Fondazione Salvatore Romano

Piazza S.Spirito, 29

The museum is situated in the old refectory of the convent erected by Augustinian hermit friars alongside the church of Santo Spirito. This large refectory, built in fourteenth-century Gothic style, is the only room in the renowned monumental complex of Santo Spirito to have maintained its original structure. Its former function is recalled by the imposing fourteenth-century fresco by Andrea Orcagna and assistants that decorates the whole eastern wall, with fragments of a Last Supper at the bottom and a superb Crucifixion with a singular descriptive style at the top. The fresco is not only one of the best works by Orcagna, but also one of the largest wall paintings from the fourteenth century to have come down to us.

The refectory houses the works donated to the Florence City Council in 1946 by the collector and antiquarian from Campania, Salvatore Romano. The bequest comprises a prized collection of sculptures, fragments of architectural decorations, detached frescoes and furnishings from various places and times, from ancient Rome to the seventeenth century. As specified in the deed of donation, the collection maintains the same atmospheric layout and evocative, ornamental flavour created under the supervision of Salvatore Romano. As a result, the collection is first and foremost a direct testimony of the particular artistic sensitivity of an illustrious antiquarian who had relations with the most important collectors and foreign museum directors of his time.

Among the most significant works are an Angel and a Caryatid (or Virtue) by Tino di Camaino, two fragments of reliefs attributed to Donatello and a Madonna and Child attributed to the circle of Jacopo della Quercia.