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Wish upon a star

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And who was St. Zenobius?

A home from home through the year

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Saviour from the tyrant

A day dedicated to St. Anne
[Susan Glasspool]

Ancient Florentine historian Giovanni Villani tells us that the celebrations for St. Anne were held to remember the expulsion of the hated tyrant Gualtieri di Brienne, better known as the Duke of Athens which took place, after a popular uprising, precisely on the Feast Day of St. Anne on July 26th 1343. The grateful Florentines were so glad to have won their freedom that they decided to make the date a very important feast day, according to Villani, as important as Easter, because they attributed the saint with being a partisan for the Republican cause. Easter is celebrated for the resurrection of Christ and St. Anne’s day as the resurrection of the Florentines.

The Florentine Guilds have left many testimonials of their affection towards this saint, one of the most important of which is the fresco commissioned immediately after the event by the Signoria and painted by an artist from the school of Orcagna in the old Prison of the Stinche, and later removed to Palazzo Vecchio. The fresco is a wonderful historic document that shows St. Anne protecting Palazzo della Signoria while she dethrones the wicked Duke and presents the city banners to the population in arms on its knees before her.
The Oratory of Orsanmichele, built by the Guilds, was where representatives of these same guilds immediately paid thankful homage to the Virgin Mary and her mother Anne after the expulsion of the Duke.

The Signoria decided to make the feast day an annual event and also commissioned an altar in wood that was to be set up in Orsanmichele to display “an image of Saint Anne”. This was first simply a painting but was later, at the end of the 14th century, replaced by a carved sculpture in wood. The fact that the effigy of the saint was placed in Orsanmichele made it an extremely significant gesture because the oratory, supported by public funding, was used both as a granary and a church and therefore one of the most important buildings in Florence in that period.

From 1370 onwards the feast day was notable for the imposing but joyous procession that moved on both sides of the Arno between Orsanmichele and the Monastery of Verzaia. The procession was immortalised in a cammeo set inside the splendid painting on wood of St. Anne Metterza and Saints (today in the Louvre) by Jacopo Pontormo (1528-1529), carried out for the high altar of the Church of Verzaia.

The sculpture in the Oratory of Orsanmichele was instead replaced by a “more modern” marble sculpture of St. Anne Metterza carried out by Francesco da Sangallo (1522-1526) which can still be seen on the altar today.

Worship of this Patron Saint of Florence grew in importance during the 14th and 15th centuries and continued when the Medici came into power as they adopted St. Anne of the Florentines as their own personal saint. After the Counter Reformation, the celebrations slowly diminished in grandeur and would have been lost altogether in the mists of time had it not been for yearly display of flags and banners of the Guilds outside Orsanmichele.

A few years ago however, thanks to the Office for Florentine Festivals and Traditions, the City Council decided to reintroduce the festivity and today it is a colourful reminder of an important moment in Florence’s past.

The programme on July 26th includes the Procession of the Republic (100 participants in costume), which starts out from Palagio di Parte Guelfa at 8.30pm and moves towards Piazza Signoria, where it is joined by the Gonfalons of Florence and the authorities. The procession then heads towards the Cathedral where the Florentine Madonnas offer candles in homage to the reliquaries of St. Anne.
The procession then proceeds from the Cathedral along Via Calzaiuoli, as far as Orsanmichele, for further celebrations.



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