Category: Free Tour

Mar 2, 2024

Gianbologna Centaurus

Once upon a time there was a centaur named Nesso and travelers tragled the travelers on the Evento or Licorma river (Greek region of the Etolia). Heracles, heading to Trachis with his family, entrusted him with Deianira but Nesso tried to rape her and Heracles killed him with a poisoned arrow dipped in the blood of the Idra di Lerna. A Flemish sculptor named Jean De Boulogne aka Giambologna around 1598 sculpted one of his many masterpieces with great skill, the marble group of Hercules and the Centaur Nesso. The work of great emotional impact certainly proposes forms and styles different from the classic models , resuming Michelangeioleschi motifs, but with a strong sense of dynamism. In 1599 he was placed on the song of the Carnesecchi formed by the quadrivio composed of via Rondinelli, via Cerretani, via Panzani and via dei Banchi. And it is in this place that the marble group of Giambologna creates a real fulcrum of the area so much so that the adjacent palace took the name of Centauro also known as the Palazzo delle Cento Windows.

Mar 1, 2024

A secret library in Florence

This time we visit a building transformed over the centuries ... a great testimony present in the area in question: it is the hospice called Orbatello I recommend not Orbetello and is located between via degli Alfani and via della Colonna. Perhaps on the design of Agnolo Gaddi was founded in 1372 thanks to the left of the banker-Mecenate Niccolò degli Alberti. The building takes its name from the orbades (from the lat.orbus- without) or women who had had deaths in the family, so much so that it is no longer self-sufficient. The hospice was large compared to the frequent city, it consisted of a hundred small "two -room apartments" and a small common cuisine, while the structure reserved for medical assistance was prepared for a few tens of beds.

Feb 29, 2024

Fishing Lab, the Florence restaurant-museum

Walking through the center of Florence, one realizes that the Tuscan city is still immersed in that glorious past that makes it a prominent destination for lovers of culture. Located in via del Proconsolo, near Badia Fiorentina and Bargello, the place was the headquarters of the art of judges and notaries since the thirteenth century. However, as the archaeological remains in the basement show, the site would have been occupied by the Romans already in the first century. The first to notice the traces of the frescoes after many centuries, in 1880, was the Owner of the building that marked the works to the conservative commission of fine arts, but the restoration was finished only in 2004.

Feb 27, 2024

Stenone a very unique scientist

October 1687 Arriva a merchant case at the Medici Court, addressed nothing less than in Cosimoiii. The Cassa embarked in Hamburg on the "San Bernardo" ship was wrapped in an incerated canvas from which an smell of spices came out, what did it contain? Perhaps rare spices or ... in reality inside the body of Niels Stensen was located more commonly called Niccolò Stenone and the "perfume" of the spices was to cover the smell emanated by the body of the Danish scientist. But what did this character now deceased to the Medici court .... at that time one of the stars of the moment was our Galileo Galilei attracted precisely for those innovations in the Scientific field Stenone who landed on February 28, 1666 in Livorno and then headed in Pisa To meet Galileo. But was in Florence that Stenone felt like his house so much so that he wrote "that Florence was his real homeland", the same Grand Duke besides giving a monthly salary assigned him an anatomical laboratory in the Opinion of S.Maria Nuova .

Feb 26, 2024

The highest man in the world …

That's right, Florence also holds this record .... obviously I am kidding but not entirely. We take a step back and precisely in the years 1764-1766, when the HMS Dolphin (Delfino) of the Royal Navy commanded by Captain John Byron managed to circumnavigate the terrestrial globe, a company that is not really easy for those times. The deeds of the English captain Byron impressed the Grand Duke of Tuscany Pietro Leopoldo, especially those who told the events of the people of Patagonia, inhabited by gigantic beings. The first Europeans to meet this population of giants were the Portuguese of Ferdinando Magellano and the description of this meeting was written by an Italian .... Antonio Pigafetta one of the few survivors returned home from the long journey. This is the report of the meeting with the giants of Patagonia from the book published in 1524 "" ... starting from here we reach up to 49 degrees to the Antarctic.

Feb 25, 2024

Origin of first Italian vocabulary

Next to the Palagio di Parte Guelfa and precisely in the building belonging to the Cavalcanti family in the thirteenth century in […]

Feb 25, 2024

Chinese New Year festival in Florence

The event will be held on February 25th at Piazzale Michelangelo from 14 to 18 at the end of the celebrations for the new Chinese New Year. The initiative is sponsored by the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Florence and in collaboration with the Municipality of Florence.

Feb 23, 2024

Royal Postal Office becoming a restaurant

The royalty placed after three and a half years of accurate restorations are reborn. The nineteenth -century environments of the royalty placed on the ground floor of the Vasarian complex and behind the Loggia dei Lanzi, are ready to host the Uffizi restaurant. The announcement is on the launch pad, the menu already defined. While waiting to know the name of the chef, the end of the restorations was celebrated in the presence of the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano.

Feb 22, 2024

Royal Postal office of Florence

If you go to the Uffizi square and targe in the direction of the Arno on your right you will see after the construction site of the new Uffizi the door with the real post office. Once in that area there was a building where the famous gold "florin" was coined inside. But the architect Giorgio Vasari with extreme care in architectural details incorporated this structure in the Uffizi building creating a continuity of the entire body. As we subsequently know, the complex became the headquarters of the bureaucratic body of the new Grand Duke Cosimo I, but despite having passed several centuries, the function of the building as part of the Medici offices changed only in its new operational qualification.

Feb 21, 2024

Strolling Along: The Elegance of a Florence City Tour on Foot

Why rush? You can certainly appreciate more by taking it slow with a Florence city tour on foot. Here's what you don't want to miss out on.

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