9/19 Piazza Santissima Annunziata

A block down a side street from San Marco,

 
















brings you into the Piazza Santisima Annunziata - with another church (S. Annunziata - founded in 1250; built in 1481; facade added in 1601; the mother church of the Servite Order) - which, like a lot of Italian churches is actually rather plain on the outside and extremely opulant inside...

- square in front of the church contains a statue of Fernando somebody-or-other

...the first foundling hospital in all of Europe...

BRUNELLESCHI'S SPEDALE DEGLI INNOCENTI (1420s)

a book about can be found at Amazon here

 

and one of my favorite fountains on the planet...

bat-winged monkeys...who outside of Oz would've thunk it?

okay, okay...they are actually some sort of mer-creature...but they still remind me of Oz....