Meet your expert guide in the Piazza della Signoria in central Florence. Then, set off on your walking tour as your guide explains how the square was Florence’s political center between the 14th and 17th centuries.
As you walk, learn, too, how Florence became a cradle of Renaissance art under the powerful Medici banking family, who ruled the city from behind the scenes during this time.
Ask any questions that spring to mind, and follow your guide to an entrance to the Vasari Corridor. On route, hear the story of this enclosed, elevated passageway, and how it was designed by Giorgio Vasari to allow Florence’s first Medici ruler, Cosimo I de’ Medici, to walk safely between his residence at the Pitti Palace (Palazzo Pitti) and the city center.
Enter the corridor and stroll its length as it skirts the Arno River and snakes above the shops of the Ponte Vecchio bridge. As you walk, see its 1,000-strong collection of 17th- and 18th-century paintings and self portraits; viewing luminous works by Bernini, Rubens, Delacroix and more. Learn how the collection was brought together, and admire the corridor's secret views of the Ponte Vecchio, river and the wider city.
Leave the corridor at the Boboli Gardens, and after free time for lunch (own expense), meet your guide outside the Pitti Palace. Hear how this vast Renaissance palace was home to the Medicis from 1562 and how they amassed much of its art, with many of the paintings now hung in its magnificent Palatine Gallery.
Head inside with your guide and explore the sumptuous gallery, with its Italian, Flemish and Spanish works dating from the 1400s to 1600s, and rooms replete with murals, Baroque furnishings and stucco work.
See paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto and Rubens among just a few, and listen spellbound as your guide tells the stories behind the masterworks.
Having reflected on the great art, your guided tour ends inside the gallery, leaving you free to continue exploring independently and leave the palace when you wish.