Introduction

Summary

Walking west from the Ponte Vecchio in Florence along the River Arno, several churches come into view on the left bank, in the Oltrarno. The first, its cupola just visible behind more modern buildings, is the great Renaissance temple and convent of Santo Spirito, still occupied by the Augustinian (Austin) friars. Beyond it is the complex of Santa Maria del Carmine, its Brancacci chapel housing luminous frescoes of St Peter. Behind Santo Spirito and invisible from the river stands the now deconsecrated church of Santa Monaca, a convent of Augustinian nuns founded in 1443. These churches were built to house communities of religious from some of the orders described in this book. Their disposition in Florence today, in the medieval suburb of the Oltrarno, serves as a visual reminder of the role of their communities in the life of the city. Their proximity mimics the similarities in their histories; it places them outside the central axis of urban life to the north of the river, marked at one end by the Dominicans (the Friars Preacher) at Santa Maria Novella and at the other by the Franciscans (or Friars Minor) at Santa Croce. To some extent this topography is a neat coincidence, the product of opportunism and accident, but it also underlines the secondary status of the first two orders to be examined in this book: the Carmelites and Augustinians.