Orsanmichele

Orsanmichele tickets: one entry for the church and the museum upstairs

Orsanmichele is the church on Via de’ Calzaiuoli whose outside walls are lined with statues of saints standing in niches, and the originals of those statues are waiting upstairs, in its museum. One ticket covers both floors: the church at street level and the sculpture halls above it. Booking a time with the museum is optional, so there’s no slot to plan your day around.

The entry ticket we sell costs €18 and comes with a digital audio guide app. That app is a guide to Florence as a whole rather than a commentary on Orsanmichele.

Under-18s go in free, as they do at Italy’s other state museums, and on a few days a year everyone does. Those dates are with the opening hours below.

Orsanmichele opening hours: now closed on Mondays, not Tuesdays

Orsanmichele changed its closing day in March 2026. It now shuts on Mondays and opens Tuesday to Sunday, so a guide that still tells you Tuesday is out of date. Some older sources also say the church pauses around midday on Sundays for Mass. The museum’s own timetable doesn’t mention it, so on a Sunday morning it’s worth checking before you walk over.

Entry is free for everyone on the first Sunday of the month, 25 April, 2 June and 4 November, and on those days you can’t book. Since 1 November 2026, though, the museum upstairs closes on free days until further notice, for technical surveys, while the church stays open. The notice names no dates, but the next free day is 6 December, so on that day you should expect the church only.

Orsanmichele on the Firenze Card: an included entry you don’t book

The Firenze Card includes Orsanmichele, the church and the museum together, and as with every museum on the card you get one entry in its 72 hours. It isn’t one of the places where the card makes you book ahead, such as the Uffizi or the Accademia, so you just go in.

For Orsanmichele alone the card doesn’t pay off. It’s worth it when you’re seeing several paid museums in those three days. Our page on Firenze Card and Florence’s other passes runs the sums, and the Firenze Card is sold through GetYourGuide.

The Uffizi Passepartout doesn’t include Orsanmichele.

Inside the church of Orsanmichele: Orcagna’s tabernacle and the guild saints

The church is on the ground floor, reached by a ramp, and the first thing you see is the marble tabernacle Orcagna finished in 1359. It was built as a frame for Bernardo Daddi’s painting of the Madonna and Child, from 1347, which still sits at its heart.

Then look up and around. The vaults were frescoed between about 1389 and 1400, and on the pillars are painted the patron saints of Florence’s trade guilds. The altar of Sant’Anna, the Virgin’s mother, has a sculpted group by Francesco da Sangallo.

How Orsanmichele went from grain market to church

Orsanmichele wasn’t built as a church, and its name is the first clue. Before any of this, a small oratory called San Michele in Orto, St Michael in the garden, stood on the spot. In 1290 Arnolfo di Cambio built a loggia here as the city’s grain market, and after a fire it was rebuilt with two floors of storehouses on top, where grain was kept to feed the city and stave off famine.

In the 14th and 15th centuries the loggia was turned into the church you walk into today. The Arti, the guilds of Florence’s merchants and craftsmen, each took a niche on the outside walls and paid for a statue of its patron saint. Those statues are the reason to climb the stairs.

Orsanmichele museum: the original statues from the niches outside

The old grain halls upstairs are now the museum, and the statues in the street niches are copies, put there to protect the originals that stand up here. You’re looking at works by Ghiberti, Donatello, Nanni di Banco, Verrocchio and Giambologna. Look for Donatello’s St Mark, Ghiberti’s St Matthew and Verrocchio’s bronze of Christ and St Thomas, the apostle reaching out to touch the wound.

The halls themselves are worth a look too, with big double windows that look out over Florence. The museum reopened in January 2024 after about 400 days of works, and that’s when it got the layout you see now.

Getting to Orsanmichele between the Duomo and Piazza della Signoria

Orsanmichele stands on Via de’ Calzaiuoli, the street that runs between Piazza del Duomo and Piazza della Signoria, about halfway along. From either square it’s a short walk, and the niches with their saints tell you you’re there.

The official address is on the lane behind, Via dell’Arte della Lana, named after the wool guild, one of the guilds whose saints line the walls.