The Basilica of San Lorenzo is the Medici family church, a short walk from the Duomo and the San Lorenzo market: behind an unfinished, rough-stone facade stands one of the first Renaissance churches, designed by Brunelleschi.
It is also...
The Basilica of Santa Croce is Florence's great Franciscan church, on the square of the same name east of the center: a masterpiece of Italian Gothic, with frescoes by Giotto and the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and...
The Basilica of Santa Maria Novella is Florence's great Dominican church, on the square of the same name: a facade of white and green marble, a Gothic interior and, inside, chapels frescoed by the greatest painters of the 1400s.
It is one...
The Duomo of Florence, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, is the symbol of the city: a huge church of polychrome marble that dominates the center with Brunelleschi's dome, the largest masonry dome ever built.
When it was completed, in...
The Uffizi Gallery is Florence's great art museum, on the Arno next to Palazzo Vecchio: from the Middle Ages to the 1700s, with the most important collection of Florentine Renaissance painting, from Giotto to Botticelli, from Leonardo to...
The Galleria dell'Accademia is the museum in Florence where you will find Michelangelo's David: on Via Ricasoli, next to the Academy of Fine Arts, it also holds six other sculptures by the same artist and a large collection of gold-ground...
The Boboli Gardens are the great Italian-style garden behind Palazzo Pitti, on the hill of the Oltrarno: avenues of cypresses, fountains, grottoes and statues over about 45,000 square meters, a true open-air museum with sculptures from Roman...
The Bargello National Museum is Florence's sculpture museum, in a medieval palace that was also a prison: its Renaissance statues, with Donatello, Michelangelo, Cellini and Giambologna, are among the most remarkable in the world.
Besides...
Palazzo Pitti is the enormous Renaissance palace of the Oltrarno, on Piazza Pitti, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio: it was the residence of the grand dukes of Tuscany and today is a complex of museums, with the Palatine Gallery and the...
The National Archaeological Museum of Florence tells the story of Tuscany before the Renaissance: Etruscan civilization, with its bronzes and urns, a large Egyptian section and a collection of Greek vases, in the seventeenth-century Palazzo della...
The church of Orsanmichele is a building in the center of Florence, near Via de' Calzaiuoli, that looks like a palace: it was a grain store, then the church of the guilds, and on its pillars stand the statues of the patron saints of Florentine...
The Basilica of San Miniato al Monte is Florence's great Romanesque church, on the hill above the Oltrarno: a Romanesque facade of white and green marble, an interior almost untouched since the 11th century and the silence of the monks, at one of...
The Ospedale degli Innocenti is the building with Brunelleschi's portico on Piazza Santissima Annunziata, in the center of Florence: the first foundling hospital in Europe and one of the first works of Renaissance architecture, today with a...
Piazza della Signoria is the main square of Florence, the political heart of the city since the Middle Ages: in front of Palazzo Vecchio, a kind of open-air museum of statues, with the Fountain of Neptune, the Loggia dei Lanzi and a copy of the...
The Casa Buonarroti is Michelangelo's house-museum in Florence, at Via Ghibellina 70: in the palace that his descendants turned into a tribute to their great ancestor you can see two of his early marbles, sketch models and drawings, and the...
The Museo Galileo is Florence's science museum, in Piazza dei Giudici, right behind the Uffizi: in Palazzo Castellani it holds one of the most important collections of scientific instruments in the world, with Galileo's telescopes and pieces from...
The Baptistery of San Giovanni is the octagonal building clad in white and green marble that stands opposite Florence's Duomo, in Piazza San Giovanni. Dedicated to the city's patron saint, it was for centuries the place where every Florentine was...
Giotto's Bell Tower is the tower of Florence's Duomo, in Piazza del Duomo: 85 meters clad in white, green and red marble, aligned with the cathedral's facade. You can climb all the way to the top, for one of the finest views of the city and of...
The Brancacci Chapel, in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in the Oltrarno, is a small frescoed chapel where Renaissance painting took one of its first great steps. The walls are covered with the stories of Saint Peter painted by Masaccio and...
The Basilica of Santo Spirito is one of Florence's main churches and dominates the square of the same name, in the Oltrarno, the district south of the Arno. Outside it looks almost bare, but inside it hides one of the most harmonious spaces of...
The Museo dell'Opera del Duomo is the treasure house of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Baptistery and Giotto's Bell Tower, on the northeast side of Piazza del Duomo, in Florence. Almost everything you see outside is a copy: the originals are...
Palazzo Vecchio is Florence's town hall and one of the most famous civic palaces in the world. It stands in Piazza della Signoria, with its tower rising above the rooftops: it is one of the symbols of the city, and inside it is also a...
Palazzo Medici Riccardi is the first palace the Medici had in Florence, at Via Cavour 3. It was the home of Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent, and for the Florentine Renaissance it is a model: cubic, imposing outside and refined...
The Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata is Florence's main Marian shrine, the mother house of the Servite order. It stands on the square of the same name, northeast of the center, next to the Ospedale degli Innocenti, and for centuries it was...
The Medici Chapels are the Medici mausoleum, in Florence, behind the basilica of San Lorenzo, of which they are part. Today they are a state museum. They were built between the 1500s and 1600s to give the family a burial place worthy of its...
The church of Santa Felicita is a small church in the Oltrarno, in Florence, between Ponte Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti. It looks like one of many, but it holds a masterpiece of Mannerism and a story that begins in Roman times.
For three...
The church of Ognissanti faces the square of the same name, in Florence, near the Arno. Born in the 1200s with the Umiliati, it is the church of the Vespucci family and holds works by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Giotto, names that are enough to...
Palazzo Rucellai is one of the finest examples of private Renaissance architecture in Florence, on Via della Vigna Nuova. What matters is the facade, designed by Leon Battista Alberti: a model for the homes of Florentine lords.
"Out of...
The Basilica of Santa Trìnita is one of the most important churches in Florence's history, on the square of the same name, near the bridge. First of all, it is pronounced Santa Trìnita, with the stress on the first i, in the old Florentine...
Palazzo Strozzi is one of the best-known Renaissance palaces in Italy, between Via Tornabuoni and Piazza Strozzi, in Florence. Imposing as a fortress, with three identical portals on three sides, it now hosts art exhibitions.
Filippo...
Piazza della Repubblica is a large rectangular square in Florence's historic center, about 75 by 100 meters. With its arcades, the Arcone and its historic cafés, it is the city's living room, but everything you see is rather recent.
The...
The Vasari Corridor is an elevated, covered passage that links Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti, passing through the Uffizi and over Ponte Vecchio, in Florence. It was conceived so that the Medici could cross the city without mixing with their...
The Cenacolo di Sant'Apollonia is a small museum in Florence, near San Marco, in the former refectory of a cloistered Benedictine monastery. It has just one work, but a great one: Andrea del Castagno's Last Supper, probably painted in 1447, which...
Piazzale Michelangelo is Florence's great panoramic terrace, on the hill south of the Arno, in the Oltrarno. It is perhaps the city's most famous viewpoint, reproduced on countless postcards: from here you can see all of Florence at a single...
The Galleria Palatina is the painting museum of Palazzo Pitti, in Florence, across the Arno: twenty-eight rooms on the piano nobile with paintings hung from floor to ceiling, one next to another, in gilded frames. It is the “quadreria” of the...
The Badia Fiorentina is the ancient Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria, in the heart of Florence, on Via del Proconsolo, a stone's throw from the Bargello. “Badia” is the popular word for abbey: there were once five around the city, and this was...
La Specola is Florence's zoology museum, on Via Romana, in Palazzo Torrigiani, a few steps from Palazzo Pitti. It is the heir of the oldest public science museum in Europe, born here in 1775, and it holds taxidermied animals, wax models and...
The Tempio Maggiore Israelitico (Great Synagogue) is Florence's main synagogue, on Via Farini, in a garden a few steps from Piazza d'Azeglio. Inaugurated in 1882, it also houses the Jewish museum, and its green copper dome has become a...
The Church of San Marco is a basilica in the center of Florence, on the square of the same name, and was the church of the Dominican convent where Fra Angelico, Saint Antoninus and Girolamo Savonarola lived. Inside, a single nave with side...
Palazzo Davanzati is a 14th-century palace in the center of Florence, today the museum of the ancient Florentine home. It is not a gallery of masterpieces, but something rarer: the house of rich merchants, with its courtyard, its stairs, its...