Museum of San Marco

This monastery tells two completely opposite stories. In the 1440s, a Dominican friar named Fra Angelico painted some of the most serene, luminous religious images ever created — one in each monk's cell, meant as private devotional aids for meditation. Walking the upstairs corridor and peering into cell after cell of quiet, exquisite Annunciations and Crucifixions is one of the most intimate art experiences in Florence. The Annunciation at the top of the stairs — all pale pinks and golds — might be the single most beautiful fresco in Italy.

Then there's the other story. Half a century later, this same monastery produced Girolamo Savonarola, a charismatic friar who turned Florence upside down. Arriving in 1489, Savonarola gave such terrifying sermons about sin and corruption that he essentially seized control of the city, expelled the Medici, and organized the infamous "Bonfires of the Vanities" where Florentines burned cosmetics, mirrors, fine dresses, and paintings in Piazza della Signoria. His cell is preserved here — small, bare, exactly as austere as you'd expect from a man who tried to purge beauty from the most beautiful city on earth. He was excommunicated and burned at the stake in 1498.

The monastery was rebuilt by Michelozzo at Cosimo de' Medici's expense between 1436 and 1446 — the same Cosimo who founded what was Europe's first public library in a wing of this building. Fra Angelico was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1983, making him the patron saint of artists.

Two monks, same building, utterly different visions. One saw God in color and light. The other saw God in fire.