Florence: Itineraries

From the apse of the Duomo, head south down Via del Proconsolo. The first grand mansion on your left is the Palazzo Nonfinito. Across Borgo degli Albizi stands the equally impressive Palazzo dei Pazzi, which is influenced by the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. You can wander into the courtyard. Diagonally across from Palazzo dei Pazzi is one of the oldest churches in Florence, the Badia Fiorentina, fronted by the one-time seat of the city prison and now a grand museum, the Palazzo del Bargello. A block east of the latter is Palazzo Borghese, an early-19th-century neoclassical pile.

A few metres further south we arrive in Piazza San Firenze, dominated by the law courts made up of two churches in one, most commonly known as the Chiesa di San Firenze. Across the piazza (on the west side) is the main façade of Palazzo Gondi, once the site of the merchants' tribunal. Off Via de' Gondi you can enter a beautiful courtyard with fountain and staircase in pietra serena (grey 'tranquil stone'). The whole courtyard is crammed with tourist stalls. As a young lad, Leonardo da Vinci was apprenticed to a painter's workshop here.

From Piazza San Firenze, turn west along Via della Condotta, which in medieval times was one of the main fashion shopping streets. Take Via dei Magazzini north and you'll arrive at Via Dante Alighieri. On the corner of this street and Via Santa Margherita is what is touted as the Casa di Dante (Dante's House). Opposite the house is the Torre della Castagna, all that remains of the palazzo where the medieval republic's leaders, the priori , met until the Palazzo della Signoria (nowadays the Palazzo Vecchio) was built. Facing the tower across Via dei Magazzini is the Oratorio di San Martino, a chapel on the site of the former Chiesa di San Martino, Dante's parish church.

Just up Via Santa Margherita from Dante's alleged place is the small Chiesa di Santa Margherita, which dates at least from 1032. Some say that it was here that Dante met his muse, Beatrice Portinari.

Continuing along Via Dante Alighieri, which leads into Via dei Tavolini, you come across the Chiesa di Orsanmichele and opposite it the Arte dei Beccai, the 14th-century headquarters of the Butchers' Guild. Far more important was the Wool Guild or Arte della Lana, the medieval headquarters of which still stand proudly on the corner of Via Orsanmichele and Via Calimala. The tower-house echoes the Florentine preoccupation with self-defence.

Just south of where Via Calimaruzza runs into Via Calimala is where the Roman city's south gate stood. A short way north along Via Calimala is Piazza della Repubblica. If you stroll back south down Via Calimala you arrive at the Mercato Nuovo, or Newmarket. Just off to the southwest of the Mercato Nuovo, Palazzo dei Capitani di Parte Guelfa (Palace of the Guelph Faction's Captains) was built in the early 13th century and later tinkered with by Brunelleschi and Vasari. About a block west is a remarkable leftover from the 14th century, Palazzo Davanzati. The modest 11th-century Chiesa degli SS Apostoli is dwarfed by the houses built on and around it in Piazza del Limbo.

If you hike back east to Via Por Santa Maria, cross into the little square presided over by the part-Romanesque, part-Gothic façade of the now deconsecrated Chiesa di Santo Stefano. From here, walk on to Lungarno degli Archibusieri and then between the wings of the Galleria degli Uffizi into Piazza della Signoria, dominated by the fortified hulk of the Palazzo Vecchio.