This guide covers five of the great buildings of Renaissance Florence: the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the convent of San Marco, the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace across the Arno. All of them were shaped by the same families, above all the Medici, and you can link them in a single walk from the station to the Oltrarno.
Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo)
Florence's cathedral was begun in 1296 to a design by Arnolfo di Cambio, but the city spent more than a century unsure how to roof the huge crossing. Filippo Brunelleschi solved it: his dome was built between 1420 and 1436 without the usual wooden centring, using two shells and bricks laid in a herringbone pattern. It is still the largest masonry dome ever built.
The marble facade in white, green and pink is much younger than it looks. The original front was pulled down in 1587 and the present one, designed by Emilio De Fabris, was only finished in the 1880s. Inside, the space feels almost bare, which makes the Last Judgement painted inside the dome by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari all the more striking.
- Paolo Uccello's clock on the inside of the entrance wall: a single hand that counts 24 hours and runs anticlockwise.
- The two painted equestrian monuments on the left aisle wall, to the mercenary captains John Hawkwood and Niccolò da Tolentino.
- Outside, Giotto's bell tower and the Baptistery, whose east doors (copies of Ghiberti's originals) Michelangelo is said to have called the Gates of Paradise.
Santa Maria Novella
The great Dominican church next to the main railway station, which takes its name from it, was built mostly in the 13th and 14th centuries. Its facade is a rare blend: the Gothic lower part was finished in the Renaissance by Leon Battista Alberti, paid for by the merchant Giovanni Rucellai, whose name runs in Latin letters across the frieze along with the year 1470.
Inside are some of the most important paintings in Florence. Masaccio's Holy Trinity, from the 1420s, is one of the first paintings to use mathematical perspective, so convincingly that the painted chapel seems to open into the wall. Behind the high altar, Domenico Ghirlandaio's frescoes in the Tornabuoni Chapel show Florentines of the 1480s dressed in their best clothes as witnesses to Bible stories.
- The inlaid sails on Alberti's facade, the emblem of the Rucellai family.
- The astronomical instruments added to the facade in the 1570s by the Dominican Egnazio Danti, an armillary sphere and a sundial.
- Giotto's painted crucifix hanging in the middle of the nave.
San Marco
North of the cathedral, the convent of San Marco was rebuilt for the Dominicans from 1437 by Michelozzo, with money from Cosimo de' Medici. Its library, also by Michelozzo, was opened to scholars and is often described as one of the first public libraries of the Renaissance. Today the convent is the Museo di San Marco.
The reason to go in is Fra Angelico, a friar of this convent who painted a fresco in almost every cell, meant to help the brothers pray. At the top of the stairs to the dormitory his Annunciation greets you, one of the best-known images of the early Renaissance. Later the convent's prior was Girolamo Savonarola, the preacher who ruled Florence in the 1490s and was burned in Piazza della Signoria in 1498.
- The small, plain cells of the dormitory, each with its own fresco.
- The cells used by Savonarola, which keep objects associated with him.
- Michelozzo's long, light library with its rows of columns.
The Uffizi Gallery
The Uffizi was built from 1560 by Giorgio Vasari for Duke Cosimo I de' Medici as offices for the city's magistrates, which is what the name means. The long U-shaped building runs from Piazza della Signoria to the river, and in 1565 Vasari added the Vasari Corridor, a private passage that leads over the Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Palace.
The Medici collections grew in the upper floors for two centuries. In 1737 Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, the last of the family, left them to the state of Tuscany on condition that they never leave Florence. That is why you can still see Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, Leonardo's Annunciation and works by Michelangelo, Raphael and Caravaggio here. Outside, the niches of the courtyard hold 19th-century statues of famous Tuscans such as Dante, Galileo and Machiavelli.
The Pitti Palace
The Pitti Palace across the Arno was begun in the 1450s for the banker Luca Pitti; the design is often attributed to Brunelleschi, though this is uncertain. In 1549 it was bought by Eleonora di Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, and it became the main residence of the Medici, later of the Lorraine grand dukes and, while Florence was capital of Italy, of the Savoy kings.
Today it holds several museums, among them the Palatine Gallery with paintings by Raphael and Titian, the royal apartments and a gallery of modern art. Behind it climb the Boboli Gardens, laid out for the Medici with grottoes, fountains and statues. The rough stone front faces a sloping square that is a good place to sit before or after a visit.
How to see them in one walk
Start at Santa Maria Novella near the station, then walk to San Marco and down Via Ricasoli or Via Cavour to the cathedral. From the Duomo, follow Via dei Calzaiuoli to Piazza della Signoria and the Uffizi, cross the Ponte Vecchio and finish at the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens. Each of these places deserves a long visit inside, so most people pick two for the inside and see the others from the street.
See Florence with World City Trail
Our Florence scavenger hunt turns the historic centre into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from Santa Maria Novella to Piazza della Repubblica. Four places in this guide are stops: Santa Maria Novella, San Marco, the cathedral and the Uffizi, along with San Lorenzo, Piazza della Signoria, Santa Croce, the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte Santa Trinita. The Pitti Palace is not on the route.
If you prefer a different format, there is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Florence.
Play the Florence scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Florence →
Play the outdoor escape game in Florence →
Facts checked in October 2026.