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Enjoy a leisurely walk through the medieval streets of Florence, soak up the atmosphere and discover what made this beautiful city the jewel of the Renaissance. My tour has been carefully designed to embrace all the major highlights as well as some of the city's better-kept secrets.
.JPG) Duomo: The Duomo or Santa Maria del Fiore, to give the cathedral its proper name, dominates the centre of Florence.
In Italy, a cathedral is generally referred to as a Duomo, which comes from the Latin word domus or house. The cathedral is seen as the Domus Dei (House of God). When the present cathedral was commissioned, in 1296, to replace the old church of Santa Reparata, the ambitious nature of the project was clearly laid out:
“The Florentine Republic….desires that an edifice shall be constructed so magnificent in its height and beauty that it shall surpass anything of its kind produced in the times of their greatest power by the Greeks and the Romans.” More...
 Baptistery: Sitting on a perfect east-west axis with the cathedral, stands the Baptistery, the oldest and one of the most revered places in the city. Dating back to the 11th century (some think even earlier), generations of Florentines have been baptised here, including Dante, who called it 'Il Mio Bel San Giovanni.' More...
Bell Tower: To the south-west of the cathedral soars the Campanile, one of the most beautiful and elegant bell towers in the whole of Italy.
Work began on the free-standing structure, in 1334, and the design was entrusted to the Florentine artist, Giotto, on the grounds that he was the acknowledged master of painting! At the time there were not such sharp divisions between the professions as exist nowadays and, besides, it was reasonably thought that Giotto’s superlative achievements in one field could only guarantee his success in another. More...
 Orsanmichele: The church of Orsanmichele takes its name from the chapel of San Michele in Orto (St Michael in the Garden), which used to stand on the site. The present building does not look much like a church.
In fact, it started life as a grain market, the second one to be built on this site. The first loggia had been erected in 1290 by Arnolfo di Cambio. Two years later an image of the Madonna, painted on one of its pillars, began to perform miracles. This, very quickly, transformed the grain market into as much a place of pilgrimage, as of commerce. In 1304, the loggia was destroyed by fire and replaced by the present stone building. More...
 Palazzo Vecchio: The huge castellated mass of the Palazzo Vecchio looms over the east side of the Piazza Signoria, a perfect testament to the dangerous nature of the times in which it was built.
In all the Italian city-states of the 13th and 14th centuries, the building which housed the government competed in size and magnificence with the principal churches and Florence was no exception. The palace was the largest of the great communal palaces to be built in the Middle Ages and, like all the others, it was built, primarily, with defense in mind. It became the actual seat of the Republic in the 14th century. It still functions, today, as the town hall of Florence. More...
.JPG) Santa Croce: On the eastern side of Florence, stands the great Franciscan church of Santa Croce. It was built between 1295 and 1385 and is 381 feet long (115.5m) and 126 feet wide (38.2m).
When we step inside the cavernous interior of Santa Croce we are reminded that the churches of the mendicant orders were once described as giant preaching barns. Both the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the two great religious movements of the 13th century, required huge spaces to accommodate the extremely large congregations they attracted. More...
 Pazzi Chapel: The Pazzi Chapel, which lies on the east side of the first cloister of Santa Croce, is one of the most perfectly conceived spaces in Florence.
It was commissioned by Andrea de'Pazzi, in 1429/30, as a family chapel and chapter house and designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi died in 1446, but the chapel wasn't completed until the 1470s. More...
Santa Maria Novella: The beautiful Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella was begun in 1278. The Dominicans had arrived in Florence in 1219, seven years before the Franciscans. The two orders were known as mendicants (beggars), because, having renounced all property, they were supposed to follow the example of the Apostles and rely on people’s charity. This enabled them to dedicate their lives to preaching and converting. They were particularly active within the urban communities, which, in the 13th century, were spreading throughout the peninsula. More...
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