The 13th MAVEBA Workshop will take place in the Aula Magna Rettorato, Piazza San Marco 4, Firenze.

The headquarters of the Università degli Studi di Firenze are located in a building, today with red plaster, formerly used as stables of the Grand Duke. It borders on one side with the Military Geographical Institute and on the other with the Museum of Natural History, belonging to the University itself. In the fifteenth century some cages with lions, kept at the expense of the Republic, were moved here. After 1429 the construction of a “College of Studies” was started, to welcome fifty young people, half foreigners and half Florentines. The building was designed by Lorenzo di Bicci, however it was carried out much later, as much of the money was diverted by the Republic to finance wars and other needs.

Aula Magna Rectorate

Neoclassical staircase

Rectorate Università degli Studi di Firenze

San Marco square

The square was built in the first half of the fifteenth century, when Cosimo the Elder commissioned Michelozzo to build the church and convent for the Sylvestrine monks, which then passed to the Dominicans from the monastery of San Domenico di Fiesole. In ancient times the area was called San Marco al Cafaggio, because here there was a fenced wooded area, as the name indicates, or San Marco Nuovo, to distinguish it from San Marco Vecchio (via Faentina 129). The square and the whole complex of San Marco became “on fire” during the years in which Girolamo Savonarola was the prior, and were the scene of dramatic clashes between the “Piagnoni”, that is the followers of the friar, and their opponents. The church remained without a facade until 1780, when the current one was added in the neoclassical style.

On the corner with Via Cavour, there is still the place where the Pharmacy of San Marco opened, once managed by the Dominican friars, similar to that of Santa Maria Novella, the latter still existing. On the opposite corner there is the Academy of Fine Arts, formerly the San Matteo Hospital: only the portico with the lunettes by Andrea della Robbia on the three portals overlooks the square.

San Marco Church

San Marco Pharmacy

Academy of Fine Arts