A stroll through Florence’s northern district requires visitors to pass by the Catholic convent of San Marco, an unassuming religious complex that pales before the city’s grand churches.
Behind San Marco’s façade is a cool, quiet columned cloister where monks once paced in pious contemplation. The narrow corridors on the complex’s second floor link a dozen small private rooms adorned by striking frescoes of biblical images. The larger communal areas also feature rich paintings, which colored the regular rhythms of San Marco’s monks until 2014.
