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The Duomo and the Baptistery
You finish beside the cathedral, where the Pazzi conspiracy attacked the Medici in the middle of Mass.
Power, the Republic and the Medici in Florence: audio walks
Who ruled Florence, how was power won, and how was it lost?
7 walks with different starting points and stories. Compare their maps, stops and duration, then choose where to begin.
Explore these walks
Republic and Medici aren't just chapters in a book about Florence: they have squares, buildings and walking routes. This theme follows ways of gaining, exercising and losing power. The walks explore how political disputes touched urban life and the image their protagonists wanted to leave behind in the streets and buildings of the city.
In “The Medici in San Lorenzo”: The confiscated palace and the exiled bell bring Medici political disputes into the buildings of San Lorenzo and San Marco.
In “Oltrarno: from Pitti to the Carmine”: The other bank in eleven stops: the palace of a Medici rival that ended up in the hands of Eleonora of Toledo, the five thousand refugees of 1944, a runaway Venetian who became a grand duchess, a teenage Michelangelo's lost crucifix and the punch that broke his nose.
In “Sant'Ambrogio and Santa Croce”: The neighbourhood where Florence locked people up and set them free: a prison named after a castle, Machiavelli's lice, Michelangelo's house, lost because of a Jacobin heir, the wool carder who ruled for two days, the synagogue of emancipation and the night in 1966 when the cells were opened.
Choose from 7 independent walks in Florence. Open the one that interests you to see its map, stops and approximate duration before deciding. You don't need to do them all or follow this selection's order; each walk has its own starting and finishing points.
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Via de' Bardi and San Niccolò
You start where the street was once called "Lousy", before it came to belong to the Bardi, bankers who lent money to a king of England and were never paid back.
Dante's Florence
The neighbourhood where Dante grew up, married and lost everything: a little girl at a May Day party, a handsome and dangerous neighbour, a tower where the priors were locked in, a book with nails in its covers, and the city that burnt two years later.
The Medici in San Lorenzo and San Marco
The confiscated palace and the exiled bell bring Medici political disputes into the buildings of San Lorenzo and San Marco.
Oltrarno: from Pitti to the Carmine
The other bank in eleven stops: the palace of a Medici rival that ended up in the hands of Eleonora of Toledo, the five thousand refugees of 1944, a runaway Venetian who became a grand duchess, a teenage Michelangelo's lost crucifix and the punch that broke his nose.
Sant'Ambrogio and Eastern Santa Croce
The neighbourhood where Florence locked people up and set them free: a prison named after a castle, Machiavelli's lice, Michelangelo's house, lost because of a Jacobin heir, the wool carder who ruled for two days, the synagogue of emancipation and the night in 1966 when the cells were opened.
From the Signoria to Santa Croce
Two squares and a republic: the David that took four days to arrive, Savonarola's bonfires, Cellini melting down his dinner plates, the hanged men of the Bargello and the calcio match Florence played in front of the army besieging it.
Florence, before you go
Florence fits into short walks that grow longer as you keep looking. The centre is compact; crossing the Arno changes the perspective without changing the city.
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