Tour Details
Duration
3.5 hours
Product Type
Tour
Venues
- Medici Chapels
- Museum of San Marco
- Palazzo Medici-Riccardi
- Magi Chapel
Photos & Highlights
- Experience Florence through the eyes of the Medici family
- Led by an expert art or social historian
Select a date
Tour Description
The name Medici immediately brings up images of power, intrigue, and artistic flourishing during the Renaissance.
During this Medici tour in Florence, led by an art or social historian, we'll follow along in the footsteps of the Medicis, visiting several key sites that the family has owned or sponsored, tracing their history from the republic to the duchy, from wealthy merchants to rulers of a kingdom.
We begin from the roots of the Medici family history, with Cosimo the Elder in the 1430s, visiting the quiet Convent of San Marco - the first example of the Medici’s great patronage of the arts and one of the first public libraries in the world. Proceeding with a visit to the museum, which hosts the greatest works of Fra Angelico, we will see the monks' former private cells, including the cell made specifically for Cosimo's own meditation.
From there, we will proceed to the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, the seat of Medici power in Florence for over a century, and make a special visit to the Chapel of the Magi, decorated by Benozzo Gozzoli, considered a Renaissance fresco masterpiece.
To conclude the tour, we will reach San Lorenzo Square, home to the iconic unfinished church, and enter the Medici Chapels to explore the pinnacle of the Medicis' art patronage and view the work of Michelangelo in the family’s chapel he designed, featuring the tombs of Lorenzo il Magnifico and his brother Giuliano.
This walk will provide you with a deep understanding of the Medici family's connection to the city of Florence and how the relationship between political power and art has played such an important role in the formation of Florence as we know it today.
Experts
- You have been to Florence, or you are a first-time visitor and want to better understand the connection between the past and the present of the city
- You are intrigued about the Medici family's past.
- You want to venture off the beaten path with a thorough exploration of the less-traveled routes.
- Church and Museum of San Marco
- Palazzo Medici Riccardi
- Magi Chapel
- Medici Chapel
Tickets
You are pre-paid for the tour and the entrance tickets.
Additional Trip-Planning Resources
- For more information on planning your travels to Florence, take a read through our Context Stories.
Do you reserve headsets for this tour?
Depending on your group size, we may be required by the venue to order headsets, in which case you’ll see a “Headset Fee” added to your order.
Is this tour wheelchair-friendly?
This tour can be adapted for clients with mobility difficulties or who use wheelchairs, with the only exception being the Magi Chapel.
Book with confidence — see Context's flexible cancellation policy here.
Where You'll Start
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282 Reviews
Reviews can only be left by Context customers after they have completed a tour. For more information about our reviews, please see our FAQ.
Valerie was very knowledgable about the Medici family and the various venues we visited. She was very friendly and answered many non-tour related questions about Florence. We saw her nearly a week later in Siena and she surprisingly recognized us.
James
Reviewed on:
Oct 1, 2017
Alan was excellent. The entire tour was engaging, thought-provoking, and thoroughly enjoyable. Throughout, we had this sense that we were being let in on all of these fantastic secrets about history and place. That and he allowed us to make some sense of a fascinating and very complicated family. We could not have asked for a better guide.
Scott
Reviewed on:
Sep 30, 2017
The walk and talk was a great blend of discussion of the architecture and the family that rose to power and funded it all. The docent came equipped with a copy of the Medici family tree which was very useful, and which I have kept and intend to use when following up with more reading. The docent was able to present a large amount of information in an interesting way.
Karen
Reviewed on:
Sep 10, 2017
