Excursions


Thursday July 6th afternoon will be free for excursions.
We are organizing two guided tours:
- The exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci called "The mind of Leonardo da Vinci";
- To the main historical building of Florence: Palazzo Vecchio.
The fare for these guided tour are about 12.50 € (including guide) for Leonardo exhibition and about 9.00 € (including guide) for Palazzo Vecchio. If you want to join to these tours, please sign in here within June 20.

Uffizi Museum


You may probably want to visit Uffizi Museum while in Florence. This is one of the most important art museums in the world with very many renowned Renaissance works of art. It is highly recommended to book your visit and buy a ticket in advance (at least one week). See here.

The mind of Leonardo da Vinci.

This exhibition initiative proposes to present to the general public, a suggestive but historically correct image of Leonardo’s mind, set within the context of his times. The new exhibition paradigm will make it possible for the first time to put the visitor in the position of grasping the links that intrinsically connect the research of an artistic nature, the natural and anatomical studies, the design of machinery and buildings, the investigations of a strictly scientific character etc. Thus the “universal” nature of Leonardo’s character and interests will be seen not as an expression of his refusal to confine himself to a single sector of investigation, but rather as an indication of his much more ambitious project: the compilation of a unified encyclopaedia of knowledge, an indispensable tool for an artist who aimed at achieving in his works a perfect imitation of nature.

The exhibition will present numerous original drawings and paintings by Leonardo (displayed during the first three months of opening), a series of spectacular working models of his most innovative machines and his most ingenious experiments. The unified and organic quality of Leonardo’s mind will also be efficaciously illustrated through the use of highly evocative multimedia tools.


Guided tour to Palazzo Vecchio.

Palazzo della Signoria, or Palazzo Vecchio, as it appears today, is the result of at least three successive building stages between the 13th-16th centuries: the actual construction of Arnolfo's palace, overlooking the square and placed next to the Loggia dei Lanzi; the first alterations in Republican times, and the later restructuration carried out by Vasari, after the coming to power of Cosimo I de' Medici, who moved into the palace with all his family.

Palazzo Vecchio's exclusive role as the political representative of the city gradually lost importance from 1565 for three centuries, being partly replaced by the Uffizi and the new Palace at Pitti, though it came to the fore again at the end of this last century: after the Lorraine family had been expelled from the city in 1848, it became the seat of United Italy's provisional government from 1865-71, when Florence was the capital of the kingdom of Italy, and housed the Chamber of Deputies (the Senate sat next door in the Uffizi, linked up by an overhead passageway above Via della Ninna). It was to return to its original function as the seat of the City Council in 1872.

Although the palace today contains the offices of the City Council, much of it can still be visited. The public can admire the Hall of the Five Hundred, the little Study of Francesco I and the four monumental appartments: the Quarters of the Elements, the Quarters of Eleonora of Toledo, the Residence of the Priors and the Quarters of Leo X, where the reception rooms of the mayor and the council that governs the city are situated today. The Hall of the Two Hundred is once more being used for the meetings of the City Council and therefore not always open to the public.