The Badia Fiorentina is one of Florence's oldest and most atmospheric churches, founded as a Benedictine abbey in 978 and rebuilt several times over the following centuries. Giovanni Boccaccio gave his famous public lectures on Dante's Divine Comedy here in 1373 and 1374, and the church is mentioned in the opening of the Decameron. It sits directly across from the Bargello on Via del Proconsolo, its hexagonal tower a landmark of the medieval city.
Fillippino Lippi's Apparition of the Virgin to St Bernard (c. 1480) hangs inside — a tender, luminous painting in a quiet side chapel. The church is run by a Cistercian monastic community and is open only for limited hours (typically mornings), which keeps visitor numbers low. The cloister degli Aranci (of the orange trees), with its early 15th-century frescoes, is a calm retreat from the busy streets outside.