Tour n° 9: St. Mark’s Museum

St. Mark’s Museum

Built in the 13th century as a convent for the Silvestrine order, it was given to the Dominicans in the early 15th century at the behest of Pope Eugene IV .

Thanks to the financing of an imposing sum of money by Cosimo the Elder of the Medici family, it was at that time the subject of a major renovation project, carried out in the 1930s by a young and talented architect, Michelozzo di Bartolomeo.

The renovation work saw the construction of two beautiful cloisters, overlooked by the chapter house, refectories and guest quarters, the refurbishment of the monks’ cells on the first floor, and the beautiful Library.

At the same time as the architectural renovation, an extraordinary pictorial decoration was carried out by a monk painter, Fra’ Giovanni da Fiesole, known as Beato Angelico, who, together with his pupils, executed a cycle of paintings, still visible today in the dormitory and other rooms of the monastery, unique in the world.

First the Napoleonic suppressions and then the confiscations by the state with the unification of Italy were the first steps in the transformation of a large part of the convent, until then inaccessible to the general public, into a museum, which took place in the early 20th century.

Today, the San marco Museum is considered one of the most important museums in the city for housing the world’s largest collection of the works of one of the most significant artists of the Italian Renaissance, Beato Angelico.