Florence (Firenze in Italian — population 362,000 in the city, 1 million in the metropolitan area — the capital of Tuscany and one of the most culturally significant cities in the world) is the city where the Renaissance was born: the 15th-century explosion of artistic, architectural and intellectual achievement that transformed European civilization began in Florence, under the patronage of the Medici family (the Florentine banking dynasty whose financial power funded the greatest concentration of artistic talent in history). The Uffizi Gallery (the most important gallery of Italian Renaissance painting in the world, containing works by Botticelli (the Birth of Venus, the Primavera), Leonardo da Vinci (the Annunciation), Michelangelo (the Doni Tondo), Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio and Giotto), the Accademia (the museum where Michelangelo's David (1501–1504) stands — the marble figure 5.17m tall that is the definitive Western sculpture of the ideal human form), the Duomo (the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore with Brunelleschi's dome (1436) — the largest masonry dome ever built, without centering, using a double-shell construction technique that Brunelleschi invented and kept secret), and the Ponte Vecchio (the 14th-century bridge over the Arno covered with jewelers' shops — the only bridge in Florence not destroyed by the retreating German army in 1944 (following Hitler's personal orders, according to the German commander who was present)) make Florence the most concentrated collection of masterpieces in the world per square kilometer. No city of comparable size has produced such a disproportionate contribution to the history of human civilization: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Galileo, Amerigo Vespucci, and the Medici family were all Florentine or made Florence their primary base.
Gallerie degli Uffizi (Piazzale degli Uffizi 6 — the U-shaped building commissioned by Cosimo I de' Medici (1560) to house the Florentine government offices (Uffizi = offices): the most important collection of Italian Renaissance painting in the world: Room 10–14 (the Botticelli rooms — the most visited rooms in the Uffizi: the Birth of Venus (c. 1485 — the shell-borne Venus in the most recognizable composition of any Renaissance painting), the Primavera (c. 1477 — the allegorical garden of spring with the Three Graces, Mercury, Flora and the Zephyr: the iconographic program is still debated), the Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1472–1475 — the earliest surviving large-scale Leonardo, painted before he left Florence for Milan), the Doni Tondo by Michelangelo (1507 — the only completed panel painting by Michelangelo, in the original Michelangelo frame), the Medusa (Caravaggio), and the portraits by Raphael and Titian. Pre-book online to avoid the 3-hour summer queues.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePiazza della Signoria (the main civic square of Florence — the center of Florentine political life since the 13th century: the Palazzo Vecchio (the 13th–14th century crenellated palace of the Florentine government — the 94m tower (the Torre di Arnolfo) visible across the city: the palace where the Signoria (the governing council of the Florentine republic) met, now a museum with Michelangelo's original David (the copy stands in the square) and the Salone dei Cinquecento (the 55m×22m council hall decorated by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo competing murals (both lost, discovered in recent decades under later layers of plaster)), and the Loggia dei Lanzi (the 14th-century open-air gallery of outdoor sculpture: the most important is the Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini (1554) — the bronze masterpiece that Cellini nearly abandoned when the molten bronze began to solidify and he was saved by a housewife pouring her pewter dishes into the crucible).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideCattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (the Florence Cathedral — the 14th-century Gothic cathedral (begun 1296) designed by Arnolfo di Cambio, with the 15th-century dome (1418–1436) by Filippo Brunelleschi: the most important work of architecture in the Italian Renaissance. The dome is 42m in diameter (larger than the Pantheon in Rome) and was built without wooden centering (the traditional scaffolding that all previous domes required — the span was too wide to build conventional centering at the required height): Brunelleschi invented the double-shell construction (the dome is two shells: an inner shell in brick and an outer shell in stone, connected by ribs and held in compression by iron chains at different heights), the "herringbone" brickwork (the specific pattern of bricks that allows the dome to support itself as it rises: the bricks are laid alternately flat and upright in a herringbone pattern that eliminates the need for centering) and the machines to lift the materials (the self-supporting crane that he invented to place the lantern at the top). Climb the 463 steps for the view from the lantern.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideBistecca alla Fiorentina (the Florentine T-bone steak — the most important dish in Tuscan cuisine: the bistecca (the T-bone or porterhouse cut) from the Chianina cattle (the breed raised in the Chiana Valley of Tuscany and Umbria — the white Chianina is the oldest and largest breed of cattle in Italy, with a lineage that dates to ancient Roman times: the meat is characterized by very low fat content, a deep red color and a pronounced savory flavor): the bistecca is cooked on a wood-fired grill (the "brace" — the charcoal or hardwood embers) at very high temperature for a very short time (3–5 minutes per side for a 1kg steak): served very rare ("al sangue" — "bloody"), with no sauce, no accompaniment other than white cannellini beans (if requested) and a drizzle of Tuscan extra-virgin olive oil. Buca Mario (Piazza degli Ottaviani 16 — the oldest restaurant in Florence, operating since 1886).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideGalleria dell'Accademia (Via Ricasoli 58 — the museum created specifically to house Michelangelo's David: the statue (1501–1504) that is the most famous sculpture in the Western world: carved from a single block of Carrara marble (the specific block that had been ordered by the Florence Cathedral Opera in 1464 for a different sculptor and was abandoned (the "Giant" — il Gigante — as the block was known in Florence) for 26 years: when the 26-year-old Michelangelo received the commission in 1501, he had a statue to work from that was still very visible in the proportions and stance of the finished work)). The David: 5.17m (the most oversized figure in Renaissance art: the disproportionately large hands and head are deliberate, designed for the statue's original intended position high on the Cathedral buttress (where the head and hands, seen from below, would have appeared in correct proportion)). Pre-book to avoid the 2–3 hour queues.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideBasilica di Santa Croce (the Franciscan basilica of Florence — the largest Franciscan church in the world (115m × 38m), the most important burial church in Italy: Michelangelo (tomb by Giorgio Vasari, 1570 — the Florentines insisted that his body be smuggled back from Rome when he died there in 1564), Galileo Galilei (tomb 1737 — Galileo was not initially given a Christian burial because of his condemnation by the Inquisition: the tomb was delayed for 95 years), Niccolò Machiavelli (tomb with the inscription "TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM" — "No praise is adequate for such a name"), Gioacchino Rossini, and the cenotaph of Dante Alighieri (Dante is buried in Ravenna — the Florentines who expelled him in 1302 later asked Ravenna for his remains and were refused). The Cappella dei Pazzi by Brunelleschi: the most perfect example of Early Renaissance architecture.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideOltrarno (the "other side of the Arno" — the neighborhood south of the Arno: the most authentic residential quarter of Florence (the artisans' workshops, the goldsmiths and the independent restaurants of the Florentine locals have been displaced from the tourist-saturated north bank) and the Palazzo Pitti (the largest palace in Florence: the palace of the Pitti family (15th century), then purchased by the Medici (1549) and expanded to its current colossal form: the 205m-wide ashlar stone facade is the widest palace facade in Italy. The palace contains 5 museums: the Palatine Gallery (the Medici art collection: the most important Raphael and Titian rooms in Italy), the Royal Apartments, the Gallery of Modern Art, the Costume Gallery and the Silver Museum) and the Boboli Gardens (the most important example of Italian formal garden design (1549) behind the palace).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLampredotto (the quintessential Florentine street food — the "lamprey stomach": the fourth stomach of the cow (the abomasum — the true stomach, as opposed to the three ruminant pre-stomachs (the rumen, reticulum and omasum): the lampredotto is slow-boiled in a vegetable broth (water, onion, carrot, celery, tomato and parsley) until tender (2–3 hours), then sliced and served in a round bread roll (the semellino — the small white roll) that is "bagnato" (dipped in the lampredotto broth for a few seconds, until the bread is wet but not disintegrating), with the salsa verde (the green sauce: olive oil, parsley, garlic, capers and anchovy) and/or the salsa piccante (the hot red pepper sauce)). Nerbone (Mercato Centrale, Piazza del Mercato Centrale — the trattoria and lampredotto counter that has been in the San Lorenzo market hall since 1872: the most traditional Florentine food experience).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideMuseo Nazionale del Bargello (Via del Proconsolo 4 — the 13th-century palace (the former prison and seat of the police chief (Bargello) of Florence) that houses the most important sculpture museum in Italy: the two competing bronze David sculptures (Donatello's David (c. 1440) — the first nude male bronze sculpture of the post-classical era: the figure is specifically androgynous (the curving hip, the hat, the youth) in contrast to the heroic Michelangelo version: whether Donatello's David was intended for a private space (possibly the Medici courtyard) and its homoeroticism was deliberate is still debated), Michelangelo's Bacchus (1497 — the earliest complete Michelangelo sculpture: a drunken, slightly unsteady Bacchus with a small faun eating grapes behind him — the work that established Michelangelo's reputation in Rome and led directly to the Pietà commission), and the Donatello St George (the niche sculpture that introduced the concept of pictorial space in low relief (the "schiacciato" (squashed) relief technique) that is the origin of perspective in sculpture).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideChianti Classico (the wine appellation in the hills between Florence and Siena — the most famous wine region in Tuscany (the Sangiovese grape: the primary grape of Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano — the "noble grape of the Sanguis Jovis" (the blood of Jupiter))): the wine estates (the fattorie) in the Chianti hills (the Gallo Nero zone — the Black Cockerel, the symbol of the Chianti Classico Consorzio since 1924): the Antinori estate (the oldest wine estate in continuous family ownership in Italy — founded 1385, 26 generations of the Antinori family), the Castello di Verrazzano (the 15th-century castle where Giovanni da Verrazzano (who explored the North American coast in 1524 and gave New York harbor its first European name) was born), and the cypress-lined roads (the quintessential Tuscan landscape registered as UNESCO "Cultural Landscape of the Val d'Orcia" (2004)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideFlorentine gelato (the artisanal gelato of Florence — the specific tradition of the Florentine gelateria: the artisanal gelato is defined by the proportion of overrun (the air incorporated during churning: artisanal gelato has 20–30% overrun (meaning the gelato is 20–30% air) compared to industrial ice cream (which has 100% or more overrun — half the volume is air)), the use of milk (not cream) as the primary dairy component (creating the denser, more intense flavor compared to the cream-based ice cream), and the storage in a pozzetto (the stainless steel container stored in a refrigerated counter with the lid on top — the artisanal gelato is not displayed in the mounded mountains visible in tourist-trap gelaterie, but in flat containers with lids: the absence of color-saturated mounds is the primary indicator of a genuine artisanal gelateria)). Gelateria dei Neri (Via dei Neri 9 — the most celebrated artisanal gelateria in central Florence: the ricotta and fig, the dark Valrhona chocolate and the pistachio from Bronte (the specific Sicilian pistachio appellation) are the signature flavors).
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