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Wacky museum renowned for its armour collections.

A must-see in this Medici palace of 1444 are the chapel’s 360-degree frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli.

Arnolfo di Cambio’s mighty town hall (1299–1302) is still Florence’s seat of government. Cosimo I hired Vasari to redecorate in the 1540s, frescoing a Medici marriage around Michelozzo’s 1453 courtyard and swathing the gargantuan Sala dei Cinquecento with an apotheosis of the Medici dynasty. Francesco I shut himself away from matters of state in his Studiolo to conduct scientific experiments.

Florence’s public living room and outdoor sculpture gallery. Michelangelo called Ammannati’s Neptune fountain a “waste of good marble”. Lining the Palazzo Vecchio’s arringheria – the platform from which orators “harangued” the crowds – are copies of Donatello’s Marzocco (Florence’s leonine symbol) and Judith , and Michelangelo’s David . The only original, Bandinelli’s Hercules (1534), was derided by Cellini as a “sack of melons”. Orcagna’s lovely 14th-century Loggia dei Lanzi shelters Cellini’s masterpiece Perseus (1545) and Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women (1583).

Sweeping, postcard-ready panoramas of Florence.

A refined little wine bar with good snacks, conveniently situated just across the square from the Pitti Palace.

Highest-quality pietre dure – “mosaics” of semi-precious stones.

This brawny Mannerist mansion served as Florence’s royal home from 1560 until the 1860s, when Florence did a stint as Italy’s capital. Backed by the elaborate Boboli Gardens, the palace’s seven museums include the excellent Galleria Palatina of late Renaissance/early Baroque painting.

Stationery store of choice for celebrity and royalty.

The shops hanging from both sides of Taddeo Gaddi’s 1354 “old bridge” have housed gold- and silversmiths since Ferdinando I evicted the butchers in the 16th century (his private corridor from the Uffizi to the Pitti passed overhead, and he couldn’t stand the smell). Even the Nazis, blowing up bridges to slow the Allied advance, found the span too beautiful to destroy and instead took down the buildings at either end.