A unique hybrid building in the heart of Florence, Orsanmichele began as a grain market in the 13th century and was gradually converted into a church without losing its market-hall structure. The name derives from "Orto di San Michele" — the orchard of Saint Michael that previously occupied the site. The result is unlike any other religious building in Italy: a massive, fortress-like cube with tabernacle niches on the exterior walls that the guilds of Florence filled with statues of their patron saints over two centuries.
The exterior niches contain important bronze and marble works by Donatello, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, Nanni di Banco, and others — an open-air sculpture gallery that most visitors walk past without realising what they're looking at. Inside, Orcagna's Gothic marble tabernacle (1352–59), reportedly called "one of the wonders of the world" at its inauguration, shelters a miraculous painted Madonna. Often overlooked but one of the most historically dense buildings in the city.