Santo Stefano al Ponte is a Romanesque-style,

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church, located in the Piazza of the same name, just off the Via Por Santa Maria, near the

Ponte Vecchio The Ponte Vecchio (; "Old Bridge") is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno, in Florence, Italy. The only bridge in Florence spared from destruction during World War II, it is noted for the shops built along it; ...

, in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, region of Tuscany,

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. The church is presently used as a concert hall.

History

The church was originally constructed in the 11th and 12th century in a Romanesque style with a polychrome marble facade. The interior featured three aisles. In the 14th century, the exterior was renovated. Of the original facade, only the marble work around the portal remains. Between 1631 and 1655, the interior of the church was renovated to convert the three aisles to an open hall. A crypt was added and the interior was redesigned to include a choir. In 1373, the church was temporarily used by

Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio ( , ; ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was s ...

to deliver lectures on the

Divine Comedy The ''Divine Comedy'' (, ) is an Italian narrative poetry, narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of ...

. The annexed diocesan museum houses a panel with a ''Madonna'' by

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto, was an List of Italian painters, Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the International Gothic, Gothic and Italian Ren ...

. Inside the church are artworks by Matteo Rosselli (''Vision of San Lorenzo''); Niccolò Lapi;

Giottino Giottino (fl. 1324 – 1369), also known as Tommaso Fiorentino, was an early Italian painter from Florence. His real name was Maso di Stefano or Tommaso di Stefano. Giottino's father, Maestro Stefano Fiorentino, "Stefano the Florentine", wa ...

; Mariotto di Nardo; Ferdinando Tacca (bronze bas-relief of ''Martyrdom of San Stefano'', 1656); Francesco Bianchi Buonavita;

Cigoli Lodovico or Ludovico Cardi (21 September 1559 – 8 June 1613), also known as Cigoli, was an Italian painter and architect of the late Mannerist and early Baroque period, trained and active in his early career in Florence, and spending the last ...

(Copy of

Santi di Tito Santi di Tito (5 December 1536 – 25 July 1603) was one of the most influential and leading Italian painters of the proto-Baroque style – what is sometimes referred to as "Counter-Maniera" or Counter-Mannerism. Biography He was born in Sa ...

's ''Deposition''); Francesco Curradi (''Death of Santa Cecilia before Urban I'', 1641);

Francesco Morosini Francesco Morosini (26 February 1619 – 16 January 1694) was the Doge of Venice from 1688 to 1694, at the height of the Great Turkish War. He was one of the many Doges and generals produced by the Venetian noble Morosini family.Encyclopæd ...

(''St Paul on Road to Tarsus''); Mauro Soderini (''St Zanobi resuscitates a child'', 1745), and

(''Madonna and Saints'', after 1585).

References

External links

Stefano al Ponte Romanesque architecture in Florence 14th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Italy {{Tuscany-RC-church-stub