Florence’s location in a small basin encircled by hills is a determining factor for its changeable climate. Summers tend to be extremely hot and humid, and winters are cool and wet. The average monthly temperature for July and August is about 73 to 75 °F (23 to 24 °C), with an average daytime high of about 95 °F (35 °C); the average monthly temperature for January is 41 °F (5 °C). Winters tend to be short-lived, ending generally in mid-March, and bring rain rather than snow. Unpleasantly cold showers can persist into April, however, much to the discomfort of the throng of Easter tourists. The most delightful seasons in which to visit Florence are late spring and fall, when the sky becomes an azure vault and the sun warms but does not scorch.

City layout

Although most of the city of Florence was a creation of the nascent Renaissance era, the city’s Roman beginnings as a typical castrum, or garrison town, can still be perceived. They are visible in the rectilinear grid whose axis is the Via Calimala, with a forum in today’s Piazza della Repubblica (used as a market during most of its history). The skyline, however, is dominated by two imposing structures of later centuries. One of them is the austere tower of the Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace), begun in 1299, in the Piazza della Signoria. It housed the legislative and executive branches of the local civic government (the priors) and even today functions as the town hall of Florence. Always a kind of nerve centre of local pride and power, the building was ornamented with major works of Florentine sculpture; foremost among these was Michelangelo’s towering statue of David (today replaced by a copy with the original in the Galleria dell’Accademia). Also framing the Piazza della Signoria is the elegant Loggia dei Lanzi, built in the late 14th century; today it serves as an open-air museum for masterworks of sculpture, including Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa.

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From behind the loggia and from the flank of the palazzo, the tall, colonnaded twin wings of a later building, the Uffizi, stretch down to the Arno. An elegant edifice designed by Giorgio Vasari, it was begun in 1560 to house the grand ducal offices. In 1574 Grand Duke Francesco I ordered the top story converted to display the Medici art treasures. The Uffizi’s collection, one of the most precious in the world, offers examples of painting from the 13th century through the 18th and includes most of the significant names in Florentine art.

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The second distinctive feature of Florence’s skyline is the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo). The building itself, located due north of the Piazza della Signoria, was begun by the sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296. Numerous local artists continued to work on it during the following century and a half. The painter Giotto designed its sturdy bell tower (campanile) in 1334. Yet the massive octagonal cupola (1420–36) that truly dominates both the church and the city was the proud achievement of Filippo Brunelleschi, master architect and sculptor. Opposite the cathedral stands the Baptistery; the building dates from the 11th century but was believed by Florentines to be a surviving Roman monument when they commissioned for it a series of bronze doors with relief sculptures (1330; 1401–52). The third pair of these doors, by Lorenzo Ghiberti, were of such rare beauty that Michelangelo christened them the Gates of Paradise.

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Around the perimeters of historical Florence lie the vast “newcomer” churches of the mendicant orders: to the west, Santa Maria Novella (begun 1279) of the Dominicans; to the east, Santa Croce (begun 1294) of the Franciscans. Each of these churches is a monument of Renaissance art in its decoration. The interior of Santa Maria Novella contains the Spanish Chapel, with frescoes by Andrea da Firenze; the Green Cloister, with frescoes by Paolo Uccello; the Strozzi Chapel, with frescoes by Filippino Lippi; and the Cappella Maggiore, with frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandaio, in addition to Masaccio’s awe-inspiring fresco The Trinity, with its fully realized use of perspective. The facade of Santa Maria Novella was completed (1456–70) by the design of Leon Battista Alberti. Alongside Santa Croce, Brunelleschi appended the Pazzi Chapel, designed geometrically around the motif of a circle within a square. Inside Santa Croce one finds major fresco cycles by the most famous early Florentine painter, Giotto. Paradoxically, the patrons of this church were among the richest families of Florence, despite (or perhaps because of) the vows of poverty sworn by the Franciscan order. Santa Croce has historical significance as well, because it became a kind of pantheon containing the tombs of famous Florentine scholars, writers, artists, and patriots. Across the Arno lies the modest Carmelite church of Santa Maria del Carmine, whose Brancacci Chapel displays some of the most powerful early 15th-century frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino (c. 1425–27). The frescoes have been restored to their former glory, bringing out colours and details that had long been obscured.

Between the Piazza della Signoria and the cathedral lies a remarkable building, the Orsanmichele (oratory of St. Michael). In 1290 Arnolfo built a loggia here for the wheat market, which, however, was destroyed by fire; a larger loggia was erected in 1377 and then enclosed to form a church in 1380. Its chief fame comes from its early 15th-century decoration donated by the major guilds of Florence. Each guild was assigned one of the tabernacles on the exterior of the Orsanmichele and expected to commission a sculpture for it. The best works produced include bronzes of St. John the Baptist (patron saint of the city and of the powerful Calimala guild [bankers and international traders in cloth]) and St. Matthew (for the Cambio, or bankers) by Ghiberti and marbles of St. Mark (linen drapers) and St. George (armourers) by Donatello.

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North of the cathedral lay the province of the eventual rulers of Florence, the Medici, a family of bankers. On the square behind the house of the Medici stands the Augustinian church of San Lorenzo, for which Brunelleschi made an austerely simple geometric Renaissance design based on his study of early Christian basilicas in Rome (1421). Medici patronage led to decisive artistic decorative additions. Donatello provided a bronze pulpit, and Brunelleschi added a sacristy (the Old Sacristy); about one century later Michelangelo balanced it with the New Sacristy, which contains his famous Medici Tombs. Michelangelo also designed the Laurentian Library, next to San Lorenzo, to house the great library assembled by the Medici family. Near the church sits the Medici Palace (Palazzo Medici-Riccardi), built by the architect Michelozzo beginning in 1444. Inside, a chapel contains a fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli, the Procession of the Magi (1459), in which the followers of the Magi are given features of the Medici.

The grandest palace in Florence is the Strozzi Palace, begun in 1489 for one of the city’s largest and wealthiest families (which, however, had been eclipsed politically by the Medici). Its enormous scale deliberately surpassed that of the Medici Palace. Noteworthy within the Strozzi Palace is a spacious courtyard, which by its use of arches and a loggia achieves a feeling of openness and simplicity.

South of the Arno lies the Pitti Palace; this grandiose structure was created for the grand duke Cosimo I by the sculptor Bartolommeo Ammannati, who extended (1558–70) a palace belonging to the Pitti family of a century earlier. The hills behind this massive palace were transformed into magnificent gardens, the Boboli Gardens, filled with fountains, statues, and an amphitheatre; there operas and concerts for the Medici rulers betokened their courtly existence as the absolute rulers of the city. Ammannati also designed a bridge to the palace, the Santa Trinità Bridge (1567–69; restored).