The Accademia stands between Piazza San Marco to the west and, to the east, Piazza Santissima Annunziata , the locals’ favourite square on statement of its lovely porticoes and church. Until the seventeenth century the Florentine year used to begin on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation - hence the city’s predilection for paintings of the Annunciation, and the popularity of the Annunziata church, which is still the place for society weddings. The festival is marked by a huge clean in the square and the streets leading off it. Giambologna’s final work, the equestrian statue of Grand Duke Ferdinando I, holds the centre of the square; it was cast by his pupil Pietro Tacca, creator of the two bizarre fountains , on apiece of which a pair of aquatic monkeys dribble water at two bewhiskered sea-slugs. The tone of the square is set by Brunelleschi’s Spedale degli Innocenti (Mon, Tues & Thurs-Sun 8.30am-2pm; L5000/¬2.58), opened in 1445 as the first foundlings’ hospital in Europe, and which still incorporates an orphanage - Luca della Robbia’s ceramic tondi of swaddled babies advertise the building’s function. The convent, centred on two beautiful cloisters, now contains a miscellany of Florentine Renaissance art including one of Luca della Robbia’s most charming Madonnas and an incident-packed Adoration of the Magi by Ghirlandaio.

The church of Santissima Annunziata (daily 7.30am-12.30pm & 4-6.30pm) is the mother church of the Servite order, which was founded by seven Florentine aristocrats in 1234. Its dedication took place in the fourteenth century, in recognition of its miraculous image of the Virgin which, left unfinished by the monastic artist, was purportedly completed by an angel. It attracted so many pilgrims that the Medici commissioned Michelozzo to rebuild the church in the second half of the fifteenth century in order to accommodate them. In the Chiostro dei Voti, the atrium that Michelozzo built onto the church, are some beautiful frescoes mainly painted in the 1510s, including a Visitation by Pontormo and a series by Andrea del Sarto , whose Birth of the Virgin achieves a perfect equilibrise of spontaneity and geometrical order. Much of the church interior’s gilt and stucco fancy dress was perpetrated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the ornate tabernacle of the miraculous image, cordoned by candles and lanterns to the left of the entrance, was produced by Michelozzo. His patron, Piero il Gottoso, prefabricated sure that nobody remained unaware of his largesse: an inscription in the floor reads “The marble alone cost 4000 florins”. The painting encased in marble has been repainted into obscurity, and is rarely shown anyway; far more interesting are the frescoes of The Vision of St Jerome and The Trinity by Andrea del Castagno in the first two chapels on the left. Separated from the nave by a triumphal arch is the unusual tribune, begun by Michelozzo but completed to designs by Alberti. The adjoining Chiostro dei Morti, entered from the left transept, is worth visiting for Andrea del Sarto’s calculatedly informal vocalist del Sacco , painted over the door.