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Perfectly planned Renaissance town centre (see Pienza).

Beside the Pisan-Romanesque exterior, only a few elements, such as Cimabue’s apse mosaic of 1302, survived a 1595 fire. However, the late Renaissance/early Baroque refurbishment was stylish, and local legend holds the swinging of the nave’s large bronze lamp inspired Galileo’s Law of Pendulums. (see San Gimignano)

Beautiful assemblage of Pisan-Romanesque buildings using grey-and-white marble bands, blind arcades, and stacked loggias (see Campo dei Miracoli, Pisa).

Jewel of a Gothic church: all pointy arches, spires and statuettes.

Andrea della Robbia’s enamelled terracotta entrance accents the Romanesque exterior’s zebra stripes. The Altar of St Jacobo (1287–1456) contains some of Italy’s finest silversmithing. Ask the custodian to show you Verrocchio’s Madonna di Piazza (1485).

Michelozzo’s outside pulpit ensures that crowds in the piazza are able to see the bishop display the Virgin’s girdle (see Virgin’s Girdle (Prato, Duomo)). The graceful frescoes in the choir by Filippo Lippi include a famous scene of Salomé presenting Herod with the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

Best-preserved medieval hill town, complete with 14 stone towers (see San Gimignano).

The “Medieval Manhattan’s” main church is covered inside with 14th- and 15th-century frescoes, including a cycle by Ghirlandaio in the Chapel of St Fina. (see Collegiata)

San Lorenzo was the Medici parish church. The family tombs are decorated by Donatello, Rosso Fiorentino, Bronzino and Filippo Lippi, with architecture by Brunelleschi (interior and Old Sacristy) and Michelangelo (Laurentian Library and New Sacristy). The New Sacristy contains Michelangelo’s roughly finished Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night .

This is Florence’s only Romanesque church, its green and white façade perched high above the city. The doors of Michelozzo’s tabernacle were painted by Agnolo Gaddi (1394–6).