Although I've only been to Florence once, Santa Maria Novella is a destination that has captured my olfactory sensibilities long past my brief Florentine visit. S. M. Novella dates back to the time of Dante and Giotto when Dominican friars constructed the church/monastery in the thirteenth century and began concocting herbal remedies: the monks offered the Orange Blossom Water, for example, as an elixir to the common cold. Although the Medieval facade of the Santa Maria Novella Church belies its apothecary origins, the Officina Profumo Farmaceutica located on the grounds of the S. M. Novella is one of the oldest pharmacies in the world, and it continues to sell beauty and home products of the apothecary variety still today.
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