Antico Spedale Serristori

The former Spedale Serristori was founded in 1399 by Ser Ristoro di Jacopo Ristori, who assigned a group of multy-storey houses, provided with a courtyard and basements and arcades owned by the family, for the care of the poor and sick. The building overlooks the current Marsilio Ficino square in Figline, but it is not used anymore as a hospital since 1890, the year when the activity was moved out of the town centre, in the Villa di San Cerbone, where the Antica Spezieria is.

Over the years the Antico Spedale has undergone major enlargement work, also according to the design by the architect Gherardo Silvani. Around the 18th century it was raised by six arms' lengths and the master Giovanni Antonio Lombardo built the double loggia which unfortunately lost its upper portico in the year of the hospital service's relocation. While on the facade under the arcade you can still see some lunettes frescoed by Niccolò Lapi, underneath the arches towards the current corso Matteotti you can see the holes in the floor that were used to hold wheat.

Other works were carried out in the 19th century, in particular on the apartments of the Serristori family and the east facing side of the structure, according to the design by Giovan Battista Bettini, while the decoration work was assigned to the main plasterer of Florence, Giovanni Martino Portogalli. Dating back to the end of the century are the bell tower and the north wing arcade, overlooking the current piazza Don Bosco.

Some spaces of the former Spedale, home to the museum of the Fondazione Giovanni Pratesi, can be visited on demand; among these the small inner courtyard and the chapel of the Crucifix which was used as the place of worship of the hospital. Today it retains its 17th century appearance, two side altars, made by the stonecutter Antonmaria Pianigiani and the main altar with the whole back wall that were raised by Giovanni and Jacopo Masoni on a design by the most respected architect and sculptor of the grand-ducal court: Giovan Battista Foggini. No longer in existence is instead the polyptych created by the Florentine painter Giovanni di Tano Fei (1399), whose central part with the "Madonna with Child and Angels" is still kept in the rooms of the Spezieria, while the sides with "Saints James Major and John the Baptist" and "Saints Andrew and Anthony the Abbot" belong to private collections. Kept in the museum housed in the former oratory are many 18th century pictures by Florentine painters; a marble sculpture by Giambologna; the sketches by Ciro Ferri and Volterrano for the Santissima Annunziata church in Florence and the magnificent collection of about two thousand samples of “pietre tagliate d’Arno”, pebbles picked by the antique dealer Pratesi in the sandbanks of the Arno river, cut and polished according to the custom started in the 16th century to create the famous “commesso fiorentino” inlays.