Venerabile Arciconfraternita della Misericordia di Firenze

Its lay members, called brothers, still continue to provide part of the infirm transport service in the city, and until April 2006 still wore the traditional black dress (dating back to the seventeenth century), today reduced to use in representation ceremonies due to national regulations inspired by road safety.

The Confraternity, known to the Florentines simply as La Misericordia, has dedicated itself since the beginning of its history to the transport of the sick to the hospitals of the city, to the collection of alms for poor girls to marry, to the burial of the dead, and to other works of charity.

Groups of porters who delivered goods for Florentine merchants began answering calls to transport the sick and injured in wicker stretchers for free, between jobs.

[2] In the fourteenth century the Confraternity was recognized by the commune as a real public institution in a provision of March 31, 1329 which gave the Brothers the right to elect their leaders (capitan).

[1] The Misericordia continues to offer a network of free services for needy people: transport to hospitals, home healthcare, lending health equipment, and many others.