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.
Elizabeth was a wonderful guide and we both learned so much about the rise of the Medici and their power. My only disappointment was that the trip did not include the Pitti Palace which would have been appropriate and provided more of a buzz. While I realize that logistically it may have been difficult, in the future, I would recommend spending less time in the Convent and then extended the trip to 4 hours in total and including the Palace and Boboli Gardens.
Paula
Reviewed on:
Oct 24, 2011
The walk was very interesting and Cornelia did a good job of explaining the Medici family and effect on the development and history of Florence.
David
Reviewed on:
Oct 16, 2011
Lucia is charming and provided us with the necessary information plus some extra details to flesh out the history and the people we were learning about. It was wonderful that she didn't drone on endlessly as other groups sometimes do. Which is why I will only look at Context tours in the future.
The only downside of the tour was that some of the venues had closed off sections - which is certainly not Lucia's fault in any way. She was incredibly gracious about recommending other places of interest that we might want to see independently that you don't cover in your tours. For me it was were to locate ancient Roman floor mosaics, which is a very narrow topic of interest.
Elizabeth
Reviewed on:
Oct 4, 2011
