Boutique Hotel near Santa Maria Novella

Three Florentine Landmarks Under a Single Name

Few names in Florence carry as much weight as Santa Maria Novella, and the reason is that three distinct landmarks share it. The Dominican basilica of Santa Maria Novella is the great mendicant church of north-western Florence, founded in 1278 and decorated across the next three centuries by Masaccio, Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi, and Brunelleschi. The Stazione di Santa Maria Novella, taking its name from the square it faces, is Florence's principal railway station and one of the most important works of Italian Rationalist architecture, opened in 1934. The Officina Profumo-Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella, founded by the Dominican friars in 1612 and now widely regarded as the oldest continuously operating pharmacy in the world, occupies a few streets to the east. From Relais La Capricciosa on Via Porta Rossa, all three are reachable within a seven-minute walk — a single short stroll that connects a Renaissance basilica, a Rationalist train station, and a Counter-Reformation apothecary into a coherent itinerary.

The Basilica: Masaccio, Ghirlandaio, Lippi, Brunelleschi

The basilica of Santa Maria Novella is one of the great concentrations of early Italian painting in Europe. Inside, on the left nave wall, hangs Masaccio's Trinity, painted in 1427-28 and universally recognised as the earliest convincing use of one-point linear perspective in Western art — the vaulted chapel painted on a flat wall recedes so persuasively into depth that for centuries viewers attempted to find the room behind it. In the Tornabuoni Chapel behind the high altar, Domenico Ghirlandaio painted a vast cycle of frescoes between 1485 and 1490 depicting the lives of the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist, set against detailed scenes of contemporary Florentine palaces, gardens, and aristocratic portraits — the young apprentice Michelangelo learned to fresco on these scaffolds. The Strozzi Chapel of Saint Philip, frescoed by Filippino Lippi between 1487 and 1502, features astonishing trompe-l'oeil grisaille architecture. And in the green-tinted Chiostro Verde, Paolo Uccello painted the Universal Deluge with one of the most original perspectival experiments of the Quattrocento. The marble facade itself, completed by Leon Battista Alberti for the Rucellai family between 1456 and 1470, is a masterpiece of Renaissance design that married Gothic origins to classical proportion.

The Station: Florence's Rationalist Masterpiece

Across the basilica square stands a building of an entirely different age and ambition: the Stazione di Santa Maria Novella, the main railway station of Florence. Designed by a team led by Giovanni Michelucci and known as the Gruppo Toscano — along with Italo Gamberini, Pier Niccolò Berardi, Nello Baroni, Sarre Guarnieri, and Leonardo Lusanna — the station was inaugurated in 1934 and is recognised as one of the supreme works of Italian Rationalism. The horizontal mass of pietra forte and travertine, the long covered atrium with its bronze details and rationalist clock, the great expanse of glass over the tracks: the building was controversial when built, sitting only metres from a fourteenth-century basilica, but is now protected as a national monument and admired worldwide. Travellers arriving at Santa Maria Novella step out directly into the basilica square; from there, Via Porta Rossa and our boutique hotel are a flat, seven-minute walk away. No taxi is necessary, and no street is uphill.

The Officina Profumo-Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella

A few streets east of the basilica, on Via della Scala, stands one of the most remarkable shops in the world: the Officina Profumo-Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella, founded by the Dominican friars in 1221 as an infirmary herb garden, formally opened as a pharmacy in 1612, and continuously operating ever since. Many international guidebooks describe it as the world's oldest pharmacy. The Sala Verde and the Sala dei Profumi retain their original frescoed ceilings and inlaid wooden cabinets. The pharmacy still produces fragrances, soaps, hand creams, and herbal remedies from recipes that the friars developed across four centuries — the Acqua di Santa Maria Novella, a rose-and-lavender water designed in 1533 for Caterina de' Medici on the occasion of her marriage to the future King of France, is still in production. Many of the finest hotels in Italy and abroad use the pharmacy's amenities; the Officina is itself one of Florence's most atmospheric small museums, with free entry. Our concierge can arrange private guided visits to the historic rooms not normally open to the public.

The Walking Route: Via Porta Rossa to Santa Maria Novella

The seven-minute walk from Relais La Capricciosa to the basilica is a flat, pedestrian route that traces the western edge of the centro storico. Step out of our entrance at number 23, turn left onto Via Porta Rossa, and walk west until the street ends at Via Tornabuoni. Cross Tornabuoni and continue along Via degli Strozzi for a minute. Turn right into Via dei Pescioni, then left into Via dei Banchi, which leads directly to Piazza Santa Maria Novella. The basilica facade rises across the piazza — white, green, and red marble inlaid by Alberti. To reach the train station, cross the basilica square diagonally to the north side. To reach the pharmacy, instead bear right on Via della Scala for two minutes. The entire neighbourhood is interconnected by short pedestrian streets, and the seven minutes from our front door allow you to choose any of the three destinations on the same itinerary.

Brunelleschi's Pulpit and the Spanish Chapel

Two further treasures inside Santa Maria Novella reward a slow visit. Filippo Brunelleschi designed the marble pulpit attached to the second pillar of the left nave around 1448 — a small, sculpted lectern whose proportions and crisp linear discipline are unmistakably his hand. Through the basilica's right transept and across the Chiostro Verde, the so-called Spanish Chapel — originally the chapter house of the Dominicans, frescoed by Andrea di Bonaiuto between 1365 and 1367 — presents one of the most ambitious fresco cycles of the Italian Trecento. The walls depict the triumph of the Dominican order, with scenes that include detailed views of Florence Cathedral as it was imagined in the fourteenth century, a full century before the dome was completed. For visitors with an art-historical interest, the Spanish Chapel is among the most rewarding rooms in the basilica complex. Our Art Concierge arranges private visits and can pair a morning at Santa Maria Novella with the nearby Strozzi Palace exhibitions.

Why Santa Maria Novella Is the Ideal First Walk for New Arrivals

For guests arriving at Santa Maria Novella station, the seven-minute walk to Relais La Capricciosa is the first introduction to Florence on foot — luggage in tow, the city unfolding street by street, the basilica on one side and the centro storico on the other. For guests already settled at the hotel, the same walk in reverse is the first proper morning expedition: a visit to the basilica, a tasting of bergamot-and-rosemary soap at the Officina, a coffee in the piazza, and the slow return down Via dei Banchi. The neighbourhood is perfectly proportioned to a half day at the start or end of a longer Florence itinerary. From the door of Via Porta Rossa 23, it is the easiest and most rewarding first walk we recommend.