{"id":14073,"date":"2019-07-03T09:08:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T07:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arttrav.com\/?p=14073"},"modified":"2019-07-03T09:08:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T07:08:59","slug":"renaissance-art-italy-itinerary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arttrav.com\/it\/renaissance-art-italy-itinerary\/","title":{"rendered":"Renaissance Art in Italy: an Itinerary"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the summer after my third year of university, I signed up for a 6-week travelling course in Italian Renaissance Art History<\/strong>. Little did I know how that experience would change my life. Two weeks in Florence, a week in Rome, stops everywhere from Milan to Naples\u2026 and in that time I fell in love with this place, the language, its culture and most of all, its art. With this post, I want to recreate that trip. Sure, few adults can ever have six whole weeks to travel through Italy, but if you love Renaissance Art<\/strong>, maybe you\u2019ll try to follow some of the parts of this itinerary, and over a few trips, you will have seen a lot.<\/p>\n

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View of Florence from the terrace level of the Duomo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Should we do our Renaissance art itinerary in chronological order, or rather see things from North to South? I feel I should start in Florence<\/strong>, as our course did, for a full two weeks. That is where the Renaissance, as an artistic and cultural movement, was born, plus it\u2019s an important base for comparison during the rest of your trip. Florence can also be home base for shorter trips to some of the locations I\u2019m going to mention, should you choose to stay here longer term \u2013 a month based in Florence would give you time to visit almost everything on this itinerary. One note \u2013 I\u2019m not going to be able to mention everything to see in each city, so I\u2019ll provide information about why to visit each city and a few locations or museums not to be missed. This blog has 15 years worth of articles about Florence and Rome to search through, so I\u2019ll provide links to some relevant articles as well.<\/p>\n

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Florence: the birthplace of the Renaissance<\/h2>\n

Florence<\/strong> is the birthplace of the Renaissance and, as such, it\u2019s a city rich with must-see art for the Renaissance art-lover. This makes it all but impossible for me to write a short paragraph here on what to see! It\u2019s been ages since I\u2019ve written a Florence itinerary because I find it hard to limit myself in a city I know so well, though back in 2011, I published this 3-day Florence itinerary<\/a> and the historical content there is still perfectly valid.<\/p>\n

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The Church of Santa Croce, interior (very early in the morning)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That said, where to start? I think there are three main places<\/strong> you have to visit to get a basic understanding of where the Renaissance began<\/strong>. I always bring first-time visitors to the church of Santa Croce<\/strong> because it\u2019s the earliest of the city\u2019s large basilicas, and it contains two chapels by Giotto (see more about him below, under Padova). Every square meter of this church tells a story about Florence over the span of a few hundred years.<\/p>\n

Then I like to walk over to Piazza delle Signoria<\/strong> because this is the seat of the medieval city\u2019s republican government. Here, too, you don\u2019t just look at one historical moment, but witness a few hundred years of changes, so it\u2019s a long story to tell. If my visiting friends are still alive after all that history, I like to show them Orsanmichele<\/strong> because that is where Renaissance sculpture really took off, in the decorations of the exterior niches commissioned by the city\u2019s guilds. Of course, we could go on for days \u2013 from Orsanmichele,\u00a0 I\u2019d walk over to the Duomo, and visit the Opera del Duomo Museum, but I\u2019ll save that for another day.<\/p>\n

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