The Men in Black

For centuries, anyone who came here to collect a sick or a dead person wore a black cloak with a hood that covered the whole face, with two holes for the eyes. It wasn't a threat but a kind of modesty: no one needed to know who was helping, and the person being helped never knew who they owed.

The Misericordia started in 1244 and still does the work today. During outbreaks of the plague, the brothers carried the dead out of the houses, in wartime they moved the wounded, and in 1966, when the Arno flooded Florence, they pulled people from the drowned streets.

Today they run ambulances from this address, mostly with volunteers who take shifts alongside their day jobs. The black hood only comes out now for ceremonies.

Diagonally across from the corner of the Baptistery you'll find an open stone loggia, and that's where the last stop waits.