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Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici commissioned Michelozzo to build this Dominican monastery in 1437. This was Fra Angelico’s home (see Fra Angelico (1395–1455)). He frescoed his brothers’ cells with devotional images and left a plethora of golden altarpieces now housed downstairs near Ghirlandaio’s Last Supper in the refectory. Fra Bartolomeo’s portrait of Savonarola hangs in the “Mad Monk’s” room, beside a scene of the theocrat’s fiery death (see Florence).

Frederick II built the imposing hilltop “Rocca” (great views) when this was the Tuscan stronghold of the German Holy Roman Emperors. The Duomo’s (rebuilt) Romanesque brick façade is studded with 13th-century North African majolica bowls.

Friendly little farming town with amazing Romanesque carvings on the Collegiata’s trio of 12th-century portals: fantastical creatures, stacked arches, tiny telamons and thin columns “knotted” in the centre and resting on toothless lions. Inside is a sumptuous Sano di Pietro altarpiece.

Medieval town with a reputation built around Buitoni pasta and home-grown genius Piero della Francesca. The Museo Civico houses (alongside works by Signorelli and natives Santi di Tito and Raffaellino del Colle) Piero’s Madonna della Misericordia (1445–62), San Giuliano fresco fragment (1455–8), and the compelling Resurrection .

Florence’s “Westminster Abbey” contains the tombs of such Tuscan geniuses as Michelangelo and Galileo, as well as Giotto frescoes and a renowned leather school. Off the lovely cloisters are a Renaissance chapel designed by Brunelleschi (decorated by Luca della Robbia), and a small museum with a Last Supper by Taddeo Gaddi and Cimabue’s Crucifix , restored after the infamous 1966 flood.

This Romanesque church contains some fine altarpieces covering all eras of Sienese painting. Highlights are Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Byzantine masterpiece Madonna del Bordone (1261), Matteo di Giovanni’s rather creepy Massacre of the Innocents (1491) and Francesco Vanni’s Mannerist Annunciation . In the transepts, the second chapels out on either side contain Gothic frescoes by Francesco and Niccolò di Segna and Pietro Lorenzetti, including another Massacre of the Innocents .

The best sections of this former hospital, which ran from the 9th century to the 1990s, are mentioned on page 28. The Renaissance frescoes in the Sala del Pellegrino depict scenes of hospital life not too different from today – a monkish surgeon doctoring an injured leg, another taking a urine sample, a third nodding off as his patient describes symptoms. Several spaces in the building host changing exhibitions.

French-style Romanesque abbey church in a beautiful countryside setting.

You come to Saturnia, not for the little town and its 15th-century Sienese castle, but to take the waters. The warm, mineral-rich waters in the valley feed both a four-star spa (which is elegant, but smells of rotten eggs), hotel complex and a lovely outdoor stream (Cascate del Gorello), which gushes down a hillside, running into small pools and waterfalls. (see Spas and Resorts)

Sit back and relax in a warm sulphur pool while your offspring splash and make Italian friends in this beautiful open-air slice of Paradise. But keep little ones away from the upper parts of the stream where the current is very strong. (see Spas and Resorts, Saturnia)