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Basilica di Santa Maria del Carmine
On the southern flank of Piazza del Carmine, this chapel is a treasure trove of paintings by Masolino da Panicale, Masaccio and Filippino Lippi. Above all, the frescoes by Masaccio are considered among his greatest works, representing a definitive break with Gothic art and a plunge into new worlds of expression in the early stages of the Renaissance.
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Casa Buonarroti
In a house that Michelangelo bought but never lived in, this overpriced museum (more like a memorial) was established by his descendants and features a few pieces by Michelangelo - including the marble relief Madonna della Scala (Madonna of the Steps; 1492), his earliest known work - along with drawings exhibited in rotation, portraits of him by other artists, a few Etruscan urns and an overbearing security guard.
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Casa di Dante
This is not the house where Dante was born - it was built in the 20th century - but it is (or is near) the location where he lived. The recently renovated museum dedicated to Dante's work, life and times, contains pictures and models of 12th and 13th century Florence, completed by accounts of the interminable squabbles between Guelphs and Ghibellines and Dante's exile from the city.
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Casa Rodolfo Siviero
This shady mansion on the Arno was until 1999 the house of the family of Rodolfo Siviero, an art collector of eclectic taste and, during and after WWII, a key figure in the recovery of art stolen from Florence by the Nazis. The collection is a hodgepodge, ranging from Renaissance church furniture to Roman busts, from Etruscan objects to paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, a personal friend who on the back of one work wrote that the painting was a gift but that Siviero had to pay for the frame!
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Cenacolo di Santo Spirito
Home to the Fondazione Romano, a collection of 11th-century Romanesque sculpture, this former refectory provides a change of pace from the Renaissance and has grand frescoes by Andrea Orcagna depicting the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.
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Corridoio Vasariano
When Cosimo I moved to Palazzo Pitti in 1564, he got Vasari to build a 1km-long private corridor from the Palazzo Vecchio, through the Uffizi, across the top of Ponte Vecchio, through the Chiesa di Santa Felicita and into their new home. It was a security measure and a means of avoiding the riff-raff. Long home to a collection of secondary art, it is at present closed to the public.
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Galleria d'Arte Moderna
In Florentine art, 'modern' means from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th, and the most interesting part - not necessarily the best - of this collection is the work of the late-19th-century Macchiaioli ('spot-makers'), or Tuscan impressionists.
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Galleria degli Uffizi
Designed and built by Vasari in the second half of the 16th century at the request of Cosimo I de' Medici, the Palazzo degli Uffizi, originally housed the city's administrators, judiciary and guilds. It now houses the world's single greatest collection of Italian and Florentine art. Be warned, if you don't book ahead you could be queuing for literally hours.
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Galleria del Costume
This gallery on the ground floor of the Palazzo Pitti displays thousands of dresses that reflect the changing styles of court and high fashion from the late 1700s to the 1960s.
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Il Genio di Leonardo
Odd how two such museums have landed in Florence. This one is very similar to Le Macchine di Leonardo though slightly less complete and a trifle more expensive. As in the other, you can see life-size models of Leonardo da Vinci's big ideas, from a glider to a tank. Whatever you do, do not visit both museums!
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Loggia della Signoria
Built by Orcagna in the late 14th century as a platform for public ceremonies, this elegant arcade now serves as an open-air sculpture gallery, with highlights such as Cellini's magnificent bronze Perseo (Perseus). Also known as the Loggia dei Lanzi, the arcade was named after Cosimo I's Swiss mercenaries, the Lances, who were once stationed here.
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Macchine di Leonardo
Pop by here for a squiz at some grand-scale models of some of Leonardo da Vinci's more far-fetched ideas, silly things like flying machines, a bicycle, a glider, a tank and other objects that were, actually, centuries ahead of their time.
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Museo Archeologico
If you're at all interested in antiquity, you'll love this fabulous museum which was started by Cosimo I in the 15th century and now exhibits outstanding collections of Etruscan, Greek, Roman and ancient Egyptian artefacts ranging from everyday items to classic ceremonial sculpture.
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Museo degli Argenti
More than the silver in the name, this museum in Palazzo Pitti exhibits the massive private wealth of the Medici dynasty - at least, what wasn't sold off by the Lorraines when they took over - and ranges from intricate jewellery to a chalice made from ostrich eggs. The centrepiece is a spectacular collection of antique pietra dura (semiprecious stone) vases.
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Museo dei Ragazzi
Based in Palazzo Vecchio, this museum organises activities and educational workshops for kids here and in the Museo di Storia della Scienza and Museo Stibbert. Budding historians and their parents can hang out with actors dressed up as Cosimo I and Eleonora de Toledo - kids are invited to dress up as their kids (Bia and Garcia) and play with the kinds of toys the two grand-ducal imps used to enjoy.
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Museo del Bigallo
This minuscule museum attached to the Loggia del Bigallo has a few notable artworks, including the 14th-century Madonna della Misericordia fresco (in the Sala dei Capitani), which features the earliest known depiction of the city and the Duomo with its (at the time) incomplete façade.
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Museo dell'Antropologia e Etnologia
Italy's first anthropology and ethnology museum is housed in the Palazzo Nonfinito (Unfinished Palace), which was started by Buontalenti in 1593 in the Mannerist style. It was established in 1869 and exhibits unusual goodies such as Ecuadorian shrunken heads and obscure musical instruments collected by roaming Italians.
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Museo dell'Opera del Duomo
Lurking modestly behind the cathedral is the treasure chest of sculptures that once adorned the Duomo, Baptistery and Campanile. As you enter you see several 3rd-century marble fragments from funerary urns and sarcophagi. Some sculptural groups from the Baptistery follow these, and then various statues (ranging from 1335 to the 1380s) that once adorned the doorways of the Duomo.
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Museo dell'Opera di Santa Croce
To be included in your visit to the Basilica di Santa Croce, this austere museum contains several masterpieces salvaged - some only just - from the 1966 flood, including a restored crucifix by Cimabue and Donatello's gilded bronze statue of San Ludovico di Tolosa (St Ludovich of Toulouse), originally placed in a tabernacle on the façade of Orsanmichele.
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Museo della Storia della Fotografia Fratelli Alinari
Florence's Alinari family was one of the earliest in the world to enter the photography business. Their historical archives are an incredibly rich source of material but they have long been kept under lock and key. At the time of going to press, this new museum was still being completed on the site of the one-time Convento delle Leopoldine, behind the façade of the Loggia di San Paolo. It promises to be one of the world's great photography galleries.
Read more about Museo della Storia della Fotografia Fratelli Alinari
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Museo delle Porcellane
Housed in the airy casino at the top of the Giardino di Boboli, this museum contains a varied collection of fine porcelain, including fine pieces from Sèvres, Meissen and Vincennes, collected down the ages by illustrious tenants of Palazzo Pitti.
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Museo di San Marco
In the centre of the university area, this museum is housed in the now-deconsecrated Dominican convent and the Chiesa di San Marco. The church was founded in 1299, rebuilt by Michelozzo in 1437, and again remodelled by Giambologna some years later. It features several paintings, but they pale in comparison with the treasures in the adjoining convent.
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Museo di Santa Maria Novella
Just to the left of the church is the Chiostro Verde (Green Cloister), one of the most beautiful and tranquil spaces in Florence, and so named because Paolo Uccello used a green earth pigment in his frescoes, lending the place an air of otherworldliness. The museum itself has bits and bobs removed from the church.
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Museo di Storia della Scienza
Perfect tonic for the art-jaded tourist, this museum is dedicated to Tuscany's men of science, particularly Galileo Galilei, whose telescope, lens and finger are on display. In his memory, Florence founded an Academy of Experimentation and you can see early thermometers and barometers invented by the group, as well as gadgets and innovations, including a mechanical calculator, from around Europe.
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Museo di Storia Naturale
Four sections of the Natural History Museum are scattered across one of the central university campuses. The ticket office is in the paleontology and geology section, a musty old museum replete with skeletons of ancient beasts, models of same, prehistoric tusks and glass cases laden with fossils. The equally ancient botany (visits by appointment only) and mineralogy sections are in separate buildings a short way down the same drive from the faculty street entrance.
