Visiting Florence, “Piazza della Signoria” square, “Palazzo Vecchio” building, Galleria degli Uffizi museum, Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, Campanile di Giotto, Ponte Vecchio

FLORENCE

Florence is considered the birth place of Renaissance and is known alla over the world as the cradle of art and architecture, with its historical buldings, monuments and museums (for example Uffizi Gallery, Accademy Gallery, Bargello museum and many others), is known as one of the most beautiful and important cities in the world.

Florence is considered as the Art’s city, with its huge artistic heritage of paintings, sculptures, historical and scientist memories, that constitute the city as a diffuse museum. The heart of Florence is Piazza della Signoria square, the unique square in the world that has an extraordinary quantity of sculptures of political inspiration in order to advise the politicians of the town. In the big square it is possible to find many ppieces of art, as the statues above the “Loggia dei Lanzi”, the statue of Cosimo I de’ Medici, the statues in front of Palazzo Vecchio building as David by Michelangelo, the Neputn, the Marzocco by Donatello and many others. In Piazza della Signoria square there is the majestic Palazzo Vecchio building. The building is the town hall of the city, when Florence was the capital of Italy it was the site of the Italian parliament. In its halls the politic destiny of the city have been decided from the Republic to the duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, that he turned into his private house. In the museum of Palazzo Vecchio there are masterpieces by Donatello, Bronzino, Michelangelo Buonarroti and Giorgio Vasari.

Next to Piazza della Signoria, there is Uffizi Gallery, one of the most famous museums in the world. Uffizi gallery is one of the most important pinacothecas in the world, with its incomparable art collection of Florentine Renaissance and the greatest collection of paintings by Bottticelli in the world. This collection of Uffizi Gallery is present thanks to the Medici family and comprehend even many ancient pieces of art like those ones by Giotto, Cimabue, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raffaello, Tiziano, Caravaggio, Bernini, Beato Angelico, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Francisco Goya, Tintoretto, Paolo Uccello, Chardin, Piero della Francesca, Masaccio, Giorgio Vasari, Correggio, Canaletto, El Greco, Durer, Lucas Cranach, Antonello da Messina, Mantegna, Simone Martini and many other authors. Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral with its huge dome is located not far from here. This church is the cathedral of Florence and it is the fourth biggest church in the world, just after Saint Peter in Vatican, Saint Paul in London and the Cathedral in Milan; it is long 153 mt and the basement of the dome is wide 90 mt.

The cathedral has the famous Giotto Steeple, one of the most beautiful in Italy, and the Baptistery of San Giovanni. The baptistery was loved by Dante and Michelangelo too, it is wonderfully decorated and on the extrenal and on the internal; it is famous for the mosaics on the dome and for the “Paradide Door” by Lorenzo Ghiberti; the mysterious origins and the historical facts happened inside, increase its enigmatic history. The Arno river that passes through the city, has an important role in the florentine history as the people. The people who live in Florence feel hate and love for the Arno river, that takes economical advantages and disadvantages caused by foods. There are many bridges on the Arno river. Amongst those ones there is the Ponte Vecchio bridge that is unique in the world with its jewelleries. This bridge is of the Roman period. It is the only bridge in Florence that was not destroyed by the Germans in 1944. Inside the bridge there is a special corridor, the Corridoio Vasariano one.

The centre of Florence is a shopping paradise with its hundreds of shops. You can find many boutiques of haute couture, the historical coffees and the open air markets. In the centre there are also night clubs, discos, American bars and aperitif bars (The Negroni cocktail was born in Florence).