Museo and Loggia del Bigallo

The 14th-century Loggia del Bigallo, the most striking secular building on the Piazza del Duomo, was built for one of Florence’s great charitable confraternities, the Misericordia.

Founded by St Peter Martyr (the heretic-bashing Dominican Inquistor of Northern Italy, usually portrayed with an axe in his head), it was dedicated to transporting the ill, sustaining prisoners and burying paupers. He's portrayed (without axe) in a fresco on the Loggia's façade by Rossello di Jacopo Franchi, performing the Miracle of the Enraged Horse.

In 1425, the building also became the seat (and took the name) of the Compagnia del Bigallo, a confraternity named after the Ospedale del Bigallo it ran at Santa Maria a Fonteviva in Chianti.

The Loggia itself functioned as a lost and found office, although instead of umbrellas it dealt in children; if unclaimed after three days they were sent to foster homes. Members in the 13th and 14th centuries courageously nursed and buried victims of the plague. In more recent times, they were on the front lines, rescuing victims of the 1966 flood.