San Giorgio alla Costa

George and Maximilian of the Holy Spirit) is a small historical church in the Oltrarno district of the centre of Florence, situated on the steep slope of via Costa San Giorgio which runs uphill from Ponte Vecchio to Forte di Belvedere.

In the period when Silvestrines were in possession, around the year 1457 Alesso Baldovinetti was commissioned to paint in tempera on wood a depiction of the Annunciation now conserved in Florence's Uffizi Gallery.

In 1520 at the behest of Lucrezia de' Medici, the daughter of Lorenzo il Magnifico, a new convent was dedicated to the Holy Spirit and entrusted to the Vallombrosan nuns.

In 1705-1708 the church was renovated by the architect Giovanni Battista Foggini and the interior decorated with works in Rococo style by Alessandro Gherardini and Anton Domenico Gabbiani (Descent of the Holy Spirit in the oval over the high altar).

Along with many other religious establishments in the city and throughout Europe, the convent was seized by the civil authoritities during the upheavals stemming from the French Revolution and the expansion of the Napoleonic Empire, in 1808.