Demidoff Chapel of San Donato
church building in Florence, Italy

The Cappella Demidoff di San Donato, or Demidoff Chapel of San Donato, is occupied at present by the Church of Christ in Florence, and is found on via San Donato. The church was formerly the private chapel of the Villa San Donato, built by the rich Russian noble, Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, 1st Prince of San Donato. It belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church. The chapel recalls both the Pantheon in Rome, with its central oculus, and the Villa Capra "La Rotonda" in Vicenza by Andrea Palladio. The entrance has a classical portico. The building is in a dilapidated state.
Sources
Piero Bargellini, Ennio Guarnieri, Le strade di Firenze, 4 voll., Firenze, Bonechi, 1977-1978.
Francesco Cesati, La grande guida delle strade di Firenze, Newton Compton Editori, Roma 2003.
The public source identifies “Demidoff Chapel of San Donato” as church building in Florence, Italy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Demidoff, Chapel and Donato.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2956538. Authority coordinates are 43.788, 11.226. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1978 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Demidoff Chapel of San Donato” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.