San Benedetto is the only Church of Florence dedicated to the founding Saint of western Monasticism, today also patron saint of Europe: Benedetto da Norcia (480-547). With its single aisle, it opened onto Piazza dei Bonizzi (also cited as San Benedetto ai Bonizzi), while today’s Via dello Studio ran behind it.

There was an entrance from an alley along the building’s south side. Cited on May 5, 1032, it was probably governed by the Tedaldini family, powerful and inveterate Ghibellines. In 1340, with the idea of enlarging the area around the new cathedral, the church of San Benedetto had to give up a large portion of the old vicarage. It remained under the patronage of the Tedaldini family until 1416 when Bartolommeo di Giovanni Tedaldini relinquished it to the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. In 1418, some of the surrounding houses – for the most part property of the Tedaldini and Visdomini families – were englobed in the new vicarage compound whose boundary wall cut across the square in front of the church, reducing it to the point that it was necessary to open a new entrance towards Piazza delle Pallottole.