Art & Design Trips To Florence

AQA

GCSE

3.5 Fine art

3.8 Three-dimensional design

A-Level

3.4 Fine art

3.7 Three-dimensional design

Edexcel

GCSE

Knowledge, understanding and skills in Fine Art

Knowledge, understanding and skills in Three-dimensional Design

A-Level

Art and Design (Fine Art) (9FA0)

Art and Design (Three-dimensional Design) (9TD0)

OCR

GCSE

2c(ii). Content of Art and Design: Fine Art (J171)

2c(vii). Content of Art and Design: Critical and Contextual Studies (J176)

A-Level

2c(ii). Content of Art and Design: Fine Art (H601)

2c(vii). Content of Art and Design: Critical and Contextual Studies (H606)

WJEC

GCSE

Art and Design (Fine Art)

Art and Design (Three-dimensional Design)

A-Level

Art and Design (Fine Art)

Art and Design (Three-dimensional Design)

Walking tour of Florence. Visits include highlights such as:

• Piazza del Duomo
• Piazza della Signoria
• Palazzo Medici
• Ponte Vecchio

Uffizi Gallery

The Gallery entirely occupies the first and second floors of the large building constructed between 1560 and 1580 and designed by Giorgio Vasari. It is famous worldwide for its outstanding collections of ancient sculptures and paintings (from the Middle Ages to the Modern period). The collections of paintings from the 14th-century and Renaissance period include some absolute masterpieces: Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Beato Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Caravaggio, in addition to many precious works by European painters (mainly German, Dutch and Flemish).

Moreover, the Gallery boasts an invaluable collection of ancient statues and busts from the Medici family, which adorns the corridors and consists of ancient Roman copies of lost Greek sculptures.

Museo del Bargello

Dedicated to Medieval and Renaissance art, the Museo Nazionale del Bargello is located in Florence’s historic Palazzo del Podestà. It was established by royal decree on June 22, 1865—Italy’s first national museum. The museum houses masterpieces by Michelangelo, Donatello and the Della Robbia family.

Pitti Palace

Purchased in 1550, the Palace was chosen by Cosimo I de’ Medici and his wife Eleanor of Toledo as the new Grand Ducal residence, and it soon became the new symbol of the Medici’s power over Tuscany. It also housed the Court of other two dynasties: the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (which succeeded the Medici from 1737) and the Kings of Italy from the House of Savoy, who inhabited it from 1865.

Today the Palace is divided into four museums: the Treasury of the Grand Dukes on the ground floor, the Palatine Gallery and the Imperial and Royal Apartments on the first floor, the Gallery of Modern Art and the Museum of Costume and Fashion on the second floor.

Galleria di Arte Moderna

Located on the second floor of the Pitti Palace, the thirty rooms of the Gallery have recently been reorganised, according to chronological criteria, covering a period of time going from Neoclassicism (the age of Peter Leopold) to the 1920s.

The Boboli Gardens

Directly behind Pitti Palace are the marvellous Boboli Gardens. The Medici family established the layout of the gardens, creating the Italian garden style that would become a model for many European courts. The vast green expanse with a regular layout is a real outdoor museum, populated by ancient and Renaissance statues. The Gardens are also adorned with grottos, the most important of which is the famous grotto realized by Bernardo Buontalenti, as well as large fountains, such as the Fountain of Neptune and the Fountain of the Ocean.

Museo di San Marco

The Museum of San Marco is worth visiting for its architecture alone. This consists of the former Dominican convent restored and enlarged to its present size for Cosimo the Elder de' Medici by his favorite architect Michelozzo (1396-1472). Consecrated in 1443, this building was the scene of fervent religious activity, highlighted by personalities such as St. Antonino Pierozzi, Bishop of Florence, the Beato Angelico (c.1400-1450) and, later, Girolamo Savonarola.

The museum offers the visitor an example of a perfectly preserved fifteenth century convent, designed to coordinate and simplify the monastic life within its walls as much in its calm cloister as in the light-filled library, one of the finest interiors of the Renaissance. The complex also contains the museum of Fra' Angelico's works in the form of frescoed interiors and the panels displayed in the large alms-house.

Galleria dell’Accademia

The Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze is home to some of the most important painting and sculpture collections in the world, including sculptures by Michelangelo, his renowned David among them, and a rich collection of early Italian painting. The collection of plaster casts and models by Lorenzo Bartolini and his student Luigi Pampaloni in the Gipsoteca in the monumental Salone dell’Ottocento is just as significant. And the museum is also home to musical instruments that belonged to the grand dukes of Tuscany, Medici and Lorraine, most of which were in the collection of the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini of Florence.

La Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze exhibits the largest number of Michelangelo's sculptures in the world.

Cappella Brancacci

The beautiful Cappella Brancacci is a small chapel within the otherwise pretty plain Santa Maria del Carmine Church (due to the fact that most of the church was destroyed in a fire in 1771). It is considered a miracle that the Brancacci and Corsini Chapels survived the intense fire that destroyed everything else in less than 4 hours. Inside the chapel you will be able to admire two layers of frescoes commissioned in 1424 by Felice Brancacci, a wealthy Florentine merchant and statesman. The frescoes illustrate the life of St. Peter, who can be identified by his orange gown. The chapel was recently superbly restored, with the removal of accumulated candle soot and layers of 18th century egg-based gum.

Santa Maria del Fiore / Battistero / Giotto’s Tower / Brunelleschi’s Dome

Santa Maria del Fiore, designed by Arnolfo di Cambio, is the third largest church in the world (after St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London) and was the largest church in Europe when it was completed in the 15th century.

The Baptistery of San Giovanni, one of the most ancient churches in Florence, sits opposite the city's cathedral, the church of Santa Maria del Fiore. Much like the other buildings on the square, the Baptistery’s façade is coated in white and green marble. The interior features the precious mosaic of the dome, one of the largest in the world of its time, dominated by the huge figure of Christ the judge with scenes of the last judgment which occupies three of the eight segments of the dome. The other five segments show the stories of St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence, of Christ, of Joseph and of Genesis.

"Giotto's Campanile", the bell tower of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, is a splendid testimony of Florentine Gothic architecture of the fourteenth century. The Campanile is considered one of the most beautiful in all of Italy. Giotto's bell tower is 82 metres high and to reach the top you’ll need to climb many steps, 414 steps to be precise. The climb up the tower is gradual since the tower has three middle floors - these are perfect to both take in the panorama of Florence's cathedral square below as well as to rest. The only drawbacks are that the steps are rather narrow and it is the only way up and down, so you need to share it with people coming down.

The view from Giotto's Campanile is complementary to that one of Brunelleschi's dome which is only 10 metres higher. As the two monuments offer substantially the same panorama from the top, admiring one from the other is actually very exciting! If you have the time, as well as powerful legs (as the climb to the top of the dome requires you to climb 463 steps), visit both and enjoy the different perspective they offer.

Palazzo Vecchio

The Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace) is one of the most famous symbols of the city of Florence and certainly is a stop that can't miss in your visit to this city cradle of the Italian Renaissance. Palazzo Vecchio was built in the form of a castle and with a tower of 94 meters high between 1299 and 1314. The highlight of the palace is the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred), built from 1494 during the Republic of Fra’ (friar) Girolamo Savonarola. The Hall is the largest and most important room in terms of artistic and historical value inside the palace – indeed, in Florence. This impressive hall has a length of 54 meters, a width of 23 and a height of 18 meters. Panelled ceilings and large wall frescoes, golden decorations and imposing sculptures will leave you admiring in marvel.

Leonardo da Vinci Museum

The Museo Leonardiano di Vinci, or Leonardian Museum of Vinci, is a museum dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci, located in Vinci, Leonardo's birthplace, in the province of Florence, Italy.

The museum houses one of the largest collections of models constructed on the basis of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings. Over 60 models are exhibited, presented with precise references to the artist's sketches and handwritten annotations, also accompanied by digital animations and interactive applications.

Ponte Vecchio

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Piazzale Michelangelo

Cappelle Medici

Basilica de Santa Maria Novella

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