Christ and St. Thomas (Verrocchio)

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).

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.

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.

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.

The Palazzo dell'Arte dei Beccai or Residenza dell'Arte dei Beccai is a fourteenth-century building in Florence, Italy. It faces the Orsanmichele, once a grain market, later the church of the guilds of Florence. It has had many occupants, including the Arte dei Beccai or guild of butchers from which its name derives. Since 1974 it has housed the Accademia Fiorentina delle Arti del Disegno, an academy of the arts.

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.

The Torre dei Della Bella (Tower of Della Bella) is an old tower of Florence, Italy and is located in Via dei Tavolini. The tower is rectangular in plan and fronts the street. The building façade shows the typical rows of stone externally as well as some putlog holes which were used in medieval times as supports for scaffolding (used to complete particularly high construction) or as placement holes for the support beams of exterior balconies. Owned by an important family, who owned the property jointly with others along this road, the tower is the birthplace of Giano della Bella, author of the Ordinances of Justice. The tower is located opposite the Tower of Galigai and very close to the Torre dei Cerchi (Tower of the Circles). An inscription in stone above the large central door shows the old road numbers pre-nineteenth century, with Roman numerals LXXII.

Piazza della Signoria (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpjattsa della siɲɲoˈriːa]) is a w-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It was named after the Palazzo della Signoria, also called Palazzo Vecchio. It is the main point of the origin and history of the Florentine Republic and still maintains its reputation as the political focus of the city. It is the meeting place of Florentines as well as the numerous tourists, located near Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza del Duomo and gateway to Uffizi Gallery.

The Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali is a building in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy. Originally the Palazzo Fenzi, built for the Fenzi banking family and designed in the Neo-Renaissance style by Giuseppe Martelli and is one of the very few purpose built commercial buildings in the centre of the city though it housed on the upper floors reception rooms for the Fenzi family. The site was formerly occupied by the "Pisan Loggia" and the "Chiese de Santa Cecilia" While the architecture of the palazzo is undoubtedly inspired by that of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, also in Florence, the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali was never intended to be a private house but the local headquarters of the General Insurance Company which was founded in Trieste in 1831. There are other Palazzi delle Assicurazioni Generali in other Italian cities most notably Rome and Milan. During the latter half of the 19th century the Assicurazioni Generali (commonly known as "Generali") were expanding not only in Italy but also throughout Europe. The Assicurazioni Generali generally employed retrospective architectural style to reflect the surroundings of their offices in Rome the palazzo imitates the Palazzo Venezia which it faces, while in Milan the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali is in a form of 19th century Baroque known as Beaux Arts. The Florence Palazzo delle Assicurazioni unsuccessfully vies for dominance in the piazza with the more historical and architecturally important Palazzo Signoria, today known as the Palazzo Vecchio. In spite of its height and size the architecture of the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali harmonises with that of the surrounding buildings, and does not appear as a new imposter in the piazza. However, this is not a view shared by all, one source describes those buildings of Piazza della Signoria occupied by banks and Insurance companies as "seeming to belong to some cold northern climate rather than to the city that gave birth to the colour and vitality of the Renaissance" Part of the ground floor is home to one of Florence's more fashionable and historical cafés – "Rivoire", founded in 1872.

The Loggia del Mercato Nuovo (Italian pronunciation: [ˈlɔddʒa del merˈkaːto ˈnwɔːvo]), popularly known as the Loggia del Porcellino (IPA: [ˈlɔddʒa del portʃelˈliːno]), is a building in Florence, Italy. It is so called to distinguish it from the Mercato vecchio (IPA: [merˈkaːto ˈvɛkkjo]; "old market") that used to be located in the area of today's Piazza della Repubblica.

The Equestrian Monument of Cosimo I is a bronze equestrian statue executed by Giambologna from 1587 to 1594, and erected in 1594 in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.