Palazzo Vecchio

1299: Arnolfo di Cambio, and a tower borrowed from the losing side

In 1299 the commune and people of Florence decided to build a palace worthy of the city and secure enough to shelter its magistrates in turbulent times. Arnolfo di Cambio, architect of the Duomo and of Santa Croce, began work on the ruins of houses once owned by the Uberti family — Ghibelline rebels, in Giovanni Villani's phrase — and the site was chosen partly to guarantee those houses could never be rebuilt.

The result is a cube of rusticated stone with two rows of two-light Gothic windows and crenellated battlements on corbels, some of whose arches double as openings for dropping heated liquid on attackers. Arnolfo folded the existing Foraboschi family tower into the front of his new one, which is why the 94-metre tower is not centred on the façade. That height is Wikipedia's figure; the Comune's own page does not state it. The tower held two cells that at different times imprisoned Cosimo de' Medici the Elder in 1435 and Girolamo Savonarola in 1498.

May 1540: Cosimo I moves in and Vasari rebuilds the inside

Duke Cosimo I de' Medici moved his official seat from the Medici palace on Via Larga into the Palazzo della Signoria in May 1540, a move that announced Medici power was permanent. The interior you pay to see is largely what he and Giorgio Vasari then made of it.

When Cosimo later moved across the Arno to Pitti Palace, he renamed this one the Palazzo Vecchio — the old palace — though the square outside kept the original name. Vasari also built the raised corridor from here through the Uffizi and over Ponte Vecchio to the new residence: the Vasari Corridor begins behind a small door in Eleonora's Green Room.

1865–1871, and the mayor upstairs today

The palace was the seat of united Italy's provisional government from 1865 to 1871, while Florence was the temporary capital of the Kingdom. Since 1872 it has housed the office of the mayor of Florence and it remains the seat of the City Council — the tower's three bells include one cast in the thirteenth century.

That continuity is worth knowing before you go in, because it explains the visit. You are walking through a working town hall whose ceremonial rooms happen to be a museum, which is why some doors are shut on some days without explanation.

Michelozzo's courtyard, and where the water comes from

The first courtyard was designed in 1453 by Michelozzo, with crests of the church and the city guilds in the lunettes and a porphyry fountain by Battista del Tadda in the centre. The Putto with Dolphin on the basin is a copy of Verrocchio's original of 1476, which is upstairs in the palace.

The wall frescoes are views of the cities of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy — Graz, Innsbruck, Vienna, Prague and others — painted by Vasari in 1565 for the wedding of Francesco I to Archduchess Johanna of Austria. The water in that fountain arrives by pipe from the Boboli Gardens, on the far side of the river.

Salone dei Cinquecento: 52 metres, 39 ceiling panels, one lost Leonardo

The Hall of the Five Hundred is about 52 metres long, 23 wide and 18 high — the largest room in the palace, though the frequent claim that it is the largest hall in Italy does not survive comparison with Padua's Palazzo della Ragione. It was built in 1494 by Simone del Pollaiolo for Savonarola, who wanted a chamber for a Grand Council of five hundred members, and enlarged by Vasari so Cosimo I could hold court in it.

That enlargement destroyed two unfinished masterpieces: Michelangelo's Battle of Cascina and Leonardo's Battle of Anghiari, commissioned in 1503, which Leonardo painted in wax-mixed pigments that would not dry. The legend that Vasari built a false wall over it to preserve it is still unresolved. What survives is Vasari's own: a ceiling of 39 panels on the life of Cosimo I, the raised Udienza stage built by Bandinelli, and in the south niche Michelangelo's Genius of Victory of 1532–1534, removed to the Bargello in 1868 and returned here in 1921.

The Studiolo of Francesco I, and the peep-hole

At the end of the hall is a small windowless room: the Studiolo, designed by Vasari in Mannerist style between 1570 and 1575. Walls and barrel vault are covered with paintings on the four elements, mostly by Vasari's school, with a Bronzino portrait of Cosimo I and Eleonora and bronzes by Giambologna and Ammannati.

The detail that makes it: from a peep-hole in this room Francesco I watched his ministers and officers meeting in the Salone next door. The Studiolo was dismantled within decades of being built and reassembled in the twentieth century.

Eleonora's apartments, the Sala dei Gigli and Donatello's Judith

From 1540, when Cosimo moved the seat of government here, a suite of rooms was refurbished as Eleonora of Toledo's living quarters. Her Green Room, ceiling by Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, holds the small door where the Vasari Corridor begins. The Sala degli Elementi, Cosimo's own quarters, runs to five rooms and two loggias, decorated by Vasari after the death of the original commission-holder.

In the Sala dei Gigli stands Donatello's original bronze Judith and Holofernes, given a prominent place there in 1988 after a long restoration. The copy of it is outside on Piazza della Signoria, which is the arrangement most visitors have backwards.

The Map Room: 53 painted maps on walnut doors

The Guardaroba, or Hall of Geographical Maps, was begun in 1563 as Cosimo I's attempt to hold the known world in one room. Master carpenter Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti built the walnut cabinets and ceiling panels that are still there, and the cosmographer Egnazio Danti — later responsible for the Vatican's Gallery of Maps — painted maps directly onto the cabinet doors. Of the 57 planned, 53 survive.

Vasari planned a celestial sphere at the centre and two enormous globes lowered from a false ceiling by pulley. Those never happened. What did is an argument in furniture: the maps, the clock and the painted sky together were meant to show Cosimo as the possessor of all space and time.

The decision, if you are choosing one ticket

Take the museum, not the tower, if you can only do one. The Salone, the Studiolo and the Map Room are things you cannot see anywhere else; the tower view is very good, but Florence has better and cheaper elevated views at Piazzale Michelangelo, which is free.

The exception is the Secret Passages tour. At $36.70 it costs about the same as the museum audioguide card and takes you where neither ticket goes — that is the one we would book if the date allows.

The Torre di Arnolfo costs €20 (about $23), €13 reduced, and opens Monday to Wednesday and Friday to Sunday 09:00–17:00, with Thursday cut to 14:00 like the rest of the building. Arrive fifteen minutes before your slot: the official page says so, and the staff enforce it because the stair is single-file and they release visitors in batches.

The tower closes in rain. Not delayed, closed — the walkway is exposed stone and it becomes unusable. On heat-wave red-alert days the visit is cut back to the walkway alone, with the mezzanine and the Saturn terrace shut. Neither the minimum age nor the number of steps appears on the Comune's page; the 94-metre height comes from Wikipedia, not the official source.

What to do with that: buy the museum ticket for a fixed date and the tower ticket for a morning you can see out of the window. If you want a guaranteed climb rather than a good one, the Duomo dome is the other timed tower in the city and it runs in weather that stops this one.

• €20 full, €13 reduced (about $23 / $15) — a separate ticket from the museum
• 09:00–17:00, Thursday to 14:00; arrive 15 minutes before the slot
• Closed in rain; heat red alert cuts it to the walkway only
• Minimum age and step count: not stated on the official page

Our pick is the museum ticket plus the Secret Passages tour on the same visit, which together cost less than a museum ticket and a tower ticket and show you considerably more. Add the tower only if the weather is settled and you have not already climbed something that week.

One warning that applies to every row: the Comune runs two websites with different prices on them. The culture department's page lists €18 and €20; the ticketing front page was still showing €12 and €13 on the day we checked. We have used the higher, newer pair throughout this page. Verify the figure the checkout shows before you confirm, because that is the one that will be charged.

Free, reduced and the Firenzecard

Entry is free for ages 0 to 17, for disabled visitors with a companion, for licensed guides and interpreters, for journalists, for Comune di Firenze staff and for ICOM, ICOMOS and ICCROM members. The reduced price applies to visitors aged 18 to 25 and to university students. Residents can buy the Card del Fiorentino for €10 (about $12). No presale fee and no free-entry days are stated on the page we read.

The Firenzecard covers Palazzo Vecchio but lists it under booking obligatory, so cardholders still have to reserve a slot rather than walking up. Groups are capped at 25 including the guide.

What the reseller cards actually buy

The entrance ticket with audioguide was listed at $37.21 on 28 August 2026 and is run by MUS.E, the palace's own museum-services association: skip-the-ticket-line admission plus an audio guide or a seven-inch multimedia guide in eight languages, with Arnolfo's Tower selectable as an option. It cancels free 24 hours ahead, which the official ticket does not.

The guided tour at $63.59 runs 90 minutes with a certified guide in English, Italian, Spanish or French and does not include the tower. The Secret Passages tour at $36.70 is also MUS.E's and is capped at four people per departure on this listing, against the ten the Comune allows per slot.

The Secret Passages route goes behind the walls of the rooms you have just walked through — the staircase of the Duke of Athens, hidden stairs between floors, and the roof space of trusses above the Salone dei Cinquecento, where you see how a 52-metre ceiling of 39 painted panels is actually held up. The Comune caps the passages at ten people per slot; the GetYourGuide listing sells departures of four, run by MUS.E, and lasts 75 minutes with skip-the-line entry exchanged at the InfoPoint counter inside the courtyard.

Under the courtyard are the excavated remains of the Roman theatre the palace was built over. These are visitable only on Saturday and Sunday, guided, at 12:00 and 12:45, in groups of fifteen at most, for €5 (about $6). The entrance for the excavations is not stated on the official page — ask at the ticket desk when you buy.

Neither route is described as suitable for wheelchair users, and the passages involve narrow stairs; the official page does not publish a minimum age for them.

The museum opens 09:00–19:00 Monday to Wednesday and Friday to Sunday; the tower 09:00–17:00 on the same days. On Thursday both close at 14:00. Last entry is one hour before closing in every case, so a Thursday visitor has until 13:00 and a Sunday visitor until 18:00.

No fixed weekly closing day is stated. That is the single best reason to keep this page open on a Monday in Florence: the Uffizi two minutes away is shut every Monday, the Accademia too, and Palazzo Vecchio is running a full day. The Monday openings page lists the rest of what stays open.

Booking is done online together with the purchase at bigliettimusei.comune.fi.it. It is worth doing for the tower and essential for the passages; for the museum alone on a weekday you can usually walk up.

• Museum: 09:00–19:00, Thursday 09:00–14:00
• Tower: 09:00–17:00, Thursday 09:00–14:00, closed in rain
• Excavations: Saturday and Sunday only, 12:00 and 12:45
• Last entry always one hour before closing
• Open on Mondays, when the Uffizi and the Accademia are not

The address is Piazza della Signoria, 50122 Firenze, and the visitor entrance is the main door on the square; the ticket office and the InfoPoint counter are inside the first courtyard. From Santa Maria Novella station it is about twelve minutes on foot down Via de' Panzani and Via de' Cerretani, past the Duomo and along Via dei Calzaiuoli. From the Duomo itself, five minutes.

An urban bus or tram ticket costs €2 (about $2.30) and is valid for 90 minutes from 1 August 2026; buy it in the app, at a tobacconist or with contactless on board. Driving in is not an option: the centre is a ZTL, closed to unauthorised cars Monday to Friday 07:30–20:00 and Saturday 07:30–16:00, and the square itself is pedestrian.

The square outside is free and always open, with the Loggia dei Lanzi statues and the David copy at this palace's door — worth twenty minutes before or after your slot.

• 12 minutes on foot from Santa Maria Novella station; 5 from the Duomo
• Urban bus or tram €2 (about $2.30), valid 90 minutes
• Main door on Piazza della Signoria; ticket office and InfoPoint in the first courtyard
• ZTL Monday–Friday 07:30–20:00 and Saturday 07:30–16:00

Put it on a Monday. That is the whole strategy: the Uffizi and the Accademia are shut, this palace runs 09:00–19:00, the square outside costs nothing, and the Bargello — also closed Mondays — can wait for Tuesday. Failing that, avoid Thursday, when the doors close at 14:00 and half the visitors who arrive at 13:30 do not get in.

A 09:00 museum slot puts you out on the square by 10:30 with the Uffizi two minutes away for an afternoon entry. The three-day itinerary runs exactly that pairing on its second morning; the museums page compares every ticketed sight by price and time needed, and the full attractions list covers the rest of the city.

The hubs for tickets, neighbourhoods and day trips all branch off the Florence city guide homepage.