Museum of San Marco

Museo Nazionale di San Marco is an art museum housed in the monumental section of the medieval Dominican convent of San Marco dedicated to St Mark, situated on the present-day Piazza San Marco, in Florence, a region of Tuscany, Italy. The museum, a masterpiece in its own right by the fifteenth-century architect Michelozzo, is a building of first historical importance for the city and contains the most extensive collection in the world of the works of Fra Angelico, who spent several years of his life there as a member of the Dominican community. The works are both paintings on wood and frescoes. The museum also contains other works by artists. The building The museum is situated in the oldest part of the monastery, which occupies about half the total space. The building has expanded over time, now taking up a whole block, and part of it is still occupied by friars today. The oldest section of the building, built over the medieval Sylvestrian monastery, was constructed by the architect Michelozzo at the specific request of Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici and his expense, to house the reformed Dominicans of Fiesole, an order at that time led by Antonino Pierozzi, the later Antoninus of Florence .