Historic Palaces — Firenze

A vast Renaissance palace begun in the 1450s for banker Luca Pitti, bought by the Medici in 1550 and expanded into a sprawling complex of galleries, apartments and the Boboli Gardens behind it.

Florence's fortress-like town hall since 1299, still the seat of city government today, its Salone dei Cinquecento decorated for Cosimo I de' Medici by Vasari after a commission to Leonardo and Michelangelo fell through.