By Camilla Sarra. Cover image courtesy Museo Sant’Orsola con Aure, Rivelazioni di Marta Roberti. Photo: Claudio Ripalti.
Sant’Orsola: A Museum in The Making in Florence
In the centre of Florence, just steps away from the Duomo and the Basilica of San Lorenzo, a long-forgotten place is coming back to life. The former convent of Sant’Orsola is being restored to the city through an ambitious cultural project that merges memory, contemporary art, and urban vision. With over 17,000 square meters, this extraordinary architectural complex, now undergoing extensive renovation, is poised to become one of Italy’s most innovative museum hubs. At the center of this transformation is the Museo Sant’Orsola, a cultural space currently under construction that has already attracted international attention for the quality and ambition of its artistic program.
From Monastery to Museum: The Rich History Behind Sant’Orsola
Founded in the early 14th century as a Benedictine monastery and later transformed into a Franciscan convent, Sant’Orsola has undergone centuries of change. In 1810, a Napoleonic edict marked the end of its religious function. The complex was then repurposed as a tobacco factory and, later, as a shelter for refugees and displaced families after World War II. In the 1980s, an attempt to convert it into a military barracks was abruptly halted, leaving the building abandoned for over four decades.
In 2020, the Metropolitan City of Florence launched a tender for its redevelopment, won by the French group Artea, which entrusted the Fondazione Artea Storia with cultural management for the next fifty years. This marked the beginning of a new chapter: Sant’Orsola is being reborn as a place for culture, education, and artistic production—where history meets the present.
Sant’Orsola’s Art Shows: Rewriting History Before the 2026 Opening
The museum is set to open officially in 2026, but a series of ongoing “construction site exhibitions” already offer a glimpse into its future identity. These prefigurative exhibitions serve as foundational acts, inviting contemporary artists to create site-specific works that engage with the site’s layered history and neglected spaces. The goal is not only to preserve the past but to generate new cultural heritage attuned to the urgencies of our time. Carefully curated with both scholarly rigor and contemporary insight, the exhibitions offer visitors an immersive experience within a space in flux. Here, contemporary art becomes a tool for rewriting narratives, healing wounds, and fostering cultural and civic regeneration.
The upcoming exhibition, The Rose That Grew From Concrete (September 5, 2025 – January 4, 2026), marks the final chapter in this cycle of site exhibitions. Thirteen Italian and international artists respond to the convent’s history through a variety of materials and languages. The title, inspired by a verse by Tupac Shakur, becomes a metaphor for resilience, for the way art and nature persist, even in ruins.
Florence’s New Cultural Hub: Blending Art, Food & Community
Beyond the museum itself, the project envisions the creation of a multifunctional cultural hub that integrates art, craft, education, food, and community spaces. The site will house a high school, a play center, cafés, artisan workshops, artists’ studios, and public courtyards, blending public and private functions in a model deeply rooted in Florence’s tradition of civic life and artistic innovation.
Cinema nel Chiostro: The Seventh Art Returns to Sant’Orsola
Alongside the museum program, Sant’Orsola is also home to one of Florence’s most beloved summer events: Cinema nel Chiostro, an open-air film arena curated by Spazio Alfieri. Now in its sixth edition, from June 30 to September 7, 2025, one of the convent’s courtyards will once again transform into an al fresco cinema, with a new 150-seat layout and a 9×4-meter screen.
This cinematic initiative reflects the site’s dual vocation: showcasing auteur cinema and actively contributing to the cultural revitalization of one of Florence’s most historic spaces. The program includes original-language screenings every Friday, tributes to cinematic legends, and some of the most acclaimed Italian and international films of the season.
Thanks to the Ministry of Culture’s Cinema Revolution initiative, all Italian and European films will be available at the reduced price of €3.50, reinforcing the festival’s commitment to accessible, high-quality cinema.
Sant’Orsola: Florence’s Cultural Future
The former convent of Sant’Orsola is emerging as a new symbol of Florence’s evolving cultural identity—a city that honors its past while fully engaging with the present. Through the Museo Sant’Orsola, art becomes a bridge between memory and the future. And through open-air cinema, culture becomes a shared civic experience. Sant’Orsola is no longer just a construction site—it is a laboratory of ideas, creativity, and hope. An open invitation to take part in building a new model of cultural citizenship.
