Machiavelli’s Florence Guided Tour: By day and by night

We travel in time to a crucial period in Florence’s history, underpinned by critical historical changes and political schemes. A period marked by the Pazzi Conspiracy, later in 1494 was the overthrow of the Medici, followed by Girolamo Savonarola's establishement of a theocratic democracy. It was also a time when Florence was known as the 'school of the world' a thriving center of philosophy and a brilliant showcase of the arts, home to the revolutionizing titans Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. 

The 1299 fortess-shaped cube structure by Arnolfo di Cambio, Palazzo Vecchio then know as Signoria was the seat of the idealistic Republic of Florence. In 1498 the 21-year-old Machiavelli is appointed as head of Florence's second chancery. It is in thse labyrinthine rooms coiled arond the gleaming ideas of power and leadership that Machiavelli starts shaping his political thought, involved as a diplomat to the Courts of Spain, France, the Papal States and Cesare Borgia's Romagna.

This tour of Renaissance Florence traces the footsteps of the notorious historian, writer and father of political science, Niccolò Machiavelli, whilst exploring the city’s most reknowned squares and monuments, as well as the lesser-known ‘chiassi'. 

The majority are aware of the legend of Nicolò Machiavelli, the author of ‘The Prince’. An enigmatic and paradoxical figure whose innovative and controversial beliefs were not understood at the time. We step into Machiavelli’s shoes, exploring his hometown, a world built on corruption, courage, vice and virtue.

Get ready to immerse into Machiavelli’s world, deepening our understanding of his life and work. Exploring his routine, his family, friends and of course, his enemies.

About the Tour

• We begin at Machiavelli’s birthplace, in Oltrarno, the southern part of the city (in front of the Pitti Palace);
• Passing to Chiasso del Buco, a hidden small courtyard used for certain banned practices;
• We'll then visit Palazzo Vecchio (inside), where Machiavelli worked as second Chanchelor of the Republic;
• The courtyard of the Uffizi with Machiavelli’s statue by Lorenzo Bartolini;
• On to ‘Chiesa dei Santissimi Apostoli’ where we admire three Holy Sepulcher stone’s fragments obtained by Pazzino Pazzi during the first crusade in 1099. (subject to timings);
• Arriving to the Church of Santa Croce where his burial grounds are;
• Then to the Duomo: where the Pazzi Conspiracy against the Medici takes place;

**To complete the tour you might decide to head just outside of Florence towards l’Albergaccio at Machiavelli’s house where he lived during his exile and where the Prince was composed (25 min by car - 12 km from Florence - €200 circa to get there and back by taxy or driver).