History
The Catholic History of Florence
Florence's Catholic story runs from its first martyr, Saint Minias, and its first bishop, Saint Zenobius, through the reform movement of the eleventh century, the friars' basilicas, the dome and the Council of 1439. It ends in the saints and works of charity of modern times. Its religious life gathers in one piazza, where the Baptistery of Saint John, the cathedral and the Brotherhood of Mercy stand side by side. Much of what pilgrims now see in museums was made for prayer, and the suppressions of 1808 to 1810 and 1866 turned many convents into museums.
Before 313
Roman Florentia and Saint Minias
Florentia was a Roman colony on the Arno, and Christians lived there by the third century. Tradition names Saint Minias, called Miniato, as the city's first martyr, killed about the year 250 under the emperor Decius. The story says he carried his severed head up the hill across the river and was buried there, and the Romanesque basilica of San Miniato al Monte stands over his tomb. Historians disagree about the details, and some connect his cult with a martyr of the same name from Egypt.
The oldest Christian inscriptions found in the city come from the Oltrarno, the district across the river near the Ponte Vecchio. Merchants from the Greek East are thought to have settled there along the Roman road, the Via Cassia. Santa Felicita stands on that ground, and the evidence there dates from the fourth and fifth centuries.
