This important Benedictine abbey was founded before the year 1000. It was reconstructed during the Gothic period and underwent a radical reconstruction at the beginning of the 17th century. The usual entrance is from Via Dante Alighieri, along a corridor which opens onto a Rennaissance portico.

Inside, an elegant carved ceiling in wood and gold looks down onto the scenographic arrangement of the main altar and presbytery, the result of the 17th century reconstruction. You will see a number of fine 15th century monuments to the dead and an extremely beautiful panel by Filippino Lippi, painted in 1485 and showing the Madonna appearing to St Bernard.
You should also visit the cloister, called Cloister of the Oranges, with important 15th century frescoes painted, perhaps, by the Portuguese painter, Giovanni di Consalvo.
Going back out, onto Via del Proconsolo, you arrive in Piazza San Firenze, dominated by the majestic façade of the Oratory of St Phillip Neri, which is really two churches, that on the left of St Philip Neri, better known with its previous name of San Firenze, a corruption of the local dialect of the name "Fiorenzo", and St Apollinaire on the right.
This great complex from the 17th and 18th centuries is Florence's largest collection of Baroque religious buildings. Almost all the building is today the seat of the Law Courts, and therefore not open for visits.
The actual church of St Peter Neri, which still belongs to the Oratorian order, has a straightforward but rich interior, lavish even, where the architecture, sculpture and paintings blend well into a unified whole.