Florence Historical Curiosities: Stories You Did Not Know
The Florence stories you do not know
Florence is one of the most documented cities in the world. Its art, architecture, and history have been written about for 700 years. And yet the city contains a surprising number of stories, details, and facts that are entirely absent from the standard tourist itinerary.
Some of these are genuinely obscure. Others are simply overlooked because they do not appear in the highlights reel. All of them add a layer of texture to the city that makes walking through it more interesting.
This article is about the Florence beneath the surface: the details in stone, the decisions that shaped the streets, and the events that were recorded and then quietly forgotten.
Secrets hidden in the historic palaces
The windows of Palazzo Davanzati on Via Porta Rossa are among the most revealing in the city. The building dates from the 14th century and is one of the best-preserved examples of a medieval Florentine merchant’s house. The ground floor features a loggia that was once open to the street and used for commercial transactions. The upper floors are connected by a central staircase, and each floor was largely self-contained, because the building was designed for a family structure where different branches of the same household needed separate spaces.
What is less commonly discussed: the building has a private water system that was considered extraordinarily sophisticated for its time. A well in the courtyard connected to a shaft that ran up through all five floors, allowing water to be drawn at each level. In a city where water had to be carried from public fountains, this was a genuine luxury.
The palace is now a museum of the medieval Florentine home. Entry costs 6 euros. It is open Monday to Saturday 08:15 to 13:50, closed on certain Sundays. Check the current schedule before visiting.
Another detail worth knowing: Palazzo Vecchio has a secret room that appears only briefly in the standard visitor route. Studiolo of Francesco I, a tiny windowless study built for Cosimo I’s son Francesco between 1570 and 1575, is one of the densest accumulations of Mannerist painting in Florence. Its walls and ceiling are covered entirely with allegorical paintings by 30 different artists, all working simultaneously on a unified iconographic programme designed by Vincenzo Borghini. Entry to the palace is 12.50 euros; ask specifically about the Studiolo.
Legends of the city centre
The bust of Dante above a doorway at Via Santa Margherita 1 is surrounded by a persistent but unverifiable legend. Local tradition holds that Dante used to stand at this corner to watch a young woman named Beatrice Portinari pass by. There is no documentary evidence for this. The building is a later reconstruction. But the spot has accumulated a kind of collective memory that functions independently of historical fact.
The story is worth noting because Florence has many such points: places where the remembered and the invented overlap, where a location holds a story regardless of whether the story is literally true.
The stone benches built into the lower walls of many palaces along Via dei Cerretani and Via dei Tornabuoni are called panche. They served as resting spots for clients waiting to see bankers or merchants, and also as seats for the staff who guarded the premises. In the summer heat, bankers would conduct business from these benches rather than inside. You can still sit on them today.
Hidden symbols in the churches
Florence’s churches contain a level of symbolic content that goes largely unnoticed on a standard visit. A few examples worth seeking out.
In Santa Maria Novella, the facade designed by Leon Battista Alberti (completed 1470) contains a large circular solar disc between the two upper wings of the facade. The disc is positioned precisely so that on the summer solstice, sunlight passes through it and falls on a specific point on the pavement inside the church. This was not accidental. Alberti was a humanist scholar who understood both classical architecture and astronomical geometry. The church was used as a solar observatory for several centuries.
In the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine, the fresco of Adam and Eve being expelled from Paradise, painted by Masaccio around 1425, was at some point censored. Draperies were added to the original nude figures, likely in the 17th century. These were removed in 1988 during restoration, and the original figures are now visible again. The emotional intensity of Masaccio’s expelled couple is considered one of the great psychological achievements of early Renaissance painting.
In Orsanmichele, the church on Via dei Calzaiuoli, the external niches contain statues that were commissioned by the major guilds of medieval Florence. Each statue represents the guild’s patron saint. Donatello’s Saint George (now replaced by a copy; the original is in the Bargello) was commissioned by the armourers’ guild and is often cited as the first free-standing figure in Renaissance sculpture to convey the impression of imminent movement.
Facts that surprise even Florentines
The famous dome of the cathedral was built without scaffolding in the traditional sense. Brunelleschi developed a method of laying bricks in a herringbone pattern that allowed each ring of the dome to support itself as it was being built. No falsework, the temporary wooden framework normally used to support a dome during construction, was used for the main structure. The dome was completed in 1436. It remains the largest brick dome in the world at a diameter of 45.5 metres at its widest.
The Uffizi’s east corridor contains a row of 28 Roman portrait busts that were in the Medici collection from the 16th century. Most visitors walk past them at speed to reach the Botticelli room. But these are genuine Roman portraits from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, real faces of people who lived in the Roman empire. They have been in continuous display in this building for over 400 years.
The original Ponte Vecchio, before the current bridge, was built in wood. The current stone bridge dates from 1345. Before the 16th century, the shops on the bridge were occupied by butchers. In 1593, Ferdinando I de’ Medici banned butchers from the bridge because he found the smell objectionable. Goldsmiths replaced them, and they have remained ever since.
The Corridoio Vasariano, the elevated corridor that connects Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti across the Ponte Vecchio, was built in 1565 in just 5 months. The speed of construction required to meet Cosimo I’s deadline was considered extraordinary at the time. Parts of the corridor are now used to display the Uffizi’s collection of artist self-portraits.
Where to stay
The Key is at Via Cittadella 22, five minutes on foot from Santa Maria Novella station. The church of Santa Maria Novella with its hidden solar geometry is a 5-minute walk from the guesthouse. The Brancacci Chapel in Oltrarno is roughly 20 minutes on foot across the river.
