The other day, a press conference was held in the Chapter House of the Basilica of Santo Spirito in Florence.
Where a friar who declared himself ready to break the law by occupying an abandoned barracks was welcomed with endless applause.
The Basilica of Santo Spirito belongs to a Tuscan-born order, the Augustinians. Petrarch and Boccaccio came to study in its library. The church was designed by Brunelleschi, and the young Michelangelo learned in the convent to dissect the bodies of those who died in the hospital, for which he gave the friars a delicate wooden Christ in exchange.
The adjacent convent has two buildings with immense and beautiful spaces, the Cloister of the Dead and the Great Cloister.
The whole was expropriated in the 19th century to make way for the Ferrucci Barracks. The Ministry of Defense is therefore the owner.
The Basilica of Santo Spirito and the Convent (the two rectangles on the left)
Once the fashion for taking teenagers and sending them to the slaughterhouse had (temporarily) passed, the Convent was abandoned for years.
Vague agreements were made between the Ministry and the Municipality to carry out
“works with a strong social development value, aimed at regenerating the territory and satisfying the interests of the community”.
Given the incredible importance of the site for all of humanity, as historian Franco Cardini writes,
“you would have expected the entire city of Florence (and also its diocese, given the importance of the basilica) to have been warmly invited to contribute to taking charge of the destiny of the entire building”
Instead, the silence, both in the media and from the institutions, was total.
The friars sent countless messages to the Ministry, but finally received only one reply, signed by a general no less, “But Father, don’t you ever give up?”
Then one day the friars discovered that the Ministry had launched a call for tenders for the Convent, on July 31, 2019, when all normal offices are closing down for the summer holidays, aimed at receiving proposals to “build residential non-health facilities for the elderly.”
A residential non-health facility, in a building that they say is very prestigious, means a luxury residence for the rich, complete with a private restaurant inside, except that the word “elderly” give it a social connotation.
Only one competitor presented itself for the tender, Fastpol S.r.L., 100% owned by Finres S.p.A., which in turn was 100% owned by Ms Asmaa Gacem – a Moroccan lady who was just 26 years old at the time, and who presented herself on Facebook as follows:
As of May 21, 2024, she controlled 12 companies, including Alpha Contractor, a construction company with 400 employees and collaborators. In the shadows, on the other hand, was her husband, Antonio Politano, a “Corporate & Commercial Lawyer”, 25 years her senior.
Antonio Politano and Asmaa Gacem
In 2021, with another call where only one bidder turned up, Fastpol obtained the assignment of the convent for 30 years, without the citizens of Florence or the friars of the adjacent convent knowing anything about it.
However, as far as we can understand, some necessary steps are still missing; and for a year now, the Augustinian friars have been leading the protest, proposing to transform this unique space into a great cultural center at the service of Florence, financed in part by an agreement with the Augustinian University of Villanova, in the United States.
Next Thursday will see a flash mob at Santo Spirito:
PRESS RELEASE
FLASH MOB PROTESTING AGAINST THE LUXURY HOTEL MASQUERADING AS A NURSING HOME IN THE CONVENT OF SANTO SPIRITO
Florence, March 12, 2025 – Citizens are mobilizing to defend the historical and social heritage of Florence. On March 20 at 6 p.m., in the churchyard of the Basilica of Santo Spirito, a protest flash mob will be held against the transformation of the former Ferrucci barracks into a luxury hotel disguised as a nursing home in the largest part of the Convent of Santo Spirito, consisting of the entire large cloister, also known as the Ammannati Cloister, including the Corsini Chapel, and on the upper floor of the so-called Cloister of the Dead.
The event, organized by the residents of the Oltrarno, by the city committees and by the Augustinians of the Basilica of Santo Spirito themselves, aims to denounce the speculative operation that risks further distorting the historic center, to the detriment of the community and its cultural identity.
