Today it is the home of the EU-funded European University Institute.

The interior is very tall, barrel-vaulted and impressively bare, and thereby probably truer to Brunelleschi's spirit. The flat-ended choir is deep and also bare. Four tall and deep square chapels either side of the single nave have matching plain altars but a variety of contents.