Basilica of St. John the Baptist of the Florentines

Piazza dell'oro. (Open Map)
(75)

Description

The church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini was built for the first Pope Medici, Leo X, who started up a competition for the construction of the building. Despite the presence of Raphael among the competitors, Sansovino’s work was selected. The effective carrying out of the church, which turned out to be quite harsh, dates back to the late 1500. The finishing of the inside only took place in 1620, and it was thanks to Carlo Maderno that it was completed with the rising of the dome, and the assignment to the Temple of the Florentine of a sober and severe character. The name of the church derives from the fact that once a huge sixteen-century building housing the Florentine Consulate rised next to it. Between 1564 and 1575 S. Filippo Neri became principal of the church. Among the artworks in the ten side chapels, are worth seeing some funeral monuments made by the most important sculptors of Baroque: Bernini, Algardi, Carlo Maderno and Francesco Borromini, bothe of them buried here. The travertine façade, restored in 1992, was only carried out by Alessandro Galilei in 1734.