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Florence, Firenze in Italian, is the capital of Tuscany, laid out on both banks of the Arno where the river leaves the hills for the plain. Its guilds made it: wool and silk merchants, bankers and goldsmiths whose wealth paid for the domes, chapels and palazzi that still define the centro storico, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982.
The cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore is the city's fixed point. Brunelleschi raised its dome between 1420 and 1436 without timber centring, and it remains the largest brick dome ever built. Beside it stand Giotto's campanile, clad in white, green and pink marble, and the octagonal Baptistery of San Giovanni, whose gilded east doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti Michelangelo is said to have named the Gates of Paradise. A short walk south, Piazza della Signoria holds Florence's civic story: the battlemented Palazzo Vecchio, begun in 1299, the Loggia dei Lanzi with Cellini's bronze Perseus, and the Uffizi, where the collection runs from Botticelli's Birth of Venus to Caravaggio's Medusa.
Across the river, the Oltrarno keeps a working rhythm. Leather workers, gilders, furniture restorers and goldsmiths still work near Santo Spirito, one of Brunelleschi's late churches, and in San Frediano, the more lived-in quarter out towards the old city gate. Via Maggio holds the antique dealers, and the Medici's Palazzo Pitti, with the Boboli Gardens behind it, closes the district to the south.
The twentieth century added its own chapter. Santa Maria Novella station, completed in 1935 by Giovanni Michelucci and the Gruppo Toscano, is counted among Italy's finest modernist buildings, and Pier Luigi Nervi's concrete stadium dates from the same decade. The Accademia di Belle Arti traces its origins to the Accademia del Disegno founded in 1563, and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale on the riverbank holds one of the largest collections of books in Italy. Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo Novecento now bring contemporary art into historic rooms.
The table follows the season. Sant'Ambrogio market and the Mercato Centrale at San Lorenzo supply the city's kitchens, and trattorias serve ribollita, bistecca alla fiorentina and lampredotto, with Chianti Classico from the hills to the south.
Florence is reached by rail at Santa Maria Novella, on the high-speed line between Rome and Milan, or by air through Peretola, a short drive from the centre, with Pisa airport about an hour away.
Carta da zucchero blue lifted from recovered fresco, a front-row seat on Piazza Santa Croce, five suites in a painted palazzo for family and friends.
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Stripped architectural bones and a touch of sprezzatura: a twelfth-century tower-house on Via delle Terme, a minute from Ponte Vecchio, in modernist chrome and bouclé.
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Heritage with a contemporary nod beside the Medici Chapels: painted ceilings, a smooth remit of pastels and two suites on Piazza di Madonna degli Aldobrandini.
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Balconies facing Ponte Vecchio across the Arno: a 1950s apartment on Lungarno Acciaiuoli in celadon, travertine and honey wood, lit by Italian design classics.
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River views to Ponte alla Carraia, bookbinder's red against milky greys, and linen-draped suites set inside Baccio d'Agnolo's sgraffito Palazzo Lanfredini on the Oltrarno riverbank.
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John Voigtmann swapped rockstars for Renaissance, reviving a 500-year-old convent into La Bandita Townhouse – boutique luxury, Tuscan feasts, and courtyard aperitivos in Pienza’s UNESCO-stamped soul.
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Amid Tuscany’s picture-perfect rolling hills and under its forget-me-not blue skies lies Italy’s UNESCO Heritage Pienza, a mini utopia, considered by many to be the “ideal city of the Renaissance”.
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A 1720 Chianti estate of three stone farmhouses, reborn by Austrian architect Nina Mair as a creative sanctuary of craft, olive groves and unhurried Tuscan soul.
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A restoration den of raw genius – a weathered Tuscan house close to Montefollonico that has been allowed to expose her weathered elements and complemented with chic salvaged interiors. An imaginative retreat of utter, rustic romance.
Fabulous farmhouse luxury decks this Italian bolthole in the hilltops of Versilia close to Tuscany's coastline hot picks Forte dei Marmi and Viareggio.
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Get the insider news and lowdown on what we've been up to, where we've been, and who we've met along the way. Be the first to discover new places and get the scoop on our favourites.