The Art and Patronage of the Hermits of Saint Augustine: The Florentine Monastery outside the Porta San Gallo

This study explores the history of the Augustinian monastery outside the Porta San Gallo in Florence. Founded around 1488 under the auspices of Lorenzo the Magnificent and home to a large community of hermit friars, the institution was at the center of the cultural and artistic life of the city from the late fifteenth century up until 1529, when it was demolished for strategic reasons during the war between the Second Florentine Republic and the Medici. The project aims to reconstruct the important pictorial and sculptural decorations of the monastery, now dispersed or lost, because they provided the grounds for a crucial chapter of Vasari's maniera moderna. This investigation also has methodological implications because it proposes a new geography of Renaissance visual culture and challenges the canon by redefining issues of patronage, the value of ephemeral events, and the history of artistic media.