Art & Culture Tour

20-10-2017 | Destination

Written by: Duetorrihotels

This journey through Tuscan art and culture begins with a rich and revitalising Breakfast at the Bernini Palace Parliament Hall. Once a venue for parliament and senate sessions during the Kingdom of Italy, the hall features a splendid frescoed ceiling.

Tour Arte e cultura | Art & culture tour

Upon exiting the Hotel, your journey through the beauties of Florence continues with a visit to Piazza della Signoria, cradle of the Renaissance and heart of modern Florence. Here you can visit 14th century Palazzo Vecchio (now home to the Town Hall), with a copy of the famous David by Michelangelo, the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi. Stop to admire the Neptune Fountain in Carrara marble, along with the equestrian statue of Cosimo I.

This is the square richest in history and monuments and boasts a truly unique past. It is said that during Medieval times it was part of Florence, rich in Ghibelline houses and towers, until the Guelfs seized control of the city and resolved to raze their enemy's houses to the ground in 1260, resulting in modern-day Piazza della Signoria.

You'll catch a glimpse of the world-famous Uffizi as the tour continues. To date it still contains an inestimable and rich artistic-cultural heritage, with works by famous artists such as Caravaggio, Donatello, Botticelli, Giotto, Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. One of the most famous works at the Uffizi, David, boasts a truly unique history. Historians recount that the masterpiece was actually carved from a block of marble recovered from scrap belonging to the Florence Cathedral, forgotten for over 70 years!

Upon exiting the Uffizi, at the end of the Vasariano Corridor, stop to admire one of Italy's and Florence's most famous bridges: Ponte Vecchio. During the 16th century, Cosimo I de' Medici transformed it into the home of the city's finest jeweller's and goldsmiths. Over time it also became the meeting place par excellence for noble Florentines. Upon crossing the Ponte Vecchio and the banks of the Arno river which flow beneath its bridge arches, the Renaissance atmosphere which revolutionised the city's appearance becomes more palpable. Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens are examples of this.

This part of the city is cloaked in an endless array of anecdote and legend. Many believe that Palazzo Pitti already existed underground, as material quarries already constituted its foundations, and that it was only a matter of 'lifting' it up to the surface. If we stop to admire the façade, you'll notice two particular stones: the first, over ten metres in length, and the second, barely 30 cm long. Both were commissioned by Luca Pitti as a testimonial of his strength compared to other Florentine families of the time.

Despite this show of great strength, Pitti lost the Palazzo to Piero de' Medici, who constructed a corridor to link Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti which to date bears the name of its constructor, Giorgio Vasari, although only the part inside the Uffizi remains.

After a relaxing break in the Boboli Gardens which "embrace" Palazzo Pitti, our tour of Florence will end in another symbolic part of the city: the Cathedral, with its dome by Brunelleschi,the tiles of Giotto's Bell Tower, and the adjacent Baptistery of Saint John, with its octagonal structure celebrating the eight day after the seventh terrestrial day, a sign of our eternal salvation. The structure welcomes tourists for all-round views and a chance to stare up in admiration at its mosaics on a golden background, exuding light and majesty.

What better way to conclude a tour of Florentine art and culture, than taking a moment to relax and sip an excellent aperitif at the Bernini Palace Lounge Bar, one of the city's renowned places of aggregation.

The English cemetery is located in Piazzale Donatello in Florence. It was built - as a Protestant - outside the city walls on a hill near the gate at Pinti (now destroyed), at the expense of a company representing the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church and which had purchased the area from the Grand Ducal government in 1827 to create an international and ecumenical cemetery, also for Russians and Greek Orthodox. Before then, non-Catholics and non-Jews who died in Florence could only be buried in Livorno (at the ancient English cemetery). Carlo Reishammer, then a young architecture student, first designed what was later called the "English" cemetery, with a polygonal enclosure different from the current one[1]. In 1858, a column donated by Frederick William IV of Prussia was erected at the top of the hill, which still marks the intersection between the two main gravel paths that divide the surface into four sectors. In 1860, a further transfer of land is documented to expand the cemetery area which, on this same date, was also enriched with the simple building that still marks the entrance today. The entrance: Giuseppe Poggi gave it its current oval shape when in Florence, which became the capital of Italy in 1865, he demolished the walls and created the ring roads, designing the oval of Piazza Donatello with the cemetery "island".

The cemetery was therefore defined as an elevated area in the centre of the new square, delimited by the two lanes of the new avenues, so much so that, in its isolation, it acquired the nickname "island of the dead", precisely. It was on this occasion that the original polygonal shape was replaced by the current oval plan, more suitable for being touched by road axes. In 1877, since the cemetery was now included within the new city, the Protestant community was prohibited from using the site for new burials (recently resumed), so for a long time the island maintained its nineteenth-century character, which still strongly characterizes it, unchanged: the non-Catholic community from then on began using the Allori cemetery in the Galluzzo area. The burials between 1828 and 1877 had on the other hand led to a large part of the island being saturated, with the construction of 1409 tombs attributable to sixteen different nations, with a prevalence of English (760 tombs), a fact which - together with the practice of identifying Protestants with these - had led to the Florentines defining the cemetery as "English", despite Swiss ownership.

The presence of tombs crowned by statues or other sculpted elements, the irregular arrangement of the burials, the layout of the paths that go up the hill, the presence of a certain variety of tree and shrub species, make the place of great suggestion and absolutely representative of that picturesque dimension that the romantic nineteenth century - and in particular the colony of foreigners who had chosen Florence as their second homeland - combined with the medieval and Renaissance history of the city. Among the interventions that have allowed the cemetery to be preserved over time, we remember the summary but comprehensive one of the structure promoted in cooperative with the Autonomous Tourism Company in 1946 (to repair the damage inflicted by an American bombing), and the many construction sites that in recent decades have intervened on individual monuments and tombstones.

shopping TOUR

Florence is home to the most famous Italian designer brands, as well as a wide range of artisan products, such as gold jewellery, leather and hide clothing and accessories, making it renowned throughout the world for its arts and trades.

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