Just perusing google maps in preparation for a visit to Florence and I noticed an odd-looking structure just north-east of Mercato Centrale. It is bounded by via Taddea, Via Panicale, Via Sant'Orsola & Via Guelfa. It has a large circular structure/ hole in the middle of a courtyard.

When I go to street view, I see that windows around almost the entire block are bricked up, and the area looks to be in a state of destruction or reconstruction.

Does anyone know what that's all about? And has anything changed since the google map images were taken?

My guess is that it is the former convent of Sant'Orsola.

Article

According to this article, the former convent is being renovated into a multi-use complex.

It is the abandoned convent Sant'Orsola, which was built in 1309. Through the centuries it was used for many things, even a tobacco factory.

The octagonal structure centered in the atrium could be many things, but I am guessing that it is a planter of some kind.

This is interesting:
"A death certificate shows that Lisa Gherardini — the woman some have identified as the model for the "Mona Lisa" — died on July 15, 1542, in Florence and is buried in a convent in central Florence, Giuseppe Pallanti said."

The convent being Sant'Orsola.

Peter

That hole is huge. Looks like you can fit a car in it. Could that have been a well?

Google maps Satellite View - Via Sant'Orsola

Thanks, Sherlocks
Marta, looks like the hole could fit three cars... a smokestack, maybe?

Thinking more about the octagonal structure reminds me of the many babtisteries I have seen in Italy--especially the one in Parma. So I assume that the structure in question is a Babtistery font.

"The Octagonal Baptistery in Volterra, Tuscany in Italy is typical of the Christian Baptistery built around the 11th to 14th centuries. The symbolic number eight is echoed by, among other signs, the world beginning on the eighth day and Jesus rising from the dead on the eighth day."

I eliminated that it was an entrance to one of Dante's circles of hell.

Peter

The S. Orsola convent is in a never ending state of perpetual demolition and reconstruction. In origin was a convent, it become a cigar factory and such was till 1940 or so. After that it was used by the university and finally bought by the state to become a custom police quarter. After the custom police had tore down half of the building, they decided the place was not good and abandoned the work. The municipality tried to get the place to add an extra building to mercato centrale but the bureaucracy involved in trasferring public property is daunting and it looks like it will be a long time before something is done.

quote:

I eliminated that it was an entrance to one of Dante's circles of hell.

The baptistery is a good guess especially given the octagonal shape. The building definitely has an interesting history.

Intriguing! Thanks, Ellen & Luca, for the historical background.

Baptisteries were indeed often octagonal (as is the famous one next to Florence's Duomo) - but so were chapter houses. I wonder if the latter is more likely for a convent? The location in the middle of a cloister is unusual, though.

Is it actually a bit small for either purpose? The interior diameter is only around 22ft/7m. I suppose if it's a smallish convent, all the nuns would fit in...

Jonathan

Wow, that is really weird. I have no idea what it could be. In the middle of a conventual courtyard you'd be most likely to find a well, but that's a well you'd be sure to fall into - no good. You'd be quite unlikely to find a baptistry, in my opinion. I believe the only baptistry of note in Florence was/is the one across from the Duomo; otherwise you get baptismal fonts inside churches but they are very small.

Any votes for in-ground swimming pool / turkish baths for the nuns?

It is quite unlikely it was a baptistry, as in Florence the traditional use was to admnister baptism, but in danger of life, only at the Baptistery and only in few dates, mainly St. John's feast. Baptism in parish churches is quite recent an use - even my father, in the thirties, was baptized in the Baptistery.

Giving it some more thought, I googled Babtistries in several cities to help recall where I had seen octagonal fonts. There were many of those to be found doing some minimal research. I just copied a few and pasted those below. A couple had wooden covers and I distinctly remember that the famous Babtistry in Padua has a wooden cover. I bet that the “font” under discussion had a wooden cover as many other babtistries probably had.

Since Sant'Orsola has had so much damage through the centuries, the font probably had a structure built around it which has been destroyed.

Siena Babtistry Font:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/battyward/2040004639/

An Article from the New Times
http://tinyurl.com/nzwe6p

Neonian Babtistry in Ravenna
http://www.sacred-destinations...slides/xti_7105p.htm

http://www.songsouponsea.com/Promenade/Monte.html

Peter

I lived in front of this building since 1988.
It has been almost totally gutted so I say theat the "Well" in the center is probably a light well. when the dug down to put in parking under the building they probably built the light well in the center.

and yes.. they found "mona lisa" and her mom's tombs in the Sant'Orsola remains under the current building, and they lived around the corner on Via Della Stufa.

hi Judy!
I remember you pointing this out on a market walk.

DMae

Nice one Diva! a bunch of us hypothesizing about medieval baptism practises and now we learn that it's a late 80s parking lot

Acually it appears that the parking lot is across the street from the monastery on Via Sant’Orsola—a few hundred yards or so from the octagon in question. Just because there are enumerable octagonal fonts in babtistries all over Italy, that doesn’t mean that this Octagon is a babtistry font that is located in the courtyard of Sant’Orsola.

Peter

yes there is a parking lot across the street. for the past zillion years, they have been working on the inside of the building.

It was a place for the homeless in the second world war, and before that was for tabacco!

When they began to "hollow" it out- was supposed to be a building for the tax police- then that fell through.. and then it was recently sold... for something else!

they dug down three levels to put parking underneath.... which is how they also found Mona lisa and her mom's tombs!