Historic Center: Duomo to Ponte Vecchio

The full story of Historic Center: Duomo to Ponte Vecchio, in words. Prefer to listen? Play it narrated, from home or on location.

1. 1. San Lorenzo: The Front That Never Came

   Welcome to San Lorenzo. Face the church across the square. That rough wall of brown stone and brick, with three plain doorways and nothing on it, is the front, and it was never finished. This was the Medici family's parish church. Brunelleschi began rebuilding it in fourteen twenty-one, the family paid for it and prayed in it, and many of them are buried in it. A Medici pope, Leo the Tenth, wanted it to have a front worthy of them. On the nineteenth of January fifteen eighteen he signed a contract with Michelangelo for one in marble, with dozens of statues. Michelangelo spent much of the next two years dealing with the marble quarries. On the tenth of March fifteen twenty he recorded, in his own hand, that the contract had been cancelled. The marble already cut went to pave the cathedral, which you will be standing beside in a few minutes. The front you are looking at is what was left. Florence has talked about finishing it more than once. In two thousand eleven the mayor proposed building Michelangelo's design at last, and putting it to a public vote. It never happened. Now find the seated figure on the tall carved base in the square. That is Giovanni delle Bande Nere, a soldier, and the father of Duke Cosimo the First. Cosimo ordered the monument from the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli in fifteen forty, for a tomb inside the church, which may be why a commander is sitting down. The statue and its base were never put together inside. They were only joined here, out in the square, in the eighteen fifties, some three hundred years later. Keep that in mind as you walk: this city keeps choosing what to finish, and what to show. From here, take Via de' Gori, the street that leaves the square just past the statue. Keep to its right-hand side, because small buses use it. The great stone palace is across the street on your left. Stop where Via de' Gori meets the wide Via Cavour.

2. 2. Palazzo Medici: The Corner They Walled Up

   The huge stone block across the street on your left, rough and heavy at street level and smoother as it rises, is the palace of the Medici. Walk on to the end of this street and stop on this side of the wide Via Cavour, where Via dei Martelli begins. Do not cross: buses turn here. Turn to look back across at the palace's corner. Cosimo de' Medici, known as Cosimo the Elder, the banker who dominated Florence's politics, began it in fourteen forty-four, with Michelozzo as his architect. Vasari says Cosimo turned down a grander design by Brunelleschi, for fear of envy. Now look at the corner itself, at street level. You can make out two big round arches, filled in, with a window set into each. That corner used to be open. It was a public loggia, a covered space that anyone could walk into from the street, to meet and talk and do business, right under the family's windows. When the Medici came back from exile in fifteen twelve, they put cannons in it. In fifteen seventeen the young duke of Urbino, Lorenzo de' Medici, had it walled up. Michelangelo, who was in Florence for San Lorenzo, designed the windows that went into the arches. Each sill rests on two brackets like legs bent at the knee, so they are called kneeling windows, and the palace museum says they are considered the first of their kind. You will see the type all over the city. Now look up Via Cavour. The front seems to run on in one piece, but it does not. In sixteen fifty-nine the Medici sold the palace to the Riccardi family, who lengthened this front between sixteen seventy-nine and sixteen eighty-nine, in Michelozzo's style, with stone from the same quarries he had used. The first ten bays from this corner are fifteenth century; the rest are seventeenth. The Riccardi signed their part with a key, in place of the Medici balls, on the carved medallions. From here, walk down Via dei Martelli, the street that runs straight toward the cathedral, to the eight-sided marble building at its end.

3. 3. Baptistery: The Gates of Paradise

   Walk round the eight-sided building to the side that faces the cathedral's front, and stop on the paving between the two, facing the gilded bronze doors. This is the Baptistery of Saint John, the oldest of the great buildings on this square, though nobody agrees quite how old. The cathedral's own history speaks of a consecration in the eleventh century, and some scholars think the building began centuries earlier. In fourteen oh one a competition was held for a new pair of bronze doors. Lorenzo Ghiberti won it, beating a goldsmith called Filippo Brunelleschi. Both of their trial panels survive, in the Bargello museum, a few streets from here. Ghiberti spent more than twenty years on those doors, and then he was asked for another pair. These are they, made between fourteen twenty-five and fourteen fifty-two with his son Vittore: ten gilded panels from the Old Testament, with buildings and landscapes that seem to go back into the distance. They were meant for the north side. On the thirteenth of July fourteen fifty-two the consuls of the cloth merchants' guild, which looked after this building, decided to hang them here instead, facing the cathedral, because of their beauty. Everyone calls these the Gates of Paradise. The story goes that Michelangelo said they were fit to be the gates of Paradise. Vasari tells it, and the cathedral's own museum says Vasari may have invented it. There is an older explanation: the ground between a baptistery and its church was called the paradise, and there was a burial ground here, between the two buildings. One more thing. The doors in front of you are a copy, cast from moulds and put up in nineteen ninety. The originals were restored over about twenty-seven years, and now stand in the cathedral museum, just behind the cathedral, in a room built as a full-size copy of this square. When you are ready, turn round to face the cathedral and go right, past the tall striped bell tower, then walk along the cathedral's long right-hand side. Stop about halfway along, across from two seated marble statues in the building facing the cathedral.

4. 4. Brunelleschi's Dome: Two Rivals, One Vault

   Stop across from the building with two seated marble men in niches beside its door, and look at them first. One looks straight across at the church. The other tilts his head right back and looks up at the dome. They are Arnolfo di Cambio, the first master builder of this cathedral, and Filippo Brunelleschi, who built the dome. Luigi Pampaloni sculpted them around eighteen thirty. Now do what Brunelleschi is doing, and look up. The first stone of the cathedral was laid on the eighth of September twelve ninety-six. By the early fourteen hundreds the cathedral's walls were up, and the great question was how to vault the eight-sided space over the crossing. In fourteen eighteen the cathedral works held a competition for models. Brunelleschi, the goldsmith who had lost the Baptistery doors, proposed to build the dome without the usual timber framework holding it up from below. In fourteen twenty the works chose his model, and appointed him master builder together with Lorenzo Ghiberti, the man who had beaten him in fourteen oh one. The dome went up between fourteen twenty and fourteen thirty-six. It is two shells, one inside the other, with bricks laid in a herringbone pattern so that each ring held itself up as it rose. The cathedral works call it the largest masonry vault in the world. Brunelleschi died in fourteen forty-six. The white marble lantern on top was built after his death, to his design, and a gilded ball was first raised to its tip in fourteen seventy-one. Now look at the band of stone the dome sits on. On just one of its eight faces, the south-east one, round to your right and hard to see from right here, runs a small arcaded gallery; the other faces are bare. It was added in the early fifteen hundreds. Vasari reports that Michelangelo called it a cricket cage, and work stopped after that one face. One more thing on this square is younger than it looks: the cathedral's marble front, which you passed on the way here, was only finished in eighteen eighty-seven, three hundred years after the medieval front was taken down. When you are ready, walk on a few steps along the cathedral's side and turn right into Via dello Studio, the narrow street heading south, away from the dome. Small electric buses use it, so keep to the side. At its end, go left for a few steps along Via del Corso, then right, into the narrow Via Santa Margherita.

5. 5. Casa di Dante: A House Built for Dante

   Walk on down this narrow lane to the corner where it meets a slightly wider street, Via Dante Alighieri, and stop there. This is Dante's neighbourhood. His family lived in the parish of San Martino, named for the little church on the square across the street. The best evidence…

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6. 6. Orsanmichele: The Guilds' Saints

   At the end of this street, turn left onto the broad Via dei Calzaiuoli, walk a few steps, and turn to face the tall square stone building on your right. It does not look like a church, and it was not built as one. A small church of Saint Michael once stood in a garden here, and…

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7. 7. Piazza della Repubblica: The Old Market Cleared

   Walk out into the square and stop by the tall granite column. This was the heart of the Roman town. Its forum was here, and the column stands close to where its two main streets crossed. Now look west, at the big arch. There is a line carved across it, in Italian. It says, more…

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8. 8. Mercato Nuovo: The Bronze Boar

   Keep the loggia on your right, go round the corner just ahead, and stop in front of the fountain in the middle of this side: a bronze boar sitting on a marshy base. The loggia is the Mercato Nuovo, the new market, built for Duke Cosimo the First between fifteen forty-seven and…

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9. 9. Piazza della Signoria: The Republic's Stage

   Come out into the square and stop, with the great stone palace and its tower ahead of you. That is the Palazzo Vecchio, the old palace, built at the end of the twelve hundreds as the seat of the republic's government. Vasari says Arnolfo di Cambio designed it, though no document…

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10. 10. Uffizi: The Duke's Offices

    Walk down the courtyard and stop about halfway along, between the two long wings, and look around. This is an office block. Uffizi simply means offices. Duke Cosimo the First had it built to bring the city's magistrates under one roof, next to his own palace, and to make room he…

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11. 11. Vasari Corridor: The Duke's Private Passage

    Walk out through the arches. Cross the little riverside lane at the zebra crossing, watching for the occasional car, and stop at the river wall with the Arno in front of you. Now turn to your right and look along the bank. The long upper storey running away along the river, on…

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12. 12. Ponte Vecchio: The Bridge That Was Spared

    Walk out to the open space in the middle of the bridge, and stop by the bronze bust on its right-hand side, looking downstream. The bust is Benvenuto Cellini, the goldsmith who made the Perseus in the square, put up in nineteen oh one. This bridge was built in stone in the first…

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