Business Traveler

Description:

The dark and haphazard museum in the church's old refectory (entrance to the left of Santo Spirito's facade) has a gathering of Romanesque and paleo-Christian stone sculptures and reliefs. The main reason to drop by is the end wall frescoed by Andrea Orcagna and his brother Nardo di Cione in 1360 with a Last Supper (of which only 1 1/2 apostles and a halo are left) and above it a beautiful Crucifixion, one of 14th-century Florence's masterpieces.

Our Local Expert Says:

Respect the rules of not taking flash photography inside.

Description:

This tall structure halfway down Via dei Calzaiuoli looks more like a Gothic warehouse than a church -- which is exactly what it was, built as a granary/grain market in 1337. After a miraculous image of the Madonna appeared on a column inside, however, the lower level was turned into a chapel. The city's merchant guilds each undertook the task of decorating one of the outside nichelike Gothic tabernacles around the lower level with a statue of their guild's patron saint. Masters such as Ghiberti, Donatello, Verrocchio, and Giambologna all cast or carved masterpieces to set here. Since 1984, these have been removed and are being replaced by casts as the originals are slowly cleaned and exhibited up on the second story.

Unfortunately, the church now keeps erratic hours due to a lack of personnel, so there are no set opening hours; however, you may get lucky and find the doors thrown open when you pass by (or, though this may take even more luck, someone might actually answer the phone number below and give you details on when it will next open). Since it's pretty nifty, and there's a chance you'll be able to pop in, I'll go ahead and describe it all.

In the chapel's dark interior (emerged in 1999 from a long restoration and entered around the "back" side on Via dell Arte della Lana) are recently restored 14th- to 16th-century paintings by the likes of Lorenzo di Credi and Il Poppi. The elaborate Gothic Tabernacle (1349-59) by Andrea Orcagna looks something like a miniature church, covered with statuettes, enamels, inset colored marbles and glass, and reliefs. It protects a luminous 1348 Madonna and Child painted by Giotto's student Bernardo Daddi. The prominent statue of the Madonna, Child, and St. Anne to its left is by Francesco da Sangallo (1522).

Across Via dell'Arte della Lana from the Orsanmichele's main entrance is the 1308 Palazzo dell'Arte della Lana. This Gothic palace was home to medieval Florence's most powerful body, the guild of wool merchants, which employed about one-third of Florence in the 13th and 14th centuries. Up the stairs inside you can cross over the hanging walkway to the first floor (American second floor) of Orsanmichele. These are the old granary rooms, now housing a museum of the statues that once surrounded the exterior. A few are still undergoing restoration, but eight of the original sculptures are here, well labeled, including Donatello's marble St. Mark (1411-13); Ghiberti's bronze St. John the Baptist (1413-16), the first life-size bronze of the Renaissance; and Verrocchio's Incredulity of St. Thomas (1473-83). This museum, too, does not always adhere to its posted hours, as those are dependent on someone being around to honor them. Still, it's at least worth a try.

Our Local Expert Says:

"You can see the hill town Fiesole and end of the Appennine Mountains from the Piazzale."

Description:

The vista which one can see the whole valley of Florence and of the surrounding hills is a must see.  The climb up is rewarding, the view is breathtaking. There are buses available to take you to Piazzale Michelangelo. Tourists, tourist groups and tour buses all congregate at this panoramic view.  Vendors set up early in the morning with cool beverages for the parched tourists and souvenirs for the eager shoppers. A sunset visit is for the romantics, bringing a wine bottle and gazing at the Florentine sky as it ends another day. There is never a bad time to visit Piazzale Michelangelo, there is always something to see from this height

Description:

Centrally located between the Arno and Santa Maria Novella railway station, this late 19th century building's bedrooms contain an impressive array of period furniture and nearly all come with private sauna. Refurbished throughout in the early 1990s, the hotel's high standard of comfort and conference facilities makes it a popular choice with business travellers.

Description:

On the roof garden of the Hotel Baglioni we find this restaurant and piano bar which in summer becomes a real open air nightclub with its musical appointments.

Description:

Identical in every way to its sister establishment in Monte Carlo, this upscale, cosmopolitan bistro offers a variety of food, drinks and snacks throughout the day. Hot and cold dishes range from a light salad to smoked salmon, to something a little more filling. Or just stop by for a couple of drinks with friends. On Sundays, American-style brunch, the perfect start to a long lazy Sunday, is served in this popular cocktail rendezvous.

Description:

This Club has indoor swimming pools, gyms and a Finnish sauna. Body building, cardiofitness and aerobics are all on offer. There are also swimming lessons for children, young people and adults, an aquagym and free swimming time for people who cannot attend regularly or who simply want to spend some time in the water.

Our Local Expert Says:

The gardens are expansive and hide many different areas to explore and enjoy.

Description:

Inside this garden lies the Buontalenti grotto (1583-1593). Decorated with mannerist-style scenes from Greek and Roman mythology, the grotto includes copies of Michelangelo's famous "Slave" series, the originals of which were transferred to the Galleria dell'Accademia. In the 17th century, the garden was extended as far as the Porta Romana, adding the Vasca d'Isola (pond) at the centre with a fountain and a statue of Neptune. In the late 18th century, Zanobi del Rosso built the Kaffehaus pavilion.

Description:

There are no lines at this former convent and no crowds. Few people even know to ring the bell at the nondescript door. What they're missing is an entire wall covered with the vibrant colors of Andrea del Castagno's masterful Last Supper (ca. 1450). Castagno used his paint to create the rich marble panels that checkerboard the trompe l'oeil walls and broke up the long white tablecloth with the dark figure of Judas the Betrayer, whose face is painted to resemble a satyr, an ancient symbol of evil.

Description:

This piazza was formed in the Mattonaia quarter of the city, inside the city walls, at the end of the 19th century as a result of the development plan devised by the architect Poggi in the 1870s. Once established, the bourgeoisie then considered the area both residential and desirable! The area then saw the creation of Prince Umberto's theatre - sadly destroyed two decades later. Another building appeared on the piazza at the beginning of the 20th century but today, this remains one of the few green spaces in the city centre. There are amusements for young children including a merry-go-round, slides and a wooden castle in a cordoned-off area; and there are also areas for older children such as a basketball pitch.

Our Local Expert Says:

Try their famous hamburgers! Delicious!

Description:

A typical American-styled pub/restaurant that serves all the dishes one would find in the States or in England. After 30 years of being in business, Danny Rock still offers its patrons the service and food that people crave in a city full of pasta and pizza. From the traditional hamburgers to many different cuisines; British, Greek, Indian and Creperie. When it opened in the 80s, it was the only pub in Florence that served crepes, burgers and super salads. An Art Decor ambiance that makes your experience at Danny Rock a special one. Managed by one of the leading chefs in Tuscany, Mr. Libero Cresci, Danny Rock keeps people coming back for more. The prices range from $10 to 30. There is outside seating as well as the possibility of reserving a room for parties. Take away food is popular as well. You can reach Danny Rock by bus numbers: 14, 23, C1, C2. You can easily walk to Via Pandolfini without a problem.

Description:

In harmony with the theme of the Gallery Hotel Art, the Fusion bar doubles as an exhibition space. Ask for the variety fare, and the cuisine lives up to the theme as well. It's a fantastic fusion of Italian, Japanese and Mediterranean cuisine. The fois gras nigiri sushi topped with chutney or the ma-cha tiramisu and wine to go with it is an excellent combination for the palate. Cocktails featured on the menu are quite a favorite with the Florentine elite who frequent the Shozan-Gallery.

Description:

Centrally located between the Arno and Santa Maria Novella railway station, this late 19th century building's bedrooms contain an impressive array of period furniture and nearly all come with private sauna. Refurbished throughout in the early 1990s, the hotel's high standard of comfort and conference facilities makes it a popular choice with business travellers.

Description:

Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (Laurentian Library) could be considered the Medici's family's library. Located to the left of San Lorenzo church (entrance on second floor through San Lorenzo cloister), the library was founded by Cosimo the Elder but it was Lorenzo the Magnificent who consistently enlarged the book collections. The monumental vestibule was designed by Michelangelo, with a large staircase, gray sandstone framework of columns, pilasters, and corbels standing out against whitewashed walls. He also designed the beautiful wooden ceiling and carved benches/reading desks of the Reading Room. The library contains thousands of manuscripts, especially relating to Florentine Renaissance including autographs of Petrarch and Boccaccio, illuminated codices, and an uncommon collection of about 2500 papyri. -Maria Frullini

Description:

As indicated by the name, you can enjoy an intimate evening in this small restaurant which is popular with the people of Florence. First courses might include spaghetti with crabmeat, taglierini with porcini mushrooms with sage, sheets of freshly-made puff-pastry with tails of mazzancolle with red pepper. For the second courses, side of veal white truffle, rabbit with prunes, large scampi with tarragon. The desserts are all home-made and are particularly good. The menu of regional wines is also very good. Warm and elegantly decorated surroundings provide the perfect context for the unobtrusive service.

Description:

Although the Baptistery's precise origins remain unclear, its foundations are known to date back to Roman times. The central doors are stunning works of art, depicting scenes from the Old and New Testament and they have been called "The Gates of Paradise." Lorenzo Ghiberti who worked on them from 1403 to 1424 designed these ornate doors. Inside, the octagonal structure is richly decorated with Roman columns and gilded column heads. The floor's marble inlay features Islamic-style patterns and the apse is decorated with 13th-century mosaics. Coppo di Marcovaldo and Cimabue were among those involved in the cupola's decorative mosaic work.

Our Local Expert Says:

A great masterpiece is located to the right as you walk in the door.

Description:

This church is one of the city's oldest churches after San Lorenzo and dates back to the 4th century. It was the archaeological site of the first Christian community in Florence. The first church built at this spot was named after Roman martyr St Felicita, the church gradually took shape during the Romanesque period. A new church was desginged by Ferdinando Ruggieri in the 11th century. It does however contain two sixteenth-century masterpieces - the Deposition and the Annunciation - by Jacopo Carrucci (also known as Pontormo) that were commissioned by Ludovico Capponi. The Vasari Corridor passes through the facade of the church this was where the Medici family would listen to mass without being noticed the other people at ground level.

Our Local Expert Says:

Don't miss Giotto's chapels: Peruzzi and Bardi!

Description:

The center of the Florentine Franciscan universe was begun in 1294 by Gothic master Arnolfo di Cambio in order to rival the huge church of Santa Maria Novella being raised by the Dominicans across the city. The church wasn't completed and consecrated until 1442, and even then it remained faceless until the neo-Gothic facade was added in 1857 (and cleaned in 1998-99). The cloisters are home to Brunelleschi's Cappella de' Pazzi, the convent partially given over to a famous leather school, and the church itself a shrine of 14th-century frescoes and a monument to notable Florentines, whose tombs and memorials litter the place like an Italian Westminster. The best artworks, such as the Giotto frescoes, are guarded by euro-gobbling lightboxes; bring plenty of change.

The Gothic interior -- for which they now charge a premium admission (it was free until recently) -- is wide and gaping, with huge pointed stone arches creating the aisles and an echoing nave trussed with wood beams, in all feeling vaguely barnlike (an analogy the occasional fluttering pigeon only reinforces). The floor is paved with worn tombstones -- because being buried in this hallowed sanctuary got you one step closer to Heaven, the richest families of the day paid big bucks to stake out small rectangles of the floor. On the right aisle is the first tomb of note, a mad Vasari contraption containing the bones of the most venerated of Renaissance masters, Michelangelo Buonarroti, who died of a fever in Rome in 1564 at the ripe age of 89. The pope wanted him buried in the Eternal City, but Florentines managed to sneak his body back to Florence. Past Michelangelo is a pompous 19th-century cenotaph to Florentine Dante Alighieri, one of history's greatest poets, whose Divine Comedy codified the Italian language. He died in 1321 in Ravenna after a long and bitter life in exile from his hometown (on trumped-up embezzlement charges), and that Adriatic city has never seen fit to return the bones to Florence, the city that would never readmit the poet when he was alive.

Against a nave pillar farther up is an elaborate pulpit (1472-76) carved by Benedetto di Maiano with scenes from the life of St. Francis. Next comes a wall monument to Niccolò Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesman and author whose famous book The Prince was the perfect practical manual for a powerful Renaissance ruler.

Past the next altar is an Annunciation (1433) carved in low relief of pietra serena and gilded by Donatello. Nearby is Antonio Rossellino's 1446 tomb of the great humanist scholar and city chancellor Leonardo Bruni (d. 1444). Beyond this architectural masterpiece of a tomb is a 19th-century knockoff honoring the remains of Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), composer of the Barber of Seville and the William Tell Overture.

Around in the right transept is the Cappella Castellani frescoed by Agnolo Gaddi and assistants, with a tabernacle by Mino da Fiesole and a Crucifix by Niccolò Gerini. Agnolo's father, Taddeo Gaddi, was one of Giotto's closest followers, and the senior Gaddi is the one who undertook painting the Cappella Baroncelli (1332-38) at the transept's end. The frescoes depict scenes from the Life of the Virgin, and to the left of the window is an Angel Appearing to the Shepherds that constitutes the first night scene in Italian fresco. The altarpiece Coronation of the Virgin is by Giotto. To the left of this chapel is a doorway, designed by Michelozzo, leading to the sagrestia (sacristy) past a huge Deposition (1560) by Alessandro Allori that had to be restored after it incurred massive water damage when the church was inundated during the 1966 flood. Past the gift shop is a leather school and store.

In the right transept, Giotto frescoed the two chapels to the right of the high altar. The frescoes were whitewashed over during the 17th century but uncovered from 1841 to 1852 and inexpertly restored. The Cappella Peruzzi, on the right, is a late work and not in the best shape. The many references to antiquity in the styling and architecture of the frescoes reflect Giotto's trip to Rome and its ruins. His assistant Taddeo Gaddi did the altarpiece. Even more famous, if only as the setting for a scene in the film A Room with a View, is the Cappella Bardi immediately to the right of the high altar. The key panels here include the Trial by Fire Before the Sultan of Egypt on the right wall, full of telling subtlety in the expressions and poses of the figures. One of Giotto's most well-known works is the lower panel on the left wall, the Death of St. Francis, where the monks weep and wail with convincing pathos. Alas, big chunks of the scene are missing from when a tomb was stuck on top of it in the 18th century. Most people miss seeing Francis Receiving the Stigmata, which Giotto frescoed above the outside of the entrance arch to the chapel.

Agnolo Gaddi designed the stained-glass windows, painted the saints between them, and frescoed a Legend of the True Cross cycle on the walls of the rounded sanctuary behind the high altar. At the end of the left transept is another Cappella Bardi, this one housing a legendary Crucifix by Donatello. According to Vasari, Donatello excitedly called his friend Filippo Brunelleschi up to his studio to see this Crucifix when he had finished carving it. The famed architect, whose tastes were aligned with the prevailing view of the time that refinement and grace were much more important than realism, criticized the work with the words, "Why Donatello, you've put a peasant on the cross!" Donatello sniffed, "If it was as easy to make something as it is to criticize, my Christ would really look to you like Christ. So you get some wood and try to make one yourself." Secretly, Brunelleschi did just that, and one day he invited Donatello to come over to his studio for lunch. Donatello arrived bearing the food gathered up in his apron. Shocked when he beheld Brunelleschi's elegant Crucifix, he let the lunch drop to the floor, smashing the eggs, and after a few moments turned to Brunelleschi and humbly offered, "Your job is making Christs and mine is making peasants." Tastes change, and to modern eyes this "peasant" stands as the stronger work. If you want to see how Brunelleschi fared with his Christ, visit it at Santa Maria Novella.

Past a door as you head back down the left aisle is a 16th-century Deposition by Bronzino. A bit farther along, against a pier, is the roped-off floor tomb of Lorenzo Ghiberti, sculptor of the baptistery doors. Against the wall is an altarpiece of the Incredulity of St. Thomas by Giorgio Vasari. The last tomb on the right is that of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the preeminent Pisan scientist who figured out everything from the action of pendulums and the famous law of bodies falling at the same rate (regardless of weight) to discovering the moons of Jupiter and asserting that the earth revolved around the sun. This last one got him in trouble with the church, which tried him in the Inquisition and -- when he wouldn't recant -- excommunicated him. At the urging of friends frightened his obstinacy would get him executed as a heretic, Galileo eventually kneeled in front of an altar and "admitted" he'd been wrong. He lived out the rest of his days under house arrest near Florence and wasn't allowed a Christian burial until 1737. Giulio Foggini designed this tomb for him, complete with a relief of the solar system -- the sun, you'll notice, is at the center. The pope finally got around to lifting the excommunication in 1992. Italians still bring him fresh flowers.

Description:

Santa Trinita located near the Ponte Santa Trinita was founded in 1092.  Santa Trinita has 20 chapels and most notably Sassetti Chapel.  Domenico Ghirlandaio created frescoes dedicated to the life of St. Francis in the Sassetti Chapel.  Many of the noble people of Florence were buried among the stones in Santa Trinita being on the richest street of Florence, Via Tornabuoni.  Santa Trinita meaning "Holy Trinity" is spelled without the accent in the Florentine dialect.  The stress is on the first vowel of 'trinita' instead of the last which is the common way.  This church has a way of inspiring the creative side of a person.  Having the most gorgeous frescoes all around the church and chapels, it is hard not to be impressed with the works of the greats.

Our Local Expert Says:

A great place to spend an afternoon away from the busy tourist attractions of the historical center, this working monastery is an absolute jewel. Tours may or may not be in English but the monastery speaks for itself.

Description:

Both architecturally and artistically unique, this monastery commissioned in 1342 by Niccolò Acciaioli, viceroy of the Kingdom of Naples, was originally home to Carthusian monks. Today Cistercian monks (who have lived here since 1958) give visitors a guided tour of the complex's treasures. The tour winds its way through the monastery, taking in the Chiostrino dei Monaci e il Capitolo, a cloister featuring Albertinelli's 1506 work, "The Crucifixion." Other architectural works, completed in different periods, make up the Certosa complex. Free admission.

Description:

Since 1912, this typical Florence restaurant has maintained a high profile as well as a faithful following, due to its good food and low prices.