San Salvatore Museum

This small but fascinating interactive museum, which opened in 2022 and is housed in the ancient church of San Salvatore, takes visitors on a journey through the city’s earliest history in the light of discoveries made during excavations carried out in the course of lengthy, complex restoration work.

One of the most fascinating finds was a votive well under the floor of the church. Inside it were objects in ceramics, metal, fabric and glass, used between the 16th and 17th centuries in the religious rites that took place in the church.

Also on display are Roman artefacts previously kept in the storerooms of the Museo Civico and which came from the old excavations in Piazza del Duomo: an amphora and fragments of the mosaic floors of a domus found in Piazza del Duomo in the early 20th century.

Worthy of particular note in the itinerary is a section of the fresco Lamentation over the Dead Christ, dating to the end of the 13th century and attributed to the circle of Lippo di Benivieni, a renowned painter documented as operating in Florence between 1296 and 1320.

The exhibition set-up, which features videos, hands-on reconstructions and games, absorbs the visitor in a story that unfolds around multi-layered history, artworks, legends and religious rites, relating the history of the city’s ancestors with the curiosity and sensibility of today.