Art to see in Florence: the Uffizi, the Accademia and the churches

The most famous art to see in Florence is in the Uffizi, with Botticelli's The Birth of Venus and Primavera, Titian's Venus of Urbino and Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck, and in the Galleria dell’Accademia, where Michelangelo's David stands. Just as important are the churches: Giotto's frescoes in Santa Croce, Masaccio's Holy Trinity in Santa Maria Novella and the Brancacci Chapel, and the cathedral with Brunelleschi's dome. The whole Renaissance fits within a few blocks.

Facts

The Uffizi: from gold ground to Venus

The Uffizi was built in the 16th century as offices for the Medici family and is today one of the world's most important museums of Italian painting. The tour begins with three great enthroned Madonnas by Cimabue, Duccio and Giotto, where you can see how the gold ground of the Gothic slowly gains space and weight; see From Gothic to Renaissance.

Next comes Botticelli's room with Primavera and The Birth of Venus of around 1485, the goddess of love on her scallop shell. Further on are Leonardo's Annunciation and Adoration of the Magi, Michelangelo's only certain painting on panel, the Doni Tondo, Titian's Venus of Urbino of 1538 and Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck, the most famous picture of Mannerism. Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith Slaying Holofernes also hangs here.

The Accademia and the Bargello: sculpture

Michelangelo's David stood from 1504 beside the Palazzo Vecchio but was moved in 1873 into the Galleria dell’Accademia to protect it; a copy stands on the original site. The statue is 517 centimetres high, and the head and hands are enlarged because it was first intended to stand high up on the cathedral. Along the way to it stand Michelangelo's unfinished Slaves, where the figures seem to be working their way out of the blocks.

In the Bargello, a medieval town palace, Renaissance sculpture is gathered: Donatello's bronze David, often called the first free-standing nude statue since antiquity, and competition reliefs by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti of 1401. Outdoors, in the Loggia dei Lanzi on the Piazza della Signoria, stand Cellini's Perseus and Giambologna's The Rape of the Sabine Women.

The churches: frescoes in situ

Much of the art of Florence remains where it was made. In Santa Croce are Giotto's frescoes in two chapels beside the choir, and the church is also the burial place of Michelangelo and Galileo. In Santa Maria Novella Masaccio painted the Holy Trinity around 1427, one of the first pictures built with linear perspective; see the guide to linear perspective. His frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, with Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise, became a school for generations of painters.

In the convent of San Marco Fra Angelico painted a fresco in every monk's cell, and the Annunciation at the top of the stairs greets those who come up. In the church of Santa Felicita, just south of the Ponte Vecchio, hangs Pontormo's The Deposition with its bright, almost unreal colours. See the guide to Mannerism.

The Duomo and the architecture

The cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is crowned by Brunelleschi's dome, built in 1420–1436 without scaffolding from the ground, one of the great engineering feats of the Renaissance. In front of it stands the baptistery with Ghiberti's bronze doors, which Michelangelo is traditionally said to have called the Gates of Paradise; the originals are displayed in the cathedral museum, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, together with Michelangelo's late Pietà and Donatello's wooden Mary Magdalene.

The architecture section has four buildings in Florence: the dome, Brunelleschi's Ospedale degli Innocenti, Alberti's Palazzo Rucellai and Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana. Read the guide to Renaissance architecture; they are also on the map.

The city's artists

Eighteen artists in the app have had Florence as a place of activity, from Cimabue and Giotto to Pontormo, Cellini and Gentileschi. For a few years around 1504 Leonardo and Michelangelo worked in the city at the same time and competed for the walls of the council hall in the Palazzo Vecchio; neither painting was completed. Read Leonardo and Michelangelo.

The periods are found in the Italian thread: the Gothic and the Trecento and the Renaissance. If you want to understand why all this happened precisely here, you can begin with the guide What is the Renaissance?

How to plan your visit

The Uffizi and the Accademia have long queues, and timed tickets should be booked in advance. Start early at the Accademia, where David takes an hour, and take the Uffizi in the afternoon. The churches are often open to visitors between services, but some chapels, such as the Brancacci Chapel, have their own entrance and a limited number of visitors.

Florence can be seen on foot, and the distances are short. A route from San Marco via the Accademia, the Duomo and the Piazza della Signoria to the Uffizi and across the Ponte Vecchio to Santa Felicita follows the history of art fairly well. If you want to compare with a big city, read Art to see in London.

Don't miss

Exercise

Where does Michelangelo's original statue of David stand today?