This church was built in 1250 by the seven original members of the Servite order. In 1252, a painting of the Annunciation, which had been begun by one of the monks but abandoned in despair because he did not feel he could create a beautiful enough image, was supposedly completed by an angel while he slept. This painting was placed in the church and became extremely venerated.

The facade of the church was added in 1601 by the architect Giovanni Battista Caccini, in imitation of Brunelleschi's facade of the Foundling Hospital, which defines the eastern side of the piazza Santissima Annunziata, where the basilica lies. The building across from the Foundling Hospital, designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, was also given a Brunelleschian facade in the 1520s.

In 1817, Leopold, the last Grand Duke of Tuscany, was married to Maria Anna Carolina of Saxony inside of the basilica.