Palazzo dell'Arte dei Beccai

The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno ("Academy of the Arts of Drawing") is an academy of artists in Florence, Italy. Founded as Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno ("Academy and Company of the Arts of Drawing") on 13 January 1563 by Cosimo I de' Medici, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari, it was made up of two parts: the Company was a kind of guild for all working artists, while the Academy was for more eminent artistic personalities of Cosimo's court, and supervised artistic production in Tuscany. Artists including Michelangelo Buonarroti, Lazzaro Donati, Francesco da Sangallo, Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Giorgio Vasari, Bartolomeo Ammannati, and Giambologna were members. Most members of the Accademia were male; Artemisia Gentileschi was the first woman to be admitted. Its declared purposes are the promotion and diffusion of the arts, and the protection and conservation of cultural heritage worldwide. It organises conferences, concerts, book presentations and exhibitions, and elects noted artists from all over the world to honorary membership.

Orsanmichele (pronounced [orsammiˈkɛːle]; "Kitchen Garden of St. Michael", from the Tuscan contraction of the Italian word orto) is a church in the Italian city of Florence. The building was constructed on the site of the kitchen garden of the monastery of San Michele which no longer exists. Located on the Via Calzaiuoli in Florence, the church was originally built as a grain market in 1337 by Francesco Talenti, Neri di Fioravante, and Benci di Cione. Between 1380 and 1404, it was converted into a church used as the chapel of Florence's powerful craft and trade guilds. On the ground floor of the square building are the 13th-century arches that originally formed the loggia of the grain market. The second floor was devoted to offices, while the third housed one of the city's municipal grain storehouses, maintained to withstand famine or siege. Late in the 14th century, the guilds were charged by the city to commission statues of their patron saints to embellish the facades of the church. The sculptures seen today are copies, the originals having been removed to museums (see below).

Orsanmichele's St. James the Major Tabernacle located on the southern façade of Orsanmichele, in Florence, is the tabernacle of The Guild of Furriers and Skinners (L’ Arte de Vaiai e Pellicciai). The statue of St. James the Major (c. 1420), by Niccolò di Piero Lamberti, once occupied the niche but is now housed in the Museum of Orsanmichele.

Donatello's Saint Mark (1411–1413) is a marble statue that stands approximately seven feet and nine inches high and is displayed in the museum of the Orsanmichele church, Florence. It originally was displayed in an exterior niche of the church, where a copy now stands. Donatello was commissioned by the linen weavers' guild to complete three pieces for the project. St. Mark was the first of his contributions. The niche itself was not of Donatello's hand, but created most probably by two stone carvers named Perfetto di Giovanni and Albizzo di Pietro.

Christ and St. Thomas (1467–1483) is a bronze statue by Andrea del Verrocchio made for one of the 14 niches on the exterior walls of the Orsanmichele in Florence, Italy, where it is now replaced by a cast and the original moved inside the building, which is now a museum. It shows the Incredulity of Thomas, frequently represented in Christian art since at least the 5th century and used to make a variety of theological points. Thomas the Apostle doubted the resurrection of Jesus and had to feel the wounds for himself in order to be convinced (John 20:24–29). The surrounding marble niche was designed by Donatello for his St Louis of Toulouse (1413), but the statue was moved to Santa Croce when the niche was sold to the Tribunale di Mercanzia (merchant's guild), who commissioned the Verrochio work.

St. John the Baptist (1412–1416) is a bronze statue by Lorenzo Ghiberti located in one of the 14 niches of the Orsanmichele in Florence, Italy. The statue of the Saint was commissioned by the cloth merchant's guild, the Arte di Calimala. The artist's use of unnaturalistic but elegant curves in the hair and drapery of the saint show the influence of the International Gothic style prevalent in Italy at the time the work was created. The work was successfully cast in a single piece, making it the first bronze statue of its size to be cast in a single piece for at least several hundred years in Italy.

San Carlo dei Lombardi is a Gothic-style, Roman Catholic church located on Via dei Calzaiuoli in central Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy. It has undergone many refurbishments over the year, and was originally dedicated to Sant'Anna e Michele, but since the early 17th century became the church of the local Lombard community and was dedicated to St Charles Borromeo.

The Metropolitan City of Florence (Italian: Città Metropolitana di Firenze) is an administrative division called metropolitan city in the Tuscany region, Italy. Its capital is the city of Florence. It replaced the Province of Florence. It was first created by the reform of local authorities (Law 142/1990) and then established by the Law 56/2014. It has been operative since 1 January 2015.

Florence ( FLORR-ənss; Italian: Firenze [fiˈrɛntse] (listen)) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes ranked it as the most beautiful city in the world in 2010.Florence plays an important role in Italian fashion, and is ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world by Global Language Monitor; furthermore, it is a major national economic centre, as well as a tourist and industrial hub.

Tuscan wine (Italian Toscana) is Italian wine from the Tuscany region. Located in central Italy along the Tyrrhenian coast, Tuscany is home to some of the world's most notable wine regions. Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano are primarily made with Sangiovese grape whereas the Vernaccia grape is the basis of the white Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Tuscany is also known for the dessert wine Vin Santo, made from a variety of the region's grapes. Tuscany has forty-one Denominazioni di origine controllata (DOC) and eleven Denominazioni di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG). In the 1970s a new class of wines known in the trade as "Super Tuscans" emerged. These wines were made outside DOC/DOCG regulations but were considered of high quality and commanded high prices. Many of these wines became cult wines. In the reformation of the Italian classification system many of the original Super Tuscans now qualify as DOC or DOCG wines (such as the new Bolgheri label) but some producers still prefer the declassified rankings or to use the Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) classification of Toscana. Tuscany has six sub-categories of IGT wines today.

Tuscany ( TUSK-ə-nee; Italian: Toscana [tosˈkaːna]) is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres (8,900 square miles) and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (Firenze). Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its influence on high culture. It is regarded as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and of the foundations of the Italian language. The prestige established by the Tuscan dialect's use in literature by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini led to its subsequent elaboration as the language of culture throughout Italy. It has been home to many figures influential in the history of art and science, and contains well-known museums such as the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti. Tuscany is also known for its wines, including Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Morellino di Scansano, Brunello di Montalcino and white Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Having a strong linguistic and cultural identity, it is sometimes considered "a nation within a nation".Tuscany is the second most popular Italian region for travellers in Italy, after Veneto. The main tourist spots are Florence, Castiglione della Pescaia, Pisa, San Gimignano, Lucca, Grosseto and Siena. The town of Castiglione della Pescaia is the most visited seaside destination in the region, with seaside tourism accounting for approximately 40% of tourist arrivals. The Maremma region, Siena, Lucca, the Chianti region, Versilia and Val d'Orcia are also internationally renowned and particularly popular spots among travellers. Eight Tuscan localities have been designated World Heritage Sites: the historic Centre of Florence (1982); the Cathedral square of Pisa (1987); the historical centre of San Gimignano (1990); the historical centre of Siena (1995); the historical centre of Pienza (1996); the Val d'Orcia (2004), the Medici Villas and Gardens (2013), and Montecatini Terme as part of the Great Spa Towns of Europe (2021). Tuscany has over 120 protected nature reserves, making Tuscany and its capital Florence popular tourist destinations. In 2018, Florence alone had over 5 million arrivals, making it the world's 51st most visited city.

The province of Florence (Italian: provincia di Firenze) was a province in the northeast of Tuscany region of Italy. The city or comune of Florence was both the capital of the Province of Florence, and of the Region of Tuscany. It had an area of 3,514 square kilometres (1,357 sq mi) and a population of 1,012,180 as of 31 December 2014. The territory of the province was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance.In 2015 the province was replaced by the Metropolitan City of Florence.