Dante's Florence

Art & Culture

Dante's neighborhood still exists in Florence: Piazza della Signoria, Orsanmichele, the Torre della Castagna, San Martino Oratory and the Badia Fiorentina design the area representing the medieval heart of Florence, rich in stone houses, with their towers rising above the buildings. It is here that the highest number ofDante's commemorative plaques are concentrated: quotations from the Divine Comedy, placed in significant places in the city.

Tower houses belonged to the various rival families - like the Cerchi and the Donati - some of them loyal to the White Guelphs, the others to the Black Guelphs. Dante supported the White Guelph Faction and, for this reason, he was exiled from his city and never returned. In this small portion of the city is situated the House of Dante, a very popular museum, recently renovated with new multimedia technologies. The house - an ideal reconstruction of a medieval town house - was built in 1906 in the area that was once occupied by the Alighieri's houses.

The church of Santa Margherita de' Cerchi is authentic and ancient instead: it is also called church of Dante because here was celebrated the wedding between Dante Alighieri and Gemma Donati, and because these ancient walls also hold the tombs of both the Donati and the Portinari families. Member of the Portinari family was Dante's Muse, the "angelicata" Beatrice, mentioned in the Divine Comedy, who – it is said – met Dante right in that church. A famous nineteenth-century English painting by H. G. Holiday sets this meeting on the Lungarno, near Ponte Santa Trinita. Beatrice was born in Via del Corso, where is situated the Palazzo Salviati Da Cepparello (currently home to a 5 stars hotel) on the façade of which is set a plate with Dante's verses. The young Beatrice, who then married Simone dei Bardi, died when she was only 24 years old.

The small streets along the Duomo, Via della Canonica, Via delle Oche and Via Sant'Elisabetta (where you can admire the only, ancient circular tower in Florence, called the Pagliazza) still have a medieval design, and have remained intact since Dante's time.

A Dante's itinerary cannot ignore “mio bel San Giovanni”("my beautiful Saint John") as in Dante's Inferno is called the Baptistery of Florence, where Dante was baptized. Inside you can admire the magnificent thirteenth-century mosaic, which depicts the Last Judgment: surely Dante was also inspired by some demonic figures of the Inferno.

Another unmissable stop to rediscover spirituality in Dante's time - in addition to the ruins of Santa Reparata (the ancient cathedral of Florence, below Santa Maria del Fiore) - is the Romanesque church of San Miniato al Monte, a few steps from Piazzale Michelangelo.

Dante's tomb is not in Florence and if we are looking for it, we have to go to Ravenna! In the Basilica of Santa Croce, there is Dante Alighieri's Cenotaph, a work of 1829 by Stefano Ricci, while the nineteenth century statue dedicated to him by Enrico Pazzi stands in the Santa Croce churchyard.

Dante's iconography, truly immense, also includes the famous painting by Domenico di Michelino inside the Duomo - "Dante and the Divine Comedy" -, Giotto's portrait in the Cappella della Maddalena at the Bargello Museum and the funeral mask of Dante in Palazzo Vecchio. Read the brochure of the complete itinerary.

For further suggestions about Dante's itineraries in our region, please visit the official website of Tourism Visittuscany.com and select Dante as a keyword.

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Dante's neighborhood and tower houses

Walking along Via Dante Alighieri, visitors will pass through the so-called Dante's district (although there is no direct evidence, it is very likely that Dante lived in this area), still characterized by a dense network of narrow streets and numerous tower houses, typical buildings of that time, with a both civil and military function (throughout the city there were more than 200, some more than 60 meters high). One of the most significant examples is the tower house of de' Cerchi, situated in Via dei cerchi at the corner with Via del Corso.

Via dei Cerchi, 50122 Firenze FI, Italia

House of Dante and Church Santa Margerita de' Cerchi

The so-called House of Dante, a nineteenth-century replica of a tower house, houses the homonymous museum (a didactic museum about Dante, his biography and his works), a stone's throw from the Church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi, where his muse Beatrice Portinari was buried. In this area there are numerous plates with quotations from the Divine Comedy, placed in a series of significant places to which they refer.

Via Santa Margherita, 50122 Firenze FI, Italia

Baptistery of San Giovanni

Masterpiece of the Florentine Romanesque, this magnificent building, embellished with geometric decorations of white-green marbles and the famous doors, is dedicated to the patron saint of Florence. Dante was baptized right there, in the ancient baptismal font, then dismantled in the sixteenth century. In addition to the floor with marble inlays, the thirteenth-century mosaic decorating the ceiling is very impressive, with its images of Paradise and Hell, which were certainly a source of inspiration for the visions described by Dante in the Divine Comedy.

Piazza di San Giovanni, Firenze FI, Italia

Santa Reparata (inside Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore)

From inside the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore - whose construction dates back to 1296, under the direction of Arnolfo di Cambio - it its possible to access the archaeological area of the ancient Cathedral of Santa Reparata (Christian martyr of the third century, co-patroness of Florence), which was incorporated by the new Cathedral. This was the church known by Dante and his contemporaries. In the nearby Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, a key place to visit in order to fully understand the history of the entire monumental complex, a reconstruction of the ancient Arnolfo facade of Santa Maria del Fiore is preserved with its statues: among them the one of Boniface VIII, the famous Pope, enemy of Dante, and stigmatized in the Divine Comedy. In the Duomo, along the left aisle, there is the famous fresco depicting Dante showing the Divine Comedy by Domenico di Michelino (1465).

Piazza del Duomo, 50122 Firenze FI, Italia

Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo Vecchio was built at the end of the thirteenth century to house the Priors (the representatives of the Guilds that were one of the most important magistracy of the city administration): Dante was Prior in 1300. Palazzo Vecchio is the political heart of the city and still hosts the Municipal Administration. Although Dante did not had the opportunity to see the end of the first phase of the construction - started in 1299 and based on a design by Arnolfo di Cambio and completed in 1315 – Palazzo Vecchio is an essential place to understand the political history of Florence. In Dante's time, political meetings were held inside the nearby church of San Pier Scheraggio - later incorporated into the Uffizi in the sixteenth century - whose remains are still visible in Via della Ninna; here was also located the famous Romanesque pulpit, now located in San Leonardo in Arcetri, from which Dante and Boccaccio spoke.

Piazza della Signoria, 50122 Firenze FI, Italia

Museo Nazionale del Bargello

The building, the oldest public palace in the city, has a very long history: erected in 1250 as the palace of the Capitano del Popolo, it was then the Palazzo del Podestà, later a prison and finally a museum. It houses one of the most extraordinary collections of Italian sculpture (works by Donatello, Michelangelo, Verrocchio, Cellini). In the Cappella della Maddalena - where people condemned to death waited before the execution – in one of the frescoes by the Giotto's workshop, there's a portrait of Dante.

Via del Proconsolo, 4, 50122 Firenze FI, Italia

Basilica di Santa Croce

Like the Dominicans in Santa Maria Novella, the Franciscans also settled in a suburban neighborhood (outside the first circle of walls of the communal age) to bring the evangelical message among the poor. The enlargement of the original church started in 1294, probably under the direction of Arnolfo di Cambio. In the wide Gothic interior, besides the famous tombs and the cenotaphs, among which the nineteenth century one dedicated to Dante, a series of Renaissance masterpieces, important works of the late thirteenth early-fourteenth century can be admired, such as the Crucifix by Cimabue and the revolutionary frescoes by Giotto of the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels, representing the stories of St. Francesco, St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. The famous statue dedicated to Dante, made in the sixth centenary of his birth by Enrico Pazzi (1865), stands out in front of the left side door of the façade.

Piazza di Santa Croce, 16, 50122 Firenze FI, Italia

Basilica di San Miniato al Monte

The mystical atmosphere of this church, one of the greatest examples of Tuscan Romanesque architecture, brings us closer to the same feeling experienced by Medieval Christians. The present church - rebuilt on several occasions, from 1018 to 1207 - is dedicated to Miniato, a saint martyred in the Roman Florentia. The splendid facade, with its characteristic white and green marble decorations, leads into the interior rich in elements typical of Romanesque and proto-Gothic architecture: the floor adorned with mysterious motifs (including a zodiac wheel), the marble barriers and the ambo, the golden mosaic in the apse basin depicting Christ, the Virgin and St. Miniato, the evocative crypt, where the remains of the martyred saint are kept, and where the friars still meet every afternoon, singing Gregorian chants for Vespers. The church is located on a hill, in an isolated context, from where it is possible to enjoy one of the most beautiful views of Florence.

Via delle Porte Sante, 34, 50125 Firenze FI, Italia