What to see in Florence in 3 days?

72 hours, maybe even less, are enough to fall in love with the Tuscan capital.
It is no coincidence that it is one of the best-loved Italian cities in the world. An open-air museum, Florence preserves intact the grace and elegance that made it the cradle of the Renaissance. We suggest an itinerary to visit Florence in 3 days and discover its most important treasures, but we know you will come back.

Dome, Giotto’s Bell Tower, Baptistery and Brunelleschi’s Dome in Florence

Brunelleschi’s Dome dominates Florence and to this day there is no taller building in the entire city. The Campanile was designed by Giotto although he did not see it finished. The Baptistery is one of the oldest buildings in Florence and has been there since the 4th century; with its magnificent doors, it is a real picture Bible. The Duomo with its white and green marble facade enraptures the eye. Nowhere else in the world is there such an extraordinary building complex. We are in the heart of Florence, in front of Santa Maria del Fiore, which everyone calls Duomo.

A cathedral 153 metres long, built over almost 170 years to make the churches of rivals Pisa and Siena envious. The most important Florentine artists participated in the realisation of this complex: from Giotto to Brunelleschi, from Vasari to Talenti, from Arnolfo di Cambio to Lorenzo Ghiberti. Every visit to Florence begins here: with heads upwards and an astonished gaze, wondering how men managed to create such a marvel.

Ponte Vecchio

Florence’s most beautiful bridge and one of the most photographed in the world, has not always been a chic place. Although today it is the goldsmiths’ shops that attract caravans of tourists, until 1565 it was the vegetable and butchers’ shops that dominated the bridge. When the Uffizi’s Vasari Corridor overlooking Ponte Vecchio was built, the butchers and greengrocers were displaced in favour of goldsmiths and artisans, who were deemed more suited to the beauty of the place.

Palazzo Vecchio

The best example of 14th century civil architecture in the world. What prevents it from fitting all in one shot is the ‘Tower of Arnolfo’, 94 metres high and built around 1310, which bears a large flag with the Florentine lily on its summit.

The Uffizi Museum

A Caravaggio enters, a Raphael leaves. A Titian leaves for an exhibition abroad, but meanwhile Rosso Fiorentino’s (famous) angels return. These are the Uffizi, a kind of art supermarket, a treasure trove of masterpieces from every century and a dream destination for art lovers from all over the world.

Brancacci Chapel

An angel with a sword chases Adam and Eve to expel them from Paradise. Adam covers his face with his hand, weeps and hides from shame. Eve’s eyes are disfigured by pain, offering herself to view as her arms are busy covering her breasts. It is a heartbreaking scene, one of the high points of art history and is found in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. Masolino and Masaccio, old and young, master and pupil, frescoed this chapel together at the behest of Felice Brancacci. It is not easy to distinguish the frescoes of one from those of the other. The patron Brancacci obliged them to work on the same walls, so that the differences in style would not be too obvious. The result is an extraordinary pictorial journey, which tells the story of sin and other episodes from the Bible and the Gospel, leaving believers and non-believers alike astounded.

Church of Santa Maria Novella

The interior has three naves in which Giotto’s Crucifix, a recently restored early work hanging from the central vault, immediately catches the visitor’s eye. In the transept, inside the Strozzi Chapel, there is a splendid cycle of frescoes by Filippino Lippi. The main or Tornabuoni chapel houses a famous fresco cycle by Ghirlandaio in which the characters portrayed are all important people of the time, including the Tornabuoni. In the Gondi Chapel is Brunelleschi’s Crucifix, the artist’s only work in wood. The most important work in the whole of Santa Maria Novella is Masaccio’s Trinity, which represents something absolutely revolutionary for art. Jesus on the cross has the Madonna and St John at his feet, with the commissioners of the work, the Lenzi couple, on the side. The vault above Christ seems to really exist, so much so that it led Vasari to say that ‘that wall seems to have a hole in it’. The Madonna does not look at her dying son but points at the viewer of the painting, resigned to a destiny that must be fulfilled for the salvation of all men.

Academy Gallery

Also called the Michelangelo Museum because of the abundance of works by the Florentine genius, the Accademia Gallery now also hosts sculptures by other artists and paintings from the 14th to the 16th century. The Gallery’s most important work is undoubtedly Michelangelo’s David, which used to be exposed to the wind and cold of Piazza della Signoria, now replaced by a copy. The statue portrays the biblical hero as he is about to face the giant Goliath and symbolises the victory of intelligence and courage against sheer brute force. Michelangelo worked on David from 1502 to 1504 using a block of marble that had previously been used by Agostino di Duccio and Antonio Rossellino. Both artists abandoned the sculpture because they judged the marble to be too fragile to support the weight of a 4.10 metre statue. Michelangelo remedied the fragility with special interventions, making the David a symbol of formal perfection and eternal beauty that emerges despite the coldness of the marble.

Pitti Palace

Pitti today is an important complex comprising Galleries and Museums, in which important collections of paintings and sculptures, objets d’art and porcelain are magnificently preserved. The Palatine Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art are part of the complex.

Connected to Palazzo Pitti are the Boboli Gardens where Florentines love to spend their free time to find some peace and escape the summer heat surrounded by the glory and grandeur of the Medici family. Boboli, in fact, houses works and buildings that document the taste and magnificence of this family that was the sole owner of this marvellous green space until the mid 18th century, when it was taken over by the Habsburg-Lorraine, who were also great lovers of art.

Church of San Lorenzo and Medici Chapels in Florence

Outclassed in fame and beauty by the Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Church of San Lorenzo has nevertheless carved out a place in the hearts of millions of tourists. This church is one of the oldest in Florence and was the cathedral of Florence for 300 years.

Commissioned by the Medici, who used it as their family parish church, in 1419 they decided to enlarge it and entrusted this task to Filippo Brunelleschi, who transformed it into a true masterpiece. To his genius we owe the Old Sacristy in which Brunelleschi’s genius was joined by Donatello’s. Also in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, but with access from outside, is the New Sacristy with the Medici Chapels housing the tombs of 50 members of the noble Florentine family. The New Sacristy is the result of the Genius of Michelangelo who began work in 1520 and carried it on for about 14 years, with continuous interruptions, until his departure for Rome where he was called to build the Dome of St. Peter’s. Here are the tombs of Lorenzo Il Magnifico and Giuliano de Medici adorned with the Madonna and Child, an autograph work by Michelangelo. The nearby tomb of Lorenzo di Urbino and Giuliano di Nemours is adorned with the allegory of day and night, also by Michelangelo.