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Porta Romana
Pilgrims to Rome headed down Via Romana leaving Florence behind them. The end of the road is marked by the Porta Romana, an imposing gate that was part of the outer circle of city walls knocked down in the 19th century. A strip of this wall still stretches to the north from the gate.
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Rotonda del Brunelleschi
This neglected-looking hexagonal building was going to be the Rotonda di Santa Maria degli Angioli and, lined with chapels, would have been one of Brunelleschi's most original buildings had money not run out. The university now has offices here.
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Sinagoga & Museo di Storia E Arte Ebraica
This late-19th-century synagogue is a fanciful structure with playful Moorish and even Byzantine elements. Although Florence was home to a Jewish community since at least the 14th century, serious discussion on the building of an appropriate temple only began around 1850, after the town authorities had definitively dropped all discriminatory regulations against the Jews.
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Spedale degli Innocenti
Europe's first orphanage, opened in 1444, was Brunelleschi's first complete work as an architect. Andrea della Robbia decorated the elegant arcaded loggia in the 1490s with terracotta medallions of babies in swaddling clothes as an appeal for charity. Inside is Ghirlandaio's striking Adorazione dei Magi (Adoration of the Magi), along with an early and over-restored Madonna col Bambino e un Angelo (Madonna with Child and an Angel) by Botticelli.
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Via Maggio
No, it doesn't mean May St, but rather Via Maggiore (Main St). In the 16th century this was a rather posh address, as the line-up of fine Renaissance mansions duly attests. Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, at No 26, has the most eye-catching façade, covered as it is in graffiti designs. As a fugitive from Venice and Francesco I de' Medici's lover and later wife lived here, Ms Cappello didn't know too many dull moments.
