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Santo Spirito
The charmingly lived-in Piazza Santo Spirito , on the south side of the Ponte Santa Trìnita, with its lolling students, market stalls and cafés, and the neighbouring streets with their furniture workshops and antiques showrooms, together encapsulate the self-sufficient character of the quarter, a character not yet hopelessly compromised by the encroachments of tourism. Don’t be deterred by the vacant deception of the church of Santo Spirito (daily 9am-noon & 4-6pm; closed Wed afternoon) - the interior, one of Brunelleschi’s last projects, prompted Bernini to describe it as “the most beautiful church in the world”. It’s so perfectly proportioned it seems artless, yet the plan is extremely sophisticated - a Latin cross with a continuous chain of 38 chapels round the outside and a line of 35 columns running in parallel right round the building. Unfortunately a Baroque baldachin covers the high altar, but this is the sole disruption of Brunelleschi’s arrangement.
