San Carlo dei Lombardi is one of Florence's hidden architectural gems, located along the historic Via dei Calzaiuoli, just a few steps from Piazza della Signoria and the Cathedral. Originally founded in the eighth century, the present Gothic church was rebuilt after the Black Death of 1348 and completed at the beginning of the fifteenth century. In 1616 it was entrusted to the Lombard confraternity and dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, from whom it takes its present name.
Its elegant Gothic façade, built in the characteristic Florentine pietra forte, opens onto a spacious single nave enriched with remarkable works of art, including paintings by Matteo Rosselli and Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, as well as a rare fourteenth-century painted wooden crucifix attributed to Andrea Orcagna. The church preserves a harmonious balance between medieval architecture and Baroque decoration.