At around eleven o’clock on the night of 28 January 1771, several members of the Stabbini family, who lived behind Santa Maria del Carmine on Via degli Allori, saw light coming from inside the choir of the large Carmelite church that dominated their neighborhood. Although it was unusual for it to be illuminated at that hour, the Stabbini knew that the Carmine was undergoing a substantial renovation, and they decided that the light must have been coming from the lamps of workers toiling late into the night. About an hour later, around midnight, Giuseppe Bellucci, an ortolano who lived on Via d’Ardiglione, woke up and saw a bright light emanating from around the Carmine's choir. Giuseppe, startled by the scene, attempted to rouse his sleeping son, Angelo. Angelo, who had witnessed an aurora borealis a few weeks earlier, convinced his father that the light he saw was most likely the result of yet another cosmic event and not evidence of an ensuing conflagration, and so Giuseppe returned to bed. It was not until two hours later, when Angelo's wife awoke to see tongues of flame emerging from the windows of the choir, that she realized that the church was on fire and ran to awaken the other members of the household. The Bellucci family then rushed to the church and roused the sacristan, but by the time the sacristan had assessed the situation and sounded the alarm, the fire was already raging out of control, fed by strong winds that buffeted Florence throughout the night.