18 Stunning Architecture Landmarks in Florence
18 landmarks with verified facts and stories
Baptistery of San Giovanni
Piazza di San Giovanni, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
Dante was baptized here.
Basilica of San Lorenzo
9 Piazza di San Lorenzo, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The Medici family's parish church has an unfinished brick facade, and that's one of the most fascinating things about it.
Basilica of Santa Maria Novella
18 Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The facade of Santa Maria Novella is a Renaissance geometry lesson in green and white marble, designed by Leon Battista Alberti in the 1450s and so mathematically precise that art historians have spent centuries measuring its proportional ratios.
Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore
Piazza del Duomo, Centro Storico, Florence, 50122, Italy
Here's the thing about Brunelleschi's dome: nobody thought it could be built.
Fountain of Neptune
Piazza della Signoria, 50122 Firenze
Michelangelo looked at this fountain and reportedly said, "Ammannato, Ammannato, what beautiful marble you have ruined.
Giotto's Bell Tower
Piazza del Duomo, 50122 Firenze
Giotto di Bondone was seventy years old and at the peak of his fame when he was appointed chief architect of the cathedral complex in 1334.
Loggia dei Lanzi
Piazza della Signoria, 50122 Firenze
This is an open-air sculpture museum with no walls, no ticket, and no closing time.
Medici Chapels
6 Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The Medici didn't just run Florence — they made sure everyone would remember them forever.
Mercato Centrale
Piazza del Mercato Centrale, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
The man who designed Milan's famous Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II — that grand glass-roofed shopping arcade — also designed this market hall.
Orsanmichele
1 Via dell'Arte della Lana, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
This is the strangest church in Florence, and that's because it wasn't built as a church at all.
Palazzo Davanzati
13 Via Porta Rossa, Centro Storico, Florence, 50123, Italy
Want to know how a wealthy Florentine family actually lived in the fourteenth century? Not in a palazzo stuffed with Renaissance masterpieces, but in a house with painted parrots on the bedroom walls, a toilet on every floor, and an internal well system that brought water to each story — luxuries that most European nobles wouldn't enjoy for another two hundred years.
Palazzo Vecchio
Piazza della Signoria, 50122 Firenze
Florence's town hall has been in continuous operation since 1299, making it one of the oldest functioning government buildings in the world.
Ponte Santa Trinita
Ponte Santa Trinita, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
The most beautiful bridge in Florence isn't the Ponte Vecchio — it's this one, fifty meters upstream.
Ponte Vecchio
Ponte Vecchio, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
For centuries, this bridge stank.
Porta San Niccolo
Piazza Giuseppe Poggi, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
Of the original medieval gates that pierced Florence's city walls, this is the only one that still stands at its full original height.
San Miniato al Monte
34 Via delle Porte Sante, Centro Storico, Florence, 50125, Italy
If Piazzale Michelangelo gives you the postcard view, San Miniato al Monte — perched just above it — gives you the spiritual one.
Uffizi Gallery
6 Piazzale degli Uffizi, Centro Storico, Florence, 50122, Italy
The name literally means "offices," which is the most spectacularly underselling name in art history.
Vasari Corridor
Centro Storico, Florence, Italy
In 1565, Cosimo I de' Medici wanted to walk from his government offices in the Uffizi to his private residence at the Palazzo Pitti without ever setting foot on the street.
Explore architecture in Florence
GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story. Every fact verified.