About this walk
Three centuries of Medici in twelve stops, from the banker who kept a low profile to the last heiress who bequeathed everything to the city.
The stops
Walk them in order; each story plays when you reach its pin.
- 1Stop 1
Welcome to the family
From a bank counter to the will of the last heiress, across three centuries and twelve stops.
- 2Stop 2
The House That Wasn't Supposed to Stand Out
The banker who ran the city without ever holding office, and a design he found too flashy.
Read the story - 3Stop 3
The Neighbourhood Church
The parish church the family bought, with a facade that was never finished and a tomb beneath the floor.
Read the story - 4Stop 4
A tomb made of semiprecious stone
A funerary chapel of jasper and porphyry that spent three centuries under construction, built for a family that had already died out before it was finished.
Read the story - 5Stop 5
Michelangelo's staircase
A staircase that pours out of the room like a stream of lava, leading to a library the family treated as a possession.
Read the story - 6Stop 6
The mass of 1478
During High Mass in April 1478, one brother was stabbed to death right here while the other locked himself behind bronze doors.
Read the story - 7Stop 7
The boy who became a duke
A seventeen-year-old everyone thought they could control, cast in bronze on the square of the republic he shut down.
Read the story - 8Stop 8
The duchess who paid the bill
The duchess from Naples who kept the duchy running with her own money and her own land.
Read the story - 9Stop 9
The corridor above the city
A corridor running almost a kilometre over shops and water, built in five months for a wedding.
Read the story - 10Stop 10
The church beneath the corridor
The corridor runs straight across the front of this church, and inside it opens onto a balcony.
Read the story - 11Stop 11
The rival's palace
A rival built this palace to outshine the Medici, and a hundred years later they were the ones living in it.
Read the story - 12Stop 12
The woman who left it all behind
The last of the Medici made sure that everything the family owned would stay in Florence forever.
Read the story
Ready when you are
Walk The Medici with ROODS.
12 stops through Florence. Open ROODS in your browser, walk to the first pin and the story plays.
- Stories on a map, with narrated audio
- Walk at your own pace, stop where you like
- Runs in your browser. An app is optional.
